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We must also account for what we haven't done
LOIS GOLDRICH
Special to Jewish News
More than 20 years ago, Eli Wiesel challenged the Jewish community to raise its voice in protest against the genocide then occurring in Pol Pot's Cambodia. Certainly, he said, we as a people must understand what it means to be victimized. Sadly, relatively few voices were raised.
In pointing out that the dimensions of tragedy and evil are universal, Wiesel was not stating anything new. What was new was his insistence that people who have themselves suffered are not thereby excused from acknowledging and protesting the suffering of others. Hillel put it another way: "If I am only for myself, what am I?"
Today, we must challenge ourselves to recognize and speak out against the horrors that continue to be perpetrated all over the world. If we need an "excuse" to dwell on such thoughts, then the introspection demanded of us during the High Holidays provides just such cover. Indeed, if we choose to gloss over these issues rather than to struggle with ourselves and our responsibility as moral human beings, we will effectively be wasting the time God set aside for us to confront our very nature.
Some kinds of suffering we cannot control: This summer, a tsunami devastated Papua, New Guinea, leaving in its wake tremendous devastation and loss of life. Other kinds of suffering we can work to alleviate yet often ignore. Let us make no mistake. Whether we choose to help or to stand by and do nothing, we are, in either case, making a decision.
By not working to ensure that adequate food supplies are targeted to areas of famine, we are ensuring that many lives will be lost or irretrievably damaged. By not working to make basic medical care available to those children whose families cannot afford it, we are ensuring that these children will be denied the chance to live a normal life. By not supporting agencies working to find cures for dreadful diseases, we are ensuring that many more people will die from the ravages of these illnesses.
While the horrors of war are amply documented - witness the increasingly popular genre of soul-searching films about Vietnam and the widely heralded "Saving Private Ryan" - they grow no less detestable by virtue of being more familiar. The nature of physical aggression continues to evolve in ways that must be challenged. We must speak out loudly against outrages such as the systematic gang rape of women and young female children in an effort to terrorize and humiliate captive populations; we must not allow Kosovo to become another Bosnia; and we must vigorously condemn those governments that support - or even tolerate - terrorists in their midst.
If Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur are meant to elevate our thoughts and cleanse our spirits, we can only do a full accounting if we take stock not only of what we have done but also of what we have failed to do. If we have spoken out against the second-class treatment accorded non-Orthodox Jews in the state of Israel, that is good. But if, at the same time, we have not spoken out on behalf of those - Orthodox and non-Orthodox - who lack the basic necessities of life, we will have much to explain to God as we beat our chests on Yom Kippur.
Lois Goldrich is the public affairs director of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism and editor of the United Synagogue Review.
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