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Newsletter for October 2010
Honoring Differences
an excellent Rosh Hashanah sermon
September 23, 2006
Morning of Rosh Hashanah
By: Rabbi Samuel M. Stahl
Once again, I am most grateful to Rabbi Block for inviting me to
occupy the pulpit and to deliver the sermon on this morning of
Rosh Hashanah. As many of you are well aware, preparing sermons
for the High Holy Days is a formidable, anxiety-producing task
for rabbis. Hours are spent in formulating the thoughts and
crafting the words which will be delivered to the largest crowds
of congregants that assemble during the year. Yet, we rabbis
often wonder about the actual effectiveness of our sermonic
efforts.
One of my colleagues tells a story about Joe and Moe, two Jewish
friends, from two different synagogues. One day they got
together to compare notes after the High Holy Days. Joe asks
Moe: “So how were services in your synagogue?” Moe answers:
“Beautiful, inspiring! The cantor was breath-taking. The choir
was awesome.” Joe continues: “So what did the rabbi talk about?”
Moe answers: “The rabbi talked about thirty minutes.”
So on this 41st Rosh Hashanah on which I will deliver my sermon,
I will aim to speak much fewer than thirty minutes. Nonetheless,
I hope that the message I am about to convey will not only reach
not your mind but will also touch your heart and your soul, as I
feel so passionate about this issue.
This morning, I want to talk about the two sons of Abraham and
about Judaism and Islam, the two religions derived from them. We
just read the story of the Binding of Isaac in our Torah
portion. In Orthodox and Conservative synagogues, which observe
two days of Rosh Hashanah, this is actually the reading for
tomorrow, their second day of the holiday.
This morning, in those synagogues, they read the previous
chapter centering on Ishmael, Abraham’s other son. In subsequent
years, Isaac became a patriarch of Judaism, while Ishmael became
the father of Islam. In the last five years, since 9/11, the
Muslims, who are the descendants of Ishmael, Abraham’s older
son, have been vilified. They have become the butts of vicious
defamation and prejudice.
Now I am aware and grateful that Americans no longer are willing
to tolerate bigotry. Though prejudice may still lurk in some
hearts, it is now unfashionable to express it openly. The “N”
word is now strictly taboo. So are anti-Semitic sentiments, like
those which Mel Gibson recently shouted in his drunkenness.
Individuals and organizations that persist in their bigotry risk
losing not only money but also prestige and clout.
Yet there is one painful exception to all that I have just said.
Many otherwise well meaning and intelligent Americans who
consider themselves free of prejudice do not hesitate to defame
Islam. They have accused Islam of fomenting violence. They have
labeled every Muslim a terrorist. Even prominent religious
leaders are now spreading obscenities about the faith of Islam
and seem to be getting away with it.
Franklin Graham, son of the famed evangelist, Billy Graham,
repeatedly charges that the Muslim religion is “wicked, violent,
and not of the same God.” He argues that the Koran sanctions
hating and killing people who are not Muslim. Similar poisonous
words about Islam also hurl forth from the mouths of other
prominent evangelists, both locally and nationally.
Last week, Pope Benedict XVI ignited a world-wide fire storm of
protest, after delivering a speech in his native Germany. In it,
he quoted a Byzantine Christian emperor from the 14th century,
who accused Islam of being “evil and inhuman.”
Sadly, few outside the Muslim community have condemned the
ranting of these church leaders. Anti-Muslim bigotry seems to be
our last remaining legitimate prejudice. We need to ask if Islam
deserves this defamation.
A year after 9/11, Lynn, and I, together with several family
members, visited Ground Zero in New York. There at that tragic
site, we painfully contemplated the devastation which the 19
terrorists wreaked on September 11, 2001. We are well aware that
all 19 were Muslims.
They hoped to enter Paradise by destroying these tall edifices
of Western capitalism and the men and women who occupied them.
They also succeeding in striking fear into the hearts of all of
us who always thought that life here in the United States was
safe and secure.
