Like many of you, I received the news of yesterday’s shooting at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston with pain and sorrow. I felt horror at this heinous act of hatred, racism, and violence. But worse, there was something I did not feel: surprise. Sadly, this was not a new incident. This was not the first time, or the tenth time, or the hundredth time a mass murder and a violent hate crime have taken place. Nor is this likely to be the last. Each life taken: Reverend Clementa Pinckney, Reverend Sharon Singleton, Myra Thompson, Tywanza Sanders, Ethel Lee Lance, Cynthia Hurd, Reverend Daniel L. Simmons Sr., Reverend DePayne Middleton-Doctor, and Susie Jackson, their deaths were new, and significant, and each a loss to humanity and this world. This kind of carnage has sadly become all too familiar.
The LGBT community is familiar with this, having been victim to countless acts of violence, harassment and hatred over decades and centuries, and even still in recent years, because of their sexual identity. And they are familiar, because they still face prejudice and vitriol from members of our national leadership in their simple pursuit for equal access to civil liberties.
The Jewish community is familiar with this, having been victim to countless acts of violence, harassment and hatred over decades, centuries and even millennia, because of religious beliefs and ancestry. We are familiar with this because Antisemitic acts of violence continue to happen in this world— it is on the rise in Europe, and it even happens at our own doors, like last year’s shooting at the Overland Park JCC. Of course, we have expected and demanded that authorities and politicians in our own nation and abroad take action on our behalf.
We have always fought for our own people, and thankfully, in recent times, the Jewish community has fought alongside the LGBT community as well. And, once upon a time, we fought for African Americans, for equality and civil rights.
But, we have stopped fighting. We have become lax and complacent. We have rested on the laurels of our past, saying we’ve done enough for racial equality. And we’ve been complacent and lax in fighting gun violence, believing that the problem is not immediately at our doorstep— believing that this problem is not ours to tackle.
The massacre in Charleston— it could have happened in a Jewish house of worship.
It could have happened in an LGBT house of worship.
It did happen in a black house of worship.
In this week’s parashah, Korach, a Levite, rises up against Moses, Aaron, and the ultimate system of leadership, saying, “You have gone too far! For all the community are holy, all of them, and God is in their midst. Why then do you raise yourselves above God’s community?” (Numbers 16:3) Korach accuses Moses and Aaron of being selfish and raising themselves above others, and Korach influences a lot of Israelites to join him in his camp of protest.
And what could be wrong? Korach wants rights for all, not to be centered on two powerful leaders. Except there’s something important that he’s missing, and he isn’t actually fighting for rights for all.
He’s missing the fact that Moses and Aaron were selected by God, and that their work is entirely sacred and selfless. He’s missing that they did not raise themselves, but rather, proved themselves through deed.
More importantly, he’s not fighting for rights for all— he’s fighting for rights for one!
In hebrew, Korach says כי כל העדה כולם קדושים – because this whole people, all are holy. Professor Nehama Leibowitz comments on these words:
“Note that they do not say: “all the congregation is holy” [כל העדה קדוש]— as a unit but: “All the congregation are holy”, “every one of them”— each one taken, individually [כל העדה כולם קדושים]. The assertion of individual, selfish ambitions outweighs their group feeling as a “kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” They interpreted the mission of holiness, the role of “chosen people” with which they had been charged by God, in the sense of conferring on them superiority and privilege, rather than as constituting a call to shoulder extra duties and responsibilities.”
Leibowitz says that Korach, so focused on his own rights as an individual, missed the entire point of the Israelite endeavor: to bring holiness into this world. Instead he used his communal influence to fight for power and privilege, as one of God’s mighty chosen ones. Because of this— because he valued self-interest entirely above communal good, because he held selfishness above selflessness, and because he used his audacity and skill and position as a Levite and leader in the community to influence others—he was deemed a threat to the community. And as we know, to show how bad Korach’s acts were, in a very spectacular way, God opened up the ground beneath him and his family, and swallowed them whole.
