Congregation Tikvoh Chadoshoh

Who Should We Take Care Of ?

On Sunday December 14, 2008, about 120 Jews from Greater Hartford gathered at Tikvoh at the invitation of the Federation and JCRC. Our mission was to begin to face the suffering of our neighbors in poverty in Hartford. This is a version of the remarks I made at that meeting.

My charge is to try to explain--in 5 minutes or less, of course--why we're here as Jews. What can we say about our tradition which mobilizes us as Jews to solve the problem of poverty in Greater Hartford. As Jews-- not as businesspeople, or teachers, or any other identities we might carry--but as Jews.

This question of identity is central to our conversation this afternoon. When it comes to our caring, who is In, and who is Out? The questions are: Who do we take care of, how, and why?

Let me first set this in its broadest Jewish context. Our tradition unequivocally establishes the absolute inherent value of the life of every human based on our creation b'tzelem elohim-- in the image of G-d. This value is in fact absolute, meaning not relative. M.Sanhedrin 4:5 asks:  Why was humankind created "singular"? That is: the animals, plants, and even the lights in the heavens were all created in multiples, but not so humankind. Why? Answer: So no-one could say "my father is greater than your father." This mishna is teaching that we all are brothers and sisters of one father. Answer #2:  To tell the greatness of the Kadosh Baruch Hu (G-d).  Explanation: this first and singular human, adam harishon, is the mold from which G-d makes all other people. Still, from this one primordial human mold comes the infinite variety that is humanity.

These three ideas taken together--that all humans are created in the image of God, that we are all brothers and sisters with a single Father, and that we are all both the same and unique--these three combine to give us a most precious Jewish value: Respect for Human Dignity. The Hebrew is Kavod HaBriyot, grammatically plural. I render the phrase: Respect for the plurality of created beings. This implies that we ascribe Human Dignity to all humans, even if they are different from us.

But so what? So what if we think they're dignified and divine? How does affect how we act? What do we do?

We all know V'ahavta l'rei'cha kamocha--Love Your Neighbor As Yourself. But Elie Wiesel fleshes this out:

    The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference.

    The opposite of life is not death, it's indifference.

If we are to love our neighbors, we cannot be indifferent to their lives. And our Torah puts it like this: al ta'amod al dam reicha.  Do not stand idly by as your neighbor's blood is shed. Meaning: Do not be indifferent to the danger threatening your neighbor.

What danger? In our context today, this is the danger: It is taught that poverty causes death in six ways, among them: by threatening health, safety and learning. So we learn that we cannot stand idly by, indifferent to the threats which poverty poses against our neighbors' health, safety and learning. Further, we learn from Rabbi Akiva that if we are able to protect someone and we do not, it is as if we spilled their blood actively.

So far, I have purposely stayed away from the question of responding to poverty with money. This is because we must understand that it takes more than money to solve the problem of poverty as a social issue. Clearly, we are commanded to share our wealth and this takes many forms: tithing 10%, giving first fruits, leaving the corners of the fields and the fallen fruit in the vineyard. But this is tzedaka, not charity. Charity comes from the word caritas in Latin, implying a voluntary donation from the heart. Tzedaka is not voluntary; it is commanded. Tzedaka is justice, righteousness. The force of this commandment is that the giver learn justice, not just that the receiver get money. Maimonides taught us that  the highest form of Justice/tzedaka is to help another become independent of the need for charity. We are advised to partner with them in business, to help them get a job. This level of justice work requires us to become involved with someone, to know them, touch them, risk some kind of a relationship with them.

Consider this Talmudic story:  Rabban Gamliel was the aristocratic and somewhat autocratic Nasi--the leader-- of the Jewish people in the 2nd Century. He had a character flaw: he humiliated people he was entrusted to teach. Once, after he had humiliated Rabbi Yehoshuah yet again, the students rose in revolt and deposed Gamliel.  To his credit, Gamliel sought out Rabbi Yehoshuah in order to make amends.  He arrived at Yehoshuah's very humble home and was let in. He was somewhat surprised that the walls of the place were black. He said to Yehoshuah: I see by the black walls of your home that you must be a charcoal maker. Yehoshuah's reply is telling: Woe to generation over which you are the Nasi! You have no clue how your students live, by what means they support themselves, what trials they go through to succeed at the learning. The story helps teach that we'd benefit from tempering the tendency to superiority with a dose of really getting to know how the Other lives. We would benefit from relating to them.

We humans have a tendency to make many Others, both close to us and more distant. Yehoshuah was a member of Gamliel's closest circle, his Beit Midrash. If we can turn our close companions into Others, how much more so those from the other side of the tracks. Therefore we are directed specifically to also care for the stranger, the other, the non-Jew. The Talmud teaches that we support non-Jews as well as Jews, we visit their sick and we bury their dead.

One question still remains: Why? Why go to all this trouble of caring for others, especially distant or different others. Many reasons are given: we are commanded to care, we are taught to make peace with our neighbors, and we're reminded that we were strangers in mitzrayim, in Egypt, and so we should have compassion on those who are strangers to us.

But consider Leviticus 23:22:  

And when you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap all the way to the edges of your field, or gather the gleanings of your harvest; you shall leave them for the poor and for the stranger. I the Eternal am your G-d.

Why does it end with ani HaShem--"I am the Eternal your G-d?" To teach that when we carry out these acts of tzedaka, we learn justice--tzedaka--and grow into our highest and best selves. This is the spiritual reason for caring. When we are "forced" by our obligation to our tradition to step outside of our comfort zone, we bump up against our resistances. We are lovingly pressed into confronting our own misconceptions, ego, demons, character traits which may not serve us in the best way. It becomes a spiritual practice. We learn that those Others are not so distant or different after all, and that their difference becomes interesting, fascinating, exciting, welcome.  

I'd like to conclude with Elie Wiesel's elaboration from his April 12, 1999 Millennium Lecture at the White House, The Perils of Indifference.

    To be indifferent to suffering is what makes the human being inhuman. Indifference, after all, is more dangerous than anger and hatred. Anger can at times be creative. One writes a great poem, a great symphony, one does something special for the sake of humanity because one is angry at the injustice that one witnesses. But indifference is never creative. Even hatred at times may elicit a response. You fight it. You denounce it. You disarm it. Indifference elicits no response. Indifference is not a response.

    [ ... ]    

    Over there, behind the black gates of Auschwitz, the most tragic of all prisoners were the "Muselmanner," as they were called. Wrapped in their torn blankets, they would sit or lie on the ground, staring vacantly into space, unaware of who or where they were, strangers to their surroundings. They no longer felt pain, hunger, thirst. They feared nothing. They felt nothing. They were dead and did not know it.

This is the danger we ourselves face if we give in to our comfort zone, staying secluded in the familiar, safe behind the gates of our isolation on our own side of the tracks. As Rabbi Telushkin wrote:

    Don't ever get used to other people's suffering.

    Don't ever get used to other people's suffering.

    Don't ever get used to other people's suffering.