I
had occasion recently to read a speech by Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel from
1963. The title is “Religion and Race”, delivered at a conference of the same
name in Chicago. It was there that he met Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
for the first time. The speech contains this famous saying of Heschel: “Some
are guilty, but all are responsible.” I read that aphorism, which I have heard
innumerable times over the years, in its original context for the first time.
Heschel’s
statement conjured up for me, in a new light, something else. Let me pause here
to talk about my favorite activity as a rabbi – it’s actually being a rabbi in
the literal sense – a teacher of Torah. And the reason I love teaching Torah is
because I love learning Torah through teaching – from young students and adult
learners, from colleagues, from preparing to teach new material, and from
seeing new ideas in texts I’ve learned before.
So,
in my weekly Lunch and Learn class, to which you are all invited on Mondays at
12:30 PM on Zoom, we have been learning snippets of Talmud through a book
called “Ein Ya’akov”, “The Well of Jacob”, compiled and edited by a Spanish/Greek
rabbi named Ya’akov ibn Habib and his son Levi ibn Habib. The reason he’s a
Spanish/Greek rabbi is because he and his family were expelled from Spain in
1492, and they landed in Salonika. We learned some time in this past late
winter – early spring several stories about non-rabbis and rabbis who fail to
object to injustice. Heschel reminded me of this bit of Talmud I will share
with you shortly, because it brought me to Avraham Avinu – Abraham our father.
Reb
Jason discussed Abraham and his many issues earlier this morning. I’ve spoken
many times over the years about Abraham and his performance in yesterday’s and
today’s readings. I’ll briefly review, but for us today, his story will be only
a jumping off point for something more relevant to us Jews – and our non-Jewish
relatives, friends and fellow citizens. What I want to share is for the here
and now, in the US, the State of Israel, and really everywhere on this ball of
mud called planet Earth.
In
our Torah readings, and the ones just preceding today’s in the story of Abraham
and Sarah, Abraham is a very obedient guy. “Leave Aramea and go to Canaan” – he
and Sarah go. “Go here. Go there” – they go. Then it gets dicey. God says, “I’m
going to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah” – Abraham objects, rather eloquently, but
God does what God does despite the objections. God promises Abraham and Sarah
an heir – they verbally express their doubts. Abraham fathers a son, Ishmael,
through Sarah’s slave Hagar, and Sarah is none too pleased. Initially, Sarah
mistreats Hagar, with Abraham’s consent (“do as you will with her”), so Hagar
runs away, but she returns when God tells her to submit. Finally, Sarah bears
Isaac, and then she decides to get rid of Hagar and Ishmael once and for all. Abraham
frets, in his mind, it appears, but God tells him not to sweat it. So Abraham stays
silent. Hagar and Ishmael are saved, no thanks to Abraham. Then comes today’s
test – the Akeidah. God tells Abraham to slaughter Isaac, and Abraham attempts
to do it without even wondering about the injustice of it all – not even
“fretting” - stopped at the last moment by an angel of God.
You
see, once Abraham was rebuffed by God in the Sodom and Gomorrah incident, his
objections become weaker and weaker, until he is once again the ever obedient
servant. God orders – Abraham obeys. And where does that leave us, for whom
Abraham is supposed to be a model?
And
that brings me back to the teaching from Ein Ya’akov. It’s in Tractate Shabbat
pages 54(b)-55(a), and it goes like this[2]:
A group of
rabbis were sitting and discussing Torah, teaching each other and learning from
each other, as rabbis do, and they said: Anyone who had the capability to effectively protest the misconduct of the members of his household and
did not protest, he himself is apprehended for the misconduct of the members of his household and punished. If he is in a
position to protest the conduct of the people of
his town, and he fails to do so, he is apprehended for the misconduct of the people of his town. If he is in a
position to protest the misconduct of the whole
world, and he fails to do so, he is apprehended for the misconduct of the whole world. Rav Pappa said:
And the members of the household of the Resh
Galuta, the Exilarch who was the leader of the Jews in Babylonia, were
apprehended and punished for
the misconduct of the whole world. Because their authority extends across the entire Jewish world, it
is in their hands to ensure that nobody commit a transgression. Rabbi Ḥanina then said:
What is the meaning of this verse: “The Lord will enter
into judgment with the Elders of His people and its princes, saying: It is you who have eaten up the vineyard; the robbery of
the poor is in your houses” (Isaiah 3:14)? The Gemara continues: The question
arises: If the princes sinned by committing
robbery, what did the Elders, i.e., the Sages of that generation, do that was considered a sin? Rather, say: God will enter into judgment with the Elders because they did not protest the sinful conduct of the
princes…..”
Think
about this for a moment. According to these rabbis, anyone who fails to protest
sin, evildoing, immoral conduct, the mistreatment of others, etc., is to be punished
for that misconduct AS IF IT WERE THEIR OWN – because they did not protest.
