Rabbi's Blog

I like short, quick answers, don’t you? It’s pretty obvious that our attention spans are pretty short. So, if you are wondering, “Why we are here this morning,” and, “What is the point of this holiest of days in the Jewish calendar,” let me offer you this short, quick answer: sins. Yep, I said it - sins, wrongdoings, places where we messed up, no no’s. In one way or another, that is what Yom Kippur is about. All of these prayers and pieces of music are supposed to help us think about where we have fallen short. Therefore, I think it is important for us to get a frame of reference or the extreme points on sin according to Jewish tradition. Let’s consider: What is the worst type of sin that we can do?

So when digging into this question, I did happen upon some of the biggies. For instance, did you know, if you gossip, you will contract leprosy. Also, according to Jewish tradition, if you are a teenager and you consistently rebel against your parents, the Torah tells us that you should be taken into the center of the town and stoned to death. And yet, there is one action that Jewish tradition has seen as being the worst sin throughout time. Thousands of years ago, the rabbis asked, “What did the people do that caused God to destroy the Temple in Jerusalem?” You see, the Temple in Jerusalem was not only this beautiful building, it represented the center of Judaism as well as a meeting place between Jews and God. Yet, God had it destroyed. The Talmud teaches us that the reason the Temple was destroyed was not because the people didn’t pray or study enough. The Temple was destroyed not because of a lack of tzedakah or acts of lovingkindness. No. The Temple was destroyed and therefore our direct connection to God was severed because of sinat chinam - uncontrolled hatred. Hatred. Hatred was the reason God destroyed the Temple. Hatred was the reason God decided to distance Godself from us. Hatred was and is considered the greatest sin.

And for thousands of years, we have been aware of this prohibition. And throughout modernity, we as a country and we as a Jewish people have set up laws to abolish slavery, to welcome the rights of women and people of color, and have stood arm in arm to fight for those rights. And yet, we wrongly think that we have controlled this cancer called hatred. Not only over the past year, but over the past years, we have been inundated, and dare I say even participated, directly or indirectly, in sinat chinam, uncontrolled hatred.

For us as Jews, we are familiar with hatred. Our problem was that too many of us mistakenly thought that anti-Semitism was under control and uncontrolled hatred was reserved for other groups. This is my first message today. We were wrong. Anti-Semitism, hatred of Israel, and basically the hatred of our culture are alive and well.

The crowd chanted over and over again, “Jews will not replace us! Jews will not replace us!” References to the 3rd Reich and Mein Kampf were mantras for the masses in Charlottesville. And we want to say that this was an isolated incident. But we would be wrong. We cannot bury our heads in the sand anymore and say that this hatred does not affect me or that this hatred is only reserved for certain parts of the country.

David Harris of the American Jewish Committee wrote a wonderful piece helping us understand the divergent sources of Anti-Semitism in this country. He tells us that sadly, we are all familiar with the anti-Semitism of Charlottesville. We all heard the chants and slogans. Their rhetoric pierced our Jewish souls. We classify them as the neo-Nazis in this country. We house these extremists in the far-far end of the right wing. But David Harris teaches us that we shouldn’t only look in one direction of the spectrum. There is another place we must look. It comes into focus when we send our children off to college. Many of our kids are hit in the face with the frightening reality that there is anti-Semitism at college. On the extreme left, the seeds have grown for a strong anti-Israel and anti-Jewish sentiment. They place their hatred against the Jewish state front and center. They call on their colleges and others to disinvest in Israel and even the Jewish people. They do all of this under the guise of helping the Palestinians, but underneath it all is deeply rooted anti-Semitism.

We cannot pretend that it does not exist anymore. Many of us grew up in a time when “feeling uncomfortable” meant putting our chais or Jewish stars underneath our shirts. Most of us lived a Jewish suburban lifestyle that welcomed and even might have embraced our Judaism. Today, it is different. Today, we must be connected to one another. This means talking and listening to other Jews in our neighborhoods, so that no one feels alone in the struggle. Today, we must stay informed with the help of Jewish organizations. While our Temple can provide some information, signing up with national and international Jewish organizations can be very helpful in keeping up-to-date on what is happening across the country in the world. Today, we must stand fast against this uncontrolled hatred.

It is in that spirit that I offer this statement. A similar one is being read by my fellow Reform colleagues around this nation on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. It begins, “The Talmud teaches, ‘If you see wrongdoing by a member of your household and you do not protest – you are held accountable.’ As Jews we are held accountable in ever-widening circles of responsibility to rebuke transgressors within our homes, in our country, in our world.

