October 22, 2022
Author(s): Rabbi Wes Gardenswartz,
Parshat Breshit
October 22, 2022 — 27 Tishrei 5783
Why Moses’s Final Words Call Out to Us With Special Urgency Right Now
Temple Emanuel, Newton, MA
This past week, in anticipation of Simchat Torah, I was drawn to a granular question that I had never thought about before: namely, what are Moses’s very last words before he dies? The portion we read on Simchat Torah contains Moses’s final farewell speech. He blesses all the tribes of Israel one by one, offering them final words suited to their story. When he is done blessing the last tribe, he has one last thing to say to the Jewish people. What is it?
When I examined the text, I was surprised by what I found. Here are his final words:
Your enemies shall come cringing before you,
And you shall tread on their backs. Deuteronomy 33:29.
Curious. Enemies come cringing before you. You shall tread on their backs. What enemies? What does treading on their backs even mean? Rashi, the classic commentator, explains that it means: “Put your feet upon the necks of these enemy kings.”
Not what I would have expected. Why could Moses not have left the world reinforcing some of his classic themes: Love God. Follow God’s laws. Build an ethical and just human society. Live a holy life. Care for the poor and vulnerable. Uplifting. Inspiring. But we don’t get that. We get enemies cringing, and our stepping on their backs. Why so dark? Why so violent? Why so conflictual?
I will get back to Moses’s dark final words, but marinating on them this past week has led me to a question about our own time. How are American Jews treated today? Specifically, are we treated with the same respect as other minority communities? Or is something else going on? Might there be a double standard where the kind of hatred, intolerance and bigotry that would not, and should not, be tolerated with other vulnerable minority communities is normalized when it comes to hating on Jews?
When Los Angeles city counselor Nury Martinez recently made racist comments, she was, as she should have been, immediately called out. Her resignation was demanded, and tendered. There must be zero tolerance for racism in our society, and people who say hateful and racist things must be called to account.
When Thom Brennaman, who called Major League Baseball games for the Cincinnati Reds for more than 30 years, was heard on a hot mike uttering a homophobic slur, he resigned effective immediately. There must be zero tolerance for homophobia in our society, and people who say hateful and homophobic things must be called to account.
Now, is the same standard applied to Jews? The poet William Blake wrote that we can see the entire universe in a grain of sand. Let’s look at the universe of how Jews are treated in America through a local grain of sand: Wellesley College. The story is rich and contains layers.
The first layer is that on September 28, the student-run newspaper, The Wellesley News, ran a front-page big font headline: “The Wellesley News Calls for The Liberation of Palestine.” The Wellesley News explicitly supports BDS.
But there is another layer. The Wellesley News specifically approves the Mapping Project which has been roundly condemned by people from left to right as constituting rank anti-Semitism. It is the 2022 version of the medieval Protocols of the Elders of Zion, portraying the Jews as manipulating all the levers of financial and communication and health and science and governmental power. There is no role in civilized society for identifying places of worship and schools so that people who hate Jews can target them. Senator Elizabeth Warren, Senator Ed Markey, Representative Ayanna Presley, all condemned the Mapping Project as crossing the line into Jew hatred. But the Wellesley News supports the Mapping Project.
To her credit, the President of Wellesley College, Paula Johnson, called out the student newspaper for the anti-Semitism inherent in supporting the Maping Project. That would seem to be a rare point of light in this dark story, but there is yet one more layer.
Last week hundreds of Wellesley students rallied against Paula Johnson for calling out the newspaper for supporting the Mapping Project. Note, she did not criticize the newspaper’s endorsement of free Palestine. She did not criticize the newspaper’s endorsement of BDS. She focused her critique exclusively on the anti-Semitism inherent in supporting the Mapping Project.
The President’s condemnation of anti-Semitism prompted a rally of Wellesley students who marched against the President for her calling out anti-Semitism. There were at least 100 students chanting “From the river to the sea Palestine will be free.”
