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.

Reflections May, 2013

Reflections

From The Heart

May, 2013

Rabbi Gary S. Creditor

 

In these days of transition, I reflect on my nearly forty years as a pulpit Rabbi, the avocation I chose in my youth, and think of the many aspects of my life and labors. I sincerely say that I am glad and proud that I became a Rabbi, though when I first told my parents of my desire I really had no idea of the journey that lay ahead. I have learned along the way what it means to me to be a Rabbi. I give thanks for the privilege of having served the families of my congregations, the Jewish people, and most of all, to serve God.

 

It is impossible to rank the importance of one section of my ministry over another. It is also impossible to separate my service to one congregation apart from the others. The years and experiences all combine into one extended mission. Yet I can delineate some of them and indicate how precious they have been to me.

 

Perhaps the most important part of being a pulpit Rabbi is that I have had the honor of serving the families of my congregations. There is much that is seen by others, officiating at the simchas of brit milah, simchat bat, bar/bat mitzvah, weddings and anniversaries. In honoring the dead I have served them and the living. Yet for each and every moment there have been many private hours where hearts have been opened and shared, hands held, hearts uplifted, tears dried and steps forward have been assisted. Many have sought my counsel for individual needs; all that has remained private. I learned to make place in my heart for each and every one of them. I tried my best to find the pieces of our Judaism to help guide our people through joys and sorrows, crises and celebrations. I have been their Rabbi and their friend. God has been our eternal companion.

 

When I thought of being a Rabbi, I always saw it inside the context of the synagogue. Yet I have had the golden opportunity to represent us and our faith to the greater community through interfaith work like our Thanksgiving service and the 9/11 observances. I have guest lectured for private Christian religious schools, hosting them in our sanctuary, served on the board of the Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy, and taught guest classes at the local universities. Invocations in the legislature, for country boards, societies and organizations, baccalaureates for high schools, have allowed me to present the messages of Judaism to wide constituencies. I have always held my head up high.

 

In my student pulpit I first experienced the joy of welcoming seekers into Judaism and into the Jewish people.  It has continued throughout the years. I had to learn how to reveal our faith, our practices, our history, in an honest, open and endearing manner. They gave me their trust, which was most sacred, as they charted a new spiritual path. For six years I knew every pothole on 64 between Richmond and Norfolk as we travelled there to use the Mikveh. In 2001 we opened our Mikveh Mai Chayyim, The Waters of Life. I never dreamt of building a Mikveh. It necessitated much study and expanded my horizons. Ultimately our Mikveh serves the entire central Virginia area for every Rabbi and community. My heart is filled with great joy to see the Mikveh used for more than just conversion, by brides and grooms, after traumatic times, for holiness. I am most blessed for the opportunity of this mitzvah.

 

I have learned tenfold in preparation for teaching, more than I ever learned before. Beginning the with Lehrhaus program, the never-ending Talmud class that never misses a digression and tangent to follow, the Torah class that never omits a question that can be asked, the three Adult Bar/Bat Mitzvah Programs here and the two that I did before, the Confirmation Classes where I tried to teach Judaism at a higher level, the creation of the Ba'alay Keriyah Society to bring adult and youth to read Torah, this has been the joy of joys, the high point of every week.

 

I only looked forward one year at a time. Looking backward forty years is overwhelming. I wouldn't have given this up for anything else in the world. I thank God for the woman who has stood behind me and more so beside me. Without Ruby I could never have followed this dream. I thank God for our children and the joy and nachas they give us daily, and the grandchildren who fill my heart. I thank God for the privilege of being a Rabbi. On the pulpit or off, it is what I shall ever be. I thank Temple Beth-El and the congregations of forty years for the privilege of serving them and their Rabbi.

“I Wish You Enough”

"I Wish You Enough"

From the Heart

June, 2013

Rabbi Gary S. Creditor

 

My Dear Congregation,

 

I really had a different message for this bulletin article. It was based on that which a colleague wrote to his congregation several decades ago which I came across and saved. It would have followed directly from last month's reflections. Yet, with the matter of my successor unsettled and my role in the coming months unclear, that message will wait to be written. Instead I offer you these heartfelt thoughts.

