Remarks Delivered at an Interfaith Service For Peace
January 7, 2021
Dear Friends,
Tonight, we are in a collective state of shock. We have come looking for hope and peace
in a world where everything we know has been turned upside down.
Tonight, we are isolated physically
because of this insidious pandemic. But we are also isolated spiritually
as we relive the experience of watching in horror as our sacred Governmental
institutions and rituals have been desecrated.
We come to this service tonight
looking for two distinct things: Community
and Perspective.
We need community when we
feel alone and afraid. Certainly, the images of violent hooligans – with racist
and hateful messages - running through the halls of congress can easily bring
on despair.
But we also need
perspective. We cannot allow these events
to color our vision of hope for what our nation and our world should and must
be.
In Jewish tradition, each
week we read a different portion of scripture – of Torah – that takes us
through the entire 5 books of Moses during a calendar year. This week, we begin a new chapter – the Book
of Exodus – that tells the story of the enslavement and liberation of the
Israelites.
There is a Midrash –
a Rabbinic exegesis - of Exodus 1:13 that speaks of how Pharaoh enslaved
the Israelites with ruthlessness. The Hebrew word for ruthlessness that is
found in our text is “Farech.” Commenting on Farech, the ancient
rabbis used a play on words to teach an important lesson.
They split Farech
into two separate words: “Feh” and “Rach”.
“Feh” (or Peh) means “mouth,” and “Rach” means “gentle.” In other words, Pharaoh used “Gentle speech”
to oppress the Israelites.
The Rabbis, in the Midrash, wrote of how Pharaoh was deceptive in his plan for enslavement. They said that he initially worked alongside
of the Israelites making bricks. He partnered with them as if to show that this
was a glorious and patriotic project for all of Egypt.
Eventually, Pharaoh stopped
working with the Israelites and appointed Taskmasters in his place. Then he established increasingly high quotas that
were impossible to fulfill – punishing those who could not keep up. Gradually, the language of partnership devolved
into that of enslavement. By then, it
was too late.
You see, an atmosphere of oppression does not happen overnight.
It begins slowly - with soft words that focus on patriotism and glorification.
And then, things begin to change. Those who wish to do harm grow bolder and more aggressive. They “test the waters” to see who will stop them – when no one speaks up, they add more and more pressure to accomplish their goals.
The insidiousness of this technique is that in the beginning, the perpetrators of this deception can say – if confronted - “It was only words. I can’t control what people will do with them!”
What happened yesterday in our nation’s capital began with words from our President and his enablers such as:
o
Patriotism
o
Standing up for
American Values
o
Protecting our
Democracy
But
the meaning and intent of those words were very clear: To inspire and provoke
the most radical elements and to give a green light to criminals bent on
disrupting one of the most sacred ceremonies in our nation – the smooth and
peaceful transition of power from one administration to the next.
The violence that erupted
yesterday afternoon did not take place in a vacuum or overnight. It was not the
result of one political party – rather, it was a logical culmination of 4 years
of deliberate provocation and manipulation at the hands of those whose main
concern was consolidating and controlling power.
My friends, tonight we come
together to pray for peace. But peace is not easy. It also is not stable. It
needs to be nurtured, protected, and constantly monitored. We also need to call
out those who will disrupt peace – we must stop them in their tracks as they
use whatever means they have to impose their will upon us.
We know that there have
always been and always will be those who will look for cracks in the foundation
of our sacred democratic principles - and who will find ways to manipulate
those cracks to isolate and denigrate the foundations of decency that must be
in place if we are to claim to be an ethical society.
One of the images that has
stuck with me as I reflect on the violence that we witnessed in real time
yesterday afternoon was the broken glass in our Capital. The thugs who invaded
our Capitol broke windows and created havoc as they invaded our sacred space.
As a Jew, as the son of a
mother who fled Nazi Germany in December of 1938, the images of broken glass littering
the floors of our State Capitol is especially jarring. The night of November 9th,
1938, Hitler’s thugs went on a planned rampage – a Pogrom -throughout
Germany. They burned synagogues and ransacked Jewish-owned businesses. That event became known as Kristallnacht
– the “Night of Broken Glass” because of the image of all of the glass
that littered the streets of Germany. In addition to being the beginning of the
end of European Jewry, Krystallnacht also was a way for Hitler to “test
the waters” of world opinion. He wanted to see how other nations would react to
an act of violence and provocation. The
silence that flowed from the Capitals of the civilized world served as a green
light for Hitler’s plan of genocide that we now call the Shoah, or the
Holocaust.
Thankfully, we have learned
from history. The broken glass that desecrated the halls of Congress has not been
ignored. Our presence here tonight is a testimony to the fact that we will not
allow this evil to stand unchecked.
Tonight we condemn the cracks in the system. We call out:
- The cracks in the windows - worn down by violence and persistence;
- The cracks in the systems of policing that allowed this to happen;
- The cracks in the narrative of the power of our constitution to prevent something like this from happening;
- The cracks in communication that has allowed lies and conspiracy theories to serve as motivators for hatred and violence.
There
always will be cracks – but as the late great, songwriter, Leonard Cohen wrote
in his powerful ballad, Anthem:
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.
My friends, tonight we come
looking for peace. But we also know that the path to peace lies
in picking up the pieces of our brokenness and using them to
rebuild a better tomorrow.
We believe in a God who is
good.
We believe that we were
created for the purpose of shining the light of God in the world.
And when darkness occurs –
our task – as people of faith – as citizens of a great nation – is to shine
that light through the cracks and illuminate the brokenness around us – and rebuild so that
we might be stronger
May we succeed in all our
sacred endeavors.
AMEN
