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| HOPE FROM THE HOLOCAUST READING I In the land of Israel, we rediscover our roots where the call of God challenged those who exercised power to act on the most primal truths of religious understanding. Grappling with history and existence in the world is characteristic of the people of the Old Testament. That struggle came to be camouflaged by the rabbis after Bar Kochba [revolt of 132 C.E.] and by the Jewish experience in the Middle Ages. The Holocaust and the return to Israel again exposes the primal confrontation between God's call and the world. We awaken in ourselves a religious quest. We discover new understandings, different ways of viewing God, humanity, and Israel. We also find that we continue using the old vocabulary and struggle with the arguments about meaning that have been at the centre of Jewish existence for millennia. Torah is not an end for us; it does not have answers for all time. Instead it keeps alive in us sensitivities to the resources of our past. Torah represents one of the few ways we have of assuring that we weigh sacred values against secular values, a task necessary in these new and dangerous times. We will not look to the past for laws, for absolute guidance. Our circumstances and theology are now conditioned by new events and understandings. However, we can be sustained by the rituals and the vocabulary that the tradition offers us for self renewal. Engaging in open-ended argument regarding what we must do, we will work within the bounds of our traditions; we will be bounded by the values of survival and otherness, of the knowledge of evil and the will to do good, of the needs of the self and the need to reach out to the other. We will go out to create a new life, one that will reveal through its existence the divine calling. As much as the return to Israel is an expression of a new Jewish story, it is equally an expression of continuity, of a determination to continue Jewish life as a witnessing, as a message aimed equally at the inner life of Jews and all humanity. In an unredeemed world, our task is to be a blessing to ourselves and to others. Once this people was called to witness, to give its message to humanity and now yet again the are called. This new calling has within it, for all its innovation, a deep connectedness with that earlier call. Again, our task is the quest for holiness amidst a violent and tragic world. We have travelled far, only to continue walking on the way. [Feld, Edward, THE SPIRIT OF RENEWAL(Woodstock, Vermont: Jewish Lights Publishing) 1994, p. 166-167, ed.] READING II The murdering started in earnest on the evening of November 9, 1938, when, on the orders of the German government, the worst pogrom to that time was carried out. Kristallnacht - It has henceforth been called "crystal night" because of the broken glass from Jewish homes and businesses littering the streets in every city, town and village in Germany and Austria. It was organized to terrorize the Jews. Countless synagogues, Jewish stores and homes were plundered. Men, women, and children were wrenched from their homes, beaten, shot, or dragged off to concentration camps; in all, scores were killed, hundreds injured, and thousands arrested. The tragic events of Kristallnacht moved Canada's prime minister. "The sorrows which the Jews have to bear at this time," he wrote in his diary, "are almost beyond comprehension . . . Something will have to be done by our country." On the following day King shared in Jewish grief as he attended the funeral of Mrs. Heaps, wife of the Jewish member of Parliament. He was again overwhelmed by the tragedy about to envelop the Jews in Europe. He noted in his diary that it would be "difficult politically" and his cabinet might oppose him, but he was going to fight for the admission of some Jewish refugees because it was "right and just..." On November 14, 1938, at an emergency meeting, the executive council of the Canadian Jewish Congress proclaimed Sunday, November 20th, a day of mourning, during which memorial meetings would be held across the country. With only five days to prepare, the Congress achieved dramatic results. Across Canada, from Glace Bay, N.S., to Victoria, B.C., mass meetings were held. Resolutions were passed pleading with the government to open its heart. Telegrams and letters poured into the office of the prime minister and members of Parliament. The Globe and Mail reported, "the brotherhood of man was asserting itself." King appealed to the cabinet. They would have none of it! On Nov. 24th, King again met with cabinet and once more asked them to adopt a "liberal attitude," to act as the "conscience of the nation," even though it might not be "politically most expedient, and to offer some aid." Again there was no response; the cabinet feared "the political consequences of any help to the Jews." On May 15th, that spring, 907 desperate Jews set sail from Hamburg on a luxury liner, the St. Louis, a trip later called the "Voyage of the Damned." They had been stripped of their possessions, hounded first out of their homes and businesses and now their country. These passengers had once contributed much to their native land; they were distinguished, educated, cultured; many had been well off but all were now penniless. There most prized possession was the entrance visa to Cuba each carried on board. The Jews on the St. Louis considered themselves lucky to be leaving. When they reached Havana on May 30, their luck ran out. The Cuban government refused to recognize their entrance visas. Not one of these men, women, or children was allowed to disembark, even after they threatened mass suicide. The search for a haven began in earnest. Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Panama were approached, in vain, by various Jewish organizations. Within two days all of Latin America had rejected entreaties to allow the Jews to land. On June 2nd, the St. Louis was forced to leave Havana harbour. The last hopes were the United States and Canada. The U.S. did not even bother replying to an appeal. It sent a gunboat to shadow the ship as it made its way north. The American Coast Guard was to make certain that the St. Louis stayed far enough off shore so that it could not be run aground nor any of its frantic passengers attempt to swim ashore. King consulted several cabinet members. They were "emphatically opposed" to giving any help. Others felt that Canada had done enough for the Jews. The line was drawn. The voyagers' last flickering hope extinguished by Canadians, the Jews of the St. Louis headed back to Europe, where they died in the gas chambers and crematoria of the Third Reich. [Abella & Troper, NONE IS TOO MANY(Toronto: Lester & Orpen Dennys Ltd.) 1986, p. 38-66, ed.] SERMON Can you imagine what it was like for Jews in 1947 when the U.N. partitioned Palestine and created the state of Israel? It was prophecy fulfilled. After thousands of years in exile, they were given another chance to witness powerfully in history to a God of possibility and transformation. Out of despair the world had forged hope. Imagine what went through the minds of the Israelites in 1948 as they found out about the Dead Sea Scrolls. The ancient documents spoke of the restoration of the temple and lands of Israel. What providence! The land restored, the prophecy restated . . . the flames of strident belief in the destiny of a chosen people were fanned. This is religion - meaning making at its height. This was a holy moment in a violent and tragic world. Dr. Victor Frankl, a Jew, author of the book Man's Search for Meaning, was imprisoned by the Nazis in World War II. His wife, his children, and his parents were all killed in the holocaust. The Gestapo made him strip naked. As they cut away his wedding band, Frankl said to himself, "You can take away my wife, you can take away my children, you can strip me of my clothes and my freedom, but there is one thing no person can ever take away from me - and that is my freedom to choose how I will react to what happens to me!" Even under the most difficult of circumstances, meaning is a choice which transforms our tragedies into triumphs. Meaning making is a religious act. Frankl held onto his most basic religious self - the meaning maker. What possible meaning structures could be built around the holocaust to make it a source of hope for the Jewish people? It was a horrible event. In the past only the Jewish religion had been attacked. The holocaust was not an attempt to rid the world of Judaism, but of Jews themselves. How can an attack on your very being be anything but evil? From the violence and tragedy of Holocaust how can there come holiness? Let us take a look at how meaning structures were created from Jewish history. In the end, we will have to ask what the Jewish story can mean for us; is any of it relevant for our lives? Following the partition of Palestine in 1947/8, Jews moving to Israel were encouraged to forget the Holocaust and get on with building homes and businesses, developing a political tradition, creating educational and health services, a sound economy, and a strong army. Encouragement to forget did not heal the feelings. Some strange twists of thinking occurred. The anger of some blamed those who went silently into the gas chambers for their passivity, calling them "sheep" and referring to them as "soap," slang for the cremated. Soap, you see, was made from their ashes. After the war, worldwide response was restrained amongst Jews because they feared new waves of anti-Semitism. Many sought meaning from their history. The quest for personal meaning took specific routes. For the most part, there were two responses: people either grew to distrust God or they distrusted humanity. Lets look at these responses, spending more time on the varieties of responses involving God . . . "How could God do such a thing?" Some of the answers to this question were so repugnant that it was better to abandon the old God and seek a post-holocaust theology with a new god. After all, if Yahweh would permit this to happen, he must be terribly evil! No helpful meaning structures here! More often bitterness was the response to seething angers about the triumph of evil. No holiness amidst violence and tragedy here! The Holocaust made it impossible to avoid the relationship between God and