Would You Have Gone to the Roman Coliseum?

Would You Have Gone to the Roman Coliseum?
Rabbi Gary S Creditor
May 4, 2007

The inspiration for this sermon comes from Ruth Messinger, president of the American Jewish World Service who overpoweringly spoke to the Rabbinical Convention from which I have just returned. The text that I use for this teaching was taught to me by Rabbi Harold Schulweis in his speech by audio hookup from California delivered to the Rabbinical Assembly Convention in Boston, Wednesday, May 2nd, 2007. The passion I have for causes in my inheritance from my maternal grandmother Anna Liebhoff who was a soap box orator in Boro Park., Brooklyn, New York during the days of the Depression as she fought the evictors of people from their apartments.

I begin my remarks by citing the first half of a teaching in the Talmud found in tractate Avodah Zarah, which means idolatry, on page 18b. It clearly comes from the years after the destruction of the Second Temple in the year 70 C.E. It is equally clear that there was a substantial Jewish population in Rome that was intimately knowledgeable about the Roman world, with all its gory and terrible, terrifying elements. Here is the teaching:

Our Rabbis taught: Those who visit stadiums – the coliseums – or a camp (for gladiatorial contests) and witness there the performance of sorcerers and enchanters, or of clowns, mimics and buffoons – lo, this is "the seat of the scornful," and against those who visit them Scripture says, "Happy is the man that hath not walked in the counsel of the wicked…nor sat in the seat of the scornful, but his delight is in the law of the Lord." (Psalms 1: 1-2) From here you can infer that those things cause one to neglect the Torah.

If I was a Jew in Rome during the days of the Caesars, and if I followed this anonymous teaching of the Rabbis, I would have stayed clear of the coliseums in Rome and avoided seeing and hearing any of the carnage of human beings that were being murdered by man and beast. I would have stayed in my closed off community, maybe in the underground catacombs and said "Hear no evil, see no evil, know no evil." From the Talmud, at least in the first instance, this would seem like a legitimate position. Close my eyes and stuff my ears to the cries, screams and tortures, to the inhumanity to humans and beasts, to pagans and  Christians who were daily fed to the gladiators for the fun and frolic of the Roman empire. I should have kept my nose clean and out of anybody else's business.

I am most happy to tell you that that is not how the story ends.

Does everybody know what NIMBY stands for?

Not In My Back Yard.

I am sure that everybody has heard it sometime before.

The attitude is not different from the one in the first half of the Talmudic text. I know about it, but, to cite The Fiddler and the Czar "keep it far away from me."

It was this attitude that enabled the Holocaust to occur:

            Not only during the actual years of World War II from 1939 to 1945;

            Not only in the building of the concentration camps and the extermination camps;

            Not only in building the barracks and the train lines;

            Not only in the making and transporting of the gas;

            Not only from the Nuremburg Laws reducing Jews to outcasts and pariahs;

            Not only during the anti-Semitic attacks in and from every quarter;

            Not from the time Hitler was elected;

            But from the moment he published 'Mein Kampf'

                        Virtually no one said a word;

                                       No one raised a hand;

                                       No one marched in protest;

                                       As long as it was NIMBY.

And for this, six million Jews died, along with millions and millions of other civilians – virtually every single Jew was a civilian, besides the millions of soldiers from every side.

            1945 was too late!

            1939 was too late!

            1935 was too late!

For thousands of years the world was like the Roman Coliseum throwing humans to the lions and animals to the sword. And people laughed, and scorned and mocked from the rafters of the coliseums and arenas, and others were silent.

It is NOT a theological question of how did this all happen.

It is a HUMAN question, for me, no different that watching the Sunnis killing the Shia, and the Shia killing the Sunnis.

How do human beings do this?

How do men born of women do this to women?

How do men, fathers of daughters, do this?

How do women, married to men allow them to do this?

How do women, mothers of children allow their husbands to kill children?

