Hanukkah Message to the World - Save Darfur!

Hanukkah Message to the World - Save Darfur!

December 15th, 2006

Rabbi Gary S. Creditor




On October 3rd, 2005, erev Rosh HaShanah 5766 eliciting the support of our
congregation to protest the genocide occurring in Darfur, I had no illusions
about how events would unfold. Not because everyone listened to me or not.
Not because synagogues joined with churches and mosques, or not. In fact
Darfur fueled in me a bitter cynicism. In my lifetime I have seen world
silent and acquiescing to horrors: the invasion of Hungary in 1956; Nasser's
blockade and threat of invasion of Israel in 1967; the hideous dismemberment
of Yugoslavia and murder of so many civilians; previous episodes in Africa;
Chechnya, Serbia, and now, Darfur. From this short list, representative of a
much longer list, that while composing these words other incidents have
escaped me in a blur of history, I feel once again in the marrow of my bones
how the Shoah happened. No one cared. No one spoke out. No one did anything.
Everyone shut their eyes, shut their mouths, and went on with their lives.
And we died, similarly to the people in Darfur. So what if they use bullets
instead of gas and allow the sun to bake the bodies instead of ovens. The
Hebrew word shoah - holocaust describes our particular tragedy, because it
means burning. But we don't own the world genocide. That word describes the
attempted extermination of one group by another with its uniqueness
characteristics that make it expressly different than that of what happened
to European Jewry. That was a genocide best described as a holocaust. But no
matter what the language, genocide is the most despicable evil that only
humans can do each other on this earth.



Once again the world is focusing on Darfur. Thank God it did not go off the
radar screen entirely, even if the world has done next to nothing. While
written for use on the High Holy Days 2005, the following piece written by
my colleague, Rabbi Harold Schulweis, disseminated by the American World
Service, is most appropriate now, as we begin Hanukkah. It brings Jewish
values to bear in the global fight for human rights. Rabbi Schulweis' words
are more eloquent that any paraphrasing, so I now share with you the message
he composed.



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What have we to do with a people we do not know, in a land we have not
visited? What have we to do with people of another faith, another culture,
another civilization? Have we Jews not sufficient burdens of our own? Is the
struggle against anti-Semitism not enough for us? Are we so numerous that we
can take on the suffering of others not our kinsmen?



We Jews see with ancient eyes. We have seen the torture, the starvation, the
death by disease, the rapes, and the abandonment by the civilized world
before.



We Jews possess a terrible knowledge, an awesome wisdom we gained not out of
books, but out of our own bodies. A knowledge out of the testimony of
numbers seared into the skin of living human beings and the stench of burned
flesh.



We see with ancient eyes: We are eyewitnesses to the consequences of the
callousness of lethal silence. We offer testimony to the morbid symptoms of
apathy, the moral laryngitis that strangles the voice of protest.



We see with ancient eyes: Embassies shut down, visa denied, borders sealed
off, refugee ships returned to the ports that transported the persecuted
into the furnaces of hell. And we know what happens when churches are
complicit with the killers of the dream.



With ancient eyes we see Darfur with a shock of recognition. We experience a
collective deja vu even as we speak. More than two million frightened souls
fleeing homes in Darfur/400,000 helpless people murdered/the terror of the
Janjaweed, which in Arabic is derived from "jan"--which means "evil", and
"jawed"--which means "horsemen," soldiers on horses with swords, whips and
truncheons, beating down a people and trampling them.



We heard before the treacherous excuses, the lying alibis, the
rationalizations from church and state and international bodies.



We count six million alibis. They said: What can we do? We are too few, too
weak, too exhausted, the enemy too implacable. Do we not have a prior
responsibility to our own church, to our own parish, to our own congregants?
Are these reports really genocide or just propaganda?



We Jews remember what we expected sixty years ago. We prayed and hoped for a
cry/ a protest from out of the basilica, from out of the nave, from out of
the cathedral, some proclamation of a fast, some decision to march in
public, some demonstration on to the streets and marketplaces, some sob of
conscience that could pierce the hardness of the heart: Can we do less? Like
the Psalmist, we cry to God into the ears of man: "Rouse Yourself--why do
You sleep? Awaken--why do You hide Your face and ignore our affliction?"



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Leaving aside the story of the cruise of oil, Hanukkah celebrates how a
small group called Hasidim, not related to its current usage, changed the
course of Jewish and thus world history. They ignited the fight to preserve
Judaism, Torah and the faith in the God of Israel. If that had been
extinguished there would not have been the ground upon which to birth both
Christianity and Islam. The Hasidim were ultimately joined and superseded by
Mattathias and his sons who became known as Hasmoneans, the children of
Hashmon, a person lost in history. Yet the flame that burned in their hearts
elevated a people that were yielding to Hellenism and betraying their
ancestral faith. It recaptured their soul. And in the darkness of the Judean
winter night, liberated the Temple in Jerusalem. A small group can make a
huge difference. A small group can ultimately change human history.



It is that faith that surmounts my cynicism. When I see the lights of
Hanukkah I know what we can do. I know what humanity can do. Few can trump
the many. Goodness and trump evil. Justice and can trump wickedness. That is
the powerful message of Hanukkah.



Therefore I ask you to truly celebrate Hanukkah. Set aside the dreidel which
is a gambling ploy of the Middle Ages upon which Hebrew letters to signify
the miracle were imprinted. Instead make a real miracle. Join with me, us
the few, with others who were rekindled last weekend, in urging, prodding,
and goading our government - with all its distractions, and the United
Nations to intervene immediately to stop the murders and saving the remnants
of Darfur. At this time of giving gifts, let us give one less material
chatchtka, some electronic toy that will be in next week's garbage, and
donate to the American Jewish World Services, the singular instrument of the
Jewish people that is funding relief to these beleaguered and battered
people. That must be our Hanukkah observance, imbued with highest importance
and compelling our souls.



To that end, when we exchange greetings at the door of the synagogue at the
conclusion of services, I will hand you a two page print out from AJWS with
information about Darfur and how to help. After Shabbat, after you light
tomorrow night's menorah, please do something to help, as the pages will
indicate, besides opening another present. Maybe your efforts will be
presents to the people of Darfur.



What would have been the fate of the Jewish people if ministers and imams
around the world had gotten on their soap boxes and their parishioners and
devotees had heard such a message about our direst predicament and generated
for us relief and respite from our agony? Such a different world this would
have been! So many people would have lived! We cannot undo what was not done
for us.



We can do differently, here and now.



Many the Hanukah lights truly inspire us.

May great miracles happen.

May we be part of them.

Chag Hanukkah Sameach.



May it be a truly joyous Hanukkah.