Erev Rosh HaShanah 5762: “Terror And Our Values”
(by Rabbi Howard L. Apothaker, with stories and resources off the Internet, Waxman, Riemer, et. al.)
This sermon is copyrighted to Rabbi Howard L. Apothaker, Ph.D.
NO REDISTIBUTION OR REPUBLICATION IS PERMITTED.
I stand before you today not knowing where to begin. Would that I were wise enough to make sense of what has taken place this past week ... but alas I am not. I am just as bewildered and as just as depressed, just as upset and just as anxious, just as confused and just as numb as you may be.
Therefore, what I want to do this evening is turn to one of our teachers and ask him to speak to you. His name was Rabbi Shlomo Shwadron: He was known throughout the Jewish world as the Maggid of Jerusalem. He was a preacher of the old school, who could bring both tears and laughter to those who listened to his sermons. I think I bring the tears; I am not sure about the laughter....
Reb Shwadron’s most famous story, the one that he loved to tell most, was the story of Meirke. One day, Reb Schwadron says, he was sitting in his home in Jerusalem, when he heard a gishrai (a scream) outside. He ran out to see what had happened, and found a two-year old child, who had fallen from the balcony, and who was bleeding profusely. The child was Meirke, the grandson of his Torah helper. Reb Shwadron picked the child up, and ran with him, as fast as he could to the hospital, which was a couple of blocks away, up hill.
On the way, he passed an old pious woman. And the woman saw the rabbi running as fast as his legs would carry him, and she said to him, “Rebbe, it’ll be alright, Rebbe; don’t run so fast. After all, you are not a young man, so don’t run so fast.... Der Ebeshter vet helfen, G-d will help.”
And then as Reb Shwadron got closer to her, she looked into his arms, and she realized who the baby was, that he was carrying, and she let out a geshrai. And she said: “Gevalt, zis Meirke, main anikel. Oh my G-d, it is my grandchild, Meir. Run faster, Rabbi, Run faster, please. Run as fast as you can.”
You understand of course the moral of the story: When it is somebody else’s Meirke, it is easy to say: “Go slow.” When it is YOUR Meirke, that’s a different matter.
Last Tuesday, terrorism that, up until now, had been somebody else’s Meirke, all of a sudden became America’s Meirke. All of a sudden it is our Meirke that has been hurt. Last Tuesday night, for the first time, we went to sleep, sensing what life on the edge can be like. Now we understand what it is like to suffer horror, destruction and bloodshed to our nation’s body ... without warning, without notice, without purpose, and without reason.
America’s Meirke has been hit too, and as a result, the way Americans feel, and the way Americans talk, has been transformed.
Imagine the mental state that Americans would be in, if, there had been within one year, several thousand incidents, G-d forbid, like what happened at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon? I went to one of the Day Schools on Tuesday to see if I could help. Parents were rushing over to take their children out of class. We evacuated our building after the World Trade Center attacks, as if TBS of New Albany was next on the terrorist’s list. Imagine thousands of incidents within one year, and remaining calm and sane, civilized and democratic?
A week ago, you could hear good and wise Americans saying to Israel, don’t you think that you ought to negotiate with Arafat; but this week, you don’t hear anyone in America saying: don’t you think you ought to negotiate with Osama bin Laden?
A week ago, you could hear many good and reasonable Americans saying that Arafat should be considered a partner for peace; this week, you don’t hear anyone in America saying that, perhaps if we only engaged Osama bin Laden in some peace talks, then he would abandon his hatred of the West and of America and accept us as brothers.
Now we say, even as we fear the erosion of civil liberties, that we cannot dismiss terror anywhere in the world. Worse, we patronized the pirate and wonder why now he has turned on us!
As the terror comes home, how do we respond? With rage and anger; with calls for vengeance. In a survey conducted Wednesday, sixty percent of the American public called for retaliatory bombings on Afghanistan, even if innocent people were killed. With the shoe is on the other foot, headlines in newspapers that saying: “We must fight this war [on terrorism] without mercy.” That was Thursday’s headline in the Washington Post. Or: “We must destroy this network totally.” That was Thursday’s headline in the Chicago Sun. Or: “America must retaliate hard and fast.” That was Thursday’s headline in the New York Post.
[The chances? Tom Friedman wrote a column about the fact that a few cell-phone threats this summer from Osama Bin Laden had prompted President Bush to withdraw the F.B.I. from Yemen, a U.S. Marine contingent from Jordan and the U.S. Fifth Fleet from its home in the Persian Gulf. This U.S. retreat was noted all over the region, but did not merit a headline in any major U.S. paper.]
When it was Israel’s Meirke that was getting hit, there were always those around the world, who said: You people really ought to sit down and negotiate, or you really ought to allow a million Arab refugees to come back, because, as soon as you do, “they will be satisfied and there will be peace.”
But now, now that America’s Meirke has been hit, the world knows better. Now, at least, Americans see things differently. One of Marcie’s friends at the New York Police Tactical group wrote her this morning, “We lost fourteen police officers; the bear is coming out of its cave.” [What was the last opponent to be called “The Bear?” Yes, the USSR!]