Today, I join hundreds of my Reform rabbinic colleagues across the nation in fulfillment of our sacred obligation. We will not be silent. We will, without hesitation, decry the moral abdication of our leaders and their followers when they spew words of hate. We the people, all the people, are created b’tzelem elohim, in the image of the Divine. All the people are worthy of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

But affecting the hatred in others, may not be enough. We have heard leaders utter: “They drag everything that is truly great into the gutter.” “They will not replace us.” “They overthrow all concepts of beauty and the sublime, the noble and the good.” “They do not respect us. And frankly they don’t respect a lot of the things that are happening.” (Repeat all)

These are clearly statements of hatred, statements of sinat chinam. And if you think all those statements were said by the President of the United States, you would be wrong. I specifically pulled statements not only from the right but also from the left, and even Hitler himself. And I replaced all of the subjects with “they” for a specific reason. Baseless uncontrolled hatred is all the same. You see, this is my second lesson today. Whether the hatred supports our side or the other’s side, hate is hate. That is why Jewish tradition disdains this act and that is why we must curb our actions or our enabling of such actions.

Most hateful speech throughout our history has focused on one particular concept: stereotyping. When we lump an entire group together based on the actions of a few individuals, we ignite the embers of hatred. Whether it is because of their gender, their skin color, or even their socio-economic background, when we group an entire mass of people together and start assuming their behaviors, we go down that road, that terrible road of hatred. Maybe, it is the simple grouping of certain kids at school or the certain individuals that we hire, once we see a behavior and assume it represents an entire group, we stereotype. When we do that, we enable sinat chinam, uncontrolled hatred.

So, what are we supposed to do? Well, our Jewish tradition gives us guidance. Our prayers read, “It is not the death of sinners I seek, but that you should turn from your ways.” Punish the sin not the sinner, the proverb teaches us. Our job is simple, call attention to the wrongdoing. Fight for justice. But that does not mean to group everyone together. Rather, we need to focus on the individual actions, plain and simple.

This past year, there have been horrific terrorist attacks in the world. These attacks were carried out by extremists wanting nothing more than to strike terror into people’s lives. I ask you for a moment to think about what a modern Muslim family must be thinking when they turn on the news to hear that it is someone who practices their faith, carries out a terrorist attack in the name of their faith. After one such terrorist event this past year, I received the following email from a Muslim friend:

“Our community is depressed and shocked by the latest radical extremist terrorist attack in London. … My 13 yr. old son turned down after asking, ‘Please tell me it wasn't crazy Muslim guys and just some lunatics?!' I said, ‘It was crazy lunatics... but they happened to be Muslims... but their beliefs are distorted and they don't represent you or I or any Muslim who has God in their heart. Sane people who truly understand Islam would never find that action remotely acceptable.’ We prayed for the innocent victims tonight.”

When I think of Muslims, I think about my friend and his family. I also think about my son’s good friends that go to school with him who are Muslim. And when I see terrorist attacks carried out by Muslims, or gang violence carried out by people of a certain ethnicity, or rallies conducted by individuals whose positions are completely different than mine, I try to challenge myself not to lump everyone together with those people. Rather, I try to take Dr. Martin Luther King’s words to heart, “to judge not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” It is the content that I deplore, not the individual. My words and my actions are against the statements, not the person who is stating them. That is the challenge I have for myself and for all of us on this Yom Kippur. I do not wish ill on anyone who differs from my opinions. (Of course, my desire is that they will see my way.) But if they do not, I respect them as individuals. And most importantly, I will not hate them in my heart.

We clearly have not learned the lesson that God wanted us to internalize thousands of years ago. We have failed God and we failed ourselves. The year 5777 has taught us that we, as humans, hate. Hatred was the cause of the Jewish people’s disconnection with God. It destroyed the second Temple. Hatred is also destroying us. There is the hatred that is embedded in anti-Semitism. This must be combated and confronted. We cannot keep our heads in the ground anymore. There is also the hatred that we might have or that we might enable. It begins with stereotyping and flows on from there. For us to even come close to a world of peace and tranquility, we must strive for peace in our own communication with others. To put it simply, “Do not hate another in your heart… Love thy neighbor as thyself.” Instead of perpetuating what we did in 5777, at the dawn of 5778, maybe we can promise to love and bring love to all those that we meet.

May it be God’s will. Amein