American Paradox

July 3, 2021

Author(s): Rabbi Wes Gardenswartz,

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Parshat Pinchas
July 3, 2021 — 23 Tammuz 5781
American Paradox
by Rabbi Wes Gardenswartz
Temple Emanuel, Newton, MA

          

           

            What do we do about what happened to Rabbi Shlomo Noginski on Thursday afternoon?  What do we do when a man, a husband, a father of ten, an idealist, a rabbi, a teacher, who leaves his home in Israel and comes to our home, Greater Boston, where we live, where we try to have a rich and safe Jewish community, he comes here to be a sheliach, an emissary, at the Shaloh House, a teacher of Torah especially to our beloved Russian Jewish community?   What do we do when such a man is stabbed multiple times, after being held up at gunpoint?  What do we do when this happened two miles from here?

            What do we do? We feel. We feel deep anxiety and concern.  Many of us feel triggered because hate against Jews is clearly on the rise.  We have all read too many stories of too many Jews, particularly since the war in May, being attacked for being Jewish, in sushi restaurants, on the street, and now in front of Shaloh House.  And we feel even worse knowing this at the 4th of July, the time when we celebrate freedom, security, opportunity, the American Dream, a dream dashed all too often by anti-Semitism.

            That leads to a second  thing we do.   We act.  The Jewish community, including our own, is on high alert. We have heightened security, additional police presence.    But just because something happens all the time does not mean we should get used to it.  There is something fundamentally sick about the fact that, in 2021, in Massachusetts, we need armed guards in order to feel safe when we gather together and pray.  That should not happen here. But it does.

            Which leads to a third thing we do.  We need to think about how to create a different world where we are and feel safe, where we don’t need armed guards to come together in prayer.

            This week, in our Hartman online learning, Donniel Hartman made a profound observation about our country.  He said America is such a blessing. Such a wonderful country.  We who live here, and our children, and our children’s children, are blessed to live here.  The world is a better place because America is in it.

            And, at the same time, Donniel pointed out that America is a land of hate and violence.  It is now. It has always been.  Especially against minorities.  Hate and violence against black Americans.  Hate and violence against Asian Americans.  Hate and violence against Jews. Hate and violence against so many minorities.

            A beautiful country with beautiful ideals.  And a country of hate and violence–both are true at the same time.

             I want to ask us to think about this American Paradox. Our weekly Torah portion speaks exactly to this issue of paradox.

            At the end of last week’s portion, the Israelites participate in a mass orgy with Moabite women. Idolatry. Immorality. An infamous moment. The mass orgy reached its crescendo when an Israelite man named Zimri and a Midianite woman named Cozbi were having sex in public before the whole community.  This act was so in your face that nobody knew what to do about it.   Just then Pinchas comes and stabs both lovers with a spear.

            This was an act of vigilantism.  Pinchas was judge, jury, and executioner.  In taking the law into his own hands, his violence violates all the Jewish norms of proper criminal procedure. 

            And yet, Pinchas is rewarded by God with two eternal covenants: a covenant of peace and a covenant of priesthood.  I had never really understood that part.  How can God reward Pinchas for violence?

            But the events of this week have caused me to reread this portion.  Perhaps God offers Pinchas these two eternal covenants not to reward him, but to inspire him to change, to grow, to learn, to get betterto not be violent anymore.  After all, if a priest is doing his job, he is with people all day in peaceful settings, offering animal sacrifices to express gratitude, to atone for sin, to do rituals that respond to human emotion.  If a priest is doing his job, he is no longer doing acts of violence.  Perhaps this is biblical rehabilitation.  It worked.  Pinchas had one moment of violence and a lifetime of peaceful service.  He grew.

            The Torah’s message on paradox is grow. Get better. Become a better version of yourself.

            Which brings us to the Fourth of July and our nation’s founding documents.  Micah Goodman long ago brought to our attention that our founders did not seek to create a perfect union, but a more perfect union.   More perfect. Better than yesterday. 

            What does that mean for us now?  None of us has a magic pill that can make hate and violence in our nation go away.  But all of us have the power to do something that will make our local world more perfect.  Better than yesterday. Less  hate. More love.

            That’s the move.  Ordinary people creating a local world with less hate, more love.

            It is ordinary people who have been supporting our partnership with the Mass Avenue Baptist Church for more than 30 years, volunteering in their kitchen, and offering funds through our Project Manna concert that allows the church to do its holy work of feeding the hungry.

            It is ordinary people who, this year, in the grip of the pandemic, when we could not do a concert in person for the second year in a row, watched a video that Elias had put together and contributed more than we had ever contributed before.

            It is ordinary people who dialogued with the Western Avenue Baptist Church about the reality of caste in America as depicted by Isabel Wilkerson in her classic Caste.

            It is ordinary people who heard Pastor Jeremy Battle’s plaintive story that, even now, even in Massachusetts, even in 2021, he worries every time he leaves his house that some neighbor in Newton, who does not like black people, might call the cops on him and once the police come, who knows what will happen.

            It is ordinary people who heard that testimony and said what can we do?  When Pastor Battle said his church could use a real estate lawyer, it was ordinary lawyers who stepped up and offered him incredibly helpful pro bono legal services to help the church work through its real estate issues.  Jeremy says this was transformational. The church will have a new home, and it needs a new home, because of its dialogue with our members. That is real. That was done by ordinary people.

            We build a better world by building better relationships.

            That is good in and of itself.

            That is good because it is the right thing to do.

            And that is good because it is also an effective way to build friendships in a world with rising anti-Semitism.

            In May, the Cambridge city counsel tried again–it failed a few years ago–to pass a BDS resolution against Israel.  This BDS campaign would single out the Jewish state for hatred.  The purpose is not only to not let Humus and wine from Israel into Cambridge. The purpose is to turn the Jewish state into a pariah state. The purpose is to make Israel something decent people do not and cannot support.  The purpose is to bully those who support Israel into silence. BDS is the cancer of hatred spreading and deepening.

            I called up Jeremy Battle and Brenda Brown. I said to both of them:  BDS singles out the Jewish state for hate.  All of our work together is about combatting hate.  Would you please come to the Cambridge city council and object to BDS on moral grounds?  Both said yes.  Both showed up. Both objected. And again, with their crucial help, the BDS resolution was defeated.

            We see them.  They see us.  A better world through better relationships. Less hate. More love.

            What do we do?  See somebody else, hear somebody else, build a relationship with somebody else, walk with somebody else, who will also walk with you.   Less hate. More love. More perfect.  That takes work every day.  That takes every one of you.   Shabbat shalom.