Shalom World,
I wonder if I could have just a moment of your time? I know, life is so busy, but if you would only listen, for just a little while, perhaps you would begin to understand.
In our busy lives, it's so much easier to leave our opinions and prejudices safely tucked and boxed away. We express them repeatedly, through words and action, but they remain forever unchallenged, cemented in self-righteous stone. Perhaps, if we allow our hearts to connect one human being to another, then we will be able to loosen the strings that bind these weighty boxes and enable their contents to shift and to change.
To be a human being is so wondrous and yet so infinitely hard. You and I, we are similar in so many ways. I live and laugh, I struggle and cry, just as you do. We both feel the warmth of love, the heady rush of life, and the aching pain of loss and death. We both desire to do our best in the short time we have on Earth, to leave this world uplifted for our having been here for one fleeting moment in time. From the outside, it is impossible to tell us apart. There is only one thing which distinguishes us one from the other.
You see, I am Jewish and you are the World.
Because you are the World, you cannot understand what it means to be a Jew. To be mercilessly hated and ruthlessly hunted throughout the millennia. You cannot understand what it means for community after community to be murdered and massacred, raped and tortured, maimed and beaten, crushed and torn to a shredded, bleeding pulp. To be relentlessly pursued, expelled over and over again, spewed like poison filth, from this country and the next. To flee endlessly, to wander restlessly, forever wary, from this place to that. To have no land, no protection, no rights, no freedom, no safety, no future, no rest.
You cannot understand what it means to have your identity so forged with persecution that fear clings to you wherever you go. To be constantly vigilant, careful not to talk too loudly or dress too noticeably. To hide your beliefs, and disguise your observances and places of worship. To ask ceaselessly, fretfully: when? and what if ? Tomorrow, will I still have my job? Will I still have my home and my family? Will I still have my life, if they find out that I am a Jew?
What have we done to deserve such a searing, burning hatred? What did we do to deserve the crusades and pogroms that flowed as freely as our blood through Europe and Russia throughout the centuries?
Did you really believe that we baked the blood of Christian children into our matzah on Pesach? Us? A nation whose dietary laws forbid consuming even the smallest speck of blood? Do you really believe that we lie and we cheat? Us? A nation who has entire volumes of law devoted to ethical business dealings? Do you really believe that we are evil? Us? A nation whose very self definition is the pursuit of truth, of conscience, of morality, of justice, of kindness, of charity, of peace. In fact, because we believe that every human being is created in the image of G-d, we aspire to no less than instilling within ourselves the qualities of G-dliness itself.
Constant in-depth study of our holy Torah and the keeping of its laws is the backbone of Judaism. This ethic of a love of and thirst for knowledge has given to the world "men like Einstein, Marx, Freud, Wittgenstein and Schonberg. Without the Jewish contribution to physics, medicine, psychology, philosophy, law, business, music, literature, theatre, film and the visual arts, Western society would be immeasurably poorer."(1) But the greatness of these contributions meant nothing when we were shoveled into the ovens of the merciless Nazis. The only importance of these towering personalities lay in the fact that they were born Jewish and, as such, must be eliminated.
What did we do to deserve being gassed and shot, hanged and starved to death, our bodies piled in mountainous heaps of bone and skin, a ghastly monument to baseless hatred? Our six million innocent men and women, children and infants, young and old, strong and weak - all - were ruthlessly mowed down like a field of weeds, eliminated from the face of the earth. Do you realise that six million is more than the entire Jewish population of Israel today?
Do you know that the Jewish people comprise less than one half of one percent of the world's population? But still you perceive us as mankind's most dangerous threat. How did this happen? Where were you, World, when we cried for help? We needed you, but you did not come.
Our bones have been ground to dust and strewn across Europe and Russia. Our blood is sunk deep into the earth. Our tears have drenched the forests, the hills and the plains and still, they pour unceasingly from our eyes. The sound of our cries pierces the stillness and echoes through the valleys. Don't you hear them? Calling unceasingly, "When will it end?" When will it be enough, World? When will your appetite for Jewish blood be sated?
In 1948, in a brief moment of compassion or guilt, you consented to give us a very small strip of land to call our own. A land promised to us by G-d Himself. And so, with our hearts torn to bitter shreds, still reeling from loss and screaming with pain, we began at last to build a place that we could call home. A place where we could feel safe and free. A place where we could plan for tomorrow. A place where we could raise our children in peace, and teach them with pride about our laws and traditions.
With the help of G-d, we have transformed a barren desert into a blooming garden - and now you want to take this tiny haven of safety away from us. How can it be, World, that you have forgotten so quickly? Do you want to throw us back to the mercy of the wild animals and vicious dogs? You don't like a Jew who has an army and a way to defend himself. Haven't we learned your lesson yet? Why don't we just lie down and die?