 

They are based on a piece that was shared among my colleagues. In it a mother and daughter are parting in an airport and after hugging and kissing, the mother says to her daughter: "I wish you enough." The daughter responded "I wish you enough, too." The author of this piece overheard this exchange and after the daughter departed, respectfully inquired of the mother to the strange language and asked "What does this mean?" The mother explained that this might have been the last time that they saw each other alive and they invoked an age old family tradition. She said: "When we said 'I wish you enough' we were wanting the other person to have a life filled with just enough good things to sustain them."

 

This piece moved me greatly, so at this juncture in our lives, not knowing exactly the path that lies before us, I say to each and every person "I wish you enough."

 

I wish you enough faith in God so that life will be meaningful and the journey will have purpose; that you will His love near you everyday.

 

I wish you enough years of health and happiness to make the journey of life fulfilling.

 

I wish you enough happiness to bring joy to your faces, no matter how many wrinkles.

 

I wish you enough smiles to counterbalance the tears that are sure to come.

 

I wish you enough friends so that there will always be a smiling face, open arms, a loving heart to accompany you through life.

 

I wish you enough celebrations so that love can felt between generations and between friends.

 

I wish you enough strength to face each challenge that life presents, so that each will be faced bravely and courageously.

 

I wish you enough of God's blessings, for all that you ask.

 

I wish you enough.

 

Shalom.

Rabbi Gary Creditor: "The Kotel: A Wall with a Human Heart"

"The Kotel: A Wall with a Human Heart"

May 3^rd, 2013 -- Rabbi Gary S. Creditor

"There are people with hearts of stone.

There are stones with the human of man."  

[Song:'HaKotel']

In June, 1967, after spending days in Hammarskjöld Plaza in New York City demonstrating on behalf of Israel during the Six Day War, little could we have anticipated that it would be six days and a victory of such a magnitude, we were all distraught that perhaps it would be catastrophe and so we were praying non-stop and reciting every Psalm in the book, my little six transistor AM radio blurted out the words: "HaKotel b'yadaynu, haKotel b'yadaynu!" "The Kotel is in our hands! The Kotel is in our hands!"  It will be forty-six years ago this coming Wednesday. For a place I had never been and only seen black and white photos of a few people, mostly old and in ancient garb, I cried copious, ceaseless tears. Brought up with the 1948 Armistice borders that left the Old City with the destroyed Jewish Quarter and the Kotel in Jordanian control, I never dreamt that Jews would again stand at the Kotel, never mind that I would touch its stones.

 

In the first days of September, 1968 I went to spend my third year of college studying at the Hebrew University on the Givat Ram campus and live and study in the Seminary Center in Jerusalem. The first Shabbat afternoon, sunny and warm, I walked the long distance from my dorm into the Old City, down the Street of the Chain, following a simple sign – "Kotel" – no security posts - turned right, turned left and in the distance was the Kotel, all ablaze in the afternoon sun. Few, if any, events in my entire life has equaled that moment. My heart nearly stopped. While the Kotel itself is only but two thousand years old, the place on the upper mount has been venerated as the center of the Jewish people for nearly three thousand. I felt all that history in a single moment. It was crushing. It was exhilarating. Everything that I had ever read in books moved before my eyes. Slowly, very slowly, I walked down to the Kotel. While there was a mechitza, it was simple. Most people were dressed in the typical Israeli style of white shirt, slacks and sandals. No one was yelling "Mincha". There were no siddurim strewn about. It wasn't a synagogue, a shul. It was just -- the Kotel. The picture of the young paratroopers who had liberated the Kotel barely a year earlier was alive on the faces of everyone around me. This place, this city, Ir David, home of the Temples, direction to which my synagogue faced, the word that was so frequent on my lips in prayer, the embodiment of our hopes and prayers, the aspiration of our people's dreams, the incarnation of all our long and often torturous history, was ours. I stood before it in rapt silence. With awe I traced the indentation on the stones and placed my head on my arm leaning against the Kotel and cried and prayed.

