Rabbi's Blog

Back in April, I was invited by Father Ted Howard to participate in a discussion at St. John’s Episcopal Church on the theme of violence in scripture.  A light subject as part of the Christian Holy week.  Our religious texts have so much in them that is violent and yet we want to believe that the core message of our traditions is love and compassion.  That night I discovered, of course, that some Christians believe that what they call the Old Testament and we call the Tanach,  is largely the portrayal of an angry, vengeful God and that the New Testament is the compassionate upgrade to all this with a much more loving message.  The irony, of course, of this is that Christianity has a terribly violent history.  Obviously, not all Christians see it that simply, but it was challenging to be there as a rabbi defending our faith!. One of my lines that night was a famous quote by the late Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, who said that “The Torah is a commentary on the world and the world is a commentary on the Torah.”  I suggested that the texts are violent because the world is violent, but that religions, certainly including Judaism, are supposed to be a tikkun, a corrective, as we evolve as civilizations.  The world is so terribly, terribly full of violence still and it is hard to see the religions of the world healing all the pain and in the eyes of so many, they actually make it worse and are more part of the problem than the solution.  Globally, of course, we watch with horror what is happening in Syria and Egypt and that it might all get worse.

I knew Father Ted Howard from that church downtown, because we have both been very involved with an interfaith alliance of clergy from throughout Boulder county and across a wide spectrum of religious and spiritual traditions, looking at issues of violence.  We were connected through Together Colorado, a community organizing agency, based in Denver and nationally affiliated to Pico.  A small group of us became very fired up over the specific issues related to gun violence following Sandy Hook, along with an active group of Bonai Shalom members, who formed a working group to respond to gun violence.  A few of us in our clergy group got very animated by the idea of organizing a gun buyback and some other activity along with it.  This turned into a whole saga, which some of you will have followed in the local media, but before I talk about that, I want to acknowledge that this is not just about guns and it is certainly not about the 2^nd Amendment per say.  Gun violence, however, is just so out of control and has become an extremely emotional and divisive issue, even among us here.  Clearly, we all reel at the carnage that we witness through abuse of guns, even if we have different ideas how to address the causes.  I will just add that I grew up, as you know, in London, where the policemen carried a truncheon, which is like a baton, and were until recently not armed in any other way.  I do not know a single person back home who owns a gun and would have absolutely no idea how to go about acquiring one if I wanted to.  Here, I have discovered recently, I know many people who own guns and I could just walk into Walmart and buy one if I chose to.  There are an estimated 283 million firearms in the hands of civilians in the US and more than 30,000 people are killed by them a year. All of this is context for the deep shock and dismay I experience around some of what I see and hear when it comes to firearms here in America.  But, this really is not just a sermon about guns as you will see.  I hope.

So, back to the story of the gun buyback.  It all began with many of us, like many of you, reeling after Sandy Hook with the Aurora shooting still in such recent memory and a collective, clergy sense of what can we do here?  We started wondering about gun buybacks, about advocacy and other projects too.  We then heard about Savant Suykerbuyk, owner of a local gun store here in Boulder, and his event to give away as many high capacity magazines as he could before they became illegal.  That was back in March and we organized a silent prayer vigil a block away.  As we explored the idea of a buyback, knowing full well that there were critics of these schemes, the idea emerged of combining it with an art project.  Isaiah’s famous prophetic message of turning swords into plowshares became an inspiration for us.  A message of peace growing out of weapons of destruction.  I spoke to a local metalwork artist, known to many of you here, and she was on board for sure, excited by the idea of melting down guns for art.  We met with the police chief, with local council members, with people from Boulder’s Arts Commission and got so much positive support.  Sheriff Joe Pelle met with us and was very much with us and agreed to host the buyback at the Sheriff’s department.  We also found out about a group of High School Seniors from Centaurus High School who were trying to organize a gun buyback of their own.  Half of the group were young Sikhs, who wanted to do something in response to the shooting in the Sikh Temple in Wisconsin.  The Sheriff put our two groups together and we started organizing as a team, bringing in others too, like Moms Demand Action.  We had so much in place for this and so many amazing partnerships.  Many had given donations towards the $100 gift cards we were going to purchase from different retail stores in exchange for redeemed firearms and all was in place for our event in early August.  During this time, some of the resistance and negative response we got surprised us, as this project really was not meant to be political, nor a threat to the 2^nd Amendment.  It was a partly symbolic project to see if we could get some unwanted weapons off the streets of Boulder County and see if we could have any impact in reducing the county’s nearly 30 gun deaths a year, most of which are suicides.  What could the objection be to this?  About 30 people every day are murdered by a gun in this great nation.  When will it be enough?  When are we going to stop sacrificing our children on theses altars of uncontrollable violence in our cities?