evil. Perhaps God had mysterious ways that we simply do not understand, or maybe there is no God. Neither response sparked hope. No holiness amidst violence and tragedy! As is often the case in Judaism, it is history which sparks meaning. We see in the Old Testament that Ancient Israel wore a cape of blame in the face of disasters, "We have sinned. Our cities have been destroyed. We were exiled from our land because we did not keep our covenant with Yahweh." Before Israel, conquered people of ancient lands simply melted into the new culture, abandoning their own. Led into exile and slavery, they realized the weakness of their own Gods and cast them off. The culture of the defeated died. In contrast, the Israelites interpreted their defeat as proof of the power of their own God. When the Roman legions destroyed the temple, they acted as agents of Yahweh. No matter what happened the Israelite could not get away from his/her God. The prophets had warned them that the land and God's protection were theirs only so long as they kept the covenant. When they dishonoured the covenant, punishment was also God's work. Some ultra-0rthodox Jews explained the holocaust this way. For most the argument offered little meaning. It did not restore hope. It was like the Rabbi saying that a child had been killed because the parents had a defective mezuzah or Deuteronomy prayer scroll on the door post of their house. Cruel punishments do not breed hope or holiness. Such thinking makes God a difficult character for many people today. Many Jews have argued that no sin can justify genocide and the loss of over one million children. Some turned to the medieval mysticism of Jewish Cabalists. When faced with the expulsion of Jews from Spain during the inquisition, they described a hester panim, a hiding of God's face in history. It was not a hiding behind something but a tsimtsum, a voluntary contraction which would be followed by hitpashtut, God's embracing or expansion. So there was an ebb and a flood of God's power. Ebb times allowed people to make decisions free of the interventions of a God. This was the only way for human beings to mature. The deeper mystics believed that during the contraction or hiding, the divine vessel was shattered, some pieces falling back to God and others falling to earth. They brought the possibility for divine action. By following the commandments, the Mitzvah, one could reap the benefits of these shards fallen to earth and bring about tikkun, healing and restoration. Such healing would invite God back into the world and the expansion would take place. A more kindly, spiritually and ethically sensitive world grows. This is a rather clear framework for understanding good and evil. It was attractive to many. A key to the attractiveness of mysticism is found in the belief that when God hides, it is not the responsibility of any person or group of people. Rather it reflects the cumulative choices of human beings as a total group, Jew and Gentile alike. The Cabalist would argue that each of us has a stake in making God's presence more obvious. This happens by creating the proper conditions for us to see the face of God in every other person we meet. But . . . our choices often help us hide from each other. The Cabalist believes it is precisely because a parenting God sees our potential and our dignity as an embodiment of the divine that he/she will not intervene in struggles with evil. To grow we need to be free of divine intervention and have the ability to make our own choices. There is an old Talmudic story which speak of human beings coming of age: Rabbi Eliezer was in a dispute with other sages about a point of law. Said Rabbi Eliezer, "If I am right, let the walls of this building incline." The walls inclined. The sages were not impressed. Said Rabbi Eliezer, "If I am right, let the heavens darken." The heavens darkened. The sages did not budge. Finally, Rabbi Eliezer said, "Let a voice come from heaven." A voice came from heaven and said, "The law is according to Eliezer." And the sages said, "No, the law has been given to human beings to interpret, and it shall be according to the majority of sages. So Eliezer's position is not the law." On that day, the Midrash continues, God said, "My children have transcended me." Yahweh rejoiced in children who had declared their independence. So, when God turns away and we make decisions, some will be good and some not so good, some will be terrible. Paralleling this story then, the holocaust was the result, not of God's punishment for sins as the ultra-Orthodox believed, but the result of myriad human decisions which ultimately set us against each other - myriad decisions turning our human faces from each other, decisions imbedded in patterns from the past. The idea of our own turning away is key here. It parallels the idea of the hidden face of God we spoke of earlier. Kabalists believe that our turning away prevents us from seeing the human being that is before us. We do not even acknowledge another person as a human being. Turning away happened when tribal chiefs and kings in Africa sold Black men, women, and children whom they had captured in battle to white traders for