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| A Chumash vandalized in the incident. |
The following appears as my weekly message in our school newsletter for this week:
We have
a choice to make. You do, I do, our
community does.
There
has been a lot of talk in our circles this week about evil, madmen, and hate.
I’m as guilty as anyone else, if not more so.
Those were the things running through my head as I tried to talk to our
boys last shabbat afternoon. I had never
felt as sick to the stomach as I did when I peered under the cover of our Torah
earlier that morning to see whether the person who had left messages of hate
all over our room, had gone so far as to deface our Torah as well. As everyone knows by now he had. And in the most vile of ways.
I was
shaken to the core and I let our kids
know it. I talked about anti-Semitism,
because it’s all I could think of. I
told them that as a graduate student and then as an Instructor of Modern Jewish
History at Yeshiva University, I gave numerous lectures on anti-Semitism, its
roots, and its causes. But I had never
done so in the room where an anti-Semitic attack had occurred – that very same
day. I grew up knowing that my
grandparents and great-grandparents had been subjected to unspeakable
horrors. I even visited the places where
that happened. But nothing I had
personally experienced compared to this.
So I let the boys know. And then,
when asked, I told a reporter from the Jackson Sun.
So the
story that emerged was one of hate. It
was the story of Jewish persecution and Jewish victimization from Egypt to
Jackson, with quite a few pit stops along the way. The story is factual. It’s part of who we are and part of who we’ve
always been. We can choose to tell that
story to our kids and to their kids after them.
But there is another story as well.
It’s the story of a non-Jewish hotel manager who was close
to tears when she saw what had happened.
Not because she was concerned for her job – she did nothing wrong – but
out of genuine concern for us. It’s the
story of a dozen law enforcement officials who showed up on the scene,
each more respectful and caring than the next.
It’s about the amazement, awe, and deep seated respect they showed when
the Torah was unrolled in front of them and they saw the painstaking labor of
love with which each letter was formed.
It’s about the member of the Jackson Police Department’s Criminal
Investigations Unit who, covered from head to toe in his white sterile suit and
meticulously documenting the evidence, told me about the year he spent in
Israel living in the King David Hotel on assignment by the US military and the lifelong admiration
he’s had for the Jewish State ever since.
And it’s the story of Nancy and Bert Bennett, residents of
Jackson whom I have never met, but who wrote me the following letter this week:
Dear Sirs, Madame,
My husband and I were truly
sorry to hear of the terrible incidents that happened to your holy books in
Jackson. We have lived here for over
twenty years and have never heard of such a thing happening. As I watched the television report, I did not
think you got the sincere apology you deserve.
This world seems to be filled
with such hatred.
But there are many Christians
that recognize that the Torah is God’s sacred word and the Jewish people are
God’s chosen people. My husband Bert and
I sincerely ask for your forgiveness for the city of Jackson and again, though
we hold no official power, we apologize for what happened here.
Sincerely,
Nancy & Bert Bennett
The choice is ours.
Which story do we want to tell?
1 comment:
Rabbi, both stories need to be told but with the emphasis on the empathy people had with us.
Nathan Kirshstein
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