How did the Romans watch this in the coliseum and then go home to their husbands and wives and their daughters and their sons?

To me it is incompressible.

The question of the Coliseum and of the Holocaust,

            While I might cry and shout to God and point my finger at Him,

            The real question is NOT about Him,

The real question is about US.     

It is about human beings.

I know the words, the grammar and the sentences.

I do not know, I do not fathom, I can't get my mind around

Neither the question, nor the answer.

Maybe I do. It is all contained the word DARFUR.

When I preached upon it erev Rosh HaShanah, October 3rd, 2005, I hope that things would improve, that so many voices, so many emails, would create so much pressure that the genocide would end. At least I could look at my grandchildren in the face and say that I was not silent. I didn't run away from the coliseum and hide. I didn't site the infamous slogan about not seeing, hearing and knowing about evil. I have seen the pictures. I have heard the testimony. I know of the evil. So, again citing Rabbi Harold Schulweis, I preached on Darfur. In truth, I should have preached on it every Shabbat. I surely wished that Christian ministers and priests and Moslem imams had preached about the killing of the Jews during the Holocaust. My God, what else was so important to talk about! In a sense I am just as guilty when I find other topics, no matter how relevant, for my Erev Shabbat sermons or Yom Shabbat talks. While we are here tonight, the genocide in Darfur continues. We sit in comfort and ease. We have eaten good dinners and anticipate a wonderful oneg Shabbat. Not in Darfur. LATEST INFORMATION SHOWS THAT SINCE MY SERMON OF 2OO5 IT HAS GOTTEN WORSE!!

I will assume that everyone here knows the basics about the genocide in Darfur.

But, here, in this case, knowledge without action IS A SIN.

If you walk out of here tonight and compliment the sermon and do nothing,

You have sinned.

If you walk downstairs and take a bite of something tasty and don't feel some pang of remorse,

You have sinned.

If you walk around the sanctuary door after the services so that you don't take the piece of paper with pertinent information,

You have sinned.

If you take the piece of paper and stuff it in your pocket or purse and forget about it until you wash it or bring it to the dry cleaner and then throw it out,

You have sinned.

AND GOD HELP US FOR THIS SIN.

You must petition, in writing and electronically.

You must financially support the organizations that are fighting the fight on our behalf.

You must financially support the organizations that are in Darfur.

You must write the president, the representatives, and the senators.

You must join the protests in their hours.

You must teach it to your children and to your grandchildren, to your neighbor and co-worker.

You must instigate their action in every way possible.

Think!

What would we have wanted the world to do if you and I were in the camps right now?

Could there have been anything more important than saving our lives?                

You and I know the answer to those questions.

So, the end of the Talmudic piece.

"Rabbi Nathan permits it – going to the coliseum – for two reasons: first, because by shouting, one may save [the victim], secondly, because one might be able to give evidence [of death] for the sake of the wife [of the victim] and so enable her to remarry."

When Rabbi Schulweis taught us this piece we were in utter astonishment. He explained that in the coliseum the crowd was asked to either give thumbs down for the death of the person or thumbs up to save them. So he explained that Rabbi Nathan wanted the Jews of Rome to go to the coliseum so that they could they could give testimony. They could say: With our own eyes, with our own ears, we have seen and we have heard. We do not lie. This is what happened. Further, Rabbi Nathan wanted the Jews of Rome to go to the coliseum so that they could pack the stands and give the thumbs up and save the lives of the poor wretches in the coliseums of the empire.

And he said to us:

That is our job.

That is our mitzvah.

That is the heavenly summons from which there is no escape.

Go to the websites indicated on this page.

See the pictures and learn the details so you can give testimony.

We are summoned to act.

 

We are commanded to give the 'thumbs up' to the men, women, children and babies of Darfur.

 

Dare we not shirk our responsibility.

         

Dare we not forget what happened to us.

 

May God have mercy.

 

May the genocide end.

 

May God save us all.                                 

 

Shabbat Shalom.