225
years ago, in 1792, Moses Seixas [say-shuss], a Jewish congregational president
in Newport, Rhode Island, wrote a letter to the first President of the United
States checking to see if the new nation’s leadership would, using Seixas’
words, “give to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance.” President
Washington responded, repeating those words, in one of the best statements of
the nature of America. President Washington wrote:
It is now no more that toleration is spoken of as if it were
the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of
their inherent natural rights, for, happily, the Government of the United
States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance,
requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves
as good citizens in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.
Hearing
those words, some of us cringe. Is our country still there? Was America ever
truly there? We live in a time of great partisan divide. Today, discussions are
often over the victories or losses of a party and not necessarily over the
improvement of the lives of the people. Far too often in our real communities
and in our digital ones, we see hatred put into words and action.
The Jewish people have seen
that happen before. The flag and torch bearers, the hate filled marchers, too
often have come for us. Whenever minorities have been persecuted or oppressed,
if we have not been the initial target, historically, neither have we been far
down the list.
We have seen some of
humanity’s worst. We have seen inhuman hatred. Three thousand years ago, our
people’s story already proclaimed our origin to be found in the words, “Let my
people go!” Two thousand years ago, living under oppressive Roman rule, Hillel
proclaimed, “In a place where there is no humanity, strive be to a human
being.” We know that evil exists.
Yet, our tradition also
loudly proclaims that we are all created, “B’tselem Elohim.” That is one of the
most beautiful and, at times, also difficult teachings in the Jewish Tradition,
the idea that we are all created in the image of God.
On the beautiful side of
things, it is a teaching that reminds us of the inherent value of all people,
that people should be treated equally. It is a directive to rise above concerns
about difference, to overcome concerns about race, ethnicity, physical
capability and beauty, or sexual orientation. B’tselem Elohim is an idea that
helps us feel compassion for those who suffer, urging us to aid them. We should
not be able to tolerate seeing people suffering. Everyone is like us. Each of
us, in the image of God.
On the difficult side of
things, that we are all created B’tselem Elohim is a teaching that reminds us
that we have things in common with all people, including those with whom we’d
much rather not, enemies, people whom we consider to be evil.
In the Mishnah, in Pirkei
Avot, we find the statement: “Who is wise? The one who learns from every
person.” Traditionally, this teaches that the wisest person can learn something
from anyone and everyone, the most exalted can learn from the lowest. The
teacher can learn from the student.
The Baal Shem Tov taught in
regard to the statement:
When you look into a mirror
you see your own blemishes. Think of other people as being your mirror. When
you notice a defect or imperfection in someone else, that should tell you that
you are tainted by the same shortcoming... Remember that Heaven shows you these
sins in others in order that you search yourself and mend your ways.
It’s like a gut-punch. Our
first response is “No way am I like….” “Not me! I could never act like that,
feel like that, do something like that.” “I could never get so angry.” “I could
never hate like that.”
How difficult is it to look
at that image of those white supremacists and neo-Nazis standing with torches
while shouting hateful slogans and say not only, “B’tselem Elohim,” this one
too was created in the image of God, but perhaps, to use the words of the Baal
Shem Tov, “I am tainted by the same shortcoming?” No, perhaps not exactly the
same, not the same sort of hatred, not of the same things. But:
· An ability to become enraged?
· An ability to hate others?
· A willingness and even desire to march along with
others, to be part of a crowd, to rebel against authority, to want to fit in
with a group?
· An unwillingness to stand up to friends and family
members even when we know that they are wrong, because we care about them?
· A tendency to repeat hateful things about others whom
we’ve never met?
· A desire to see faults in others, to pass the blame to
others?
· A willfulness to see the worst in others who disagree
with us.
· A willingness or even eagerness to rise up from a
place of frustration and hopelessness to take actions we might regret later.
· An ability to look out at other people and easily say
of them, “These are not B’tselem Elohim.” “I am likened to God, but them, those
people, they’re nothing like God, they’re nothing like me. They’re evil.”
· A blindness towards our commonality with those we do
not like.
Remember that Heaven shows
you these sins in others in order that you search yourself and mend your ways.
And how many of us would want
to be defined by the worst picture taken of us, perhaps not one that was taken
but one that could have been taken? Has there ever been a time when we acted in
a way that would anger or embarrass us now?
We may not have ever
considered the possibility of ourselves preaching hatred while holding a torch,
but, and here is another difficult lesson, far too many otherwise good and even
religious people participated in horrors in ages past and still in many places
around the world do today. No few of those bearing and sharing their hatreds
publicly will eventually repent and change their ways. There are a multitude of
stories.
Father William Aitcheson, formerly the parochial vicar at St. Leo the Great
parish in Fairfax City, Virginia recently wrote an editorial in The
Arlington Catholic Herald acknowledging his past.
