In This Moment, January 27: Snow in Jerusalem; Holocaust Remembrance Day; People Love Dead Jews - and Canaries; the Totalitarian Olympics

 

In This Moment Blockbuster Videos from TBE! Sunday's fascinating discussion on science and God with grades 5-7 and guest speaker, Judi Janette. (The kids asked amazing questions!) Click here to see my answers to a dozen of the most frequent questions I receive about God. Thursday's Interfaith Midwinter Course on the Book of Jonah, led by myself and Rev Harry Pappas. Click here to read some of the Jewish legends about Jonah that I brought up in the session. Sarah Darer Littman's talk at Friday night services on Colleyville and her new book, "Some Kind of Hate." The talk can be found during the last half of the video, which also includes the service. Click here for Sarah's website. A lively discussion at Tuesday's "New Jewish Canon" class addressed key questions revolving around the Holocaust and memory, exploring the works of Deborah Lipstadt, Elie Wiesel and Primo Levi. Of particular interest was how to preserve memory at a time when the survivors are aging, and what is it exactly that we are going to preserve. We found Levi's concept of "gray zones" particularly relevant given the recent suggestion that Anne Frank was betrayed by a fellow Jew. For next Tuesday's New Jewish Canon class, we'll be looking at Israel and the Palestinians: Sylvie Rosenberg's Bat Mitzvah last Shabbat morning.  Click here for more screen-grab photos and her d'var Torah. ---------------- Benny Morris, "The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem" and Ari Shavit, "Lydda, 1948," and. Yitz Greenberg and Meir Kahane, "Public Debate at the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale." ‌ Shabbat Slalom! Shabbat slalom is an appropriate greeting for a week heralding the Winter Olympics and a day when Jerusalem was turned into a winter wonderland. Whether or not we are are significantly snowed under this Shabbat is not yet known, but this week's services are still exclusively on Zoom, so not to worry. At Friday night's service, we'll focus on the issue of immigration and what we can do within our own community. Snow in Mea Shearim, Jerusalem, January 27, 2022 Nati Shohat/Flash90 Some Recommended Reading: Today is International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Auschwitz was liberated 77 years ago today, January 27. Click here for a timeline and facts about the Holocaust (MyJewishLearning) What was Auschwitz? (Enclyclopedia of the Holocaust) UN General Assembly adopts German-Israeli proposal against Holocaust denial (DW). The UN's rare moral stance against Holocaust denial (National Post) This week seven American Jewish organizations, including the ADL and Reform and Conservative movements released an open letter calling on Israel’s top leaders to take “unequivocal action” to stop ongoing political violence committed by Jewish Israelis in the West Bank against Palestinians, Israeli civilians, and IDF soldiers.” The letter, which does not use the word “settler” and instead uses the term "extremist," so as not to connect all settlers to these actions, noted the damage done by such incidents to Israel’s “ image and relations with the United States government, American people, and American Jewry” as well as to Israel’s status as a democracy. Breyer retirement leaves open the Court’s ‘Jewish seat’ (Jewish Insider) Five of the last six justices to sit in Breyer’s seat were Jewish) Well, unless the next nominee is from this list of notable Jewish women of color, it looks like that "Jewish seat" will need to remain open for a while. All the Jewish athletes to watch at the 2022 Beijing Olympics (JPost) Meet the Jewish athletes from the United States, Israel and Canada What Happened After My 13-Year-Old Son Joined the Alt-Right (Washingtonian) Article recommended by Sarah Darer last week. The Surprising History of Vegetarianism (Ha'aretz) “Even many champions of animal rights believe that human life is more valuable or important than animal life. While I myself do not think that human beings are more important or valuable than animals, I think it possible that our lives are more important to us than their lives are to them. That is one of two views, between which I am ambivalent,” explains Professor Christine Korsgaard from Harvard University, one of the most respected moral philosophers in human/animal relations. “The other view, opposed to that one, is that when you take life away from any creature, you basically take away everything that matters to that creature, and one creature’s ‘everything’ cannot be more than another creature’s ‘everything.’”  