Rosh HaShanah: Do Not Slay The Other Voice
Sermon by Rabbi Sim Glaser
2014/5775
Several years ago I attended a meeting of African American Ministers and Rabbis to discuss issues confronting our community. The minister whose church it was greeted the group saying: Can I hear a hallelujah? To which we all responded “hallelujah!” He then quickly side glanced at me and said “Rabbi I hope it’s alright that we said “hallelujah” to which I responded – no problem, it’s Hebrew. We invented that word a few thousand years ago.
People seem so interested in the Jewish point of view about things. They’re always checking stuff with us, watching what we do, curious about our reactions, and yes, holding us to account. You know, we make up less than one fifth of one percent of the world’s population. You wouldn’t think it would matter so much what we think!
Jews have always seen things differently. We tell the true story of the great clock tower in the city of Prague. The old Jewish ghetto there faced the rear of the tower so its inhabitants watched the clock run backwards. The elders of the community finally got smart, climbed up and put Hebrew letters where the numbers go so now the backwards clock made sense. We are an adaptive people.
Our most well-known thinkers have always been individuals who thought outside of the box. Albert Einstein developing the theory of relativity. Sigmund Freud’s discovery of the unconscious; the courageous pantheism of Baruch Spinoza; the rebellious Emma Goldman fighting for workers’ rights; the dream and vision of Theodore Herzl for the necessity of a Jewish homeland some fifty years before the Holocaust.
But if there is any one element of Jewish thinking that transcends generations it is that we have never been satisfied with only the surface meaning of anything. We are not a linear people; and we have never stopped the conversation with only one voice being heard. We are the people of one God, and 13 million theologies, 2 Jews, 3 opinions. We brought nuance into the world. We do not go long and shallow, we go short and deep.
This summer was a painful one for the Jewish people. Israel attacked viciously with Hamas rockets and terror tunnels burrowing under Jewish homes, Israelis running for cover as sirens wailed; the targeting of Hamas operatives and weapons launching locations resulting in the deaths of thousands of Palestinian civilians. The combined anguish of losing Israeli soldiers and being tagged worldwide as murderers of innocents fell heavily on Israelis and Jews worldwide.
Even as the Syrian civil war death toll climbed into the hundreds of thousands, and the Islamic State slaughtered everyone in its path en route to the establishment of a brutal new Caliphate; and even as the world acknowledged that Hamas militants in Gaza were waging their war from schools, apartments and city centers, intentionally using civilian shields, the condemnatory eyes of the world turned most prominently to Israel. Anti-Semitic incidents broke out in Europe with cries for Jewish blood such as we have not heard since the Second World War. College campuses saw heated demonstrations. The International Presbyterian Church voted boycott/divestment/sanction initiatives against the state of Israel. The world turned Israeli selfdefense into a war crime; the UN investigated Israel, but curiously not Hamas.
What seemed strikingly familiar was the level of scrutiny the Jewish people still draws. Disproportionate to the extent of tragedies around the world, the critical eye was on Israel.
Why is this? I believe the very reason we are listened to, scrutinized, and held to a higher standard is because of the very hallowed Jewish traditions of negotiation, conciliation, compromise, and deliberation. We have always been a people internally and externally that seeks to listen to other voices and not squelch dissenting opinions.
Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, is made up of 120 seats representing Ultra-Orthodox religious parties, secular voices, the right wing Likkud, Israeli Arabs, centrists, and Labor, to name only a few. Some voices make more noise than others or wield more power, but this singular democracy in the Middle East demands that all voices have their say.
One of the greatest gifts of the Jewish people to the world, dating back to biblical times, was a system of justice for civilized nations. Courts of law, jury trials, fair and considered judiciaries to ensure just democratic societies.
The Torah states that among the first things to be established in the new land are the Arei miklat - cities for an accused killer to flee to until he has had his day in court to prevent exactly the kind of heated reaction that our animal instincts often lead us to do.
And thus one of the most disturbing moments this summer was the horrific revenge killing of the Palestinian youth. When the three Yeshiva students were abducted and slain and Israel’s enemies the world over danced in the streets with joy, no one seemed particularly surprised. But Jews doing such things? In a single deed, the complexities of justice, rationality and diplomacy were thrust aside. Revenge, Jewish tradition teaches us, never works. Revenge is the most surface and least nuanced of reactions. Brute emotional force with not an ounce of justice.
The events of this summer witnessed an ever growing division within the Jewish people. Our history demonstrates over and over that the greatest danger to the Jewish people comes not from without, but from within. When we stop listening to the diverse and multifaceted voices within our tradition and see only one side of an issue, or hang out only with people who share our world view we bring disaster upon ourselves.