guns. It happened when the white traders sold the Africans as slaves in the new world. It happens when the U.S. steadfastly refuses to admit what happens to the people of Cuba and Iraq as a result of an embargo. It happened to the Chinese immigrants to Canada who built our railroads. It happened to the Japanese interred during World War II. It happened again to Innu moved to far northern settlements. And you tell me . . . is it happening today? Are the Innu of Labrador treated as human beings by those who make decisions about using the air space over their ancestral lands for low level training flights? Do those pilots see the face of God in the Innu? Do the military and political bureaucrats see human beings there? And it happens to both the French and the English in Canada. No matter what happens in the vote next week, there will be great troubles if French and English Canada are still not able to see God in each other's face. Why do people not treat other people as real human beings, love them like brothers and sisters who share in a great pilgrimage? The Cabalist leads us to ethical questions about our world. Some Jews responded to the Holocaust by thinking that God cared but lacked the power to intervene, or had constructed the world so as to make it impossible to intervene. In this framework, God can only impart wisdom and truth. God is a force in the universe that makes it possible to transform what is into what ought to be. Under such a design, we are the ones who are allowed to overcome the pains and distortions of the world. There is energy which will help us know which transformation is necessary now. That energy empowers us with the courage to move in the right direction. It is much like phototropism in a plant. Give the plant some light and it turns to face the sun to gather as much of the life giving light as possible. How do we turn toward the energies of wisdom and transformation when what God stands for has shriveled so much, is so hidden, that we have little more than words recited from our past to remind us of who God is and what God can be at its best in human life? There is a tale about an ancient sage who said, "I used to know the whole ritual. I could go to the hallowed ground, do the ritual, and speak the ancient words. But as I got very old I forgot where the hallowed ground was so then I did the ritual and spoke the ancient words. And then as I got very much older I forgot the ritual and could only speak to the listening God with my own words, and that is enough. If we simply let the powers or the past remind us of what is possible then something wonderful can happen. How important it has been for many Jews simply to practise its historic holidays, faithfully, from Passover to Purim, Sukkot to Chanukkah, to Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashonah. These holidays always lead into the discovery of the transformative powers behind creation and in history. We have talked a lot about God. Our culture mitigates the turning toward and receiving treasures from the Gods and Goddesses. It is simply too mystical in a reason driven world. We are forced by our culture to abandon God even as we say the prayers, holding on by a thread, having forgotten the hallowed ground and even the ancient words themselves. Jewish theologians have prophesied, "to the extent that we continue to forget and abandon the ancient sensitivities in the way we relate to each other and the physical world, the physical world will not work - there will be an ecological disaster, a catastrophe! In the words of the Torah, we will perish." How do we avoid this disaster and bring a moment of holiness into our lives? By being aware of the dangers. Each of us develops within a long series of choices, ours and others, parents, siblings, extended families, neighbours, friends, teachers . . . in this way we both find our freedom and build the psychological chains which bind our hearts and blind minds. (Which one of us has not longed, at one moment, for the spontaneity, creativity, playfulness, openness, and curiosity of childhood?) There are moments when we decide out of the fears, angers, frustrations, humiliations and shames of the past. (Take the last election in Ontario as an example.) Yet marvellously we also decide out of hope and holiness, often as we use our collective energies to figure out how to best bring tikkun - healing and restoration. And here, my friends, we find a key to hope. For it is in this last view, beyond the mysticism, more grounded in our psychology, that we realize that God is no more or less than the possibility of transformation. It is Tillich's Courage To Be. It is Wieman's Creative Interchange. That is the real readiness to which we are called. And here we easily join the people who blamed humanity for the Holocaust. Some said it represented the death of Enlightenment Man. Rabbi Edward Feld of the Society for the Advancement of Judaism, a starship congregation in reconstructionist Judaism, writes in The Spirit of Renewal: After the holocaust, all optimistic liberalism evaporates. Any simple trust in the basic and inevitable goodness is forfeited, and your faith in the long-range victory