AP Photo of Jerusalem this morning: Mahmoud Illean The Totalitarian Olympics Tank Man & Ex. 23:2 vs the Super Empowered State The Olympics begin next week, and this year this Olympiad hardly promises to bring us the typical respite from international strife, which the games traditionally have done, going back to ancient Greece. The fact that the host nation has rounded up a million people and resettled them in camps has to strike at the conscience of every Jew, especially on a week when we mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day. It's also the 80th anniversary of the infamous Wannsee Conference, which coordinated the Final Solution. Though implementation of the genocide had already begun, Wannsee has become an important symbol, a watershed in Holocaust, and human, history. What's happening in China, though not equivalent in scope to the Holocaust, is likely genocidal in intent, and with the Holocaust flashing its warning, it's simply inexcusable for the world to allow. Here is a quick explainer from The Conversation: Muslim minorities are being arbitrarily arrested and imprisoned. It’s estimated around one million Uyghurs have been detained in what China calls “vocational training centers”. These are purpose-built detention centers, some of which resemble high-security jails. A recent ABC (Australia) investigation found 28 detention camps had expanded across Xinjiang as part of China’s program of subjugation.There is growing evidence of human rights violations inside the centers as well as reports of deaths in custody and forced labor. Add to that human rights violations (some call it "a human rights decimation") in Hong Kong as well as Tibet, and you begin to wonder how China got these Olympics in the first place. I won't even get into China's cloudy history with Covid. Speaking of which, Covid may have provided a convenient excuse for NBC to keep their correspondents home (in Stamford, which became an SNL joke last week) and not send them out to produce those syrupy, heartwarming Olympics sidebars with the locals, which might appear in bad taste, given those million Uyghurs languishing in prison camps. What I'd love to see is this. NBC, send your best to Beijing. Bring Brian Williams out of mothballs. Lure Bob Costas back. Summon Chet Huntley from the dead. Whatever. Then go find Tank Man and interview him. You know who I mean: the guy from the Tiananmen Square photo. Find him. Every day, lead off your coverage with a story about him, or about the other heroes who have stood tall against the masses, who have stood up to the insurmountable pressures of a heartless totalitarian regime. In June of 2021, Microsoft removed 'Tank Man' images on Tiananmen Square's anniversary. Now's you chance to atone, NBC, even though you and Microsoft split several years ago. We know little about Tank Man, though some have tried to identify him. But not to worry. We do know other heroes. Here's a list. You can start with that, NBC. Here are the first ten names: Bian Xiaohui (卞晓辉) , Cao Haibo (曹海波)  Chang Boyang (常伯阳)  Chang Weiping (常玮平) Chen Bing (陈兵)  Chen Guangcheng (陈光诚)  Chen Jiahong 陈家鸿 Chen Jianfang 陈建芳 Chen Jieren 陈杰人 Chen Kegui (陈克贵)  Or how about the Dalai Lama? He's been pretty quiet about these Olympics, though he opposed a boycott the last time they were in Beijing. I'm sure he would be an interesting "get." I don't envy you, NBC and IOC. You know, maybe it's time to stop rewarding dictatorships with these sacred games. The recent record is not good. Putin ruined Sochi, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, while making mockery of doping rules, and then celebrated the Games' conclusion by invading Crimea. Some suggest that's precisely what he'll do to Ukraine as soon as the China Olympics are finished. If it's too expensive for democracies to pull off the Games, the idea of permanent sites makes a lot of sense, from the perspective of sustainability alone, along with compelling economic and geo-political reasons. Perhaps if NBC were to stand up for the little guy, the Tank Man, over the super-empowered state, just this once, it might shake the system just enough to bring about change. But none of this will happen, for a whole host of reasons, including the battering America's self image has taken with regards to its own treatment of the "stranger," but it comes down mostly to inertia. No one wants to make waves. No one wants to stand up to the crowd, to fight an overwhelmingly powerful opponent when the odds of success are not great. No one wants to ruin the party and go against the majority. Which brings me to this week's portion of Mishpatim, which speaks both of the need to love the stranger and to stand up to the empowered behemoth called by the rulers the majority, but really an instrument of autocracy - and to have the kind of courage that Tank Man demonstrated more powerfully than just about anyone else has ever done. In the sources below, pay special attention to (#4,5,6) Exodus 23:2, from Mishpatim, and to the Sharansky crossing to freedom, ironically at Wannsee (#9), the very place where the notorious conference occurred. Heschel's quote (#4) is also spot on. Click here to access a pdf of these sources, along with a photo essay. People Love Dead Jews - and Canaries Dara Horn's thought-provoking new book, People Love Dead Jews has been much discussed. But one point she makes is worth questioning – that we should stop claiming that anti-Semitism is the “canary in the coal mine” of hate, the idea that when acts of animosity start with the Jews, they invariably escalate and spread to other groups.   