The story of the binding of Isaac we read this morning features a much repeated phrase – vayelchu sh’neyhem yachdav – “and the two of them traveled on together”. This phrase is said so often we must gather that no great Jewish journey is done solo.
As Abraham lifts his knife to silence the other atop that lonely mountain, the angel calls out: stay your hand! Never – slay – the – other voice. L’chu sh’neychem yachdav. Walk together. Talk together. Dwell, argue, deliberate, but do it together.
Note that the greatest enemies of justice out there in our world today are quite literally “slayers of the other voice”. They do it viciously. They video tape it, put it on line and attempt to bully us with it. There is no law but theirs. There is no freedom. There is no democracy. There is no other voice.
Jews divided by hatred and anger is called sinat chinam. Literally “senseless hatred”. The problem is not our having strong ideas, or even disagreeing, but dismissing other people’s ideas as heresy. The downfall of the Jewish people has been linked time and again to our inability to see another Jew’s point of view.
With all the lessons and values the Jewish people have brought the world, perhaps the most important is the one of which we now must remind ourselves. We may have differing views on issues, but our lack of uniformity must never lead to a lack of unity.
The power and influence of our voice cannot hide the fact that there are only 13 million of us worldwide and we need to be forthright and intentional with our Jewish voices. But it has never been in our best interest to squelch opinions other than our own. The last thing a Jew should do is to slay the other Jewish voice. There is an ancient tale about the great sage Rabbi Akiva and his 12,000 pairs of students, (they studied in pairs so as always to be in the presence of another voice or potential dissenting opinion) All of them were taught Akiva’s most basic law: What is hateful to you, do not allow for your neighbor. Talmudic tradition tells the bizarre story of how the 12,000 pairs of students all learned this lesson, but in the heat of their debate over the law promptly forgot it, so that angry argument prevailed and they were consumed by a plague.
That’s an ancient rabbi story. Here’s a modern rabbi story. At this season rabbis all over the globe are attempting to bring messages of hope and peace to their congregations. In one case in New York a Rabbi cautioned her congregation not to harden their hearts to Palestinian deaths, and a board member posted on Facebook his resignation from the synagogue claiming the rabbi was spreading Hamas propaganda.
Conversely, my cousin’s rabbi in Montreal preached a sermon detailing how Israel had indeed lived up to the highest standards of Jewish ethics in wartime, and immediately heard from several members who were quitting because they felt there was no room to express their criticism of Israel. A Midwestern conservative rabbi was rejected from a position at a temple because he told the interviewing committee that he didn’t think there was just one Jewish point of view on Israel. Another rabbi’s board put a note in her contract indicating that she is forbidden to speak about Israel at all. A young colleague of ours locally preached about Israel this summer and was lambasted from all sides of the political spectrum with angry emails and threatened resignations. I told her I thought it was brave of her to address the subject, even though I didn’t entirely agree with her conclusion, but when you speak publicly such responses are hazards of the profession. But she said the lesson she learned was pure and simple. Never preach about Israel. I thought that was sad.
The danger of sinat chinam, internal fighting and division, is insidious and it is real – a civilization, a people, that loses its ability to speak to each other as sane adults, a community that rejects the Jewish gift of nuance, of subtlety and detail, and pulls itself into an a singular point of view that doesn’t allow for another is a threat to our national existence. The very thing that keeps Israel strong and the Jewish people vibrant is our willingness and readiness to engage with each other in a constructive manner.
The Jewish year is now officially 5775. That’s a symmetrical number – the first in 110 years. Its symmetry makes it much like a mirror, and mirrors cause us both to look at ourselves as well as to see things from a slightly different perspective. This is what keeps us human. Wrapped within the saddest of stories from this summer was perhaps the most beautiful lessons of our shared national experience. One of the first reported Israeli casualties this summer was that of a soldier Nissim Shawn Carmeli, a young man who made aliyah from the state of Texas to the State of Israel.
Nissim was what was called a lone soldier, meaning that he had no immediate relatives living in Israel. But Nissim (and that name means “miracle” turned out to be anything but lone soldier because by definition the Jewish people never leave each other alone. Some 20,000 Israelis attended this Nissim’s funeral. He gave his life for the Jewish state. But he was never alone.
I pray that this year will be more a more peaceful one than the last. Harmony and peace always begins with the act of listening to one another. Speaking passionately but allowing, in the great Jewish tradition, each voice to be heard. To heed the message of the angel atop mount Moriah at a critical juncture in ancient Jewish history.
Withhold your hand.
Do not slay the other voice.