Forgiveness. One of the most troubling and most fascinating of all stories of forgiveness is told by Simon Wiesenthal in his book, The Sunflower. In this book, Wiesenthal describes his own experience in a concentration camp in Poland. As part of his camp duties, Wiesenthal was often sent into the neighboring town to perform tasks like removing medical waste from the hospital.
One day, a nurse asked him to visit a patient in one of the hospital rooms. When he entered the room, he saw a dying man literally bandaged from head to toe. Only his eyes and one hand emerged from the gauze that enveloped his body. He proceeded to tell Wiesenthal that along with other SS officers, he had herded many Jews into a large house, threw petrol into the house and lit it on fire. As some of the Jews tried to escape from the burning building, they were shot by SS officers as they fell to the ground.
The dying man beseeched Wiesenthal to come closer. As Wiesenthal hesitated to sit on the bed, he felt the man’s almost bloodless hand groping for his own. Bewildered, yet spellbound, Wiesenthal sat, unable to remove his eyes from the bandaged form in front of him. He told Wiesenthal that he could never stop thinking of the horrible deed that he had committed. The man told him that he could not die without first coming clean. He said that he would be willing to suffer even more if by doing so he could bring back the dead. He said to Wiesenthal, "In the last hours of my life you are with me. I don’t know who you are, I only know that you are a Jew and that is enough . . I know that what I am asking from you is almost too much for you, but without your answer I cannot die in peace."
Wiesenthal stood up and without a word, left the room. And this particular incident troubled Wiesenthal his whole life, and he always asked himself if he did the right thing that day.
If Wiesenthal were here in this room now, I would ask him, "How can you ask such a question of yourself? Who could possibly tell you if you did the right thing or not? How can we fathom what you, a survivor, would feel in this situation? What can any of us who count our family members among the living possibly say to you? I would say to him, "To reduce this real-life event to a mere intellectual question seems to disregard the deep pain and profound suffering that you have endured through the Holocaust."
And the last question is for all of us: Could Wiesenthal serve as the agent of forgiveness on behalf of those who perished in the burning building?
As I re-read this real-life story, I was struck by the analogous images of the burning building to the twin towers burning on 9/11. In one case, Jews were herded into a building against their will, aware that they were going to perish. On the other hand, those who were killed in the twin towers went to work that morning never fathoming they would perish that day in a brutal attack. While the Holocaust itself cannot be wholly compared to what we now experience with terrorism, this particular incident from Wiesenthal’s life raises the following question: "If one of the masterminds of 9/11 were to seek forgiveness from us, what would we do? If the terrorists who have plagued Israel, asked you or me for forgiveness, what would we do?" Or to offer an even more plausible scenario, what if Saddam Hussein, in the middle of his current trial, were to seek forgiveness?
To my knowledge, no one involved with terrorist attacks, the masterminds, the planners who do not actually detonate themselves, have ever sought forgiveness. But what if they did? What would we do? What could we do? We, who are so strongly affected by our regard for both this country and Israel, could we possibly forgive? Haven’t many of us agreed to condemn Islam (and therefore Muslims) as a whole for the problem of terrorism? Is this just too much of a supreme test to even imagine forgiving? For some of us it is not much of a test at all. The answer would simply be, "Not on your life."
After telling his story in the first half of this book, Wiesenthal devotes the second half of the book to responses of a wide ranging group of Jews, Christians, philosophers, literary critics and the like, as he poses the question, "What would you have done if you were in my shoes?" In this section, Jewish thinkers highlight some of the dilemmas with forgiveness in this particular case.
For example, Deborah Lipstadt, a professor of Modern Jewish and Holocaust Studies, bases her point of view on what seems to be principles of teshuvah, as established by RAMBAM, author of the great medieval law code, the Mishneh Torah. Lipstadt highlights RAMBAM’s point that we must first ask forgiveness from the aggrieved party. Teshuvah calls for going to the wronged party first. Making peace with God comes later. She says, (and I quote), "If I sin, I cannot go to someone else who has some remote connection with the person I have harmed and ask that third party for forgiveness." (p. 194). Therefore, she concludes that in the case in The Sunflower, it is impossible for the SS officer to receive forgiveness because the murdered are no longer alive to grant it.
