The Jewish Observer

Those who know me know that Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel is one of my 20^th century heroes. To me, he exemplifies the exact right balance a Jew must maintain in his or her life, between ritual observance and the application of our most righteous principles to every day living. Heschel did not believe that prayer existed in a vacuum, to be recited at specific times of the day or week then forgotten; but an inspiration to be translated into our every action. In a 1970 essay Heschel wrote, “A word uttered in prayer is a promise, an earnest, a commitment. If the promise is not kept, we are guilty of violating a promise. A liturgical revival cannot come about in isolation. Worship is the quintessence of living. Perversion or suppression of the sensibilities that constitute being human will convert worship into a farce.”

Prayer, according to Heschel, is aspirational, inspirational and sensitizing. Heschel is my hero because he lived those words. He is well known for his association with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. through his participation in various civil rights marches. After participating in the Selma, AL march of March 21, 1965, Heschel was asked if he took any time to pray. His response was, “my feet were praying.” But Heschel did much more than participate in civil rights protests. He was one of the first of American clergy to declare he was against the war in Vietnam. He was a delegate to the second Vatican Council and spoke openly and critically of the Catholic Church’s attitude towards Jews. His ability to speak that truth to power helped push the Church to end the charge of deicide against Jews in 1965’s Nostra Aetate.   Heschel advocated for rights for the elderly. He embodied and summed up Judaism’s prophetic tradition when he wrote in 1971, “We must continue to remind ourselves that in a free society all are involved in what some are doing. Some are guilty, all are responsible.”

Heschel exemplifies something I call “holy protest.” I know that sounds like a line out of the 1960’s television show “Batman,” but I know of no better term to use when describing something I see as part of the essence of Judaism. Indeed, it might be the most powerful Jewish call to the world – the idea that we must never be satisfied with the state of our society. We are called upon by God to protest injustice. Once again Heschel says it best when he wrote in 1968, “The Hebrew Bible has destroyed an illusion, the illusion that one can be an innocent bystander or spectator in this world. It is not enough to be a consumer in order to be a believer.”

Our tradition of protest goes all the way back to Abraham. When God announces to Abraham God’s intent to destroy the cities of Sodom and Gemorah, Abraham protests that doing so will result in the loss of innocent and righteous lives. After a rather protracted back and forth, Abraham convinces God to spare the cities if just 10 righteous people are found in them. Here is the interesting twist to this story. God, being God, knows there are not 10 righteous people in Sodom and Gemorah. Yet he allows Abraham to carry on with his protest. The lesson? Our job as humans is to question and stand up for issues of justice – even if we are opposing God.

The real flowering of the Jewish tradition of protest, however, comes in the prophetic books. The Hebrew Bible prophets challenged authority. They were the protagonists in the conflict with the priesthood – the authority that held the connection with God was through religious ritual (in their days sacrifice) versus those who held that true connection with God came through caring for those in need. Each side in this conflict, priest and prophet, emphasized commandments from Torah, but each selecting a different priority. Without the influence of our prophets, without the sense that God wanted more from us than mere ritual obedience, Judaism would have died centuries ago as an archaic religion bereft of deeper purpose. The prophets engage in holy protest in two ways – visions of a better world, and admonitions for the evil acts of their communities.

Typical of admonition is this passage from Jeremiah 22:2 – 2,3, “Here the word of Adonai O king of Judah, who sits upon the throne of David, you, and your servants, and your people who enter in by these gates; Thus says Adonai, ‘Execute you judgment and righteousness, and deliver the robbed from the hand of the oppressor, and do no wrong, do no violence to the stranger, the orphan, or the widow, nor shed innocent blood in this place.” Amos clearly states God’s priorities in these familiar words, “Though you offer me burnt offerings and meal offerings, I will not accept them; nor will I regard the peace offerings of your fat beasts. Take away from me the noise of your songs; for I will not listen to the melody of your lutes. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

It is Micah who provides a vision of a more ideal world, repeated in other prophetic books, “And he shall judge between many peoples, and shall decide concerning far away strong nations; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, nor shall they learn war any more. But they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree; and none shall make them afraid; for the mouth of hosts has spoken it.”

I could provide quote after quote from our prophets that emphasize these points. God could care less about the rituals we perform if they are done disconnected from striving for a just society. Justice, not love, is the driving concept. How is justice defined? Create a court system that does not favor any one; whether rich or poor, powerful or weak. Cases must be judged on their merits by provable facts attested to by witnesses. Treat the stranger with kindness and respect, giving them rights within the community. Provide for those with no resources, the poor, the orphans and the widows.