Horn said, in an interview: How degrading it is to yourself to make that argument, the whole “first they came for the Jews” idea. You’re forced to erase and denigrate yourself in order to gain some kind of public empathy. Because then what you’re saying is that we should all care when Jews are murdered and maimed because, you know, it might be an ominous sign that real people might later get attacked.   Her point has validity. Why should hatred against Jews be condemned only because it portends other, supposedly more evil hatreds? Why should subsequent attacks on other groups be seen as an escalation? All hate is created equal. All hate is, or should be, equally vile - and it's troubling that after the Colleyville synagogue attack, many people didn't act that way. At first, the FBI even denied that the Jewish community was even specifically targeted. The FBI director later cleaned that up. Dara Horn's point, however, remains valid. I will grant that.   But there is another aspect of the canary-in-coal mine analogy that is quite valid. The dead canary is not warning us about the escalation of hate, but the degradation of truth.   See what Deborah Lipstadt wrote in 1993 in her seminal book, Denying the Holocaust, a work discussed in this week's "New Jewish Canon" course:   Those who care not just about Jewish history or the history of the Holocaust but about truth in all its forms, must function as canaries in the mine ones did, to guard against the spread of noxious fumes. We must vehemently stand watch against an increasingly nimble enemy. But unlike the canary we must not sit silently by waiting to expire so that others will be warned of the danger. When we witness assaults on the truth, a response must be strong, though neither polemical nor emotional. We must educate the broader public and academe about this thread and historical and ideological roots. We must expose these people for what they are.   This week is the fifth anniversary of the 2017 International Holocaust Day proclamation that left out any mention of Jews, an enormous error by the new administration, and one that emboldened White Supremacists. My guess is that it was inadvertent, a result of the incompetence and confusion that marked those first weeks (and beyond) in the Trump White House. But of course, the last thing Press Secretary Sean Spicer could do was to admit an error and clean it up, and the denial of the uniquely Jewish nature of the Holocaust is perhaps the most egregious form of Holocaust denial.   That was a classic "canary in the coal mine" moment, which I discussed in Embracing Auschwitz:   Holocaust denial is the canary in the coal mine of Orwellian doublethink, the mother of all fake news, and that not only does it defined all standards of empirical science and reject meticulously documented history, which any active historical denial might do, but in this case, doing so also attempts to whitewash the greatest moral crime ever perpetrated. There is, and there never has been, a greater, more bald-faced lie than the denial of the holocaust. That fact alone warranted an official immediate White House retraction.    That retraction never came, and 30,000 lies later, it still hasn't, though in his book, Spicer did admit to Holocaust-related mistakes.   And so, Dara Horn, I respect what you are saying. Jewish deaths should not be seen as noteworthy only because they portend threats against other groups. They are not the appetizer to the real meal. "First they came for the Jews..." (actually, in the famous quote, it was the socialists) should not be the reason people stand up for the Jews. They may or may not eventually come for you, but you should defend Jews because anti-Semitism is evil, not because of the canary's warning. And we should fight hate wherever it is found. But Holocaust denial is a special form of evil - it is an attack on truth itself, and one that can lead to other attacks, until truth becomes so degraded that even an armed insurrection in broad daylight and a free and fair election can be questioned. No lie is more malignant than Holocaust denial. If the veracity of Auschwitz is allowed to be defiled by denial, no truth is safe. Finally, here's an Olympian challenge for this Shabbat morning... Shabbat Shalom Rabbi Joshua Hammerman  Temple Beth El 350 Roxbury Road Stamford, Connecticut 06902 203-322-6901 | www.tbe.org    A Conservative, Inclusive, Spiritual Community