You will always find a way to disguise your hatred for us behind some cause or another, and you will always find a way to label us as the perpetrators of evil. Even when our mothers, our fathers, our children, our babies are blown to a million bloody shreds, splattered over the sidewalks in countless savage attacks, even then, World, you see us as the aggressor. Even when our families are ripped apart, our children orphaned and our parents left bereft, even then, you see us as the evil ones. Even when our lives are destroyed, when we are maimed, blinded, paralysed and killed, even then, World, to you, it is all our fault and we have no right to defend ourselves.
To you, World, it has always been this way. Jewish lives are less valuable, our blood is less red and our tears are less bitter. Don't you see, World? In preserving our land, we are preserving our very link to life. It is our only protection against you, World - a world which seeks our destruction - and that is the very reason you wish to take it from us.
Hitler, may his name be forever obliterated, announced openly to the world his reasons for instituting his 'Final Solution' for ridding the world of the curse of the Jew. "Jews" he explained, "have inflicted two wounds on the world, circumcision on the body and conscience on the soul. I have come to free mankind from its shackles."(2) In the destruction of our bodies, he sought the destruction of our souls. The destruction of the pursuit of conscience and morality, which is the essence of the Jew, our very reason for living, without which we would rather choose death. We bothered Hitler. We reminded him of the Master of the Universe, to whom we are all accountable, and rather than face this truth, he chose to eliminate us from the face of the earth. This generation of Jews is testimony to his failure, and to the failure of the hundreds who came before him, all of whom attempted "to free mankind from its shackles" of "conscience on the soul."
And so, World, your ancient belief that we have a plot to 'take over the world' is, in a sense, true. Yes, we will never abandon our commitment to living by the ideals given to us by G-d in our holy Torah. We will not rest until peace, justice, morality, kindness, charity and conscience are universal attributes of all mankind. We will not give up until evil is banished and the truth is so translucent, so transparent, so undeniably real, that all of mankind will unite in joyous worship of the one, true G-d.
And so, World, I ask you, please, try to loosen the strings that bind those weighty boxes of hatred and prejudice, and enable their contents to shift and to change. Let us work together to identify the true sources of evil that threaten our beautiful world. And with the help of G-d, may we achieve peace, speedily, in our days.
Notes:
1) Douglas Villiers, Foreword, Next Year In Jerusalem (New York: Viking Press, 1976)
2) Hermann Rauschning, The Voice Of Destruction (New York: Puttnam, 1940)
I wonder if I could have just a moment of your time? I know, life is so busy, but if you would only listen, for just a little while, perhaps you would begin to understand.
In our busy lives, it's so much easier to leave our opinions and prejudices safely tucked and boxed away. We express them repeatedly, through words and action, but they remain forever unchallenged, cemented in self-righteous stone. Perhaps, if we allow our hearts to connect one human being to another, then we will be able to loosen the strings that bind these weighty boxes and enable their contents to shift and to change.
To be a human being is so wondrous and yet so infinitely hard. You and I, we are similar in so many ways. I live and laugh, I struggle and cry, just as you do. We both feel the warmth of love, the heady rush of life, and the aching pain of loss and death. We both desire to do our best in the short time we have on Earth, to leave this world uplifted for our having been here for one fleeting moment in time. From the outside, it is impossible to tell us apart. There is only one thing which distinguishes us one from the other.
You see, I am Jewish and you are the World.
Because you are the World, you cannot understand what it means to be a Jew. To be mercilessly hated and ruthlessly hunted throughout the millennia. You cannot understand what it means for community after community to be murdered and massacred, raped and tortured, maimed and beaten, crushed and torn to a shredded, bleeding pulp. To be relentlessly pursued, expelled over and over again, spewed like poison filth, from this country and the next. To flee endlessly, to wander restlessly, forever wary, from this place to that. To have no land, no protection, no rights, no freedom, no safety, no future, no rest.
You cannot understand what it means to have your identity so forged with persecution that fear clings to you wherever you go. To be constantly vigilant, careful not to talk too loudly or dress too noticeably. To hide your beliefs, and disguise your observances and places of worship. To ask ceaselessly, fretfully: when? and what if ? Tomorrow, will I still have my job? Will I still have my home and my family? Will I still have my life, if they find out that I am a Jew?
What have we done to deserve such a searing, burning hatred? What did we do to deserve the crusades and pogroms that flowed as freely as our blood through Europe and Russia throughout the centuries?
Did you really believe that we baked the blood of Christian children into our matzah on Pesach? Us? A nation whose dietary laws forbid consuming even the smallest speck of blood? Do you really believe that we lie and we cheat? Us? A nation who has entire volumes of law devoted to ethical business dealings? Do you really believe that we are evil? Us? A nation whose very self definition is the pursuit of truth, of conscience, of morality, of justice, of kindness, of charity, of peace. In fact, because we believe that every human being is created in the image of G-d, we aspire to no less than instilling within ourselves the qualities of G-dliness itself.