And I too am among those who can’t forgive. Do I give up completely on the concept of forgiveness because I live in a world where religious extremists seem bent on the destruction of my people? How do I live in a world where forgiveness is not possible? In this season of repentance, in this season of taking action, taking charge, when I am supposed to be changing internally and bringing that change to bear on the broader community, I am left asking myself what to do. What can I do-? What action can I take? In this season of taking action, of changing our reality, changing our lives, isn’t there anything I can do to affect the violence, the pain and the intent of those who seek to destroy us?
I leave forgiveness behind and I seek another path - a path that can bring some healing to the world, one person at a time. For those of us who cannot forgive, there is an alternative. Forgiveness can be supplanted by learning. Even though we cannot forgive terrorists for their sins, we can learn as much possible about why terrorism exists and we can work to counter it. And we can do this by fostering moderate elements in Muslim culture, so as to prevent terrorism in the future.
Even as "the war on terrorism" continues, it alone will not completely defeat the forces of destruction that have been wrought by religious extremists. Islam, like Judaism, has no central figure of authority. Whereas Catholics look to the Pope to represent them world-wide, Muslims have their own local religious leaders who shape their views, from the religious extremists on one side, to those who question local authority and seek to escape oppressive religious leadership.
And so with regard to the "war on terror" wrought by extremists, Jewish law still prescribes how we should act towards our fellow human beings. In the Torah, the laws of war are often sandwiched by laws that remind us of the humanity of the other. Parshat Ki Tetze, in the book of Deuteronomy, begins and ends with the laws of war. The portion opens with laws governing captives and ends with the admonition to not forget Amalek, one of the arch enemies of the Israelites. But sandwiched between these laws of war, are the laws of honest weights and measures and the laws of leaving the crops in the margins of the fields for the poor to glean. And we are told not "to abhor the Edomite for he is your kinsman." We are told not to "abhor an Egyptian for you were a stranger in his land." Sandwiched between the laws of war, we find laws governing relationships.
And in yesterday’s Torah portion, we also read about relationships. We read about Hagar’s son Ishmael, to whom Muslims trace their roots. Ishmael was our kin. According to Parshat Ki Tetze, we are not to hate the one who is our kin.
I am not suggesting that we do indeed hate Muslims as a group. But I do think that the increasing polarization of Muslims and Jews can lead to our considering Muslims as "other," so that we do not see the blockquoteerse face of humanity, the blockquoteerse nature of inblockquoteidual Muslims. Think about how difficult it is for us as Conservative Jews, when the actions of someone like Baruch Goldstein, the American-Israeli who murdered 29 Muslim worshippers, are perceived as representative of the entire Jewish community.
Last Sunday night, I had the opportunity to look deep into the blockquoteerse faces of humanity. Along with 600 other Jews, I sat spellbound as five different Muslims poured out their hearts to our community. A Syrian psychologist, an Indian professor, an Egyptian author, a Pakistani publisher and an Indian writer – these are the faces and voices of moderate Islam, of those who protest the one-way religious extremism that is common fare in the media.
We heard what Jews have longed to hear from the Muslim world. Out poured apologies, regret, and pain at having been raised in a world of hate. Tashbih Sayyed stood before us and said that of the 50+ Muslim countries in the world, there was not a nation where he felt he could live as a human being, able to freely express his views, to question and to probe and to bring about reformation in the Muslim world.
And what struck me most about this evening were the stories about hate being transformed into love between Muslim and Jew. One of the speakers, Wafa Sultan, told a story about her first few days in the US. She was in a shoe store and her husband asked the clerk where he was from. When the man said, "Israel," Wafa ran out of the store barefoot, she was so filled with hate towards Jews. She told her husband, "What could I say to him, other than I hate you?"
But her reflection, her teshuvah has created in her a respect for the Jewish community and a willingness to spend her time writing, speaking and advocating on behalf of America, pluralism and yes, Israel’s right to exist. These Muslims take their Americanism very seriously and have developed clear and evident ties with the Jewish people.
