Our rabbis taught: Six hundred and
thirteen commandments were given to Moses. Micah reduced them to three: “Do
justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God.’’
Isaiah based all the mitzvot upon two of them: “Keep justice and righteousness.”
Amos saw one guiding principle upon
which all the six hundred and thirteen are founded: “Seek Me and live.”
Habakkuk expounded the Torah on the
basis of a single thought: “The righteous shall live by their faith.”
Akiba taught: The great principle
of the Torah is expressed in the Mitzvah: “You shall love your neighbor as
yourself.”
But Ben Azzai found a principle even
more fundamental: “This is the story of humanity: when God created us, God made
us in the divine image.”
And Hillel summed up the Torah in
this maxim: What is hateful to you, do not do to others. That is the
whole Torah - the rest is commentary: you must go and study it.
Why was there an attempt to create such
a concise list of basic Jewish values?
I believe that it was an exercise in prioritizing what is essential to
Jewish life. Note that the
statements that the rabbis cited are about ethics more than about ritual,
although many Jewish observances do express and illustrate our values.
So Judaism believes in practicing justice, mercy,
humility, mutual respect and consideration, righteousness, and seeing and
seeking the divine in each other. Those values, taken together, require us to
look at all people as part of one human family. They challenge us to break down barriers and build
bridges. They direct us to open up
channels of dialogue when possible.
They lead to the rabbinic declaration that, “When you save one soul, it
is as if you have saved the whole world; and when you destroy one soul, it is
as if you have destroyed the whole world.”
The Torah portion for this week finds the Israelites
mired in their predicament of bondage in Egypt, working hard under harsh
treatment from their Egyptian taskmasters. They had places to live, they received food to eat,
but their lives and the conditions in which they lived and under which they
worked were not ideal. It was so
difficult for them that when Moses offered them hope, they couldn’t believe his
promises of liberation. Their
notions of the possibility of freedom, equality, engaging in personal decision
making, and following their own faith were all but gone. The opening chapters of Exodus,
alongside a portrayal of the power of God, demonstrated how oppression and
subjugation of some people under others who possessed temporary power violated
basic human decency. This tale of
slavery led to the far-reaching acceptance of all fellow human beings in Exodus
23 as expressed in this verse: “You shall not oppress a stranger, for you know
the feelings of the stranger, having yourselves been strangers in the land of
Egypt.” The
historicity of this experience is not as important as the impression it has
left on anyone who sees this passage as sacred scripture. We are commanded to be open and
welcoming, and to overcome the fear of people who are different by creating
opportunities for the so-called “stranger” to become a valued partner in
community life.
In the last few days, it is not just the tragic events in and
around Paris that have demonstrated a lack of respect for other human beings,
where power and ideology trumped basic human decency and mutual
consideration. The recent bombing
at the NAACP offices in Colorado Springs didn’t injure anyone, but it was a violation
of communal peace that reminded citizens of all backgrounds that respect for
property and for the ideas of freedom and equality are fundamental to a civil
society. Our hearts go out to the
NAACP and to the citizens of Colorado Springs in the hope that they will
understand the need to be partners and neighbors rather than strangers.
And I have that hope as well for
citizens of Paris and all around France. For me, it’s not just about the freedom of speech
issue, which is important. It is
about how to respond to those with whom we may vehemently disagree. People who
see each other as partners use their words to challenge each other. For example, as much as I was angry
about a notorious family and church of picketers in Topeka, Kansas focusing on
me and others with untrue accusations, ridicule and hatred, I always answered
them indirectly with words that reflected the values embodied in the reading we
shared earlier. I tried not to
make any such accusations in return, but, rather, to state positively what I
believe.
Those who combine faith with a desire for power and
revenge for what they perceive others have said about them or done to them and
use violence rather than words in response often twist their own beliefs well
beyond their original intention.
When that occurs, potential partners and neighbors become strangers who
become enemies who need not be seen as human beings any
longer. This has happened
all too many times in human history, and it saddens me that it still happens
today, not just in France, or Colorado Springs, but in our own community from
time to time.
And I have to add, after the murder of hostages in a kosher supermarket
in Paris today by an associate of the perpetrators of the original attack, we
now know the nature of their hatred was as we suspected. It was focused on all of the people
they considered to be their enemies:
some, because of what they did, and others, specifically, Jews, simply
because of who they are. Our
hearts go out to the French Jewish community in particular and to the country
of France with prayer for some semblance of calm and eventual harmony that can
overshadow and dispel hatred.
Such actions across the globe and in our own country may make
us feel that we have no choice but to despair of the possibility of a human
community based on justice, fairness, equality, freedom, fellowship and
peace. We could become like
the Israelite slaves, who couldn’t hear, at first, a voice offering them a
feeling of hope.
However, we need not be like them, because Judaism teaches us to be
optimistic. It is not that we
should wait for a leader like Moses to come, but that we should be leaders
ourselves like Moses, who believe in those values that the rabbis cited so long
ago as central to making our lives meaningful and complete. So may we always be
open to hearing those voices of hope inside of us, which can guide us to work
for cooperation, partnership, and peace.
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