Furthermore, we are aware that all the homicide bombers of
scores of innocent men, women, and children in Israel are
Muslim. So are those sick minds of Hezbollah who shot lethal
rockets into Israel. They sincerely believe that their heinous
actions represent the will of Allah. Should we therefore not
conclude from these facts that the Muslim faith is grossly
hateful and evil? Absolutely not!
We can not always judge a noble religion by its ignoble
practitioners, just as we can not judge a Beethoven symphony by
a fifth-rate orchestra that plays it. The Beethoven symphony
remains a classic of musical artistry, in spite of the inferior
instrumentalists who attempt to interpret it. Terrorists are, in
actuality, counterfeit representatives of Islam. They represent
a distorted Islam.
Now I realize that few, if any, Muslims have openly disapproved
of these atrocities. [My note: This is not accurate. All leading
scholars and organizations have strongly and unequivocally
spoken against such atrocities.
An
online petition representing
over 650,000 Muslims condemned such atrocities and extremism] I
can only try to explain their hesitancy to do so, not defend it.
Possibly they fear for their lives and the lives of their loved
ones still living in Arab countries, should they speak out. Few
are willing to become another Salman Rushdie, the Muslim writer.
His critical comments about his Muslim faith community brought
on death threats and even a fatwa calling for his assassination.
Yet I have worked closely with many very fine, reputable Muslim
leaders, like Imam Omar Shakir, here in our own community. I
have listened to the loving, inclusive words of Imam Feisel Rauf
and other noble adherents of the Muslim faith every summer at
Chautauqua Institution in New York. These men and women deplore
violence. They labor for a world of Now I realize that few, if
any, Muslims have openly disapproved of these atrocitiesharmony
and peace. They are the Muslims who represent an authentic
Islam.
Lynn and I have good Muslim friend, whose name is Mohammed,
living in London. Two years ago, he flew from London to Toronto
and then drove to Chautauqua to deliver a major address. As he
approached the U.S.-Canadian border near Buffalo, United States
security officials detained and harassed him for eight hours.
They ignored the fact that he had presented full documentation
of his Chautauqua invitation.
During these eight hours, he asked permission to go to the
bathroom, which the officials denied him. As a result, he wet
himself. When Lynn asked him: “Weren’t you furious at the
callousness of the security guards?” He replied: “No, I wasn’t
angry at all. I just felt bad that the system had so dehumanized
these border officials.” When I heard his response I thought:
“What nobility of spirit! What an exemplary representative of
the best of Islam!”
Rabbi Irving Greenberg once advised that
it doesn’t matter which movement in Judaism you belong to, as
long as you are ashamed of it. Let me extend that to a broader
context. Every one of the three major world religious
communities, whether Muslim, Christian, or Jewish, contains
elements which should cause shame, because of hostility against
other religious groups. These are the corruptions of the true
spirit of each of these three major world religions.
Let me cite one or two examples in each category. The Roman
Catholic community certainly should not be proud of John of
Capistrano. This Church leader came to Krakow, Poland, to speak
hatred and incite pogroms against the Jews. Yet he was canonized
as a saint of the Church. In fact, one of the four missions here
in San Antonio is named in John of Capistrano’s memory.
Protestants also should recoil from the vile sentiments of
Martin Luther. Luther wrote a pamphlet he called, On Jews and
Their Lies. In it, he told his readers: “Know, Christians, that
next to the devil, you have no enemy, more cruel, more venomous,
and more violent than a true Jew.” Fortunately, both the
national and the international Lutheran church bodies have
officially denounced Luther’s anti-Semitic spewings.
Closer to us in time are the scores of Christian clergymen in
Nazi Germany who were staunch supporters and advocates for
Hitler. And what about those Christians who call themselves
pro-life, but commit murder at abortion clinics?