Now we understand that, just as they danced and sang and celebrated in the streets of Ramalleh, and Nablus and Hebron, when Israelis were murdered the week before in Netanya and Nahariya, so also they danced and sang and celebrated in the streets of Ramalleh, and Nablus, and Hebron, when Americans were murdered in New York City and in Washington. In its September 11 edition, the Palestinian-Authority-controlled Gaza daily Al-Hayat al-Jadida called the suicide bombers “the salt of the earth, the engines of history... They are the most honorable [people] among us.”
Should we have been surprised? Didn’t the Egyptian press syndicate really have to give its highest honor a few weeks ago to Ahmed Ragab, who published a column in the official government newspaper, Al Akhbar, entitled, “Thank You, Hitler”?
Now that America finds itself in the Israeli situation, maybe now that it is America’s Meirke that has been hurt, maybe now people will understand. Israel gave back their security zone in south Lebanon this year. Then at Camp David they offered to give back 94% of the West Bank. Then Israel offered to give land in the Negev equal to the 6% of the West Bank that they wanted to hold on to. Indeed, as a percentage of its population, Israel has lost 1½ times the number of folks to terrorists attacks in the past year than were lost in NYC. And for this, they were met, not with a counter offer, but with terrorism. But that is what pirates do. They take and then return for more.
First, then, I think that Reb Schwadron was right, at least I hope so — that when it is your Meirke, you see things differently.
And now I want to raise a question, and the question is: Why? Why, of all the countries and all the cultures in the world, why have the forces of evil chosen to attack davke Israel and davke America?
Though others disagree, it would be a mistake to assume that the terrorism is a spillover from the troubles in the Middle East. Even if the Palestinian-Israeli quarrel were settled tomorrow, the war of the traditionalists against the modernizers — the war in which we as Americans find ourselves unwilling combatants — would go on. Osama’s first target as a big-time terrorist was as a freedom fighter for the Afghan rebels against the Russians, against foreign occupation. And do you know who gave this pirate political support? The United States of America.
The pirate’s next target was the United States when it was invited in to the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, when the US organized Desert Storm? The truck bomb attacks in the basement of WTC and then the bombing of the USS Cole resulted from Big Satan on Holy Islamic soil.
What happened this week is part of a global phenomenon, not limited to any single geographical area. Today it might be focused in Central Asia, tomorrow in Latin America or the Far East.
What is that the USA and Israel have in common that arouses so much hatred on the part of such dark forces in this world? What is it that these two nations, one which is the strongest in the world, and the other, one of the smallest in the world — what is it that these two nations have in common that arouses so much hatred against them both?
There are many common characteristics. But my guess is that there are two main reasons why these two countries, America and Israel, are so hated. One is because they share the same kind of accomplishments, and the other is because they share the same values.
Where did they strike in America? They struck at the Pentagon and at the World Trade Center, because these two places symbolize the military and the economic power of America, and they are envious of this power that resulted in these accomplishments.
And where did they strike in Israel? They struck at the corner of Yaffo and King George Streets, where the Sbarro pizza parlor is located, because that is the Times Square of Israel, and when you stand at that corner, you see Israel as “the mixed multitude,” in all its diversity glory: black and white Jews, secular and modern Jews, gay and straight Jews, Arab and Druze citizens of the State, clad traditionally or in the lastest fashion. There you see real freedom and diversity.
And the forces of darkness resent these two places of freedom and diversity, the World Trade Center, and this “Times Square,” because they do not have places like these. They are envious.
- They live in countries like Egypt, where 135 homosexuals were recently put on trial and sentenced to long prison terms for being homosexuals, this in the 2lst century?
- They live in countries like Saudi Arabia, where women are, by law, not permitted to drive cars, this in the 2lst century?
- They live in countries like the Sudan, where Christians are not legally allowed to own land, this in the 21st century
And their goal is to push those countries, and all the rest of the Moslem world, back into the fourteenth, or even seventh, century, if they can. They are angry and envious and resentful of these two great technological powers, America and Israel, that have become pace setters for the rest of the world, in science, in medicine, in cyber space, and in technology, in civil liberties.
And there is one thing more that they resent. They resent the values that make America great. And they resent that America shares with Israel — admittedly neither perfectly — the values of freedom, the values of faith in the infinite worth of every human being, the value of striving towards holiness — here, on this earth, and not just in the world to come.
They resent and envy America not only for its military power, but also for its moral character. And they resent and envy Israel, not only for its military power, but also for its moral character. For we are a civilized people, we Jews, even when we struggle against an enemy that does not fight fair.
- We do not bomb their pizzerias, as they do ours.
- We do not spray gunfire into their nursery schools, as they do into ours.
- We do not preach hatred of them in our schools, as they do in theirs.
- We do not teach our children that 70 beautiful maidens and eternal rewards await the suicide bomber who kills as many civilians as possible, as they teach their children.