“My actions were despicable,”
he wrote. “When I think back on burning crosses, a threatening letter, and so
on, I feel as though I am speaking of somebody else. It’s hard to believe that
was me. While 40 years have passed, I must say this: I’m sorry. To anyone who
has been subjected to racism or bigotry, I am sorry. I have no excuse, but I
hope you will forgive me.”
There is Frankie Meeink, who
was a prominent skinhead when he was younger and living in South Philadelphia.
He spoke at Beth El congregation a couple of years ago about his story. On TV
fairly regularly, he is now an outspoken critic of white supremacy and an
advocate for overcoming their hate with love and caring. Today, he lives in Des
Moines and coaches youth hockey.
There is the story of the teenagers who defaced our building. They went through a restorative justice process, a
teshuva process of learning with Rabbi Fink and working for the Temple that
resulted in them not only overcoming their hatred of Jews, but in later
inviting Rabbi Fink and Jack Huff to attend their wedding.
And then there is the story
of Larry Trapp, once Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan in Nebraska, which you
can find in Chicken Soup of the Jewish
Soul. Larry Trapp repeatedly called to harass and threaten Cantor
Michael Weisser and his wife Julie after they moved to Lincoln. Trapp was known
to be dangerous by the FBI. He was heavily armed and made explosives. Trapp
spewed hatred in numerous ways. The Weissers were warned to avoid him.
Trapp evidently was
responsible for firebombing several homes of African Americans and had been
making plans to bomb Temple B’nai Jeshurun in Lincoln, Cantor Weisser’s
congregation. Over time, the Weissers called in to his radio show to tie up the
phone lines, then eventually to ask him why he hated them, why he hated Jews.
Trapp never responded but he listened.
They found out things about
him. He was isolated, lived in a small apartment. He was in a wheelchair.
Cantor Weisser once left a
message reminding Larry Trap that the Nazis came for those with disabilities
first. They kept reaching out. They offered to help him, to talk with him, to
take him to the grocery store. Eventually, Larry Trapp realized that the Cantor
and his wife were the only people who seemed to care about him at all.
When Trapp finally met the
Weissers, he burst into tears. Trapp took the swastika rings off of his fingers
and handed them to Cantor Weisser, telling him that he couldn’t wear them
anymore, to take them away.
“On November 16, 1991, Trapp
resigned from the Klan.” He went on to right apologies to many of those he had
threatened or harmed over the years. Trapp said, “I wasted the first forty
years of my life and caused harm to other people. Now, I’ve learned we’re one
race and one race only.”
Only a little over a month
later, Trapp learned that he had less than a year to live because of the
progression of his illness. The Weissers invited Trapp to move into their home
so that Julie could take care of him. It was disruptive to their lives. They
had three teenage children.
On June 5, 1992, Larry Trapp,
former Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan, converted to Judaism in a ceremony at
B’nai Jeshurun in Lincoln, in the very building that he had planned at one
point to bomb. Only a few months later, on September 6, Larry Trapp died in a
hospital bed in the Weissers’ living room, Michael and Julie, holding his
hands.
One doesn’t really atone for
the acts committed by Larry Trapp over the course of his lifetime. But people
can change their direction in life. We can perform T’shuvah, turning from paths
that led us in bad directions to the path of righteousness. Sometimes, those
who hate simply need to see that we are all created B’tselem Elohim, in the
image of God. Sometimes, what the haters need is for others to see them in that
way as well, not as other, as entirely different, or as inherently evil.
Cantor Michael Weisser, during the time he was interacting
with Larry Trapp, offered a prayer for healing during services in his
congregation, one that I will repeat here with the hope that it impacts not one
specific person in our country, but many, all of those so afflicted:
May those
who are sick with the illness of bigotry and hatred be healed.
And in this time of political discord, when our passions are
easily kindled, when we too often forget even among our family and friends that
our commonalities are greater than our differences. May we recall the words
spoken by President Abraham Lincoln as he closed his First Inaugural Address:
We are not enemies, but
friends. We must not be enemies.
Though passion may have
strained,
It must not break our bonds of
affection.
The mystic chords of memory,
stretching from every battlefield and
Patriot grave to every living
heart and hearthstone all over this broad land,
Will yet swell the chorus of
the Union, when again touched,
As surely they will be, by the
better angels of our nature.
May our better angels allow
us to see the divine in those with whom we disagree and in all of God’s
children.
This Yom Kippur, this Day of
Atonement, this Day of T’shuvah, of turning and returning, let us remember the
words of the Baal Shem Tov:
When you look into a mirror
you see your own blemishes. Think of other people as being your mirror. When
you notice a defect or imperfection in someone else, that should tell you that
you are tainted by the same shortcoming... Remember that Heaven shows you these
sins in others in order that you search yourself and mend your ways.
After all, we are imperfect human beings and all
created in the image of God.
Shabbat Shalom and Shanah
tovah tikateivu v’teihateimu,
May you be inscribed and
sealed in the Book of Life for a good year.
Kein Yehi Ratson. May it be
God’s will.
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