These are the Words…
Small Expressions of
Hate that are Really Not So Small
They were two separate incidents, each causing hurt and
confusion, each happening recently, within about a block of each other. On one
occasion, about two months ago, I was standing in front of a local church where
I had gone for an interfaith clergy meeting, people coming together to share
and support, joined through differences. As I was about to enter the church, I
had a phone call that a friend had a just died. Knowing that I would officiate,
I walked quickly back to the car to make phone calls and respond to immediate
needs. As I got to the car, parked just back from the street, a jogger
approached and suddenly stopped, somewhat breathless. Turning toward me, he
raised his fist high in the air and yelled, “BDS Israel!” I was stunned and
taken aback, feeling threatened by a raised fist and a raised voice. With so
much swirling in my head at that moment, I couldn’t quite process what had
happened, all so quickly. At first, I wondered what does he know of my politics
or of me? Does he know I am Jewish, or that I am a rabbi? Then, I realized the
obvious, it was my yarmulkah, of
course, and that he was responding to me as a Jew. It was not about politics,
therefore, but about something deeper, about whom I am as a person and as part
of a people. I would have been willing to have a political discussion and to
explore the web of associations from which his verbal assault came. More
importantly, I would have welcomed a person-to-person sharing, to have arranged
to meet, to plan to have coffee at another time when there was not so much on
my mind. But then he was gone, continuing to run rather than to engage, even as
I turned toward him in my confusion and called out to wait a moment.
The other occasion was just a week or so ago, right in front
of JP Licks. As I approached the store, just before the door, a rather
disheveled man was sitting at an outside table with a dog. I had noticed him as
I approached, feeling concern for him, wondering of his needs and situation. I
thought I might say something, but before I could, just as I came near to him,
I heard him snarl loudly under his breath, “Jew!” Again, my head spun,
wondering if I had really heard him, realizing that, of course, I had.

On my way out of the store just a few minutes later, I
approached the man, pausing in front of him to make eye contact. I wished him a
good day, and then I waited to give him an opportunity to respond. He looked
up, as the dog did from its place by the man’s feet, “yeah, have a good day.” I
thanked him and continued on my way. Later, I realized I would have liked to
say so much more, to sit down, to ask him if he wanted some coffee, to ask if
he could understand the pain caused by what he said, perhaps asking where it
had come from. Though understanding why I had not said more, I was sorry that I
had not had the presence of mind or heart to engage more fully in the moment.
However much experience we have had with such expressions of animosity, it is
confusing and disorienting when we feel a generic hate directed toward us
simply for who we are, not as an individual, but as part of a people or group,
or of a particular way in the world, whether bearing on religion, or gender, or
sexual identity, or ethnicity or anything else that puts us outside the
perspective or experience of the hater.

Thoughts of these two incidents weighed on me as we
approached the Sabbath called Shabbat
Chazon/the Sabbath of Vision that precedes the mid-summer day of mourning
called Tisha B’Av. The name Shabbat Chazon is drawn from the first
word of the prophetic reading for the
day, Chazon Yisheyahu/the Vision of
Isaiah, his plea to turn from ways that hurt our selves and others, to
bring healing and repair through justice and righteousness. That is the way of
response if we would heal the world. Jews have shed torrents of tears through
these weeks of summer heat that call up hatreds and tragedies of the past and
remind us not to be drawn into the vortex, but to rise above it and build anew
the Temple of hope and redemption, not a building of stone and wood, of silver
and gold, but of love and compassion for ourselves and all within the human
family. That is the gift of Tisha B’Av,
the ninth day of the month of Av, a day of fasting and mourning for all the
hate and destruction that has been. Marking the destruction of both Temples, so
the destruction of the world is contemplated, God protect us, the holy houses
that stood in Jerusalem each in its time having represented the entire world.
Seeds of hope are planted in the midst of destruction. Tradition teaches that
the Messiah will be born on Tisha B’Av. So
too, this month is referred to as Menachem
Av/Av the Comforter. It is not a month as a period of time that itself
brings comfort. We are each to be the comforter, drawing from the pain
experienced in holding the memories brought before us, and extending our arms
to embrace each other and hold all there is to hold.

From out of confusion, acknowledging our pain in
the face of hate, we are called to speak words to heal and not hurt, words to
join us one to another. Responding to the small expressions of hate, that are
really not so small, as encountered on sidewalks and street corners, whether
addressed to us as Jews or to any other person for who they are, may words of
love rise above and build soon a temple of peace that is the world itself.
Rabbi Victor H. Reinstein
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