Sabbath Messages > Sabbath Message: January 29, 2005
Good Sabbath
January 29, 2005
Tomorrow the Iraq theatre takes a new turn, voting as voters dodge killers and assassins. I've know a few people who fled Iraq; Fran and I went to Egypt with a group of them; very intelligent, great bureaucrats; many went to Israel to escape death, became businessmen and civil servants, never saw a law that they couldn't make more complicated.
Concurrently, the world memorialized the 60th anniversary of a more sorrowful place and event--the Holocaust and Auschwitz/Birkenau. There is no boredom or redundancy to know history for we MUST know it, comprehend its lessons and dedicate ourselves to not allow it to happen again. Yet we who had people affected by this horror always are left with "why?"; how could God have allowed it; did God know about it; did He create it? Is God on a different value system that would condone or cause such pain and horror? I cannot allow myself to believe this.
While I have spent many moments trying to analyze this never-ending "why?", I've never arrived at an answer. God is of forgiveness yet His actions speak louder than forgiveness, a continuing punishment of "His people" and humankind, in every generation. Does He choose the tyranny or even notice it, or is this a combination of human error and the devil's love affair with evil? Is the devil co-equal with God? Is that possible? Yes, judging history and the amount of evil and man's inhumanity to man. Did God create humans or was it a collaboration with the devil so that man would be able to choose good over evil. Humans were not created to be evil or amoral. They were given the great ability to choose good or evil and admonished to "choose good and so life". Life was equated with being and doing good!
Aharon Appelfeld, the author of "The Story of a Life", wrote a wonderfully sad piece for the NYTimes (1/27) which assisted my search for truth and reason: "During the Holocaust there was no place for thought or reason; under conditions of hunger andcold, the body is liable to lose its divine qualities; that too was the wickedness of the murderers; not only to murder, but to humiliate, to exterminate every shred of will and faith, to turn him into a despicable body whose soul had fled and then to murder him." So, evil has the power to hunt, find and destroy the soul. Can that be or is the soul something that cannot be extinguished, no matter the evil. I believe this to be true.
So what is a Jew except the giver of Christ to the world, to create an ethic and faith that has lived beyond murder and history, to be despised only for being a Jew in a white-hot hatred that only religion's passion could possibly inspire and maintain.
I ask God is this not enough, I do not want to be a remnant but rather a loved human who believes that You are kind, wise and free of hatred and constant punishment; that You be no longer a God of mystery, but rather the embodiment of all that is good. Greatness eludes any entity that can cause or tolerate the horrors of history. Is this why You created man, as another wild animal with better manners than a wild beast, or a consuming person who simply shops for toys and rewards that make his life better while ignoring the debasement of others?
Today's political thought is based upon the same ingredients that have brought near-destruction to humanity and murder to so many innocents, close to destroying innocence itself. We have politics which breed divisiveness, in fact, thrive in its chaos, which produce class divides from which this country was founded to free its citizens.
This Sabbath, may we find ourselves approaching freedom from injustice, from divisive politics, from hunger and degradation, so that humans are humane and god-like, innocent of evil and committed to justice and love. May it be so, O Lord.
sandy
