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September 28, 2001/Tishri 11, 5762, Vol. 54, No. 3
L'chaim! We must go beyond pain and embrace lifeWILLIAM BERKWe will never forget Sept. 11. We will never forget the sight of those huge airplanes being flown into the twin towers of the World Trade Center. We will never forget the sinking feeling when we realized the Pentagon itself had been hit.We are numb. We are outraged beyond words. We feel uprooted. We have been saying over and over - how can this be? On this most holy of days, I want to share with you two teachings from our tradition that I believe speak to this crisis. The first teaching is that evil is real. Radical evil is real. There are many people who don't really believe that. There are traditions which counsel that evil is an illusion. Even our mystical tradition flirts with such thoughts. We know that evil is real. We were slaves in Egypt. We have the suffering carved in the marrow of our bones. We have the memories intact. Our tradition teaches something very simple about evil. It has to be confronted. Our Bible tells the story of the world's first terrorists, the Amalekites. When the Jews left Egypt they were attacked by the Amalekites. God tells the Jews they must stop them, and the first Jewish King, King Saul, is given the job. Saul, it turns out, has compassion for Amalek and doesn't finish the job. God forgives King Saul of every sin but one - failing to wipe out the evil of the Amalekites when he had the chance. Emanating from the Amalekites is none other than Haman. This is the Torah's way of saying, if you don't stop evil, it will stop you. Islamic fundamentalism is an evil, powerful force. The Talmud's conclusion of the Amalek/ King Saul story is this - if you show mercy in a place where you should have been tough, you will end up being vicious when you should have shown mercy. Radical evil cannot be appeased. The second teaching I want to share is really about faith. The deep question we all have is - what's happened to the world? Where is God? How do we react to this lunacy, the meaninglessness of this suffering? Our world has been stripped of clarity, of reason. How do we respond? It turns out that this is not the first time we have been faced with this question. The Torah tells us that there was no reason for our ancestors to be enslaved, brutalized, and murdered in Egypt. Their suffering was totally meaningless. Yet, when they got out of Egypt they made their way to a small mountain called Sinai. There they dreamed a dream of holiness. They promised to live as if there is a God. They transformed their suffering into compassion, commitment, and strength. At that crucial moment standing at Sinai they heard God say - kesoshim tihu, you shall be holy. The second teaching from our tradition is in response to ludicrous suffering: Make a commitment to life. The word that repeats itself more than any other on the High Holidays is l'chaim, for life. Despite the terror, despite the danger, despite how unfair life is, choose life! We express our yearning for the blessing of life. We celebrate life even though we know that the world is sometimes a terrible place. We respond to meaningless suffering by creating meaning and holiness. So what does it mean for us to respond to these events with holiness? For me it means that we must respond to great evil by an even greater goodness. Such goodness for me entails the commitment and strength to fight terror relentlessly, wherever it exists. It means creating a new brother and sisterhood of solidarity with all victims of terror. It means we reject privatism and allow more community into our lives, more social interaction with those whose ideas and customs are different than our own. Creating great goodness means there must be less hate. If violence and prejudice continue against Arab Americans we had better be the first in the picket lines to stop it. If we don't create great goodness to match great evil, then goodness itself is discredited. I would go so far as to say, if we don't create great goodness, then God is discredited. The creation of great goodness means ultimately that we find a way to get beyond this unspeakable, unbearable pain and embrace life fully, even learn to celebrate life again. The Dolphinarium on Tel Aviv's shoreline is one of the happening nightspots for Israeli young people. This is where this past June, 21 teenagers were murdered by a suicide bomber. Next to the Dolphinarium there now stands a simple, makeshift, cast iron memorial decked in wreaths which was put up by teenagers. The memorial reads, lo nafsik lirkode, we shall not stop dancing. We are a long way from dancing again in this country. But one day we must again be able to celebrate life. To get there from here, will take a Sinai moment. In this new year may we give each other the strength we will need so that we too can say, along with our teenagers, lo nafsik lirkode, we shall not stop dancing. We can't know how long it will take. We are still startled by a plane flying in the sky. We don't know the full meaning of the losses we have endured. Our wounded are still before us. But a day will come, when we show the human spirit to be what it is - enduring, sacred, planted by a mighty God, capable of any transformation required. Lo nafsik lirkode, we shall not stop dancing. William C. Berk is the senior rabbi at Temple Chai. This piece was excerpted from his Sept. 18 High Holiday sermon. We want to hear from you, our readers. This is the first of an ongoing effort to provide a forum for community representatives to express opinions about contemporary issues. So "speak up" in Voices, either by e-mail to editor@jewishaz.com or mailed submission to Editor Barry Cohen, 1625 E. Northern Ave. Suite 106, Phoenix, AZ 85020. |