 

That year I would return often to the Kotel. In those days of my youth I came to the Kotel late at night and stayed up just to see the changing of the sky's colors from the deep darkness of night through all the colors as the sun would eventually rise over Har HaBayit, the Temple Mount and the shadows would move and then disappear from the Kotel. Sometimes at night groups of students from different yeshivot would dance and sing their way to the Kotel's courtyard and sweep everyone up with them in uncontrollable joy. And when they would leave, silence would embrace the area, except for the cooing of the birds as they flitted about.

 

Those are my sweet memories of the Kotel.

 

The intervening years from 1974 when Ruby and I returned to the States after a year of study in Israel, which included being their for the Yom Kippur war, until 2001, my next visit, much had changed at the Kotel. It became a vast Orthodox synagogue and while intended or not, it was very clear who was welcomed and who was not, even on the men's side of the mechitza. The Kotel, the women's gallery, its plaza and the area inside was ceded to ultra-Orthodox control. The State of Israel is not an orthodox entity. The orthodox are not the majority of the population. The Jewish world is not mostly orthodox. Neither are most of the Jews of the Diaspora when we come to visit Israel. Yet this heart of Judaism, this sacred place which was never a synagogue in its entire tortured history, which should not be seen as a tourist attraction but rather as the national hearth of the Jewish people, has been run as an orthodox shteibel. No expression of Judaism other than orthodox was permitted.

 

In the recent visits, the Kotel became the least place in Israel that I wanted to visit.

 

When our daughter, Rabbi Chaplain Yonina Creditor was studying in Israel and participated with the Women of the Wall, we saw the video of the men throwing chairs at them over the mechitza and cursing at them. If we wanted to organize a Bar Mitzvah at the Kotel we couldn't. If we wanted to organize a Bat Mitzvah at the Kotel, we certainly couldn't. All that the majority of Jews in the world do, could not be done at our Kotel. Those young Tzanchanim, paratroopers did not liberate it for the orthodox. They liberated for the entire Jewish people.

 

The celebration of Yom Yerushalayim – the day of Jerusalem's liberation and reunification in 1967 - this year will very different. I rejoiced in learning of the decision by Nathan Sharansky, especially appointed by the Prime Minister to solve this dilemma. His solution is to extend the Kotel Plaza to the right, southwards by dismantling the ramp to the mount which is not used and refurbish the area so that a much larger portion of the western wall of the Temple mount will be accessible for the rest of the Jewish people. I don't really care into which stone I insert my kvitle, my note. In this area we, the widest reaches of the Jewish people will be able to celebrate with our siddurim, with our girls and women wearing talitot, conducting our services with the dignity and honor they deserve. This is really a time for celebration.

 

Secondly, the Jerusalem court has ordered the police to cease and desist arresting women who wear talitot in the current women's section, on their side of the mechitza. The court ruled that so dressing was not considered disturbing the peace. This is the very first time that a court has issued any ruling supporting a pluralistic and tolerant approach to actions at the Kotel.

 

With a candidate for the position of Chief Ashkenazic Rabbi who is open and more receptive to the different pieces that make up the Jewish people, perhaps we have surmounted the divisiveness of religion in the State of Israel and have turned the corner leading to a path of better understanding and respect. Perhaps more of the general Israeli population will be able to view Judaism in a more attractive and endearing way. While the Messiah has not yet come to settle all disputes among the Jewish people, never mind the world, perhaps his coming is just a little closer.

 

Shabbat Shalom

 

Rabbi Gary S. Creditor

rabbigarycreditor.blogspot.com

 

Rabbi Gary Creditor: "I Have Several Questions" - Sermon for April 24, 2013

I Have Several Questions

Rabbi Gary S. Creditor

Richmond, Virginia

April 26^th, 2013

 

[This sermon is written in response to the actions or lack thereof in the United States Senate. It is delayed a week because of the tragic events in Boston and the priority of responding to those moments.]

 

I Have Several Questions:

1.

I would like to ask the NRA just one question: "What is your proposal to reduce gun violence in America?" I could ask them many questions, but this one is the most important. I don't need to search for statistics. I don't need to study the Second Amendment. I don't care who is a liberal and who is a strict constructionist.

 

But this I do know: that every day I open the Richmond Times-Dispatch, every single day, there is another report of violence with a gun.

It doesn't matter if some one is killed (oh yes it does!).

