Tuesday, July 23, 2013

Va-et'chanan and Tayvon Martin

This is my Dvar Torah from this past Shabbat.

Va-et’chanan 7/19/13
This morning while driving to work here at Beth Israel I was listening to Morning Edition on KPBS as I usually do. The host was talking to a photographer about a photo that he took in 1973 that recently went viral on the internet starting with him posting it to his Facebook page. They described the picture pretty well, but because it was radio, I had to use my imagination, so when I got to my desk, after a quick Google search, I found the photo. In it you see five children all under the age of ten taking a quick break from playing in an alley to pose for a quick picture. They have their arms around each other with huge smiles on their faces. The photo is very kinetic. Two of the children are white and three are black. They are just playing as friends as if that doesn’t matter . . . because it shouldn’t matter.
            Now, I’m not here to give a “can’t we all get along kumbaya” sermon after the Trayvon Martin-George Zimmerman trial (nor am I here to give my opinion on the specifics of the trial for I am not a lawyer). I’m not here to say that this picture proves that everything is okay. I know that when my sons are older they will be treated much differently if they are walking down the street after dark than boys that happen to be black. As President Obama said today: “I think it’s important to recognize that the African-American community is looking at this issue through a set of experiences and history that—that doesn’t go away . . . There are very few African-American men in this country who haven’t had the experience of being flowed when they were shopping in a department store. That includes me.” And I’m not here to say that we can solve this right now, but if we look at this literally black and white photo, we can see that racial prejudice is learned by society—not something inherent in kids.
            This week’s Torah portion has Moses’ retelling of the Ten Commandments. I would like to offer an interpretation given by our bat mitzvah girl from last week’s Shabbat afternoon. She focused on the second commandment of not creating a sculptured image. Here is the commandment: “You shall not make for yourself a sculptured image, any likeness of what is in the heavens above, or on the earth below . . . You shall not bow down to them or serve them. For I the Eternal your God am an impassioned God . . .” She wanted to make these verses relevant to her life, but she did not know anyone who creates physical idols to worship. But, she taught us, all of us create images in our heads of other people. She felt that the idolatry of today is prejudice. We create an image of people that are different than us that we cannot get rid of, we obsess over. Even us, open minded people, do it. Our prejudices might not be overtly racist or violent, but are they right? When we create an image of someone, we are not seeing the other as an individual.  The only way to smash these idols that we worship is to know the people that are different than us. The five kids in the photo did that. The Torah knows that this is hard, that is why we are commanded over and over again (in different versions) to not “oppress a stranger; you yourselves know how it feels to be a stranger in the land of Egypt.” Rabbi Jonathan Sacks comments: “Why should you not hate the stranger? – asks the Torah. Because you once stood where he stands now. You know the heart of the stranger because you were once a stranger in the land of Egypt. If you are human, so is he. If he is less than human, so are you.”
            It is hard to treat everyone as an individual, especially those we don’t know. It is hard to have empathy.
            While our Torah portion can help us think about the tension in our nation from this week’s legal decision, so can our season of the Jewish year. Tuesday was the ninth of the month of Av, Tisha B’Av, the saddest day on the Jewish calendar, the day Jews commemorate the destruction of the two ancient Temples in Jerusalem and other calamities of the Jewish people. Our rabbis tell us the first Temple fell because of the people’s idolatry, and the second Temple fell because of the people’s baseless hatred of one another. While we might not mourn and hope for a rebuilt Temple today, I saw on facebook a beautiful statement from Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson about what Tisha b’Av can mean for us today. “On Tisha b'Av we cry because we mourn the chasm between what is and what could be.”
            What is: An America very divided by race, ideology, name your fault line.
            What could be: An America where we try to understand the other. Not one where everyone is the same or believes the same. An America where we live with empathy.

            We as Jews have historically seen our mission in the world is to try to move it, slowly, little by little, to where it could be. Is it every going to get there? Only God knows. Can we quit trying? That would be giving up on our beautiful heritage. Our reading from the prophets this Shabbat comes from Isaiah and begins, “Comfort, oh comfort My people, says your God.” It is not comfortable to really live between what is and what could be. It is not comfortable to live in a world that is troubling, and it is not comfortable to try to make the world a better place. But, as the prophet says two chapters later, “I the Eternal, in My grace, have summoned you, and I have grasped you by the hand. I created you, and appointed you a covenant people, a light of nations—opening eyes deprived of light, rescuing prisoners from confinement, from the dungeon those who sit in darkness.” It may not be comfortable to bring the world closer to what it could be, but it is our duty to try. We can start with empathy.