I must point out that these moral commands of providing for those without resources are not a mandate for a particular political perspective. There are commandments that support government sponsored programs as well as personal charity. A certain portion of the tithes collected, which was the Bible’s form of taxation, went to provide resources to the poor. But your obligations were not complete through tithing. One also had to give tzedakah, personal charity as well (leaving the corners of your fields and vineyards). No, Judaism does not command a political point of view. Rather, it demands that we find a way to raise the needy. Neither can we blame the victim for their condition. We are encouraged to be as successful as we possibly can – then to use our success to help solve our communal problems.

The vision of a better world does not imply that God will simply act and solve our problems either. No, Jewish tradition in all eras, and in all forms practiced the past 2500 years assumes we act in partnership with God. If we do not act, if we do not at least protest, God will NOT step in to rescue us from our failings. We are responsible for acting in a way that invites God’s presence into our world. Our actions count immensely. And actions begin with our caring about the state of our world, of our communities.

At the very core of Jewish morality is our treatment of the stranger – the “other” who lives among us. This is one of the most dominant tropes of the Torah, repeated numerous times in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. To ignore this call is to transgress a basic command of God, so important, according to our tradition, it is repeated 36 times. We are not commanded to love the stranger (that is reserved for our neighbor who in Torah likely meant a member of our clan), but it is clear the stranger is to be welcomed, treated kindly, and given the same rights of justice as we are given. We are told to do this because remember – we were strangers in Egypt. Our prophets teach us that when this does not occur, we must engage in holy protest.

And here is where we are failing today. Not just us Jews, but all of us. We are too tolerant, too excusing, of the blatant mistreatment, verbally and physically, of others. We can begin with immigrants. Our country has been built on the backs of people like my father, who fled here as a refugee from Nazi Germany. Who came here at 16 years old, finished his education in a trade school, volunteered for the American army, fighting in Europe in World War II, eventually liberating a concentration camp that fed prisoners into Dachau. After the war he went to work, eventually opening his own factory, contributing productivity and employment to America. I remember dad telling me not only about the oppression he faced in Germany, but the anti-Semitism he faced in America. His experience was typical of Jewish immigrants in the 1920’s and 1930’s.

That experience is typical of what immigrants have faced in every generation, whether from Germany in the 1840’s, China in the late 19^th century, Eastern Europe in the early 20^th century or Hispanics and Muslims today. The arc of American history is to vilify, to be afraid of whatever group of immigrants is in the headlines at the moment. Every generation that opposes immigrants has its issue of the day to justify its bigotry. In the 1930’s it was fear of Jews taking jobs from Americans, or that some would be German spies. Today it is crime and security. Well folks, crime in general has been on the decline for decades. And changes in vetting immigrants will do nothing to stop the influence of people accessing radical organizations through the internet. That is our real security issue right now, not immigrants. I believe that showing kindness, tolerance, to immigrants, will do more to reduce tension than an increase in the strictness of our immigration policy. Indeed, by tolerating the targeting of specific ethnic groups or engaging in ideological vetting, we encourage more racial and religious hatred.

Here is an example. I have Muslim friends who immigrated to America from India in the early 1990’s. They became citizens and had two children here – so their kids are citizens as well. Their 15 year old son, who I tell you is as American as apple pie, was told last spring he would be deported once this year’s elections are over. By allowing this, by mistreating the “stranger,” we are violating a basic command of the Torah. We need to engage in holy protest.

More complicated are the issues raised by the Black Lives Matter movement. I say more complicated because of a couple of issues that muddy the waters. The first is the universal condemnation of all police. We cannot address the tragedy of the plethora of killings of African Americans by police without acknowledging the dedication and conscience of most police officers. We must acknowledge they are human beings doing a difficult job, capable of making mistakes born of fear as well as bad judgment. However, these caveats cannot be used to deny that there is a still a real race problem in America. The deaths of unarmed African Americans by police are just the tip of an iceberg of deeper racial problems. Look at the number of times black drivers are stopped by police for seemingly no reason or suspected minor offenses compared to white drivers. Look at the difference in prison sentences given to blacks and whites for similar crimes. More important, look at the fear and pain in the African American community, the sense that the system, 50 years after the passage of major civil rights legislation, is rigged against them. It is wrong to say their pain is misguided or somehow invented. It is the result of real fear, and the experiencing of real prejudice, amplified by the larger platform being granted to the “alt right” and white supremacy groups.