Anyway, just over a week before the event, something so surprising happened.  A few of us, including me, were going to get universal background checks so that we could act as “dealers”  taking over ownership of the firearms before handing them to the Sheriff’s deputies for safe disposal.  As we started this process, it became clear that the recent changes in the law made what we are doing extremely difficult, if not impossible from a legal perspective.  New gun legislation requires background checks for anyone wanting to purchase a gun, which most would agree is good.  The way the law is worded requires that a check is needed for each individual weapon.  Seeing as the event involved people bringing firearms anonymously on the spot, there was no way this could work.  So my new career as an arms dealer was brought to a very sudden end, before it had even started.  Unable to find a way around this, the Sheriff asked us to cancel the event and it is unclear if it will be rescheduled at this point.  There is an irony in all of this; that the laws that some of us were strongly in support of were the same laws that made our actions impossible.  So, what next?  Watch this space.  We are still planning some educational activity around all of this and the sculpture, with a multi-faith message of non-violence for our community, will, God willing, move ahead.  Sheriff Pelle has offered us access to the decommissioned, disabled guns that they have in their evidence rooms.

I promised you that this was not just about guns and the controversial debate around gun control, but before I finish I do want to reflect on some Jewish responses.  I have been told recently that “Torah Judaism” does not support my views on this.  My views are a deep concern for human life and for violence escalating beyond all proportion.  As always I do not claim to know the political answers to any of it and recognize that people in the Jewish community hold other views to my own.  The Torah tradition is pretty clear in its opposition to murder and taking life.  Yes, self-defense is allowed in certain situations and yes we have an obligation to protect life.  The Mishnah states in Sanhedrin that “one who saves a single life, is considered as if they had saved the whole world.”  Many in the religious communities are committed to saving lives from these terrible acts of violence in our societies.  Of course, we can use our sacred texts to support multiple and opposing opinions, but I think the claim that the desire to get guns out of the hands of dangerous people, goes against Torah is a bit preposterous.  The very early rabbinic text, the Mishnah, discussing the laws of Shabbat discusses what can be carried or not, worn or not on Shabbat.

MISHNAH. A man may not go out with a sword, bow, shield, lance or spear; and if he does go out he incurs a sin offering. Rabbi Eliezer said: They are adornments for him.  But the sages maintain, they are merely shameful, (gannai in the Hebrew) for it is said, “And they shall beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.” (Isaiah 2:4)

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This source certainly shows, here at least, that rabbinic thought promotes peace and non-violence as its ultimate goal and sees weapons worn in public as instruments of shame.

The courageous activist and deeply spiritual 20^th century rabbi, Abraham Joshua Heschel,  who marched for civil rights alongside Reverend King, famously said:

“Morally speaking, there is no limit to the concern one must feel for the suffering of human beings, that indifference to evil is worse than evil itself, that in a free society, some are guilty, but all are responsible.” 

It is not clear how much is going to be changed through the political system and, as always, the real question is how do we each contribute to a culture that perpetuates violence or one that promotes peace?  How are we responsible? Elie Wiesel said that “the opposite of good is not evil; it is indifference.” Can we stand by and see more blood spilled in our streets, in our schools?  In the confessional prayer ashamanu that we say over and over again on Yom Kippur and some of us have been saying it in our selichot service every day since last Saturday night, one of the words we say is chamassnu, we have been violent.  The language of this is always in the first person plural – we.  As individuals, we may protest our innocence and say “I am not a violent person,” but as a society we are so violent and we have to ask how we participate in that culture.