Bystanders in a Digital Age: Washington Post

 

Religion

Bystanders in a digital age: The heroes of the Derek Chauvin trial

By Joshua Hammerman | RNS Washington Post Link

April 20, 2021 at 7:03 p.m. EDT

(RNS) — This week, in the wake of the historic guilty verdict in the most charged racial justice case since O.J. Simpson, Jews around the world will read in the Torah (Lev. 19:16) the commandment not to stand idly by the blood of our neighbor.

Rarely before has that directive been more profoundly followed than by the witnesses testifying this week to what they saw the day of George Floyd’s murder — and the impact that could change forever what it means to be a bystander.

There is no question that the sources stand on the side of active intervention rather than passivity. As the Talmud states (Sanhedrin 73a), “Whence do we know that if a person sees his neighbor drowning, mauled by beasts, or attacked by robbers, he is bound to save him? From the verse, ‘Thou shalt not stand by the blood of thy neighbor.’”

Recent events have demonstrated idleness is, in many ways, no longer an option now that most onlookers carry in their pockets small, handheld instant-justice machines that can make star witnesses out of 9-year-olds. When a crime happens and you are there, either your cellphone camera is on or someone else’s has you in the frame. Either way, you will be found — and you will be involved.

What does it mean to be a bystander in a digital age? Is it even possible to stand back and stand by anymore without more direct involvement?

We’ve been asking that question a lot lately. The riveting testimony of the trial for the murder of George Floyd was marked by emotion, especially from the mouths of the youngest bystanders. Darnella Frazier, the teenager who filmed the viral video of Floyd’s arrest, said during her cross-examination there have been nights when she has stayed up and apologized to Floyd for not doing more to save his life.

RELATED: Of terror and testimonies: Living through the Derek Chauvin trial

“(Floyd) looked like he was fighting to breathe,” said another teen witness, Alyssa Nicole Funari, 18, who was outside Cup Foods during the arrest. “It was difficult because I felt like there really wasn’t anything I could do as a bystander,” Funari said. “The highest power was there and I felt like I was failing — like, failing to do anything.”

“Technically I could have done something; but I couldn’t do, physically, what I wanted to do,” Funari said, because police were ordering bystanders to stay back. Again and again, we heard the voices of the bystanders, like the off-duty firefighter who wanted to give CPR. They’re now stepping up to take responsibility for their inaction. But was it inaction?

At the other end of the spectrum, we’ve seen bystanders fail to respond correctly to recent hate crimes directed against people of Asian descent. They did respond — poorly — and their response also thrust them to the center of the story. Two New York City apartment building workers were fired for failing to help a 65-year-old Asian American woman as she was being violently attacked on the sidewalk outside. As she was being physically and verbally assaulted, cameras show these workers not only failing to assist but closing the door on the scene.

In Orange County, California, an Olympic hopeful was in a park training for the summer games when a man targeted her in an incident she captured on video. She became, in effect, her own corroborating witness, victim and bystander all in one.

Research shows most people are more than willing to intervene and help someone.

A whole branch of psychology has grown from this question, based on the famous 1964 Queens stabbing attack on Kitty Genovese that was ostensibly witnessed by 38 passive onlookers who did nothing to stop it. Later it was proven the numbers were inflated, and New Yorkers did not deserve the reputation for apathy that has been given them.

But we are forced to ask ourselves, if we were outside of that Manhattan apartment building or Cup Foods in Minneapolis, what would we have done? And how has digital technology changed the equation since 1964?

Or since biblical times. When the young Moses went out and saw his fellow Israelite being beaten, as he was about to strike the taskmaster, the text says, “ he turned this way and that. … ” Perhaps he saw no potential witnesses and figured it was OK to strike.

Or perhaps he saw lots of people around, but they all looked haggard and weary — like slaves — and he calculated that no one would have the strength to testify against him. Moses understood that moral paralysis is the mark of enslavement; the people had been cowed into complicity — to idleness — indifferent to the plight of their fellow and unlikely to get involved. So Moses got involved.

In Leviticus 9:22, an older Moses is once again a bystander as Aaron blesses the people. But then, curiously, in the very next verse, Moses joins Aaron in a blessing do-over, and this time, “the glory of God appeared to the entire people.”

According to the medieval commentator Rashi, Aaron’s initial blessing was a misfire. And Aaron, afraid he was not in God’s good graces, appealed to Moses, who immediately leapt once again and joined his brother in a renewed appeal to God, who this time responded with an appearance.

The early Hasidic master the Baal Shem Tov takes from this the lesson that we are bystanders for a reason; not to stand in judgment — and Moses did not — but to share the burden. From that perspective of humility, Moses did not judge Aaron. He simply seized the moment when his moment arrived, and he ran to assist.

In his moving closing remarks at the Chauvin trial, Prosecutor Steve Schleicher called the bystanders “Random members of the community, all converged by fate at one single moment in time to witness something. To witness 9 minutes and 29 seconds of shocking abuse of authority, to watch a man die …”

And he added, “All they could do was watch and gather what they could. Gather their memories, gather their thoughts and impressions, gather those precious recordings. And they gathered those up and they brought them here. And they brought them here and they got up on the stand and they testified and they bore witness to what they saw.” 

