Hate is Hate
Rabbi David Locketz
Rosh Hashanah 5778
Hate is Hate
Hineni, God put Abraham to the test and he said, hineni, I am here. Hineni. We are here.
I want to share a story that most of you have not heard. It never seemed relevant until now. Seventeen Rosh Hashanah’s ago this morning, as I was beginning my second year of Rabbinical School, I was excited to lead Rosh Hashanah services for my first time as a student rabbi at my student congregation in Mattoon, Illinois. Their synagogue was a home...literally a house that had been donated by a family who had moved away from the community many years before. The front door opened up into what was once a living room and now had rows of chairs set up as a sanctuary. The sanctuary faced the sun room in the front of the house where the ark sat and where the yartzeit board was. To the rear was the kitchen; a gathering point like in any congregation. Off to the side was a sitting room set up as a classroom where I would teach the half dozen student age members of the congregation on Shabbat afternoons. The 13 families in the community spanned all ages.
As in any synagogue, there were disagreements. On my first tour of the building, I was shone a large, blue neon Star of David that took up the entire front picture window. Some felt it should be turned on when the congregation met; a call sign of sorts. Others felt strongly that it should be left off at all times so as to not call attention to themselves. I recently spoke with a member in their community that shared with me that even now, using space to gather regularly in a
church, they still debate whether to put a sign up announcing their presence. Imagine wondering if it was safe to erect a sign at the entrance of our Bet Shalom campus.
On the 1st of Tishrei in 5761, September 30, 2000, Rosh Hashanah morning, Debbie and I left our hotel during what was our second visit to the congregation, so that I could arrive early to the temple and set up for services. As we turned the corner to park behind the house something caught my eye. I put the car in reverse and backed up to a telephone pole and came face to face with a warning poster that had my picture on it. Above my photograph were the words, “Warning: Jewish parasite known to be in the area.” Later the police and FBI would recover about 150 of the posters rolled up and thrown in yards like a newspaper.
Debbie jumped out of the car and tore it down. We drove to the edge of town where I found a payphone and called the temple president who told me to drive around for 30 minutes and then go back. When we returned to the building, a squad car was in the street with officers at both the front and back doors. I checked in with the police and headed inside where congregants had started to gather.
I was greeted by many who were concerned, but everyone agreed with me that we should continue as planned with services. As I approached the lectern to call the service to order, one man I had not yet met, who was sitting close to the front door stopped me and with a southern drawl said, “Rabbi you don’t need to worry about a thing.” He flashed a revolver sticking out of an inside coat pocket and then pulled his chair up to the front door.
The irony of a man guarding a door that had a police officer standing on the other side was not lost on me. That was the year 2000. In America...in a small bible belt town. But still...in America.
Let me clear. As we sit here in our beautiful sanctuary, on this beautiful peaceful property in Minnetonka we are safe. We have taken our regular precautions and I am grateful to the Minnetonka Police Department who partners with our congregation in so many ways to safeguard our members and our property. When you leave, please remember to say thank you to those in uniform who are here for us today. I am also grateful for the Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) which coordinates security for entire local Jewish community. And I know that within our congregational membership, also here this morning, are Jewish officers of many Twins Cities Police Departments who can attest to the effort exerted in order to keep the Jewish Community safe. To keep all people safe. This is not 1939 Germany. It is not even the 1930s version of Minnesota which was rife with public and private antisemitism.
Yet it is 2017 Minnesota and things seem different than they have. At least in recent memory. We have witnessed an unprecedented rise in crimes associated with hate...and not even just in what is considered crime...we have seen an unprecedented rise in using the right to Free Speech for hate. Anti Semitism, not extinguished...just pushed underground...has reared its ugly head. Who would have imagined seeing the images of men carrying tiki torches through Charlottesville chanting vile and scary things in our newsfeeds. Those Jews there in Charlottesville were forced to remove their sacred Torahs from the building for fear of vandalism. They held services at alternate times and only entered or exited their building discreetly.
And then we woke up to news here that a swastika was carved into a golf course green just 25 miles away. For several years we have been hearing from our high school students of obnoxious jokes and comments thrown at them in locker rooms and school hallways. The theoretical antisemitism that many of us assumed dormant is no longer dormant nor theoretical.
Yet we are here when perhaps it would be so easy to stay away. The Torah portion we will read this morning, on the surface level, has two distinct themes. One of violence...of sacrifice. The other is of being present...of being hineni. Of recognizing a call to attention and higher service. To see the ram caught in the thicket pointing the way forward.
I choose Hineni. I am not naive to sit here and tell you that there is nothing to fear. The bar has been lowered...the reasons for that lowering do not matter...the world around us is more brazen than before.
But peering through the thicket, there are surprising acts of kindness to see as well. Last spring during the time of the JCC bomb threats, there was an outpouring of love and support expressed toward us. Several mosques sent us letters of support. A group of 25 members of the Northwest Islamic Community Center even showed up here on a Shabbat morning bearing several boxes of treats from breadsmith. And just last week, members of the steering committee I sit on which brings together the faith community convened by the Minnetonka Police Department, published a letter of support for the Jewish community during these holy days and spoke out against white supremacy and racism. There are plenty of signs that we are part of a larger community who sees this hatred for what it is and wants to eradicate it. There is movement. Together we can take back the tiki torch and use it for light rather than to increase darkness.
And so we are safe and supported. And we are here. Hineni.