That sounds a lot like the Yom Kippur liturgy, doesn’t it, where we confess to
sins we didn’t commit. And it sounds a lot like Heschel.
The Gemara continues:
“….With regard to the issue of reprimand, it was
related that Rabbi Zeira said to Rabbi Simon: ‘Let my Master reprimand the members of the house of the Exilarch,’ as Rabbi Simon had some influence over them. Rabbi Simon said to him: ‘They will not accept reprimand
from me.’ Rabbi Zeira said to him: ‘Let my master reprimand them even if they do not
accept it….’”
Rabbi Zeira challenges
his teacher, his rabbi, with a big “So what? You need to confront them even if
they won’t listen to you!” The Gemara then goes a step further, in defense of
Rabbi Zeira’s position. After God’s angel separates the non-righteous Resh
Galuta family from the righteous rabbis of the city by special markings, this next
thing happened:
“…The attribute of Justice (yes, Justice and
Mercy and Truth and Love have voices in rabbinic literature) – the attribute of
Justice said before HaKadosh Barukh Hu, the Holy One, Blessed be He: Master of
the Universe, how are these different from those? God said to that attribute: These rabbis are full-fledged righteous
people, they’re tzaddikim, and those members
of the Resh Galuta’s house are full-fledged wicked people, they’re rasha’im. Justice replies: Ribono shel olam, Master of the Universe, it was in the hands
of the righteous to protest the conduct of the wicked, and they did
not protest. God said to Justice: ‘It is revealed and known before Me that even had they protested the conduct of the wicked, the wicked
would not have accepted the reprimand from them. They would have continued in their
wicked ways.’ Justice replies: ‘Ribono shel olam, though it was revealed before You that
their reprimand would have been ineffective, was
it revealed to them? (I.e., just because YOU knew that their protests would
have been ignored, did they know?) God then
retracted the promise to protect the righteous and decided that those who
failed to protest would also be punished.”
According to our rabbis, God changes God’s
mind, and punishes those whose crime is not speaking out against injustice.
This is what Heschel’s teaching reminded me of – it’s a kind of equivalence –
if few are guilty but all are responsible, it’s because those who failed to
protest against injustice are thereby responsible for the perpetuation of
injustice.
Let me pause here to share with you a quick
story and a few verses from that Other bible that are completely antithetical
to what I’m discussing here. In Florida, a member of the board overseeing the
Disneyworld district told the employees that they were obligated to accept
whatever changes the board made in their pay and benefits because it was God’s
will. He quoted these verses from Romans 13 (yeah, a government official quoting
the Christian bible to employees): “Let everyone be subject to the governing
authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has
established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, whoever
rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has
instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves.”
Really?! Did I say antithetical to Jewish teaching? There’s a reason Elijah was on the run from the king whom he rightly criticized and wanted to kill him; there’s a reason Jeremiah had to warn the people about the dangers of the king from his prison cell; there’s a reason that Dr. King had to write “A Letter from Birmingham Jail”! The Torah and the Prophets and the Writings instruct us to oppose wrongdoing, to demand justice for those suffering from injustice and exploitation.[3] We would all still be slaves if Moses and the Israelites had accepted a claim to Divine Right from Pharaoh![4] We do not submit to injustice!
Back to Abraham! There’s a rabbinic tradition
that Abraham knew all of Torah, the written law and the oral law, but somehow,
he didn’t know about this business I just told you about. Or maybe he did, but
he just didn’t have the ko’ach, the strength, to object to God – or maybe he
thought it only applied to humans committing injustice, not God acting
unjustly. But as for us, now, we know. And what are we going to do about it?
In the State of Israel, hundreds of thousands
of people have taken to the streets, every motza’ei Shabbat, for nearly six
months, to peacefully protest the injustice of proposed changes to the Basic
Law that would allow the government, any Israeli government, to pass any law
and be immune from judicial review that finds the law to be unreasonable, which
is to say, immoral or not in keeping with traditional notions of justice and
fairness. Even as we meet here, over in Israel, Rosh Hashanah has ended, and
it’s a good bet there are several hundred thousand protesters in the streets of
Tel Aviv and Jerusalem and Haifa and most other Israeli cities and towns right
now. They understand the obligation to protest – even though they know that it
is quite possible that their protests will fail – that the proposed legislation
will pass and that the High Court will accept the limits on its jurisdiction. A
lot of us are cheering them on, even as we sit here on the sidelines in the
United States.