Those people in Minneapolis waited for their moment, having no idea their moment to act would be delayed for nearly a year. That’s a lot of bystanding but not a minute of idleness. They may not have been able to save George Floyd, but through their testimony, they may save the integrity of the American justice system. These heroic bystander witnesses in Minnesota heard the clarion call of Elie Wiesel: “Don’t stand idly by if you witness injustice. You must intervene. You must interfere.”

(Rabbi Joshua Hammerman is the spiritual leader of Temple Beth El in Stamford, Connecticut, and the author, most recently, of “ Embracing Auschwitz: Forging a Vibrant, Life-Affirming Judaism that Takes the Holocaust Seriously.” The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of Religion News Service.)

In This Moment, April 16: Yom Ha-atzmaut - a Wistful Hope; Bye, Bye Bernie; American Idle - Being a Bystander in a Digital Age; Reflecting on the Past Year

In This Moment The Shabbat-O-Gram is sponsored by Rebekah and Liran Raz in honor of their son, Liam, becoming a Bar Mitzvah on Shabbat morning. As we bid adieu to our scheduled Zoom-only services (though weather may impact some Friday nights including this one), here are some photos from last Shabbat. My thanks to all those who have made every service an oasis of calm and warmth at a harrowing time. We've often been graced with the presence of Hazzan Rabinowitz, who last week led the Torah service (while I carried the Torah "from out of Zion," in the split screen, with Jerusalem as my background). It will be the last opportunity for him to lead a service here for a while, since we are returning to the sanctuary, which made it a special thrill. You can watch the video here. As a bonus, you can also watch our discussion about why pigs are taboo, found later in the service.

Shabbat Shalom and Happy Yom Ha'atzmaut. Mazal tov to Liam Raz, whose bar mitzvah will be celebrated in the sanctuary this Shabbat!

