Rabbis For Human Rights - North America

Divrei Torah

“A certain non-Jew came before Shammai and said to him, ‘I will convert to Judaism, on the condition that you teach me the whole Torah while I stand on one foot.’ Shammai chased him away... He came before Hillel and said to him, ‘Convert me.’ Hillel said to him, ‘What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor: that is the whole Torah; the rest is commentary; go and learn it.” (Shabbat 31A)

These Things I Remember and I Pour Out My Heart Out: A Sermon for Kol Nidre, 5766

 

 

By Rabbi Ellen Lippmann

A painful rabbinic story: When they led Rabbi Akiva to the executioner, it was time for reciting the Shema. With iron combs they scraped away his skin as he recited Shema Yisrael, freely accepting the yoke of God's sovereignty. "Even now?!?!" his disciples asked. He said to them, "All my life I have been troubled by the verse: 'Love the Eternal your God…with all your soul,' which means even if God takes your life. I often wondered when I would be able to fulfill that obligation. And now that I have the opportunity, should I not do so?!?!" he left the world while uttering Ekhad -- God is one. [Talmud Berakhot 61b]

Eleh ezkerah v'nafshi alai esh'p-kha: These things I remember as I pour out my heart.

After the Yom Kippur Avodah service tomorrow we will read Eleh Ezkerah -- These Things I remember, a poem about ten martyrs who died under the Roman persecution for teaching Torah….

We Jews know about torture, by the Romans, the Crusaders, the Spanish Inquisitors, the Nazis.

All of these we remember and pour out our hearts.

So if we know and remember what it is to be victims of torture, why am I talking about torture tonight? I am talking about it because as a member of the Executive Committee of Rabbis for Human Rights-North America I have been in on the Rabbis' Campaign Against Torture from the beginning, and have had a chance to hear from experts, learn from rabbinic sources and advocate with those in Washington who are finally beginning to work against it.

But mostly I am talking about it because I wept when I realized how far our country has fallen…. [Ellen continues with an account of advocating in Washington with RHR-NA and outlines the 1999 Israeli Supreme Court decision banning torture.]

These things I remember and my heart grows strong.

Jewish sources abound that can help us. Jewish theological Seminary student Melissa Weintraub, doing groundbreaking work, has written four articles about four categories in Jewish law that stand against torture These categories are:

1)The Ban Against Self-Incrimination….
2)K'vod HaBriot: Dignity of Human Beings….
3)Balancing the Rodef Defense: Restrictions on the use of force even when being pursued or defending oneself….
4)Knowing the heart of the stranger….

These things we remember and pour out our hearts.

So what is the matter, the heart of the matter? Why haven't Americans, Jews or not, responded in full voice to the outrageous abuses and torture by our government? Is it just that it is all so far away, and we can barely manage to get through our days as it is? Or it is that we are ambivalent? The people being tortured are almost all Muslim prisoners, and as Jews and New Yorkers we have been given reason to fear Muslim terror….

Yet our fear is precisely why we must take extra precaution, remember the worlds of Israeli Chief Justice Barak, and maintain the democratic ideals that should keep this country and us Jews safer. Torture does not succeed in getting accurate information, and outrage against U.S. practices will only add fuel to terrorists' fire. Just as we are to know the heart of the stranger, so too we know what it is to see our tortured leaders made martyrs. Shall we watch as the United States becomes like ancient Rome, creating martyrs from "religious fanatics"? Shall we become like the Crusaders, or the Spanish Inquisitors? …. [Ellen continues with a description of a Jewish prisoner of the Inquisition tortured by water, then compares it with today's 'water-boarding.' She discusses bystander indifference. And she urges her congregation to write to political leaders and to the press.]

The Hassidic teacher Zeev Wolf of Zhitomer taught that teshuva happens in an instant, and happens all the time. Let us try to make those instant shifts every time we read the paper, every time we see a disturbing photograph, every time we hear about the kind of gruesome torture that makes us want to flinch and turn away instead. Let that shift to seeing "human being" be our teshuva on this Yom Kippur.

Akiva, flayed to the bone, understood the words of the Sh',a as he never had before. It gave him hope even in death. Hope that he was fulfilling the desires of his God. Can we on this Yom Kippur find the hope to answer the call to love God with all our hearts, with all our souls, with all our strength, without having to be tortured? Can we find hope in the letters we sign, the calls we make, the shifts that will form our teshuva? The Senate is finally awake and public opinion may be following. There is room to hope for the results of our actions. Can we then muster enough memory and heart to respond to God's words, Akiva's words, with our actions? If God on this day is called by the name He told Mose -- El Rahum vHanun -- then we must rise to meet that challenge and ourselves be compassionate and loving, with all our hearts, all our souls, all our strength.

These things I remember as I pour out my heart.