From the river to the sea Palestine will be free. What are these students saying? There are in fact over Six Million Israeli Jews in Israel. When Wellesley students chant what they chant, what they are saying is that one Holocaust is not enough. The Six Million Israeli Jews living in Israel are a walking moral violation, and that second Six Million can no longer live there. Where are Six Million Jews who would be kicked out of their home if there were no Israel going to go? These students need to own the hatred they spew. They would not tolerate Nury Martinez’s racist comments, as they should not. They would not tolerate Thom Brennaman’s homophobic comments, as they should not. But they deny that Six Million Israelis who live in Israel have a right to a home and homeland.
Which means that there is a disturbing double standard going on. It is not okay, as it should not be okay, to hate on people of color. It is not okay, as it should not be okay, to hate on LGBTQ plus. But it is indeed okay, it is fashionable, it is current, it is in vogue, to hate on the Jewish people and on the Jewish state. It is okay to say that the Jewish people should not have a state. It is okay, it is fashionable, to say that the very existence of the Jewish state is a moral mistake.
Why does this double standard happen, why does it keep happening, why is it so hard to mount an effective campaign to combat it?
I was speaking with my wife Shira about this, and she observed that the Jewish community is really good at responding to a crisis that has a clear starting point, like the Ukrainian refugee crisis. On February 24 Putin’s army started his war, a Ukrainian refugee crisis was born, and the Jewish community in Boston, and throughout the world, jumped into action. The war began on Feb. 24th. The refugee crisis began on Feb. 24th. The Jewish response began on Feb. 24th.
But hatred of the Jewish state and Jewish people has no February 24th. No clear launch. It is endemic. It is drip, drip, drip. Wellesley. Berkeley. Oberlin. Tufts. At campus after campus, year after year, there is this endemic antipathy towards Jews and our state.
There is another reason as well. At a deep level, we are all disciples of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, himself a survivor of the Shoah, who did not talk about the Shoah, did not talk about anti-Semitism, and counseled his movement to talk instead about what is joyful about being Jewish, simcha shel mitzvah, the joy of doing a mitzvah. He taught that we are not going to inspire the next generation to live Jewish lives by saying the non-Jewish world hates us. That will make the next generation check out. We inspire the next generation by showing how living a Jewish life is beautiful, joyful and purposeful. That will inspire the next generation to opt in. That approach tempts us to avert our gaze from campus anti-Semitism.
Dara Horn was here in September. She wrote the book People Love Dead Jews, which tells the story of anti-Semitism in country after country over the last few hundred years. I asked her what she thought of the Rebbe’s critique of talking about anti-Semitism. She answered that she is with the Rebbe. She said she spent 20 years not writing this book because she does not like talking about anti-Semitism. But alas she could no longer duck it.
With Wellesley happening a few miles from here, and with so many scenes like Wellesley erupting in our nation now, we can no longer duck it either. So what do we do about this drip, drip, drip, this endemic hatred?
The good news is that there is a simple argument that we have not been making. We can make it. We should make it. And to all but the most inveterate of Jew-haters, this simple argument is incontrovertible.
It is simply this: Jews should be treated no better than, but no worse than, any other group. We should be treated the same as other minorities where there is zero tolerance for hate. There is zero tolerance for hate against Asian Americans. Against Americans of color. Against LGBTQ+ Americans. So too there must be zero tolerance for hate against Jews. When Wellesley students endorse the Mapping Project, that must be called out. When they do not see the Six Million Jews who live in Israel, that deep hatred must be named and condemned.
Which brings us back to Moses and his final words. It would have been much easier for Moses to say, with his final words: love God. Build an ethical society. Take care of the vulnerable. We all love those lovely messages. But at the end of his life Moses knows an uncomfortable truth that we ignore at our own peril. It is a hard world out there. We have enemies. We always have. We always will. And if we do not defend ourselves against those who mean to do us harm, we will not get a chance to fulfill our lofty and noble ideals. As we sing in Hallel, lo hameitim yehallelu yah, dead people don’t praise God. Let’s defend our existence, let’s defend the right of our beloved eretz yisrael to thrive ever more strongly in its 75th year and beyond, forever and ever, and then we can get to work building the society of decency, humanity and compassion that we all aspire to build. Shabbat shalom.