Rabbi Harold M. Schulweis Sermons

October 12, 2000

by Harold M. Schulweis

We are an old-new people. When our people were held in Egyptian bondage, they were told to smear blood on the lintel of their door posts, so that the Angel of death could recognize that here was a Jewish residence and would pass over their homes without harming them. The sages asked, "Does the Angel of death not know without such external signs where Jews live and where Egyptians live?" And they answered, "Once the Angel of destruction is released it does not distinguish between the righteous and the wicked."

This is the curse of violence. Once released, whatever its causes, the Angel of death does not discriminate between the guilty and the innocent, between old and young, between soldiers and civilians. This chaos of violence reinforces the urgency for calm and disciplined statesmanship to return to the negotiating table for peace. I know that peace has become a "dirty word.” Who can speak of peace in the presence of lethal rocks and the kidnapping, mutilation and lynching of Israeli soldiers and citizens? The external challenge is daunting.

But for us the challenge is internal. For there are those who wink and whisper "What did you expect? We told you that there would be no peace. We told you that your visions are fantasies and your dreams desperate wishes. We told you that there is no peace and that there will be no peace. And negotiations for peace are bound to fail."

I fear that taunting cynicism, I fear the ingestion of that toxic pessimism whose acids paralyze the will and deaden the dreams.

We are an old-new people. We are not strangers to threats, wars, catastrophes. For centuries we have struggled to break the chains of the "melancholy wheel" that grinds our hope to dust and ashes. We have fought against the cynical mind-set that declares that what will be has already occurred and what was will happen again and again. "Nothing new" is the voice of despair. We must lift the heavy stone of fatalism that weighs down upon the human heart, the erosive pessimism that sneers, "There will always be enmity. There will always be hatred, battles, wars, violence. That is our lot, our destiny." That anger, that sadness, that disillusionment mocks our faith and weakens our moral spine.

But for what did we pray this last week during the ten days of repentance? What lies at the heart and soul of prayer if not our belief in the power of tshuvah, that we can change, we can affect history, that our fate is not in the stars, that we are not condemned to eternal repetition. We are not chained to some blind pre-destination, to some cursed determinism. We have been given freedom of will; we are given the blessing and the curse, life and death, we must with wisdom choose life over death and peace over war. What over the centuries has kept us alive is the depth of our resolution not to capitulate to pessimism nor to surrender to cynicism. Not to affirm in our lives that we are shutafim lakodosh baruch hu, allies of God in the mending of the torn fabric of the human condition. Rabbi Nachum of Bratzlav, when crisis besieged his community, called out to his people "Yidden - zeit nisht miyaaish"  – Jews do not despair. It is forbidden to capitulate to despondence.

We must reject the killers of the dream. Of course, it is easier to wage war than to wage peace. It is easier to throw lethal rocks than to lay a foundation of understanding, to hide hatred behind the skirts of children!

Our history and our prophets have taught us the greater heroism. Our sages have taught us who is the hero. The one who can turn an enemy into a friend. We Jews are pledged to a "double mandate,” a dual duty to gird our loins and carry in one hand a rifle and in the other hand an olive branch. That is how Israel was born – in crisis with one hand holding a gun to defend ourselves and the other hand on the plough to till the stubborn soil.

Above all, we must not allow the smoke of burned tires and the anger of mobs to eclipse the rising of the sun.

We are in a new era, a new year, a new century. And we cannot and must not turn back to the future. We are charged with the moral vision of Yitzchak Rabin who, following his election to the Knesset in 1992, spoke these words, "No longer are we necessarily a people that swells alone and no longer is it true that the whole world is against us. We must overcome the sense of isolation that has held us in its thrall for almost half a century; we must join the international movement toward peace, reconciliation and cooperation that is spreading over the entire globe  – lest we be the last to remain all alone in the station."

This is the twenty-first century and we have learned many lessons from the last tragic century. I call upon leaders of the Church and Mosque, the ministers, priests, imams to raise their voices and strengthen the movement toward peace. Silence is the betrayal that plays into the hands of Cassandra.

And we Jews? This is the time for Jews in the Diaspora to go beyond our rile of spectators, voyeurs, occasional tourists, cheerleaders on the side who come alive only with the sound of explosives and the sight of the blood of innocents. We need more than crisis rallies! We cannot live as “9-1-1” Jews, to meet only in emergency. I call upon Federations, synagogues, temples, centers, organizations with political, economic, moral experts to help us understand the revolutionary challenge of our times, the transforming of a people no longer vanquished, persecuted and victimized, but proud people destined to co-exist with another people.

We must seize even this sad, unique opportunity, our enemies and our allies. For never has there been a Prime Minister of Israel more magnanimous, more flexible, more imaginative and generous in his dealings with the Palestinians than Ehud Barak, who spoke only of hope. And never has Israel had a more deeply concerned and committed friend than the President of the United States, Bill Clinton. And never has there been a more important time for Jewish solidarity than this moment. Put aside the polarization that ruptures our course. This is the time for internal concord to turn toward resolution. This is the time to listen to the counsel of the prophet Isaiah (9:9): "Bricks are fallen but we will build with human stones; sycamores are cut down but we will put cedars in their place." To live with our dreams is indispensable for life. He who lives one week without a dream is not good.

In our tradition we light the candles of the Sabbath and the festivals in the evening after the sun has set. In the biblical story of creation, the darkness was before the face of the deep and God said "Let there be light." Out of the darkness and the void, a universe was created. Out of the darkness of violence, we light a candle of hope. May that symbol of its warmth and illumination bless the earth with peace. Let us rise and join arms and sing together the prayer for peace that concludes our daily worship. "Osey shalom bimromov hu ya’aseh shalom aleynu v’al kol Yisrael  – God who gives peace in the heavens, bring peace upon all Israel and upon all the children of God."

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