Yet we cannot forget there is something broken in the world. In just a little while, we’ll hear the three different sets of calls for the shofar. One of those calls is “shevarim.” The root letters that make up the word shevarim literally mean broken. How apropos of these times. Let us not forget that the shofar calls us to attention. There is no ambivalence in that sound. It shakes us awake. It can’t be that what feels broken is the new normal. We can’t allow ourselves to just accept this is the way it is going to be.
Pirkei Avot is the section of our Mishnah associated with the teachings of our forebears, the rabbis who lived so long ago, but whose teachings still resonate with us today. Contained within it are the words of the famous Rabbi Hillel who said, “Im Ain Ani Li Mi Li, If I am not for myself, who will be for me? And when I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, then when?” Most of us come to services during the High Holidays for different reasons. Many of us want to find comfort in and for our human condition...we are human..and it is in being human that we experience suffering. But we also come here for inspiration...may we be inspired and answer the question of, “If not now, when?” with the word Hineni. We are here and we are ready to join others in halting senseless hate.
Abraham Joshua Heschel, the great Rabbi Philosopher of the last century wrote more than 50 years ago that this is “no time for neutrality.” He of course was reacting to the civil rights era. A time when the fighting was about bringing equality for all. Heschel urged a return to tradition. That it was through Judaism that our community would find the inspiration to work at the righting of societal wrongs. A prophet’s words stir us in every age because of their timelessness. He could have been writing today. Perhaps Heschel was onto something. That we can find both comfort and inspiration in our tradition. The light by which we can be led and lead.
Avinu Malkeine, Aseh Imanu, Tzedakah Vachesed, v’hoshieinu. However small our deeds, let us see their power to heal. May we save lives through compassion, generosity and justice.* When we humans are at our greatest, we embody these of God’s qualities...compassion and justice and generosity. We have the power to save.
Rabbi David Stern who is the president of the Central Conference of American rabbis has pointed out the ironic and powerful juxtaposition of the rise in hate with the tearing down of the Civil War monuments all over the country. We may not have many obvious monuments here in Minnesota. Most of us are oblivious to them until they are pointed out. Like the proposed change in the name of Lake Calhoun. Or the inclusion of the controversial sculpture called “Scaffold” in the reopening of the Walker Arts Center Sculpture Garden. If anything...these examples highlight for us Minnesotans how easy it is dismantle obvious insults to the “other.” But what about the less obvious? How do we dismantle that which is on the inside? How do we see that no matter how different others may be, or seem to be, we have so much in common with our neighbors and with those across town whose paths may never cross ours.
There is a time to build and there is a time to take down. This is a time for both. To tear down symbols of hate, both overt like statues and the ones inside of us that cause us to separate ourselves from the pain of others. And at the same time, now is the time to build up.
All those many years ago in Mattoon as a student rabbi...the brush with the white supremacists didn’t end with the warning poster. I continued to go back as student rabbi even though I had been advised not to. How could I not? Later that Fall, the group came back and spray painted swastikas on the synagogue. But then in a moment of building up the good in humanity...the white supremacists tried to organize a march through the town...and it probably would have looked like Charlottesville if it hadn’t been for the Methodist Church whose inspired members blocked the march.
That is what building up is. When we replace public symbols of hate with public acts of love and support. That church answered the call with Hineni. Would we? I want to think that the answer is a resounding yes.
You have probably heard me share the hasidic parable of the scratched ruby. In that story, a king finds his precious ruby has been marred and sustained a deep scratch. Artisan after artisan attempted to repair it, but none could. Finally a gifted lapidary turned the scratch into the stem of a beautiful flower. Often this parable is used to express what we know...that life has its ugliness, but sometimes that ugliness can be made to be beautiful.
This week I heard that story framed differently by Rabbi Aaron Panken, the Rosh Yeshiva of the Hebrew Union College. Panken pointed out that the one who was able to make the stone even more beautiful than it was originally, had three qualities for which we can each strive in our own way. The lapidary was creative, he was courageous and he was hopeful. He was creative because he was willing to look at things in a new way. He was courageous because it takes great courage to try something that has never been done before. And he was hopeful in his belief that he could make the ruby even better than it had been before.
Our tradition is nothing if not one that teaches that there is hope in the world that we can yet reach a place and time closer to perfection...and that we can be the ones to make it so. It just requires creativity and courage...and hope. It requires being Hineni. Courage to stand in the way of others who hate...creativity in our actions and words and hope that links us with others who hope. It requires standing up and living our values explicitly.
Those of you who attended the rally of support with Rabbi Crimmings after the bomb at the mosque in Bloomington just weeks ago…you were hineni.
Those of you who show acts of kindness in the way you give tzedakah and volunteer your time, you answer the call with hineni.
We need everyone here to go out and be present for others. We need acts of kindness big and small. The world needs it. Working for justice is very difficult work. It is exhausting. And it is so very necessary for the sake of our people...for the sake of our community...for the sake of all people. May we take the light of Torah and shine it into all the darkness that exists. May we stand together and scream hineni from the top of the hills and from the city walls and from our homes. May we, together, live those qualities of compassion, justice and generosity, of creativity, courage and hope. And if you aren’t sure how...come talk to your rabbis, Social Action Committee members and friends here at Bet Shalom. To ask the question “how”, knowing that the time is now, that is hineni too.
May it be a sweet New Year and may you already be inscribed in the book of life.
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*Miskkan HaNefesh, page 225