of a general and progressive melioration is dispelled. We know the depth of humanity's capacity for evil. We are different because of the Holocaust, terribly different. But holocaust only refutes the shallowest forms of liberalism. It is possible to draw a more complex version of liberal optimism that accepts the human capacity to transcend the evil of the world without committing to the notion that those capacities will be actualized at every historical moment. It is a liberalism with a spiritual/psychological base. There are moments of holiness. It is precisely at these times, when a spark of new meaning is formed, when one comes closer to creating fundamentally new ways of being, that older and increasingly self destructive behaviours sometimes emerge with greater force than ever! It is often helpful for individuals to go through this moment with a therapist or spiritual guide who can interpret the re-emergence of the past patterns as an indication that the client is making a last ditch effort to hold onto the past, not as a sign of the inevitability that that side of the client's personality will always triumph. In the presence of this reassurance, the client may be able to summon the strength and courage to persist in developing new ways of behaving despite the evidence that change seems so unlikely. Too often as individuals and in society we settle for more modest change than is really called for and than we know is needed. We undermine change with the tendency to hold on to the past. The comfort of a fur lined rut. In the struggle to transform the world, there will be many moments of reversion/regression in which the imbedded patterns of the past will reassert themselves. The good news is - we can overcome them and move on with hope. How does the change happen? Prophets 2000 years ago said it came through baptism. It does not happen this easily. Seldom does lightening strike and bring transformation. There are only a few examples like that of Saul on the Road to Tarsus. For most of us, us it is the harder, diligent exercise of reason which teaches us to distinguish between potentially destructive and potentially liberating responses to the world. Through reason we feel our way through our need to see an end to the world's suffering. It is strange that both sides, those who look to God for an answer and those who look to humanity for an answer, have come nearly together speaking of liberating responses to the world, transforming moments. Both seek the liberating path over the destructive path. One finds the answer in a force (or a God) and the other in what is found through reason. (Note: Salvation does not come through reason, but through that which is found through reason.) In the end both sides come to the ethical realization that neither wants this to happen again, NEVER AGAIN. NEVER AGAIN. Since, in both cases, it is angers and fears, shame, humiliation, and frustration which can lead people to anti-Semitic and homophobic fears, leads people to a xenophobic reaction in life, the central question is an ethical one: How do we address unmet needs of people that, unless addressed, lead them down destructive paths open to anti-Semitism and other prejudices. How do we encourage holiness in a painfully violent and tragic world? For Jews it is always through openness to wisdom - through God or through reasoned searching. Wisdom will lead to transformation. For Jews, so long the oppressed, there is always a faith of transformation, for always the oppressed will seek to change the world. It is in the interest of the Jewish person to be open to and part of the struggle to change the world and eliminate all forms of oppression. Application of the wisdom to worldly situations creates a people of ethical ways. While many answers come through individual commitments, it is only through community responses that we change the world. Long gone are the days when the world is changed by individuals. Today it is changed by communities. And so the holiness will be found when individuals and communities support each other - it is a necessary dynamic. Is there any relevance for us in all of this? For me the answer is a simple and resounding "YES." It goes back to that sentence, "God is the possibility of transformation." What a definition! If we remember that all those who seek God are looking for transformation, and all who have faith in reason seek transformation, we can all walk the same path. But as we get closer to change, we must remember that the past will reassert itself and we need each other's help at these times. We need to share our courage, to remind each of other of what is possible, not what has been, to speak of the hallowed spaces, to remind us that once upon a time others were able to find the path to a new being. The openness required may frighten us. There is never an end to vulnerability, ours alone and that of communities. Therefore it is important to have a strong faith and to be part of vibrant and sustaining communities which help define who we are. We need to learn to express not only our rage about the holocaust in Jewish life, but also the injustices in our own lives. In so far as we swallow our indignation