Click on the video above to the right to watch a unique colorized version of David Ben Gurion declaring the state in 1948. Above on the left you'll find the full Independence Day Ceremony on Mt Herzl. Some highlights: At 23:45 - musician Idan Raichel sings his song "Longing" ("Ga'agua"), assisted by young singers impacted by loss from terror or war; 36:30 - Koolulam stages one of it's patented mass sing alongs, this time with medical professionals singing the song "Teta'aru Lachem," "Imagine to Yourselves" by Shlomo Artzi, one of my favorites; expressing not the defiant, utopian idealism of John Lennon's "Imagine," which has it's place, but a more wistful Israeli version, replete with the scars of loss, but hopeful nonetheless - the perfect song for now. Imagine a beautiful world less sad than what it is and we walk in it with suns in our pockets imagine a beautiful world A city in the darkness a simple world imagine a little happiness It was a lovely ceremony, upbeat and confident, befitting the first country in the world to reach the almost-end of the pandemic. And it was surprisingly apolitical (there was an uncomfortable political moment earlier in the day, when the Prime Minister was chastised by a bereaved father. Read more about it here). As always, Israel is a complicated place, but last night's ceremony reminds us that this mishmash of resiliency is somehow thriving, with suns in their pockets - Jewish, Arab, Ashkenazi, Sephardi, Mizrachi, Ethiopian, Orthodox and Secular, all the tribes, It's a mishmash, but it's our mishmash, and we cherish it. Click here for 73 Fun Facts About Israel. How about 73 Bible Verses honoring this birthday? And click here to read "73 +1 Reasons I Love Israel." Also, watch the Joint Israeli-Palestinian Memorial Day Ceremony. Also see Modern Israeli History: A Timeline and How Hatikva Became Israel's National Anthem (MJL). To gain a better understanding of the stakes raised by the current Netanyahu trial, listen to this podcast, which describes the undermining of Israel's free press. Bye, Bye Bernie The death of Bernie Madoff brings to mind a destructive and humiliation chapter of American Jewish history. At the time of his arrest in 2008 I made some waves by advocating his excommunication from Jewish life. You can read my original open letter here - and you can read some of the reaction here and here and here and here. (See the reaction of other rabbis, in today's Forward). The damage caused by this man can never be understated. He nearly single handedly destroyed Jewish philanthropy. As i told the Jerusalem Post in an interview at the time.. "My synagogue's teens received free Israel trips three years ago because of the generosity of the Lappin Foundation in Boston, but because that money had all been 'invested' in Madoff's fund, that gift that we received was in essence stolen money. . . Even those organizations not directly impacted may have profited in some manner from this money that was stolen from innocent people. Every penny that Madoff ever donated is dirty money." Returning to the Sanctuary... Reflecting on the Past Year As we anticipate our return to in-person / hybrid services, let's look back and pay tribute to the Zoom services and events that sustained us for these many months. ones, and which are continuing on weekdays and Sundays at 1. You can watch videos of many of our services and other key events, which have been collected at this website. The Torah implores us to choose life. At a time when we have hit a wall and feel so fried at the duration of this pandemic, isolation seems to be creeping ever upon us like the afternoon shadows. And that's where only people can save us. Not places. People. TBE is nothing more and nothing less than the sum of its human parts. And those human parts have come through this year for one another. I am so happy that this long nightmare is coming to an end, But Zoom services were not part of the illness - at their best, they were part of what helped us to heal. We chose life. Hope Stanger has written a lovely tribute to our still-ongoing daily Zoom minyan, which she has given me permission to share: When Rabbi Hammerman asked our congregation on Shabbat morning if we dress differently for Shabbat on Zoom services, I said jokingly that I do dress differently for Shabbat, because I think about our daily minyan group seeing me in the same Brooklyn, NY sweatshirt on multiple occasions, and what they might think; it made me laugh and cringe that someone might say: Does she only own one piece of clothing??  The truth is that Shabbat signifies a new sacredness given to us each week, and I want to honor that by wearing something a little more festive. Over the course of two months, between mid-August and late October, both my brother and my mother passed away. I sat two shivas, almost back-to-back; each quite different from the other; both without the usual gatherings of family and friends. Post-shiva, I went through an extraordinary level of grief, and through that, what held constant in my healing process was knowing I was signing onto afternoon minyan. Each day, I felt my hands being held and my heart being soothed as I chanted the familiar prayers and supported others who their lost loved ones. Having this available to me every day was invaluable. I could just be myself; be wherever I needed to be; and have the support and love of the people in our minyan knowing I was suffering and holding me close. It’s been a very unique experience being a part of this virtual yet intimately connected group. Because of Covid necessitating a new format for synagogue prayer, we come together on small screens instead of in a chapel; connecting through energy, chat boxes and words rather than in person, and precisely because of this, we have become a minyan family. And my minyan family holds a sacred space in my heart every day. Being able to meet on Zoom was one of the biggest gifts during a truly difficult year for everyone. As a therapist, I was able to schedule my days with the space for daily minyan; this has allowed me to say the Mourner’s Kaddish every day, which would not have been likely pre-Covid. When my dad passed away in 2007, I came once a week for a year to say Kaddish. Now I get to say it every day, and I know that’s just what I've needed to heal and to honor my family. What touches me the most is that during minyan, we write in the names of those in our lives who need healing, and we say the prayer for refuah shlemah in the middle of the Amidah. Each day, I pause and focus my energy and attention on the names I write as well as all the names and initials that any member of our minyan family writes in. I envision each person thriving in their lives with whole health and well being. With those I know, I physically picture them happy, healthy and free, and with others’ names, I send them healing and energy and imagine them so happy in their lives. I can share that a dear friend of mine who has been dealing with metastatic cancer had a clear PET scan after being held in our chat prayer box. I know that we all hold the prayers and intentions for each other, and this means the world to me; to both give and receive. As life readjusts and we slowly come back to our in-person synagogue life, I still look forward to the privilege of being with our minyan family at one o’clock every weekday. Thank you, Hope, for articulating what we are all feeing, as we now are approaching reached the end - of the beginning.

How Have We Changed?

And so we ask, how have we changed? And what have we learned? This article describes some of the lessons learned from the pandemic: Not “Back to Normal.” Better! Reaffirming a bevy of classic Jewish values, starting with Pikuakh Nefesh, the sacrosanct supremacy of saving lives. Also including humility, kindness, patience, justice and community. Everything Is Connected Take the Long View "From racial justice to health improvements to ecological sustainability, our work is rendered imperative by the awful reality of COVID-19."

American Idle What does it mean to be a bystander in a digital age?

