Standing Up to Hatred
Sermon on Shabbat Lech Lecha
By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman
November 2, 2022
In legends and myths, a hero’s character is judged by the tests they are expected to endure and overcome. Every epic follows this theme, the tests usually being of strength or courage. The twelve labors of Hercules are designed to prove his physical strength. Abraham, the first Patriarch of the Jewish People, is presented with ten tests. However, at the age of 75, these aren’t meant to gauge his physical stamina, but rather his moral courage and faith in God.
There is—not unexpectedly—some disagreement among Rabbinic commentators about what constitutes the first of these ten tests. Some say that it is in in this week’s Torah portion, Lech Lecha (“Go Forth,” Genesis 12:1—17:27), as God commands Abraham to “Go forth from your native land and from your father’s house to the land that I will show you.”
Other commentators go further back. The Midrash, a collection of rabbinic stories from the second and third centuries C.E., addresses the question of what happened before that, what prompted God to issue his command in the first place. It interprets the name of Abraham’s home town, Ur of the Chaldeans, as “fire of the Chaldeans,” [in an early Semitic language ur also means “light” or “fire,” related to the Hebrew word for light, ‘or] and thus proposes that Abraham’s first test was actually an auto-da-fe, a trial by fire. For his defiant belief in the one supreme God, Abraham is condemned by the Chaldean king Nimrod to be cast into a fiery furnace.
For his constancy (in this Midrash, the first test of his faith), Abraham is saved by God, who promptly instructs him to leave and find blessing in another land.
This famous story is obviously rooted in a cultural experience the early Rabbis were already well aware of: Anti-Semitism.
Anti-Semitism is not a new phenomenon. It was prevalent already in ancient days, centuries before it found its way into the New Testament and the Quran.
Founded on ignorance and prejudice and spread by folklore and through religious and social rituals, anti-Semitism is the oldest and deadliest hate in existence.
Now, more and more, again, Jews are finding themselves under attack. Excluded from public debate, accused of undue force in defending ourselves, of owning the media, manipulating governments, or—as in the latest tweets by Kanye West—controlling the music industry, the anti-Semitic tropes are always the same. The same reasoning forms the basis of Pharoah’s rationale in enslaving the Hebrews and ordering the murder of all newborn males. It is behind Haman’s plot to murder all Jews in ancient Persia. The same libels and lies are behind the anti-Jewish attacks in ancient Alexandria and Syria, and—later—the pogroms in Russia, Poland and Ukraine. When they couldn’t kill the Jews, various factions tried exile and forced conversions.
For a while, in a world shocked not by the horrors of the Holocaust but rather by its magnitude, anti-Semitism seemed to disappear. Now we realize that it has only temporarily faded, gone underground for a few decades. It is now soaring again, and no one should be surprised.
It is true that the music industry—as with any industry—is profit-oriented. In this fiercely competitive field, only a tiny percentage of artists find the fame and fortune they seek. Many others are kept—like so many concubines in a harem—bound by legal contracts, just in case one of their songs catches on and becomes a hit. But that doesn’t mean that “the Jews” control the industry. Only in spheres where conspiracy theorists inhale fantasies and outright lies do “the Jews,” exclusive of anyone else, have this kind of power. To claim this in public is anti-Semitic fodder. To say that Jews have “Congress in their pocket,” as past-President Trump recently stated, is to accuse Jews of manipulating government to their own—and only their own—benefit. It is anti-Semitism.
There is no cabal, no mysterious organization conspiring to take over the world.
Anti-Semitic beliefs are deeply entrenched in the human mind. Key phrases serve as code for those who would use these beliefs to gain power and control over vast segments of the population. In America, anti-Semitism does not come from the left or right wing of American politics. It comes from both. And ignoring it will not make it disappear.
Like wildfire, hate spreads, causing destruction and loss of life. Kanye West’s deranged mind is no excuse. Political expediency is no excuse. Disagreement with Israel’s politics is no excuse. Nor is our current dependence on social media, the most prevalent venue today of hatred and ignorance. There are no innocent statements posing as truths—they all emerge from, and feed into, subconscious streams of hate and prejudice that—seemingly spontaneously—turn into violence of the kind we saw in the Tree of Life Synagogue massacre four years ago; at Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas, only last year; and even in the vicious attack on Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s 82-year-old husband one week ago.
We need to fight anti-Semitism in every form and venue in which it appears. The people who use it must be publicly exposed and their vile motives revealed. For this to happen, we as individuals must raise our voices in every public forum. Entire communities must organize and unite to tell perpetrators that there is absolutely no room for hate amongst us, not yesterday, not today, not ever.
Abraham passed his first test of faith and survived, but not before God interfered and extricated him from the burning furnace. While, on the one hand, we must follow Abraham’s example and that of tens of thousands of generations of his descendants, who consistently and stubbornly refused to abandon our faith, we must never, ever, let our guard down. Our survival cannot be left to faith alone. “Never again” must not become an empty slogan. Jewish lives matter, and it is up to each of us—Jew or Gentile alike—to ensure that this hatred is not afforded free speech or given free reign.
Let those individuals and groups that promote this hatred, understand this lesson well.
Am Yisrael Chai—the Jewish People lives, and we are—and must continue to be—proof of this eternal truth.
© 2022 by Boaz D. Heilman
No comments:
Post a Comment