The Antithesis of Violence: “Walk Humbly With Your God” [Micah 6:8]

The Antithesis of Violence: “Walk Humbly With Your God” [Micah 6:8]

First Day Rosh HaShanah 5774 - 2013

Rabbi Gary S. Creditor

Richmond, Virginia

All faiths that believe in a supreme deity have the same core question:

What does God want from us?

From antiquity to this very moment, believers in a Divine Being want to know one thing:

How does God want us to live? How does God want us to die?

All and any other questions are subsumed under these two questions, how to live, how to die.  It is the central subject of these High Holy Days. Every faith provides a framework, assumptions, and core beliefs, in structuring their answers to these questions:

                        What is good?

                        What is bad?

                        Why be good?

                        Why not be bad?

                        What is the result of my being good?

                        What is the result of my being bad?

                        And, why do I suffer, even if I am good?

                                    And if that is the case, why be good at all?

Each faith, every religion answers these questions differently. That is why there are different religions. To have meaning, to have relevance in any and every age, for every and any person, the faith must answer these questions. Judaism, our faith, has answers to our questions. This is God’s gift to us.

While I really thought that my sermons last year were “the last,” thus their title, I am honored to speak once again from this pulpit, this one last season. Time and events since last Yamim Noraim have created my agenda for these sermons. The preface with which I began these remarks is appropriate for every one of my four major sermons. As I wrote at the end of the “Last Yizkor Sermon,” I write these words for you, my dear friends. Yet I write them to and for my children and grandchildren, to express these innermost thoughts and feelings learned and distilled through my life’s prism. My life has been infused with the teachings in our holy writings, refined through our long history. These sermons all address the one central question of a person of faith that I have been answering all my life: “What does God want from me?” “What does God want from us?”

Let me begin.

#1

When the Torah concludes the sixth day in the story of Creation, God, so to speak, looks at the cosmos – the macrocosm, looks at planet Earth, and at a human being – the microcosm, and pronounces: “V’hee-nay tov meod” – “Behold! It is very good.” What does “good” mean?

In studying Genesis it is clear to me that God is not referring to the scientific structure of this planet, but the condition of life for humanity. The Garden of Eden is presented to us as the pristine condition for human life, the ideal and idyllic circumstance. As God created Adam and Eve, there was no birth and there was also no death. It was beyond “peace.” It was integrated harmony between all that existed. There was no predator and no prey. While I might have found it difficult to eat in the Garden, humanity was to exist at a level beyond vegetarian, vegan! All that was necessary for food already grew. All they had to do was pluck it from the tree or pick it from the ground. There was divine balance; between human beings, between a human being and themselves; between human beings and the natural world; and, between them and God. All was “Shalom.” That is what God meant when He said that Earth and humanity were “Tov Me’od” – “Very Good.”

 And when God looked down he must have been thrilled to see that one key, crucial, vital element was necessarily missing from all of creation!

There wasn’t any violence!

And so God concludes the story of Creation by creating the day that captures the essence of all of creation, that mirrors this divine and human eternal perfection: Shabbat. Shabbat is the “reset” and “restore” button of our maddening world:

Shabbat puts us back the way we were supposed to be in the Garden: human. At peace.

That is the raison d’être for Shabbat. That is what its observance gives us.

#2

The Torah does not teach us about God: God learns about us. He was in for a rough lesson. Adam and Eve disobey. Worse, Cain kills Abel. And then, in the narrative about Noah, God must have faced us with total despair, for He has decided to erase us and start over just with Noah and his family. In Chapter 6:11 it provides the reason: “The earth became corrupt before God; the earth was filled with lawlessness.” In Hebrew the word is “Hamas,” (the same title of the terrorists in Gaza,) with extended meanings of corruption, falsehood, and bloodshed. The original translation is “Violence.”  God wants to wipe the Earth clean because humanity was wreaking violence upon one another. Bad and evil are equated with violence. By doing so, we had forfeited the right to live.

#3

Have things changed so much since Noah? I read and listen to a staccato drum beat of violence through the news media, through the advertisements for games, and movies, social media and the news items, be they big or small, front page, back page or sidebar. It is predominantly with guns and especially with illegal guns. There is no day that passes in our region without another event of violence caused by guns. I am horrified. But there is also violence through bullying, through elder abuse, spousal abuse, and sexual abuse. It seems that we live in the valleys between highly emotional and terrible episodes, Tucson – Columbine – Aurora - Va. Tech. – Newtown - Boston - almost ignoring the intermittent ones, and then experience a national catharsis when the next tragedy occurs. How many times must we live through this!?

But most of us don’t see violence and death. We live on nice streets, in beautiful homes. Most of us are gainfully employed and have good health coverage, for now. Our children or grandchildren play in ample back yards and go to wonderful schools. While there is some blurring of boundaries, the lines are still very clear.

But I see violence every time I read the newspaper, every time I see the ages of the dead and the wounded and the violated. Does it matter where we live, in the county, in the city, or in which part of either? Is my vision bifurcated because of the glasses I wear, or like my original spectacles, one vision lens, undifferentiated? Can I not, can we not care about all people, about all children of all faiths, of all ethnicities, of all races in every part of town, city and state, in our whole country? Do we not remember the God’s commandment that we recite every Seder - to remember the “Ger” which means “the other” because once we were them?

I ask:

Are we really safe behind closed and locked doors with our alarm systems? Who is really imprisoned – those inside or those outside?

Will our children be safe because there will be as many if not more guns inside of schools as outside?

Will we let them play outside without watching them, as I did?

Will we let them walk to school alone, as I did?

Are we comfortable when they go to the mall unattended, as I did?

