In the video message above I speak of the notion of partial vs full redemption, and how the Passover song Dayenu mocks the idea of going halfway on salvation. Behind me in the video is artwork from Dura Europus, an ancient synagogue in Syria. (Excavated ruins from Syria, which is itself a nation in ruins, in a region that is being “obliterated.”) This fresco depicts the vision of Ezekiel’s Dry Bones, expressing hopes for a reborn “House of Israel.” That resurrection takes place when Jerusalem is rebuilt, fulfilling the prophecy, but it is not a complete redemption.
Still, there is something to be said for going halfway. Even UConn coach Danny Hurley said it was better to have reached the finals and lost than not to have gotten there at all. Half a redemption still matters, if it can keep us from blowing up the world.
Today we won’t achieve a full redemption. As 8 PM approaches, perhaps it’s enough to have a partial redemption, a piece of peace. Perhaps, just this once, it will be enough - Dayenu - to achieve “Peace in our time.” Perhaps half way is enough, as we aim to do what Trump has always been so good at - running out the clock. We aim to do just that, run out the clock on this most dangerous era, counting the minutes not to 8 PM, but to November 3.
And so I pray for a piece of peace.
It’s not everyday that I post every day. But it’s not everyday that my country’s president explicitly states that he intends to commit genocide - tonight…at 8:00.
Film at 11.
Timothy Snyder wrote eloquently about this unprecedented action earlier today.
“A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.”
These are not the words of Hitler, or Stalin, or Mao, or Pol Pot, or Assad, or Putin. These are the words of the president of the United States, today.
Do not be distracted by circumstances. Of course there are emotions, personalities, politics, a war. None of this excuses that sentence. The reason we have a notion of genocide, and a convention on genocide, is to define certain actions as always and definitively wrong.
Are these “only words”? No, they cannot be “only words.” As any historian of mass atrocity knows, there is no such thing as “only words.” The notion of killing a whole civilization, once spoken, remains. It enables others to say similar things, as when another elected representative compared the entire country of Iran to a cancer that had to be removed.
Whatever happens tonight, the president, by saying such things, has already changed the world for the worse, and made acts of mass violence more likely. If we are Americans, he has also changed our country. He has changed us, because he represents us; we voted for him, or we didn’t vote and allowed him to come to power, or we didn’t do enough to stop him. These words are America’s words, until and unless Americans reject them.
I just re-read JFK’s Speech About the Cuban Missile Crisis. It’s worth a read/ listen.
Such a stark contrast between JFK’s measured words and Trump’s insane rants. The situation was no less precarious then, and the stakes arguably higher, the threat to the homeland even greater. Much greater, in fact, although that could change tonight.
But the main difference was that back in the Kennedy era we could be confident that the fate of the world was still in the hands of rational actors. Such is not the case now.
Back then, the leaders of the USSR were not measuring the drapes in paradise, like the mullahs seem to be doing, and the leader of the US was not salivating about conquest next to the Easter Bunny. It’s hard to say whether Khrushchev cared at all about his people, but he was able to come to an agreement with his American counterpart, and Armageddon was averted.
If ever there were a day for prayer, this is it.
In Jewish tradition, the seventh day of Passover, which begins this evening, almost exactly an hour before Trump’s deadline - is the day when the Red Sea was crossed. That was a life-or-death moment for the newly-liberated Israelites. And for the world, echoing the words of Exodus 12, it will be a “Night of Watching.”
(יהוה is Adonai, God’s name)
The question this time is whether the Destroyer will cause a “whole civilization to die tonight, never to be brought back again.” Neither on that final night in Egypt nor in the midst of the swirling Red Sea did God’s Angel of Death wipe out an entire civilization. But that’s what Donald Trump says he intends to do.
And so, as both the Seventh Day and Zero Hour begin in just a few hours, I present a multifaith prayer for peace, a dozen prayers in one. I suggest that you read aloud the prayer from your own faith tradition and than at least one from another tradition.
I conclude with this plea for peace and security. Hashkivenu, which in the liturgy immediately follows the prayer of triumph at the Red Sea, Mi Chamocha.
Peace to you. Peace to all of us. Peace to the innocent people of Iran, the Gulf, Israel, so many of whom are sleeping in shelters tonight, America and the world.
Rabbi Joshua Hammerman
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