It doesn't matter if they are wounded (oh yes it does!).

It doesn't matter if children and elders are frightened out of their whits (oh yes it does!).

It doesn't matter if its part of a robbery, a spurned lover, or a broken marriage.

It doesn't matter in what part of the city its takes place (no it does not!).

It seems to me that every single day of every single month throughout the whole year, that some place in the tri-cities area of Richmond, Virginia there is violence perpetrated with a gun.

 

My personal reading of the newspaper every single day tells me not to believe anyone who says that the rate of gun violence has diminished. No it has not! Cumulatively, either in robberies, woundings, murders, terrorizing, or other acts of criminality, guns are increasingly wreaking havoc in our society, endlessly, ceaselessly and with impunity.

 

The NRA does not want to infringe on anyone's right to have guns.

The NRA does not want to infringe on anyone's rights to have guns that fire many rounds in very quick succession.

The NRA does not want to infringe on anyone's rights to have magazines for guns that will enable them to fire many rounds in the minimum of time.

So I have only one question for the NRA:

"What is your proposal to reduce gun violence in America?"

                                                                        "Do you really care?" Or maybe not?

"Don't tell me what you won't do! Tell me what you will do!"

                                                Is all we get is silence? All we get are more guns?

 

2.

I have a question for the Senators in the Congress of the United States:

"Do you read the daily paper?

Do you pay attention to the articles on gun violence on the streets of every single city, town, hamlet and village in this country?

Have you ever buried a person killed by a gun?" I have!

"Did you ever stare into their grave?" I have!

"If you were there, what were you thinking?

            Where you standing there calculating how many votes you would gain or lose?

            Where you considering your personal score with the NRA?

            Or did you just stop and think what this dead person could have done

                         with their life instead of being in their grave?"

I ask every single Senator, man or woman: "Are you a 'man' or a mouse?"

                         "What is more important to you – being re-elected or saving a life?" And not just one life, many, many lives! "Do you care?"

 

3.

I have another question for everyone who hears this sermon in our Sanctuary tonight or who reads it on the listserv or in any other electronic media:

"What have you done to help reduce gun violence in America?"

            Have you signed petitions to the President, Senators and Representatives?

                        If so, how many? How often? And if you have, don't stop now!

            Have you marched in the streets?

            Have you lain down on the ground as I did in Capitol Square as if I was dead?

                        Imagine lying down, in silence on the cold ground looking at the sky

                        through leafless branches, not moving and thinking that you are dead?

            Have you talked to your children about guns?

            Have you talked to your neighbor about guns?

Or have you pulled on blinders and said: "Hear no evil; see no evil; know no evil"?

 

But it is right outside our door! Gun violence is not a City of Richmond "problem." It is not an Henrico County "problem." It is not a Chesterfield, Hanover or Goochland Country "problem." It is everybody's problem. Every preacher from every pulpit can echo these words about their own locations.

            It knows no borders.

            It knows no age.

            It knows no gender.

            It knows no race, no ethnicity, no color.

Gun violence is an equal geographic, demographic monster.

            It kills Presidents, Senators, leaders, and the unknown.

            It destroys the rich and the poor.

It is, in truth, the Malach HaMavet, the Angel of Death. As different from the Pesach ditty of Chad Gadya, it is we, not God, who must conquer the Angel of Death.

 

In the Book of Leviticus, 19:16 we read in the Hebrew: "Lo ta'a'mod al dam ray-eh-cha, Ani Adonay." The last two words simply mean "I, YHVH – translated as 'Lord/God.' In the verse its purpose is to given the ultimate imprimatur of our God upon the first half of the sentence. There are many attempts to translate it:

            "Do not profit by the blood of your fellow."

            "Do not stand aside the blood of your fellow."

            "Do not stand by the blood of your fellow.

            "Do not rise up against the life of your fellow."

 

I prefer the simple literal translation: "Do not stand ON your neighbor's blood."

Whether we walk here or there, in public or in our backyard, in one part of the city or another, the very earth is stained, sullied, desecrated, violated by the blood shed anywhere.

 

Are we capable of literally – not figuratively - standing on, walking on the blood of others?

 

Who will answer my questions?

 

Shabbat Shalom