Who are We? What are We?

Who are We? What are We?

January 20^th, 2012

Rabbi Gary S. Creditor

 

In response to my sermon last Friday, Erev Shabbat, entitled "Bonnie's Law," I received an email from one of our congregants informing me of a rally held last Monday at the Capitol, sponsored by the Virginia Council for Public Safety. It is a small, long standing, dedicated voice for gun control in our Commonwealth. After articulating my feelings last Shabbat, Ruby and I felt the necessity to attend and be counted. It was regretful that this was not known sooner and wider so that more people could have attended, something that I will work to emend. The man who leads the organization took this on because his son was shot at Virginia Tech, and while surviving, thank God, the event changed both their lives.

 

He said publicly and to Ruby and me privately afterwards: "You think that if you lead a clean life, no guns, no alcohol, no drugs, live in a good neighborhood and go to a good school, nothing like this will happen to you. And then one day…" He is a very good, dedicated man, who is knocking his head against the wall. We joined him.

 

At the ceremony, people were invited to write the names of those killed by guns on hearts and put them in baskets. Ruby and I each wrote Robby and Bonnie's names on hearts and put them, heartbrokenly, into the basket. It is still surrealistic that all this has and continues to happen.

 

Then we went to visit our representatives in the General Assembly. It was disheartening. I met another wall. I indicated the litany of numbers needed to observe a myriad of laws in the Commonwealth of Virginia required to own and operate a car – the paste on tag on the license plate, the license plate, registration, inspection sticker, property tax, insurance policy – and we are breaking the law if we violate any one of these requirements, and they can arrest, fine and/or revoke our license, suspend registration. And a car, while it can kill, is not intended for that purpose and usually not used that way. And yet it is so easy, because of the lack of laws or because of the loopholes in the laws to illegally obtain and own a gun; and despite having a number on its barrel, so many of these guns of so many calibers are illegally in the hands of individuals and criminals resulting in so many deaths that nary a day goes by without the reporting of such tragedies. When I recited this litany the response was: "A car is not protected by the second amendment." While not allowing this to go unchallenged, it basically ended the conversation. Did he not see my point? Why didn't he get it?  Do they think that the writers of the Constitution specifically put in a self-destruct clause that protected/enabled people to take up guns to overthrow the very government that they were just establishing? How many dead does it take? Someone special? Someone personal? Someone rich? We will need to keep knocking our heads against the wall; even for a long time.

 

A second congregant wrote me in response to the sermon and reflected on my remarks about when we used to "put up our dukes" and now that we just shoot them dead, and about my list of heroes and how they were portrayed as not killing the opponents and the righteous use of guns. He globalized my thoughts about society and I would like to share a few feelings developed from much reading and personal observations.

 

We live in a world that is violent, that espouses violence, that glorifies violence and rewards violence. It is on the television, the computer games, the movies, the magazines, and the sports field. It is aided and abetted by the enhanced electronic techniques that enable the presentation of explosions and destructions of every nature, from buildings to objects, to people. I cringe when the movie theatre runs the promotions of other movies because I am trapped and can't get out and have to witness the most vicious, violent and malevolent acts, accompanied by the staccato drumbeat of ear-shattering music. And while my Atari computer had programs for science, math, it also had programs for basketball and football, but without the senseless violence. Where is "Pong" when I need it? What sells at the football game? The brutal collisions of beast-like men, the violent sacking of the quarterback, the ripping of the ball from the carrier, and then the manic dancing over the fallen opponent! Is there anything human about locking two men in a cage until one beats the other one to near death? I am almost ready to thank God that FIOS will fill the empty time with golf and tennis! Is there anything left to blow up? Is there anyone left to shoot? Is there anyone that hasn't been hated, hunted, and hounded left on the face of the earth? Any arm not shot with drugs, any liver not saturated with alcohol, that the media has not yet glorified, and the actors and players not walk away with titanic sums of money? Fire them all!!

 

            Is this the society we want?

            Is this the world we want to live in?

            Is this why God put us on this earth?

 

I want to elect an official, local in Richmond, state in the Legislature, regional to the Senate and House of Representatives and to the Presidency who will enunciate a vision of society that will be just and honest, that will struggle with all presentations so to reduce the vision and thus the reality of violence in this country. All the candidates parading before us are parodies of leadership. We need real, brave and courageous leadership at every level. It is more than "jobs." It is more than "the economy." It is about us! Our nature! Our essence! Violence occurs everywhere, and our society propagates it.

 

We need to reshape the nature of society itself, to recreate the vision of what we are supposed to be, how we are supposed to live, how we are supposed to talk to each other, at work, in school, in our homes.  Our faith provides many answers; provides much guidance and direction. From just one source: Micah the prophet (6:8):

 

"He has told you, O man, what is good,

And what the Lord requires of you:

Only to do justice

And to love goodness,

And to walk modestly with your God."

 

And (4:3-4)

"However distant:

And they shall beat their swords into plowshares

And their spears into pruning hooks.

Nation shall not take up

Sword against nation;

They shall never again know war.

But every man shall sit

Under his grapevine or fig tree

With no one to disturb him.

For it was the Lord of Hosts who spoke."

 

Borrowed from the man murdered by the gun, "I have a dream."

 

Shabbat Shalom.

 

Rabbi Gary S. Creditor

Temple Beth-El

3330 Grove Avenue

Richmond, VA 23221

Phone 804-355-3564

Fax 804-257-7152

www.bethelrichmond.org