Hope was offered once again as Salman Rushdie gave a brief overview of the critical literary approach to the Koran. I felt like I was sitting in a Conservative rabbinical school, as I saw the commonality between his approach to the Koran and the approach to text that is fostered by the Conservative movement.
And Salman Rushdie emphasized that this simple conversation about a critical literary approach simply cannot happen in the Muslim world. Stepping outside the literalist, extremist framework is indeed dangerous. And they have certainly stepped outside of that world.
It struck me that these Muslims have escaped persecution and destruction, just as the Jews fled to Yavneh to escape the Romans after the destruction of the temple in 70 C.E. In Yavneh, Yochanan ben Zakkai sought to establish rabbinic Judaism in a post-temple era. So too, these Muslims are seeking reformation, they are seeking to reshape Islam as it is perceived by so many non-Muslims in the world. And in their Diaspora, they need support. They need Americans, they need Jews to build a world in which Islam can mean pluralism, in which Islam can take its place as one of the great mono-theistic faiths and promote peace and tolerance. They offer us hope of a different world vision, one person at a time. Nonie Darwish writes that, "Yes, the silent Muslim majority is the problem." Many of us agree with Nonie Darwish on this point. And that is why the courage of these inblockquoteiduals is so important and our support of them sows seeds of hope in the world. With each of these Muslims who speak out for a better world, the silent Muslim majority decreases.
These are the names that should become household names: Nonie Darwish, Salim Mansur, Tashbih Sayyed and Wafa Sultan. They were inspired by the courage of Salman Rushdie, the Indian writer, who wrote Satanic Verses, which led Iran’s Aytollah Khomeini to sentence Mr. Rushdie to death. They risk their lives with the courage of speaking out, with the strength of creating a new vision of Muslim culture, one in which mutual respect and pluralism is possible. These "new" household names should come to replace the names of terror: Bin Laden, Zawahiri and Nasrallah.
Some may question if we can really make a difference. How do our voices of moderation, our cries for peace, really compare to the billions of dollars that power the voices of hate and of terrorism in sectors of the extremist world> Can our humble voices really make a difference?
On this day, we celebrate the birthday of the world. On this Rosh Hashanah, we owe it to ourselves, to God and to the world, not to lose hope. And so I invite you to open your hearts and minds to the following possibilities:
Read – We are the people of the book. Pick up a book and read about Islam. In a post-911 world, there are many more resources available to us than ever before. Let us resolve to better understand the differences in Islam by educating ourselves.
Support - The event that I attended last Sunday night was sponsored by the American Jewish Congress. Supporting organizations who foster understanding and dialogue and help to break down the barriers between us is a mitzvah that we cannot afford to ignore.
Engage -– I am interested in exploring Temple Beth Am’s participation in Muslim-Jewish Dialogue. I invite you to contact me after the holidays if you are interesting in being a part of this conversation.
If Simon Wiesenthal were here with us now, I wonder what he would say about the ideas that I shared with you today. Would he say that being open to Muslims is a good alternative to forgiveness for us? Would he see these efforts as helping to prevent bigotry and bloodshed, violence and terrorism in the future?
The name of his book, The Sunflower, came from the sunflowers that Wiesenthal saw so lovingly placed on the graves of each German soldier. He so longed to have sunflowers on all of the graves – on the graves of every human being, not just SS officers and German soldiers. And this is our task: As much as a sunflower is a sign of life, we must strive to bring that life to all. In the year 2006, five years after 9/11, we see that a war of terror cannot be fought by military might alone. It must be coupled with strengthening the voices of these moderates who have the courage to cry out.
I hope that Simon Wiesenthal would see this small effort as a step towards demonstrating that we will do everything in our power to prevent the violent death that terrorism brings. Let us pray that by the time we once again read the story of Hagar and Ishmael on Rosh Hashanah next year, that each of us has taken small steps forward to bring peace to ourselves and to the world by learning about the other, and by fostering moderate Islam. It is the best alternative we have when we can’t forgive. Shana Tovah.