We don’t do those things...BECAUSE we are Jews. And America does not do those things either. And so let it be clearly understood. The United States was not attacked because of any particular political policy that it upholds. The United States was attacked---because of the values we hold up!
- This was an attack against democracy and an open society, which America and Israel represent and stand for in the eyes of the world.
- This was an attack, not by Islam, but by Fundamentalist Moslems, who see themselves in the image of Salah-a-Din who drove the Crusaders out of the Middle East centuries ago.
- This was an attack by the kind of Fundamentalist Moslems, who, if they had not been stopped by Spain, in the fifteenth century, believe that they would have conquered all of Europe; who believe that, if they had not been stopped, in l948, and in l956, and in l967 and in l973 would have destroyed Israel.
- This was an attack on the United States because it is a beacon of hope and liberty, to the rest of the world, in spite of all of its imperfections. This was an attack on the United States because it is the defender of freedom all around the world,
- This was an attack on the United States, because it respects and gives equal rights and equal opportunities and equal dignity to the Jews and to the Christians and to the Moslems and to the Buddhists and to the Hindus who live in this land.
And Israel and the Jewish people do that too. You and I have a very great privilege. We have the privilege of belonging to NOT ONE, BUT TWO of the most civilized, peoples in the history of humanity. We have the double privilege of being both Jews ... and Americans.
Long after the names of Yassir Arafat and Osama Bin Laden and the rest of these martyrs and murderers will be forgotten, and long after their hateful words will have faded into oblivion, other names, and other words will still remain:
The words of the Bible and the words of the Bill of Rights,
the words of the Psalms and the words of the Gettysburg address,
the names of Abraham, our patriarch, and of Abraham Lincoln,
the names of Sarah, our matriarch, and of Susan B. Anthony,
the names of Maimonides and of Oliver Wendell Holmes,
the names of Golda Meir and of Eleanor Roosevelt,
the names of David Ben Gurion and of Harry S. Truman,
the names of Yitschak Rabin and of Martin Luther King.
These are the names that will be remembered a thousand years from now, when the names of the madmen and the murderers, that we heard this last week, will have been long forgotten. How fortunate we are to be the heirs of two such traditions, to be the proud possessors of two such noble heritages!
One thing more we need to know, and that is one of the sad functions of the Jewish people in this world. I come from Pennsylvania, historically a coal mining state. Now I had some classmates from coal country, and I remember one thing that they taught me. Do you know that coal miners used to go down into the mines with canaries? Can you tell me, why? Because canaries are very sensitive to gas fumes. They can recognize the fumes before human beings can. And so the coal miners used to take canaries down into the mines with them, as a kind of an early warning system: if the canaries began to choke, then they knew that it was time to get out of the mines and fast.
And so it is with the Jews. When the forces of evil in this world strike at the Jews, the wise among the nations take notice, because if they are not stopped then, after the Jews, they will go on to strike at others as well.
In Nazi Germany, we were attacked first, and nobody protested, and then the rest of the world was attacked. In Communist Russia, we were attacked first, and nobody protested, and then the rest of the world was attacked. We have now been attacked by Islamic Fundamentalists. World, take notice! Despite a warning at the World Trade Center eight years ago, in the starkest and the most tragic of ways, we now have had to take notice ... I hope.
America and Israel are allies, not just for strategic reasons, but because we are engaged together in living by values that arouse the envy and the hatred of the dark forces in the world. That is why, when lovers of peace and practitioners of justice like Muammar Khadafi and Yassir Arafat and Fidel Castro hijacked the conference against racism in Durban a few weeks ago, and turned it into an opportunity to poison the world with racist lies about Israel, it was America, and only America, that recognized that racism, and joined with Israel to pull out of the conference in protest.
And now the Jews have a little counsel from an Israel friend: “As always, we stand shoulder to shoulder and heart to heart with you. We grieve with you the enormous loss of life, and mourn with you the loss of tranquility. In your shock and despair, remember what Israelis have learned so well: while there are wounds that never heal, we cannot let those who hate and kill us conquer our minds or lives.”
If we are one in the sight of our enemies, so may we be one in each other’s eyes as well, now and always...now, in this terrible time when they are both being tested, and in all the years to come.
A rabbi in Brooklyn used to intone the same prayer at the beginning of each and every Rosh HaShanah: Te-tsei Shanah U-kla-lo-te-ha, Tavo Shanah U-vir-cho-te-ha. May the old year end with all of its calamities, and may the New Year begin with all of its blessings. And the Machzor adds: May this coming year be a year in which good people will have reason to rejoice, a year in which wickedness will be silenced and evil vanish like smoke; May G-d remove the dominion of arrogance from the world.
May G-d bless us as Americans, and may G-d bless us as a Jewish people wherever we live.
May G-d comfort all those who mourn in our country.
May G-d strengthen the hands and the hearts of those who heal.
May we find the knowledge that will bring us a realistic courage.
May we continue to walk by our godly ideals.
And may we be favored this day with more blessed tomorrows.
L’Shanah Tovah.