So, what about us? What does any of this have
to do with us? A Jewish fellow I know, only through Facebook and friends in
common, lives in North Carolina, and he spends many of his waking hours,
especially on weekends, protesting against the racism and antisemitism that he
witnesses and experiences in his mid-size city and environs on a near daily
basis. He spent last week walking through Raleigh, picking up and throwing away
anti-Semitic flyers placed in driveways by the local Nazis. He often wears a
yellow star on his clothes, so that all will know who and what he is. He’s been
beaten by the neo-nazis and Christian nationalists on more than one occasion,
and he sometimes has given as good as he has gotten. A month or so ago, I
posted a picture of Israeli anti-judicial reform protesters in Tel Aviv, and
his comment in essence was: “Why are Americans not in the streets like these
Israelis, to protest antisemitism, and racism, and homophobia, and mistreatment
of undocumented immigrants and the poor? Are we complacent? Are we afraid? Do
we think injustice will go away if we keep our noses clean?”
His questions take us back to Heschel - Are
we, as he suggested, responsible for injustice even if we are not guilty? I
would add: Are we foolish enough to deny the existence of injustice in America?
Do we really believe that there is no pattern of brutality and deprivation of
rights of people of color in this country? Just because we ourselves might not
be racists, does that mean that there is no systemic racism in this country? Do
we refrain from protesting because we think it will do no good? Like the good Rabbi
Simon? Do we think that here is no antisemitism in America, or that if we just shut
up like good little Yidden it will go away?[5]
I don’t have a good answer for my North
Carolina friend. Do you? I know that our American civil society and our
position as Jews in that society have deteriorated greatly in the past eight
years. Another thing I know is that after the events of today’s Torah reading,
Abraham never again saw or spoke with Sarah or either of his sons. And I
attribute that familial collapse directly to Abraham’s silence in the face of
injustice. Yesterday, our synagogue president, Dr. Lee, reminded us of Martin
Niemoller’s “First they came for the Socialists…etc.…. Then they came for me,
and there was no one left to speak for me.” Do we see a pattern here?
A protest against injustice is not only for
benefit of the current victims, but for the benefit, perhaps I should say the
protection of the protesters as well. At the end of the story about the rabbis
who failed to protest injustice, the Gemara offers a proof text as follows:
Rav Yehuda was sitting before Shmuel when a woman came and cried before Shmuel about an injustice
that had been committed against her, and
Shmuel paid no attention to her.
Rav Yehuda said to Shmuel: Doesn’t the Master hold in accordance
with the verse: “Whoever stops his ears
at the cry of the poor, he also shall cry himself, but shall not be heard”
(Proverbs 21:13)?
Rav Yehuda asks his teacher: Don’t you believe
what you preach?
We have a week or so until Yom Kippur to think
about this and to figure out what we will do in the year ahead to protest the
injustices of our society – to resist – even if we think we will be ignored – even
if we think we might suffer as a result.
If we are serious about connecting to the High
Holy Day liturgy and theology, then we must understand that our failure to
speak out can bring on, in some way or shape or form, a punishment. If we do
not speak out, there will be none to speak out for us when our time comes. If
we ignore the cries of others, there will be no one who cares to hear our cries
of pain and anguish.
One final saying of the Rabbis, from Tractate
Yevamot 88(a): "שתיקה כהודאה דמיא"
"Silence in the face of wrongdoing is consent.”
As
some of you may know, I’m a big Star Trek fan. One of the primary nemeses in the
series and movies is the Borg, who seek to destroy, through their warped idea of
assimilation into their machine species, every other species and culture. Their catchphrase
is: “Resistance is futile.” My hero, Captain Picard, despite the destruction of
many ships in the fleet, despite the likelihood of defeat, fights back and responds:
“Resistance is not futile!”
He’s
right. Resistance is not futile. Resistance is mandatory.
I wish you a Shanah Mashm’utit – a meaningful year.
[1] Offered in memory of Rabbi Paula
Riemers, my predecessor at Burbank Temple Emanu El 20+ years ago who passed
away in June 2023, and who left for me the 1931 edition of a five volume set of
Ein Ya’akov that I use to this day.
[2] Translations
mostly from http://sefaria.org ; the rest are my
own.
[3] See,
among many, Deuteronomy 27:19; Proverbs 29:7; Psalms 82:3-4; Micah 6:8; Isaiah 58:6;
Jeremiah 22:3; Amos 5:24, quoted by Dr. King in “Letter from Birmingham Jail”
[4] Imagine
if those in authority continued to drum this idea into the heads of the people they
ruled. “You must obey us because the very fact that we are in charge proves that
it is God’s will that we rule you.” Then, of course, the underlings can defend any
actions they carry out as “only following orders”. Perhaps this explains why the
vast majority of German Christians were silent as Communists and Socialists and
Jews and Roma and homosexuals and disabled were rounded up and murdered. And then they came for Niemoller...
[5] I have
written before about the growing danger of Christian nationalism and extremism in
the US: https://rav-rich.blogspot.com/2021/11/we-still-will-not-be-silenced.html