we generate shame and self loathing which only ties us to the dark side of life, and makes of us silent witnesses to the violence and tragedy of life instead of purveyors of holiness. And we must not relive horrors but find the roots of holiness and hope which can come from them and make holidays of them to remind us each year of the values we must uphold to avoid such tragedy in the future. And we must finally have faith in our view of life and the values by which we want to live. If we are to avoid another holocaust, and there is no guarantee that we will, then we must make a serious decision that genocidal acts, racism, other hurtful prejudices, and national chauvanisms will set our antennae on end and cause us to speak out automatically against them in solidarity with their victims. Above all, whether through ritual, faith, or reasoned search the goal has to be . . . to methodically let go of any portion of the past which binds us to the violence of anger and fear. They are the greatest blocks to the development of new being. And . . . we must hold fast to those portions of the past which are good. If we let the past go, entirely, we never have the tools to meet the challenges of the present . . . Our task is the quest for holiness in a violent and tragic world. A story: At the university there was a piano teacher who was simply and affectionately known as "Herman." One night at a university concert, a distinguished piano player suddenly became ill while performing an extremely difficult piece. No sooner had the artist retired from the stage when Herman rose from his seat in the audience, walked on stage, sat down at the piano and with great mastery completed the performance. Later that evening, at a party, one of the students asked Herman how he was able to perform such a demanding piece so beautifully without notice and with no rehearsal. He replied, "In 1939, when I was a budding young concert pianist, I was arrested and placed in a Nazi concentration camp. Putting it mildly, the future looked bleak. But I knew that in order to keep the flicker of hope alive that I might someday play again, I needed to practice every day. I began by fingering a piece from my repertoire on a bare board bed late one night. The next night I added a second piece and soon I was running through my entire repertoire. I did this every night for five years. It so happens that the piece I played tonight at the concert hall was part of that repertoire. That constant practice is what kept my hope alive. Everyday I renewed my hope that I would one day be able to play my music again on a real piano and in freedom. [Hewett, p. 293] What is your ritual? What will give you hope in your darkest hour? For the Jew there are many possible answers as we have seen this morning, all leading to the idea of change and hope. What is your ritual? What will give you hope in your darkest hour? A vignette: Sweeping across Germany at the end of World War II, Allied forces searched farms and houses looking for snipers. At one abandoned house, almost a heap of rubble, searchers with flashlights found their way to the basement. There on a crumbling wall, a victim of the Holocaust had scratched a Star of David . . . and beneath it in rough lettering, the message: I believe in the sun - even when it does not shine. I believe in love - even when it is not shown. I believe in God - even when he does not speak. Throughout all the answers this morning there rings one theme - faith. It has saved the Jewish people for thousands of years. My friends, what do you believe in, so fervently, so basically, that it would stand for you in your darkest hour? What is holy in your life? The ultra-Orthodox Jews had it. The Reconstructionist Jews had it. The Cabalists had it. Both those who blamed God and those who blamed humanity had it. Those who believed in punishment and those who believed in transformation had it. Faith . . . What is your faith, my friends, and what will carry you through your darkest hour? AFTERWORD Not many of us have to face a holocaust. Our dark hours are less dramatic on the world stage: After my first wife and I had separated she remarried and moved to Maine with the children. It was a few months before I got to see my son and daughter again though we had regular contact through the mail and on the phone. It was a wonderful visit. We walked the beaches, went to L.L. Bean and the bookstore, toured their school, and ate pasta in Brunswick. I had fresh mussels on my pasta. Then it was time to drop them at home and for me to begin the long drive back to Philadelphia. In their driveway we hugged, long, and said, "I love you." Then the moment arrived. I got in the car and drove away, honking my horn and waving till out of sight, and, my friends, I wept for the next half hour as so many fathers do when they leave their children. This was a dark hour, my friends, saved in the end by the knowledge of the glowing love of two children. And so it was not the brokenness and the loneliness, but the love . . . and this is what I mean my friends, what saves you in your darkest hours? |
What to expect on Sundays
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