Our tradition certainly does not advocate relinquishing all self-interests — we’re allowed to enjoy that with which we have been blessed, and we’re most definitely required to look after the needs of our families. But, when the community at large is in need, we are required to act. As Jews living in America, and as human beings, we have an obligation to extend beyond ourselves and look out for fellow Americans and fellow human beings. We may not be obligated to risk our lives and livelihoods for others, but neither are we free to stand idly by while others suffer.
Korach did not know this balance of self-interests and self-extension. And there are too many in our communities who do not know it either. Because if everyone did know this balance, of placing the interests of our neighbors on par with our own, we would be so much closer to ending racism, violence and hatred.
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1) Leviticus 19:18 – וְאָֽהַבְתָּ֥ לְרֵעֲךָ֖ כָּמ֑וֹךָ – Love your neighbor as yourself.
When someone is hurting, feel it and act on it.
2) Leviticus 19:16 – לֹ֥א תַעֲמֹ֖ד עַל־דַּ֣ם רֵעֶ֑ךָ – Do not stand idly by the blood of your neighbor.
When our neighbor, or anyone in our community, is suffering, it is a mitzvah—a sacred obligation— to act. To do something. To lend a helping hand, send a message of comfort, and fight to ensure that this does not happen again. Which in our case is demanding from our lawmakers solutions to problems that are clearly endemic.
And finally 3) Deuteronomy 16:20 -צדק צדק תרדוף – Justice, Justice shall you pursue.
We celebrate tonight the lives, accomplishments, and milestones in the fight for full and equal rights for the LGBT community, and we remind ourselves that the fight has not yet been won.
Just as we cannot yet sit on our laurels in the fight for LGBT rights, so too may we not sit in complacency while any minority group continues to suffer at the hands of others.
Edmund Burke reminds us, “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” To rest and celebrate the glory days of our social justice and civil rights work is to do nothing.
The African-Amercan community of Charleston may be distant from our inclusive Jewish community. To be inclusive, however, means looking looking outward, beyond our own needs and our own self-interests, even when it means stepping out of our comfort zone and making ourselves vulnerable. It means withstanding the temptations of ego—of Korach—saying that our needs always take precedence over those of others. It means standing up with our neighbors when they can stand for themselves, and standing for them when they cannot. It means standing as the holy people Israel, fighting for redemption for all of humanity.
So let us pray. Let us study Torah in the memory of the nine souls gunned down in their own scriptural study. But we cannot stop there. Nothing can be accomplished beyond feeding our own souls until we move beyond these walls. The real work is outside. The kind of serious change needed in this nation is in the hands of our leaders—those we have empowered to make change at a grand scale on our behalf—and it is now time to make known, through the hard work of letter writing and marching, that we will not stand idly by while other human beings suffer, that we love all our neighbors as we do our own community, and that we will not rest until tzedek— until justice— has been achieved for all.
Please pray with me— the words can be found in your Shabbat Shalom booklets:
Mi sheberach avoteinu v’imoteinu….may God who blessed our ancestors in times of tranquility and trial, bring healing to a nation in tears, to families and friends crying out in grief over nine precious souls—victims of racism and gun violence—taken from this Earth too soon.
Please, O God, comfort us in Your loving embrace.
And shore up our strength, Tzur Yisrael, Rock of Israel, to heed the call of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel to act in the spirit of religion, to unite what lies apart as we remember that humanity as a whole is God’s beloved child. Help us root out these scourges of racism and gun violence that cast long shadows in our society.
Even as we use our voices in prayer today, teach us to use our voices toward action tomorrow. Let us bring honor to the nine souls who did not choose to die for a cause, by speaking out against injustice, racism and gun violence.
Holy One of Blessing, bring comfort to the mourners and resolve to our hearts. And let us say, Amen.
There are some sick, sick people in the world, with some warped, warped views. 🙁