The Shofar has been calling us for thousands of years; sometimes a gentle, spiritual invitation and sometimes an alarm calling us to action. We celebrate creation and renewal at this time of year, the birthday of the world, and we see so much of our world being destroyed and hopes and dreams shattered forever with the tragic death of the young.  Each human form is in the Divine Image and as another person dies, so a part of God dies.

So how are we responsible in our indifference?

“I made some bullet points because I did not want to shoot from the hip.”  This phrase came to me as I was writing this as an example of how our language unconsciously reflects just how much weapons and violence pervade every part of society.  How do we use language?  Do we use metaphors that invoke violence, even if that is not our intent? How do we communicate to one another?  When we are hurt and wounded and defensive, do we allow our pain to trigger cruel and violent words to others? What do we do when we witness an act of violence or a miscarriage of justice?  Fifty years on from the March on Washington and MLK’s iconic dreams, there is still so much racial violence and persecution, with or without a black president.  We saw it so clearly with the travesty of the Trayvon Martin case.  If we choose to look, we see it every day in the way our system of justice criminalizes innocent, young black men again and again.  We need to confront our own racism. We see unspeakable violence against women.  Bullying in schools.  Hate crimes against members of the GLBTQ community. And so much more.

Yes, scripture is violent and can even be used to incite violence. It does not always seem like religions have the answers, but the texts reflect a deeply violent world and simultaneously call us to a higher truth; to do all we can in the subtle deeds of every day, to reduce violence. In how we speak, what we consume, what we wear and what we eat, what we watch and hear and how we play, where we stand and how we hear the call of the Shofar on this day. How do we play our part in all of this? We are not all going to be activists, lobbying for tighter laws, for even more intense background checks.  Most of us are not going to be on the streets working with at risk youth in neighborhoods where dozens are shot every day. And yet, we are part of all of it and make choices every day that have an impact.

A few members of our Together Colorado group, including a Catholic priest from Lafayette, the head of a Sufi order and a Buddhist nun, crafted a community pledge of nonviolence, as a way of inviting all of us in the religious communities to begin small steps to challenge society’s violent grip on us.

COMMUNITY PLEDGE OF NONVIOLENCE
We desire to set free the power of peace within ourselves.  Therefore, each of us will commit ourselves to become people of nonviolence and peace.   To achieve this goal I choose to:

Respect Self and Others
I pledge to respect myself, to affirm others, and to avoid uncaring criticism, hateful words, physical attacks, and self-destructive behavior.
Communicate Better
I pledge to share my feelings honestly, to look for safe ways to work through any anger that arises, and to seek means to solve problems peacefully.
Listen
I pledge to listen carefully to others, especially those who disagree with me, and to consider others’ feelings and needs rather than insist on having my own way.
Forgive
I pledge to apologize and make amends when I have hurt another, to forgive others, and to keep from holding grudges.
Respect Nature
I pledge to treat the environment and all living things with respect and care.
Play Creatively
I pledge to select entertainment and activities that support peaceful and loving values and to avoid entertainment that makes violence look exciting, acceptable or funny.
Be Courageous
I pledge to meet violence in all its forms with peace, whether at home, at school, at work or in the community, and to stand with others who are treated unfairly.

As members of this community, we pledge to work together so that, as people seeking peace within, we can support each other in creating a culture of true peace.

Are these values that we can share?  Lo aleynu hamalach ligmor.  It is not upon us to finish the work.  V’lo anachnu bnei chorin l’hibateil mimena.  But we are not free to abandon it, starting by joining the circle of hands who continue to dream the dreams of our ancient and modern prophets; the dream that violent technologies will cease from our world and our swords and guns and bombs will be turned into tools to cultivate a new, rich soil of tolerance from which buds of peace will emerge. It starts right now with our next thought.  Our next word. Our next glance to those around us.

I invite you each to look inside and to take a moment to make a personal pledge in the coming year to challenge violence and to promote peace.