Why Do They Hate Us?

Why Do They Hate Us?

July 20th, 2024

Rabbi Gary S. Creditor

Rabbi Emeritus, Temple Beth-El, Richmond, Virginia

 

Several weeks ago our son-in-law, Arsen, took his seven year old daughter, our granddaughter Yaara to the place in Tel Aviv called “Hostage Square.” The pictures of all the hostages appear there. Every Saturday night after Shabbat a demonstration is held there for their release and return. Our granddaughter is a very sensitive and insightful girl. She turned to her father and asked: “Why do they hate us?” It broke Ruby and my hearts to see that picture and to read his caption. It took all my strength not to break forth in a torrent of tears. Yaara could not know that she had asked the question of the millennium:

         Why Pharaoh?

         Why Amalek?

         Why Assyria?

         Why Babylon?

         Why Haman?

         Why Rome?

         Why the Crusades?

         Why the Pogroms?

         Why the Church?

         Why Hitler?

         Why the Arabs?

         Why anti-semitism?

         And in today’s Torah portion, why Balak?

A question worthy of a symposium, a year-long course, I will attempt to frame responses to my granddaughter. I am not sure that I can write it simply enough for her to understand now. Yet with her unique intelligence, she will soon enough. Maybe even too soon.

 

My first answer: In total honesty, I don’t know. We have just wanted to be left alone, just like Bilaam said. We didn’t seek to conquer the world. We didn’t seek to convert the world. We haven’t tried to make everyone be like us. And nothing that we did provided an acceptable answer. We were conquered and they deported us. We were conquered and they destroyed our Temple and homeland. We became second class citizens and they further subjected us. We converted to both Islam and Christianity and they didn’t believe it. We became patriotic citizens of France and they declared “Death to the Jews.” We became loyal citizens of Poland and they handed us over to the Nazis. We became devoted citizens of Germany and they killed us. We created our homeland so we could live in one place and get out of their way, and they put the remnant of the Holocaust in DP camps and they threw us out of every Arab country. Raise our heads. Lower our heads. Contribute to society. Live in a ghetto. They still hated us. And I earnestly ask you to read the Forward article by Jay Michaelson, “Project 2025 would be the end of the American Jewish dream.” To my dearest granddaughter my first answer is: I just don’t know.  And as the author of Lamentations wrote: My inwards burn, my heart is turned within me (1:20)” They hate us in places where we don’t even exist.

 

My second answer: We have a unique message that goes against the grain of the rest of humanity. This is our manifesto:

Every person, man, woman, child, old, young, of any faith, of every ethnic origin, of every color is inherently holy.

Every person deserves to be respected.

Every person should be treated with lovingkindness.

Every one. Every one.

Bar none.

Us, too.

That is not the way the world has operated. Conquest, murder, rape, subjugation, sublimation has been rule. Empires created by megalomaniacs rise and fall, but the price is paid by the common woman and man and child. If everyone who was ever killed and murdered was properly buried this entire planet would be one big cemetery.

 

And along comes the Children of Israel, the Jews, and we proclaim loudly and consistently “No. A thousand times, a million, a billion times NO! This is not the answer they want to hear. They want to believe that Might makes Right. And we say “That’s wrong. Everyone is equally created in God’s image. Thou shalt not murder. Thou shalt not covet.´ And then the Jewish people create a country, Medinat Yisrael which, while not perfect, mixes Ashkenazim and Sefardim and Edot HaMizrach, and Teamanim (Yemenites) and Ethiopians, lily white and dark brown, ultra-religious and ultra secular, in one microscopic corner of the earth that controls little natural resources in the only imperfect but democratic country for thousands of miles. This grandest experiment in humanity, in love of person and love of the earth, they have tried to destroy because it does not fit their version of control, of domination, of authoritarianism.

Yet this time, this time,

We - lo amut ke echyeh - we will not die but live.

We will not concede but be resilient.

We will not yield, but will remain strong.

We will stay faithful, elevate our flag, raise our voice and forever proclaim the message of the Jewish people, the State of Israel, loudly and forcefully to the world.

Lo Amut ke echyeh – we will not perish, but live.

 

My third answer: We must believe, I have no other way to understand our history and that of the world, that we are here because God wants us to be here, because God needs us here, because He told Abraham “this is your mission,” because the prophets said “you are a light to the nations.” If ever there was a people that should have rolled over and died, it is us. If ever there was a religion that should have yielded to larger religions, it is Judaism. If ever there was a faith and its adherents who were threatened with extinction time after time it is us. No matter how I think about our personal human strength I can’t imagine that we would be capable of surviving three thousand and five hundred years without God. It just can’t be. From Abraham He called us, and today He still calls us to be the bearers of His message. And despite our loses at any time and in any place, the body of the Jewish people lives. And with God’s assistance and ultimate protection, will continue to do so to the end of time, or until humanity embraces our message. That would be the Messianic times, with or without a Messiah.

 

I don’t know how to explain this simply to a seven year old and I don’t know what Arsen said to Yaara. I will give them this sermon in hard copy so that one day she will know that her question provoked my tears and directed my hands to pound the keyboard and write this sermon.

I believe that we must stay the course. Despite everything.

I believe in the ultimate victory of the mission of the Jewish people.

I believe that our young boys and girls in the Diaspora must learn and embody these Jewish values that are propagated by the rituals of our faith and not just slogans to mouth. We are the living representation of these eternal truths.

I believe that our collegiate youth can and will be courageous. They need to embody the pride of being a Jew. Despite everything. Despite anything said or done.

I believe in the generations of Israeli youth, who like our granddaughters will someday wear the uniform, madim, of the IDF, the Israeli Defense Forces, to protect our people, our homeland, our heritage, our State. Despite everything.

 

Af Al Pe Chen – Even Though, Even though they have hated us, and for those who still do,  I believe in ourselves, our God, our purpose as Jews on earth,

Af Al Pe Chen – Despite it all, Am Yisrael, The People of Israel, Torat Yisrael, The Torah of Israel, Elhay Yisrael, The God of Israel, Chay Vikayam. We have lived. We will live. We will exist. We will grow. We will be proud. Our heads will be lifted high, May atah v’ad olam, from now and to all eternity.

As Helen Zimm, may her memory be for a blessing, used to end her Aliyah:

For ever and ever!

 

Shabbat Shalom.