However, there is a specific problem for Jews in supporting Black Lives Matter – the support of its official platform for the BDS movement, and its anti-Israel statements. This has developed because radical supporters of Palestinians, such as Students for Justice in Palestine, have gained influence in the Black Lives Matter movement. They have drawn comparisons between the plight of African Americans and the situation of the Palestinians. Jews understand this is a false equivalence; as the Israeli/Palestinian conflict has a completely different kind of history than the history of blacks in America. This influence on Black Lives Matter is so disturbing because it has resulted in rabbis, colleagues of mine, who have participated in protests side by side with African American colleagues, being driven out of the movement because they support of Israel. They have been told their support for African Americans cannot be real if they support Israel. That is tragic. My rabbinic colleagues are discussing how to handle this reality.

Well, we cannot abandon our support for Israel. We need to not be afraid to tell the folks running “Black Lives Matter” that equating African Americans to Palestinians is wrong and does nothing to advance the needs of African Americans. We have to point out that assuming all Jews blindly support all policies of the Israeli government is itself anti-Semitic. Yet we cannot turn away from the pain of our African American brothers and sisters. As Jews we must not use the misguided positions of some as an excuse to ignore the reality of bigotry that exists in America. We must, as Jews have done since the 1950’s, stand with fellow Americans who are suffering from the pain of injustice.

We must also understand the real meaning of the phrase, “black lives matter.” Too often we hear the counter, “Don’t all lives matter?” as an attempt to say African Americans are just engaging in their own brand of prejudice. Yes, of course all lives matter. But from the perspective of African Americans, considering the number of black deaths at the hands of police, and the casualness with which many whites seem to dismiss the feelings of the African American community, the reality seems to be “all lives matter, but black lives not so much.” The purpose of “black lives matter” is to plead that these lives should matter as much as any life matters, and not be dismissed as part of a political game to gain votes. Today’s racism, highlighted by black deaths, is a painful reality to African Americans.

It is really hard to actually walk in someone else’s shoes. Very few people really understand the depth of Jewish fear of anti-Semitism. They have not experienced what my family experienced in Germany. They have not experienced the emotion of seeing their child mocked or excluded from activities in schools here because they were Jewish. Yet, I have also seen the sensitivity of many of our Christian friends and neighbors in Tallahassee. Over my years serving this community, I have been moved by the caring of Catholics, Methodists, Presbyterians, even southern Baptists, for our feelings and well being. I have little doubt that if something anti-Semitic happened to Temple Israel, the outpouring of support from the Christian community would be overwhelming. No, they cannot walk in our shoes, but many Christians have felt our pain.

That is exactly what we need to do for our African American friends.

If you were at Temple Israel on September 23 for the “Faith, Food, Friday” program, you witnessed the pain of my friend, pastor Darrick McGhee. Darrick pastors a church on the south side. However, his full time job is in politics. He got his start working in the governor’s office under Jeb Bush, and continuing there for the Crist and Scott administrations. Now, Darrick is a successful lobbyist who is respected on both sides of the political aisle. On that day Darrick expressed is dismay, his frustration and his anger with American society as the police shootings of blacks in Tulsa and North Carolina happened earlier that week. In the heightened racial climate of this political season, his 10 year old son was called the “n” word in school. His son had wanted to be a policeman when he grew up, but as Darrick put it, that week he saw the light go out of his son’s eyes. As Jews we cannot dismiss or ignore the realities Darrick is facing and telling us. Rather, we must embrace his experience, his pain, and engage in holy protest.

When will our obligation for holy protest end? Well, let us look at the first prophet to engage in holy protest – Elijah the prophet, zeicher l’tov. Elijah opposed idolatry as well as unfairness. He confronted Ahab and Jezebel over their immoral and illegal actions. What happened to Elijah? He never died. Rather, he was taken up to heaven in a whirlwind. Because of this, Elijah has occupied a position of prominence in Jewish tradition. He will be the one who announces the coming of the messiah (why we put out the cup of wine at Pesach). He is the protagonist in many Talmudic and folk tales. Just as Elijah did not die, neither does the task he undertook. He was succeeded by many prophets who engaged in holy protest. But the age of the prophets is long gone. The task is now up to us. And we must continue. We must continue holy protest until Elijah returns. In truth, we cannot count on Elijah’s return. We cannot count on the coming of a messianic age. We can only count on the effort we are willing to make, to empathize with those who suffer, to embrace their stories and concerns not because we fully understand them but because we care enough to embrace their pain. We can engage in holy protest.

I have spoken a lot these High Holidays about the presence of God in everything, in all of us. May we come to realize that when we engage in holy protest, we are not just speaking on behalf of ourselves, but on behalf of God. May we gain the courage to stand with those whose different race, religion or ethnicity makes them the targets of prejudice causing pain. May we understand that our teshuvah is not just about saying “I’m sorry,” but about taking actions to demonstrate that sorrow. Kein y’hi ratzon may it be God’s will that our holy protests will be heard and heeded.

Amen.