Over the last few
days, I have been reflecting on the news of the attacks of last week, one an
act of terrorism in Bulgaria, the other, in Aurora, Colorado, an apparent
expression of the inner turmoil of one young man who now claims that he has no
memory of his violent and murderous rampage.
I have also been listening
intently to all statements leading up to the opening of the Olympics regarding
the request for a moment of silence in memory of the Israeli athletes who were
murdered by members of the Palestinian Arab Black September movement 40 years
ago.
And, I went to see the
movie, “The Dark Knight Rises” this week in order to gain the perspective of
director Christopher Nolan on how we can make order out of chaos. Nolan’s Batman/Bruce Wayne began
the movie devastated at past events that left his Batman persona in disgrace.
He had taken responsibility for murders committed by the late district Attorney
Harvey Dent. Dent had almost
succeeded in his plan to take vengeance on everyone who had a hand in the death
of his fiancée Rachel Dawes, until Batman stopped him. Rather than subject Gotham City
to the truth of a good man gone bad,
Police Commissioner Gordon went along with Batman’s plan to sustain a
lie. He supported for 8 years the observance of an annual memorial to Dent’s
supposed legacy of tough justice and courage. New laws that put more criminals behind bars
restored order to the city, but the chaos of Harvey Dent’s turn from goodness
to evil was lurking under the surface.
Lawlessness eventually emerged with full force, and only the return of
Batman would give Gotham City even a slight chance to overcome new threats to
its very existence.
The occurrence of an annual
memorial event based on false premises in “The Dark Knight Rises” made me
realize that the Jewish community has a great deal to teach the world about
mourning and memory.
Tomorrow night begins Tish’ah B’av, which commemorates the destruction
of the First and Second Temple in Jerusalem. Actually, the ninth of Av begins at sunset tonight, but we
don’t observe a day of fasting and mourning on Shabbat. Why is it that we have marked
this somber anniversary for so many centuries? Jerusalem became, as one passage in a Reform
prayerbook declared, “the capital city of our souls.” The rabbis saw the Holy of Holies in the ancient
Temple in Jerusalem as the spiritual center of the universe. Our daily, Shabbat and holiday prayers
highlight the central place of that city in our heritage. Jewish sources state that
the Second Temple was destroyed by “baseless hatred.” This is the type of hatred that persists even when the
reason for one person’s animosity towards another person is removed, when acts
toward rectification and apologies have been offered but have no effect. At that point, when one person continues to hate
with no reason, because he or she feels that only his or her feelings are what
count, mutual respect and compassion disappear. What may endure is at least a small measure of societal
chaos, because what could be set right will never reach a satisfactory
resolution. When we
observe Tish’ah B’av, we mention the claim that baseless hatred was rampant
among the Jews at that time in order to lead us now from chaos to order, from
undirected grief to shared memory.
The hope is that, in our common recollection of a tragedy, we will, in
OUR time, find unity.
Family members of the
Israeli athletes have been calling for years for a moment of silence to recall
their loved ones who were murdered in the Olympic village in Munich in
1972. One reported recently that
an Olympic official told her 16 years ago that any moment of silence also
needed to mention the Palestinians members of Black September who died in Munich. What we have heard this year is
that a moment of silence would “politicize” the games. Yet, the Israeli athletes went in
peace to Munich in 1972 to compete with their colleagues from around the
world. The members of
Black September are said to have not cared about their own lives, only about
the release of their comrades from Israeli prison, marring the spirit of
peaceful competition that should always pervade the Olympics. They may have had a
political point based on their own views, but their choice of when and how to
make it has reverberated through the decades since as a shattering of the hope
that the international games can truly reflect peace.
So it has been reported that
Palestinian Olympic Committee chair Jibril Rajoub has written to the
International Olympic committee thanking the members for refusing to allow a
moment of silence. He said that
the request for such a moment was “racist,” and added: “Sports are a bridge for
love, communication and the spreading of peace between nations and should not
be used for divisiveness and the spread of racism.” The Palestinian authority, in 2010, honored, with a military
funeral, Amin Al-Hindi, one of the planners of the Munich Olympics attack on
the Israeli athletes.
Perhaps we have come
a long way since 1972, but perhaps the steps toward “peaceful competition” have
gone backwards to the point where politics can never totally be removed from
the Olympics. It is more
than ironic that the very group that perpetrated the act is now declaring a
moral high ground, stating as their view the very reason - “sports are a bridge
for love and peace” - why the 1972
massacre should never have happened. It feels like justice is topsy-turvy and that chaos is
gaining a greater foothold in a world that needs justice and peace.
It was reported this morning
that the Lebanese Judo Olympic team, which was practicing right next to the
Israeli team, said that they would not continue until a barrier was erected so
they wouldn’t have to look at the Israelis. Their request was granted and a temporary wall was put
in place.
This is not the world that we
want, I am sure. The familiar
words of Hinei Mah Tov from Psalm 133 are still with us as a goal and as a
beacon of unity. But even with
those words, Martin Samuel Cohen explained, in his commentary on the Psalm,
that it probably should be translated, “How good and how pleasant it would be”
when people dwell together in unity.
How good indeed it would be to know that the athletes marching into the
stadium for the opening ceremonies at each Olympiad could truly see each other
as brother and sister. So
many people in the world have focused on one word in the phrase “Israeli
athlete” rather than the other. It
is the word ATHELTE that should be considered first, because it refers to a
human being who has developed a skill in a particular sport and is willing to
put his or her ability on the line alongside other similarly skilled athletes
from all over the world. We
do have a certain sense of wanting OUR nation to win as many medals as
possible, but we like to hear stories of the people of all nations who have
made the Olympic Games a sports spectacle to behold. The remembrance should be in the statistics and
not in the incidents of disrespect, disruption, or political hatred that,
sadly, find their way onto the field of competition.
So let us take a moment of
silence of our own tonight to remember the Israeli athletes who died without
their hopes of competition realized.
Let us pray that peace will find its way to win over hatred and chaos not
only on the field but throughout the world in the times between the many
Olympiads to come.
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