Friday, July 13, 2018

Not because of hatred - D'var Torah - Parashat Matot-Mas'ei - July 13, 2018


There is a lot of hatred going around our country and the world. 
Why does it seem like more than usual? 
People have always had opposing opinions. 
There are many stories of duels that emerged from interpersonal conflict and insult from the earliest days of American history.  
There was ridicule of major political figures going back even before the founding of our nation. 
   Lately, in just the last week, two videos came to light. One focused on 92 year-old Rodolfo Rodriguez of Los Angeles, who was beaten with a brick and told to go back to his country.  He is a legal resident of the United States.   And Mia Irizarry, looking forward to a birthday party in a Chicago area park in mid-June, was harassed by a man who told her that she couldn’t wear a shirt bearing the Puerto Rican flag in the United States.  He has been charged, and the police officer who stood by and did nothing while that was happening has resigned. 
   There are candidates for congress expressing white supremacist and Neo-Nazi views, while at least one candidate on the other end of the spectrum considers herself anti-Zionist.  
   American citizens have, historically, expressed prejudice, suspicion, and, eventually, hatred towards every wave of newcomers that have arrived here.   What is forgotten in those pronouncements of disdain and contempt is that those already here came to this continent for similar reasons as those more recently attempting to enter and be part of the American experiment. 
   People with different ideologies have sometimes been able to sustain a modicum of respect for those who disagree with them.   However, the notion of the “loyal opposition” has a way of getting lost in the midst of ridicule, accusations, and narrow declarations of truth that are all intended to solidify power instead of fostering cooperation. 
      Xenophobia – the fear of strangers – rises to the surface in tides of public opinion that target immigrants and people who are different as the cause of most or all of a nation’s troubles.      The burning of one of the Women of the Wall prayerbooks by the Kotel this morning is a function of an internal hatred and xenophobia, because the ultra-Orthodox community in Isarel sees the women who pray together out loud at the Western Wall as “other,” almost like foreigners to the Jewish tradition. 
   Or it may be xenophobia that seeks to denigrate and minimize the claims of asylum seekers when they explain that they cannot return home, but they are told they cannot stay.  
   People are not only being challenged for the opinions they espouse.  Some believe that holding any strongly-held view prevents an individual from being objective. Some of our citizens and leaders think it is unfathomable that anyone could suspend his or her political views in order to be able to fulfill non-partisan tasks.  That was evident in the hours of questioning yesterday of one FBI agent by leaders who do have opinions that clearly indicate their own bias.   
    However, sometimes conflict and even tragedy can happen in a way that is not due to hatred.     Chapter 35 of the book of Numbers described the eventual establishment of cities of refuge where a person guilty of an accidental killing – involuntary manslaughter – could go to escape the avenging relative of the victim who would automatically come to seek out and take the life of the guilty party.   Number 35, verses 22 and following outlined the procedure in such a situation:  “But if [a person] pushed without malice aforethought or hurled any object at [the victim] unintentionally, or inadvertently dropped upon [the victim] any deadly object of stone, and death resulted - though not being an enemy and not seeking to harm – in such cases the assembly shall decide between the slayer and the blood-avenger.  The assembly shall protect the killer from the blood-avenger, and the assembly shall restore him to the city of refuge to which he fled, and there he shall remain until the death of the high priest who was anointed with the sacred oil.”   
      In a case described a few verses before this section, it had been assumed that if these two people hated each other, that could constitute an incontrovertible motive for the killing.    What our current national moment calls to mind for me in relation to this Numbers passage is this:  What if the person guilty of involuntary manslaughter did dislike the victim?   Would the community have assumed that the killer should be released to the blood-avenger because of his hatred? 
     In my own internal debate on this, I refocused my thoughts on the words used to describe and characterize each possible action:  “pushed without malice,” “unintentionally hurled,” “inadvertently dropped.”    And I wondered: If an action itself was unintentional and inadvertent, would it matter if the two people were enemies?  Would it make a difference whether or not one had truly sought to harm the other?    It is likely that it would be known if two people bore enmity and animosity towards each other.  It would be harder to determine if either person in the conflict would want to turn those hard feelings into hurtful actions or even murder.    
    So what would the community decide, judging between the manslayer and the blood-avenger, if the manslayer and victim were known not to be enamored with one another?
     If there had been a twitter feed in ancient times, I can see it all now.  There would be assumptions that the animosity between the two must have been a cause of the inadvertent and fatality-causing action on some unconscious level.   There would also be assertions that unintentional is exactly that, and that a negative opinion would not necessarily have to  serve as the root cause of an inadvertent and tragic act.   
     Such a case would require the community to listen to the story of the relationship between the two parties.  They would need to hear testimony from the manslayer that he – or she – would never have acted on any bad feelings towards the victim.  There would need to be a strong statement that no threat of violence was ever made by one party against the other.   Would the community have believed this declaration?   
     Perhaps they would have, especially if that person had demonstrated, for the most part, some level of personal integrity that had won him or her respect among people in the community and family members.    
     And sometimes a consistency of good character can be the most powerful proof that what a person might say or do on the outside is a true reflection of what he or she is on the inside.  
      May we strive for this level of goodness, respect and trust and do what we can to create a society that still sees these values as central to who we can be as a community, a nation and a world.

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