Shabbat Lech Lecha
A year ago, a small group of people got together to pray and celebrate the naming of a newborn baby in their synagogue community.
Suddenly, an armed man, began firing into the congregation. 11 people died, including a pair of brothers, and a couple who had been married in this shul 60 years prior.
And this past week, the FBI apprehended a Colorado man who was plotting to blow up a synagogue outside Denver.
With antisemitic acts and sentiments on the rise around the world, we live in frightening times.
Fortunately we have a history of finding strength and hope even in the most perilous moments of our long story as a people.
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One of those moments takes place in this week’s Torah portion when God promises, Avram, the first Jew: “I will bless those who bless you; and curse those who curse you.” Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch interprets this verse to mean: “I will bless each nation in accordance with the respect it shows the Jewish spirit.”
In other words, the acceptance of Jews is an indication of the vibrancy of any nation in with Jewish people reside. Looking at history, the societies that thrived cared for their Jewish citizens: Muslim Spain, and the US, for example. As a vulnerable minority within these nations, the fact Jews were protected, their contributions valued, indicated these societies’ openness to many peoples.
But nations that persecuted Jews brought destruction to themselves and surrounding nations: in 1933, the danger Adolf Hitler posed to the world was not yet clear, but when Jews became unsafe in Hitler’s Germany, this was a sign of the toxins of hatred seeping into the world — eventually leading to World War II, which killed 60 million people.
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In Germany in the 30s, Jews were seen as harbingers of dangerous ideologies or as spies who might infiltrate the country.
White supremacists use these same tropes against people seeking asylum from other countries. The reasons for turning refugees away then were the same as they are for rejecting them now:
“We can’t afford it. They’ll take American jobs. They are dangerous.”
What can we do in the face of an ancient hatred that threatens us and fuels violence against other vulnerable minorities?
According to Professor Deborah Lipstadt, recent author of Antisemitism: Here and Now, the way to fight antisemitism isn’t to focus on the threat — isn’t to hide in the face of danger — but instead to show the haters that we are Jews.
It is incumbent on us to know who we are and to be proud of what we stand for: even if — especially because — it is different than what most people do; whether this means observing times of rest and special ways to eat, or fighting for the rights of the stranger, because we were strangers.
As we approach the yarzheit of the 11 killed at the Tree of Life Synagogue may their memories inspire us to follow God’s instruction to Abraham this week: lech lecha – go to, become fully, yourself live your Jewish life “loud and proud”, pursuing justice for the most vulnerable in your midst, knowing that we are only safe when all the vulnerable in our midst are safe.
Shabbat shalom.