Next week Jews around the world will read in the Torah (Lev. 19:16) the commandment not to stand idly by the blood our neighbor.  There is no question that the sources stand on the side of active intervention rather than passivity. As the Talmud states (Sanhedrin 73a), “Whence do we know that if a man sees his neighbor drowning, mauled by beasts, or attacked by robbers, he is bound to save him? From the verse, ‘Thou shalt not stand by the blood of thy neighbor.'”      But recent events are demonstrating that idleness is no longer an option, now that most onlookers carry in their pockets small, hand-held instant-justice machines that can make star witnesses out of nine-year-olds. When a crime happens and you are there, either your cellphone camera is on or you are in someone else’s has you in the frame. Either way, you will be found – and you will be involved. What does it mean to be a bystander in a digital age? We’ve been asking that question a lot lately. The riveting testimony of the trial for the murder of George Floyd has been marked by emotion, especially from the mouths of the youngest bystanders.  Darnella Frazier, the teenager who filmed the viral video of Floyd’s arrest, said during her cross-examination that there have been nights when she has stayed up and apologized to Floyd for not doing more to save his life. “(Floyd) looked like he was fighting to breathe,” said another teen witness, Alyssa Nicole Funari, 18, who was outside Cup Foods during the arrest. Funari took a moment before proceeding, leading the prosecutor to ask whether she was having difficulty recounting the incident. “It was difficult because I felt like there really wasn’t anything I could do as a bystander,” Funari said. “The highest power was there and I felt like I was failing — like, failing to do anything.” “Technically I could have done something; but I couldn’t do, physically, what I wanted to do,” Funari said, because police were ordering bystanders to stay back. Again and again, we heard the voices of the bystanders, like off duty firefighter who wanted to give CPR. They’re now stepping up to take responsibility for their inaction. But was it inaction?  At the other end of the spectrum, we’ve seen bystanders fail to respond correctly to recent hate crimes directed against people of Asian descent. Two New York City apartment building workers were fired for failing to help a 65 year old Asian American woman as she was being violently attacked on the sidewalk outside. As she was being physically and verbally attacked, cameras show these workers not only failing to intervene but then then closing the door on the woman.  In Orange County, CA., an Olympic hopeful was in a park training for the summer games when a man targeted her in an incident that she captured on video. She became, in effect, her own corroborating witness, victim and bystander all in one. Research shows that most people are more than willing to intervene and help someone. A whole branch of psychology has grown from this question, based on the famous 1964 Queens stabbing attack on Kitty Genovese that was ostensibly witnessed by 38 passive onlookers who did nothing to stop it. It later was shown that the numbers were inflated, and that in fact New Yorkers did not deserve the reputation for apathy that has been given them. But recent events force us to ask ourselves, if we were outside of that Manhattan apartment building or Cup Foods in Minneapolis, what would we have done? And how has digital technology changed the equation since 1964? Or since biblical times. When the young Moses went out and saw his fellow Israelite being beaten, as he was about to strike the taskmaster the text says “he turned this way and that…” Perhaps he saw no potential witnesses and figured it was okay to strike. Or perhaps he saw lots of people around, but they all looked haggard and weary – like slaves – and he calculated that no one would have the strength to testify against him. Moses understood that moral paralysis is the mark of enslavement; the people had been cowed into complicity – to idleness – indifferent to the plight of their fellow and unlikely to get involved. So Moses got involved. In Leviticus 9:22, an older Moses is once again a bystander as Aaron blessed the people.  But then, curiously, in the very next verse, Moses joins Aaron in a blessing do-over, and this time “the glory of G-d appeared to the entire people.”    According to Rashi, Aaron’s initial blessing was a misfire. And Aaron, afraid he was not in God’s good graces, appealed to Moses, who immediately leapt once again and joined his brother in a renewed appeal to God, who this time responded with an appearance. The Baal Shem Tov takes from this the lesson that we are bystanders for a reason; not to stand in judgment -- and Moses did not -- but to share the burden. From that perspective of humility, Moses did not judge Aaron. He simply seized the moment when his moment arrived, and he ran to assist.    Those people in Minneapolis waited for their moment, having no idea that their moment to act would be delayed for nearly a year. That’s a lot of bystanding, but not a minute of idleness. They may not have been able to save George Floyd, but through their testimony, they may save the integrity of the American justice system. These heroic bystanders witnesses in Minnesota heard the clarion call of Elie Wiesel: “Don’t stand idly by if you witness injustice. You must intervene. You must interfere.”

Shabbat Shalom! Rabbi Joshua Hammerman