Certainly we Jews are not exempt from misguided religious zeal
and bigotry. We need to be ashamed of Dr. Baruch Goldstein, who
claimed to be a religious Jew. Yet this fanatical physician, a
graduate of a reputable Brooklyn yeshivah, over a decade ago,
massacred almost two dozen innocent Muslim worshippers. They
were praying at the sacred site in Hebron, where our Biblical
patriarchs and matriarchs are buried.
We also can not be proud of Yigal Amir, who, in the name of the
distorted Judaism he embraced, assassinated Prime Minister
Yitzhak Rabin. Amir considered Rabin’s willingness to trade land
for peace to be a mortal sin. Like the radical Muslim
terrorists, Amir used religious texts to justify murder.
Therefore we should realize Islamic leaders do not have a
monopoly on hatred of the other. We all bear some of this stain.
The plague is on all of our houses.
And what about the charges that the
Koran foments violence and hatred against
non-believers? One Muslim writer commented that there
is enough in the Koran for people of extreme tendencies to find
their way to a global holy war. Then he added that there is also
enough there for people of a different mindset to find a path to
enlightenment and peace. If you look hard enough, you can find
evidence of hostility to outsiders in all of our Scriptures. But
you can also find many sublime and uplifting passages.
For example, in our Hebrew Bible, in
Deuteronomy 7, God orders the Israelites, upon entering the
Promised Land, to wipe out every man, woman and children among
the seven pagan nations. Yet our same Hebrew Bible teaches us to
treat the stranger kindly and lovingly and to look forward to
the day when God’s house will be a house of prayer for all
peoples.
The New Testament contains scores of anti-Jewish verses. One of
them speaks of Jews as a brood of vipers and mentions a
synagogue of Satan. Yet, other passages, like the Sermon on the
Mount, emphasize love and caring. Similarly, Islamic scholars do
acknowledge the darker side of the Koran. Yet its central
message is absolutely peace loving and positive.
Why then does this prejudice persist? Perhaps because we human
beings often feel fearful, insecure and inadequate. We are
afraid that we are not enough. Therefore, in order to feel
important, we are driven to put down someone else or some other
group. Prejudice gives us false security. It is a destructive
solution to our own fearfulness and low-self esteem.
We Jews, like all people, need to recognize and battle this
tendency to resort to prejudice. In particular, we should
sensitize ourselves to the rampant bigotry against the Muslims.
the other family of our forefather Abraham.
Why? First of all, we Jews owe a debt of gratitude to the
Muslims. Let us remember that one of the most creative and
fertile periods of Jewish life took place in Spain and other
lands where Muslims held sway. The Golden Age of Jewish poetry,
philosophy, and literature flourished under Muslim sovereignty.
In addition, it is in our own interest as Jews to fight this
anti-Islamic menace. Bigotry against any group is not only
morally reprehensible. It is also bad for Jews. Hatred spreads
like a malignancy beyond its original target. Who can assure us
that those preachers who defame Islam will not eventually begin
to malign Judaism and other religions as well? Indeed, bigotry
knows no boundaries.
But most important, it is grossly reprehensible for us as Jews
to be prejudiced against any people. We need to avoid something
as seemingly innocent and fun as sending e-mails contrasting the
large numbers of Jewish Nobel Prize winners with the tiny
numbers of Muslim Noble Prize winners. If we want to boast about
our Jewish intellectual giants, let us not do so at the expense
of another religious group.
We who have been the targets of hatred, persecution, harassment
and mass murder for over 4000 years intimately know the agony
and humiliation of the victim. We who have taught the world to
love our neighbor and to regard every human being as a child of
God can not allow ourselves to harbor even a shred of bias
against any religious community.
Our task then, as members of the family of Abraham, as we begin
this New Year, is to fight this anti-Muslim sentiment, whether
in others or in ourselves. Let us pledge to educate those Jews
and others who defame Muslims and the faith of Islam. And let
God be the ultimate Judge of which religions are correct and not
allow fallible human beings to rob God of that prerogative.
Amen.
courtesy:Hassam Ayloush
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