Hear Our Voice

To be clear, there are no good Nazis. Period. End of story. Assuming that one can make a solid argument that there is real and sustained and organized violence coming from the left, do we not believe that there is a difference between those who are fighting for freedom, equality, access and fairness for all people regardless of race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, and religion and those who are fighting to exclude people from freedom, equality, access and fairness based upon their race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, and religion? You better believe there is.

So here’s a response you may find helpful. Find for yourself two small pieces of paper. On one of them, write, “”I am but dust and ashes,” and on the other, write, “The world was created for my sake alone.” Place one in one pocket, and one in the other. These are the only meaningful poles of human existence and all of us both suffer and find inspiration from them. Each and every one of us, regardless of all of the criteria above, is everything and nothing. There is no moral equivalency that can justify actions taken against others that seek to deny their human volition. When someone declares that I, a Jew, am taking “their” place; that I am breathing their air; that I have replaced them – because I hail from the people who insisted that each of us human beings, including them, is created Btzelem Elohim, in God’s image, I am offended! I am pushed to anger! I am ready to blow! But then I remember of their small-mindedness and I am relieved. They’re not hateful or intolerant or race mongers or anti-anythings – they are just sad and small and pathetic and any words beyond these, even the most negative I can imagine, are more than they deserve.

So close your FB and Twitter and other social media feeds and stop obsessing over the hatred of others; it will only make you more hateful. Walk out of your offices or houses or ballparks or hotel rooms and pay it forward. Find someone you don’t know, maybe someone who feels very much like a stranger to you and offer your hand or your heart or your ear. Go beyond their surface appearance and listen deeply for their tzelem Elohim. Its right there, maybe shining forth from their cheeks, but certainly its right there just skin-deep, within their bones and sinews, pumping through their veins. It’s the divinity that makes our human lives worth living only as long as we guarantee that it is not ours alone.  Its not even a gift; at best it’s a lease – that inhabits every human being who lives and has ever lived. Pain is pain. Love is love. Fear is fear. Hope is hope. There is no “deserving” when it comes to human existence – God gives us life and sustains us and brings us to this very place and space and moment – will we recognize the truth that this is our common human inheritance? Or will we miss that altogether? And allow fear and hate and anger and rage and shame to swallow us whole for the sake of “knowing” we are right? I know where I fall. How about you?