On Rosh HaShanah, birthday of the world, I ask all of us:

            Is this the world we want?

            Can we truly live in such a world?

Not me. Not as a husband. Not as a father. Not as a grandfather. Not as a human being. This is not what God wants. This is not why God created us. This is not why God created this world. I sometimes feel for Noah, and I seek for his Ark.

#4

Now you may ask me:

“Why do you care? You are a 64 year old white Jew who lives in the Near West End. Why are you speaking about this, on Rosh HaShanah?”

And I answer:

Because it is Rosh HaShanah, the birthday of the world for all humanity, not just for the Jews. Our Judaism commands me to care about others, to care about my community besides caring about myself. As Hillel said so long ago: “If I care just for myself, what am I?” His question rings in my ears. The one core, central word of Judaism from which everything else in our religion is derived is “love.”  Not self concern. Love. Not money. Loving kindness. Not self-centeredness.

I care because in my 64 years I have wept for, among others, the murder of a President - JFK, of a Senator, RFK, of a prophetic voice – MLK, of our congregant Bonnie Marrow, forming my inner self while contemplating “body counts” in the war in Viet Nam.

I care because I had to learn that white is just another color, just like any other; that the multiplicity of differences of every blend of humanity makes for a more beautiful Garden in which to live and appreciate its fragrances.

So let me tell you what have done twice in my life. On two very cold January days this year and last, under the auspices of the Virginia Center for Public Safety, I laid down on the bare cold earth, as if I was dead, caused by gun violence. I looked up at the blue skies and white clouds, and imagined that I was looking up as if from my grave. And I felt colder and older than my years or the temperature. I invite you to join me this January. You will never feel the same.

#5

Rosh HaShanah beckons us to reflect, to rectify and to change. We must change our world.

                                                That is what God wants of us.

We cannot pray to God within these walls with an attitude of “hear no evil, see no evil” and do nothing.

Whether it is within ourselves,

         our homes,

         our hearts,

 Or whether it is on the public stage

        of the legislature

        or our schools,

        or our workplaces,   we must labor to diminish violence of every kind.

                        That is what God wants of us.

We must encourage laws and programs

       that reduce the number of illegal guns that is a plague upon our society,

       that teaches gun safety,

       that reduce their firepower to an absolute minimum for those who legally

own and carry guns,

       that using background checks keeps them away from those who should not

have them for a multitude of reasons.

That is what God wants of us.

We must create programs in schools religious and secular, that inculcates the value of each human being. Religion teaches to observe eternal truths, standards and principles.

                                                That is what God wants of us.

We must nurture the values of goodness, kindness, love, respect, honor and dignity in ourselves, in our children and grandchildren so that we create a just, loving and kind society that worries about everyone.

                                                That is what God wants of us.

What do we discuss at the dinner table, besides the daily schedule? Does the family regularly dine together and converse about substantive issues? Do spouses and partners open their hearts to each other so that harmony and tranquility can infuse our hearts and permeate our homes? Do you belong to organizations and give of your voice, your strength to persuade our representatives to pass laws that will improve and mend our world, reduce the violence and uplift the oppressed?

                                                That is what God wants of us.

Dayaynu. Enough.

#6

So let me close with two pieces, one a cute little but powerful story, and the last, words from a prophet. The story is anonymous, not Jewish in origin, yet circulated among my Rabbinic network four years ago and I saved it, maybe for just this moment. I would entitle it: Why Do I Care?

A mouse looked through the crack in the wall to see the farmer and his wife open a package. “What food might this contain?” the mouse wondered. He was devastated to discover it was a mousetrap.

Retreating to the farmyard, the mouse proclaimed the warning: “There is a mousetrap in the house!”

The chicken clucked and scratched, raised her head and said: “Mr. Mouse, I can tell this is a grave concern to you, but it is of no consequence to me. I cannot be bothered by it.”

The mouse turned to the pig and told him: “There is a mousetrap in the house!” The pig sympathized, but said: “I am so very sorry, Mr. Mouse, but there is nothing I can do about it but pray. Be assured you are in my prayers.”

The mouse turned to the cow and said: “There is a mousetrap in the house!” The cow said: “Wow, Mr. Mouse. I’m sorry for you, but it’s no skin off my nose.”

So, the mouse returned to the house, head down and dejected, to face the farmer’s mousetrap alone.

That very night a sound was heard throughout the house – like the sound of a mousetrap catching its prey.

The farmer’s wife rushed to see what was caught. In the darkness, she did not see it was a venomous snake whose tail the trap had caught. The snake bit the farmer’s wife.

The farmer rushed her to the hospital, and she returned home with a fever. Everyone knows you treat a fever with fresh chicken soup, so the farmer took his hatchet to the farmyard for the soup’s main ingredient.

But his wife’s sickness continued, so friends and neighbors came to sit with her around the clock. To feed them, the farmer butchered the pig.

The farmer’s wife did not get well; she died. So many people came to the funeral; the farmer had the cow slaughtered to provide enough meat for all of them to eat.

The mouse looked upon it all from his crack in the wall with great sadness.

And that is why I care. We are woven together, a vital thread in another person’s tapestry.

That is what God wants of us. To care and take care of each other. To take care of the world.

The words of our Prophet Micah, chapter six verse eight, resound for three thousand years with unabated demand:

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

And what the Lord – dorash meem-cha -requires of you:

Ke-                                                            only

Em Asot Mishpat –                                   to do justice

Ahavat Chesed-                                        to love goodness

Hatz-nay-ah lechet em Elohecha –         And to walk humbly with your God.

That is what God wants of us.

Let us answer His call.                                                Amen.