Constant in-depth study of our holy Torah and the keeping of its laws is the backbone of Judaism. This ethic of a love of and thirst for knowledge has given to the world "men like Einstein, Marx, Freud, Wittgenstein and Schonberg. Without the Jewish contribution to physics, medicine, psychology, philosophy, law, business, music, literature, theatre, film and the visual arts, Western society would be immeasurably poorer."(1) But the greatness of these contributions meant nothing when we were shoveled into the ovens of the merciless Nazis. The only importance of these towering personalities lay in the fact that they were born Jewish and, as such, must be eliminated.
What did we do to deserve being gassed and shot, hanged and starved to death, our bodies piled in mountainous heaps of bone and skin, a ghastly monument to baseless hatred? Our six million innocent men and women, children and infants, young and old, strong and weak - all - were ruthlessly mowed down like a field of weeds, eliminated from the face of the earth. Do you realise that six million is more than the entire Jewish population of Israel today?
Do you know that the Jewish people comprise less than one half of one percent of the world's population? But still you perceive us as mankind's most dangerous threat. How did this happen? Where were you, World, when we cried for help? We needed you, but you did not come.
Our bones have been ground to dust and strewn across Europe and Russia. Our blood is sunk deep into the earth. Our tears have drenched the forests, the hills and the plains and still, they pour unceasingly from our eyes. The sound of our cries pierces the stillness and echoes through the valleys. Don't you hear them? Calling unceasingly, "When will it end?" When will it be enough, World? When will your appetite for Jewish blood be sated?
In 1948, in a brief moment of compassion or guilt, you consented to give us a very small strip of land to call our own. A land promised to us by G-d Himself. And so, with our hearts torn to bitter shreds, still reeling from loss and screaming with pain, we began at last to build a place that we could call home. A place where we could feel safe and free. A place where we could plan for tomorrow. A place where we could raise our children in peace, and teach them with pride about our laws and traditions.
With the help of G-d, we have transformed a barren desert into a blooming garden - and now you want to take this tiny haven of safety away from us. How can it be, World, that you have forgotten so quickly? Do you want to throw us back to the mercy of the wild animals and vicious dogs? You don't like a Jew who has an army and a way to defend himself. Haven't we learned your lesson yet? Why don't we just lie down and die?
You will always find a way to disguise your hatred for us behind some cause or another, and you will always find a way to label us as the perpetrators of evil. Even when our mothers, our fathers, our children, our babies are blown to a million bloody shreds, splattered over the sidewalks in countless savage attacks, even then, World, you see us as the aggressor. Even when our families are ripped apart, our children orphaned and our parents left bereft, even then, you see us as the evil ones. Even when our lives are destroyed, when we are maimed, blinded, paralysed and killed, even then, World, to you, it is all our fault and we have no right to defend ourselves.
To you, World, it has always been this way. Jewish lives are less valuable, our blood is less red and our tears are less bitter. Don't you see, World? In preserving our land, we are preserving our very link to life. It is our only protection against you, World - a world which seeks our destruction - and that is the very reason you wish to take it from us.
Hitler, may his name be forever obliterated, announced openly to the world his reasons for instituting his 'Final Solution' for ridding the world of the curse of the Jew. "Jews" he explained, "have inflicted two wounds on the world, circumcision on the body and conscience on the soul. I have come to free mankind from its shackles."(2) In the destruction of our bodies, he sought the destruction of our souls. The destruction of the pursuit of conscience and morality, which is the essence of the Jew, our very reason for living, without which we would rather choose death. We bothered Hitler. We reminded him of the Master of the Universe, to whom we are all accountable, and rather than face this truth, he chose to eliminate us from the face of the earth. This generation of Jews is testimony to his failure, and to the failure of the hundreds who came before him, all of whom attempted "to free mankind from its shackles" of "conscience on the soul."
And so, World, your ancient belief that we have a plot to 'take over the world' is, in a sense, true. Yes, we will never abandon our commitment to living by the ideals given to us by G-d in our holy Torah. We will not rest until peace, justice, morality, kindness, charity and conscience are universal attributes of all mankind. We will not give up until evil is banished and the truth is so translucent, so transparent, so undeniably real, that all of mankind will unite in joyous worship of the one, true G-d.
And so, World, I ask you, please, try to loosen the strings that bind those weighty boxes of hatred and prejudice, and enable their contents to shift and to change. Let us work together to identify the true sources of evil that threaten our beautiful world. And with the help of G-d, may we achieve peace, speedily, in our days.
Notes:
1) Douglas Villiers, Foreword, Next Year In Jerusalem (New York: Viking Press, 1976)
2) Hermann Rauschning, The Voice Of Destruction (New York: Puttnam, 1940)