Vayikra: National Gun Violence Prevention Shabbat @ Ohev Shalom

Last Shabbat was National Gun Violence Prevention Shabbat. I tried to write to you about it here on the blog, but I'm not sure many people realized we were also acknowledging it in services. I wanted to share with you my thoughts from Friday night's service last week, in addition to my regular blog post this week.

I also included several prayers written specifically about gun violence, from an online resource called 'God not Guns,' which you can find here. It's a Pdf document, from which I read prayers on the following pages:

Pp. 24-25, 26 ('Prayer 2'), 27 (both 'Prayer 5' and 'Prayer 6')

Here is my sermon from last Friday night:

Friday Night D’var Torah - Parashat Vayikra 5773

Gun Violence Prevention Shabbat

In the Doblitz Library here at Ohev Shalom (just beyond the wall of our chapel), we have a statue of Moses. (We actually have two, but this one is unique.) Those of us who spend some time in the library affectionately refer to him as ‘angry Moses.’ We call him that, because of the unusual choice of the sculptor, who has chosen to depict Moses just about to smash the Ten Commandments to the ground. You can see the anger in his eyes and in his face; he isn’t holding the tablets in the traditional manner, cradled in his arm, but is instead raising them above his head, poised to hurl them to the ground. And I was thinking about ‘angry Moses’ when I was preparing to write this D’var Torah for Gun Violence Prevention Shabbat. (which, incidentally, isn’t a name that really rolls off the tongue…)

In my blog this week, I wrote a bit about gun violence, and what the Torah has to say on the subject, though perhaps more accurately on the subject of guilt and innocence, of our collective responsibility for the safety and well-being of others. In that post, I quoted a colleague of mine in California, Rabbi Aaron Alexander, who, in his February 14^th Huffington Post article, wrote very passionately on this issue. And in fact, Rabbi Alexander was the one who led me to our library statue, because he connected our issue this evening to Moses coming down from the mountain. He talked about what Moses saw when he descended; how he was bringing the people a gift from God, and arrived just in time to see them transgressing possibly the MOST sacred commandment, and turning their fledgling community into a society of debauchery, idolatry, and violence. And in that moment, Moses crashed the tablets to the ground.

The rabbis reading this story ask themselves, ‘how do we understand Moses’ actions?’ He is never punished by God for his rash behavior, in fact, many rabbis argue that he is rewarded, even praised, by God, and so we are left trying to make sense of this extremely passionate episode. And this question isn’t merely limited to just Moses; I think you’ll see that it also carries ramifications for us and our society today as well.

Rabbi Alexander queries:  “Is this public display of frustration an acceptable leadership paradigm to celebrate? Isn't this kind of emotional response exactly what we strive to keep out of the public sphere?” And he then quotes one of our ancient rabbinic teachers, Reish Lakish, as stating that “God recognized [that] some events [are] so jarring and disruptive that the only authentic response is outrage, astonishment and direct action -- even if something important is lost along the way. Yes, even the Ten Commandments, wholly Divine, became secondary to human behavior in this moment.”

Now I look at this story, and I feel two, conflicting responses. On the one hand, I agree with Rabbi Alexander. As Moses came down from Mount Sinai and saw the cohort before him, and how perverted and fundamentally flawed were the standards and expectations these people had set for themselves, he understood, in that moment, that something was already broken. He shattered the tablets as if to say, ‘you are living a broken system, and we cannot build on this foundation with God’s teaching.’ When we, today, accept the senseless deaths of children every day, gun-related violence all around us on a constant basis, and common-sense changes that are OVERWHELMINGLY accepted by the majority of Americans, yet they STILL cannot get implemented – that is a broken system. And so we have to ask, what needs to be shattered for change to happen? When will enough Columbines, Auroras, and Sandy Hooks happen for us to realize that we have to stop hiding behind our own holy tablets; the laws that we claim are unchangeable, that we insist are written in stone?

In that sense, I agree with Aaron Alexander. I agree that we sometimes let the status quo deaden our senses to the problems around us – we become numb to the violence in movies, video games, the news, and permeating our daily lives. We have to, at the very least, be WILLING to shatter any and all of our sacred truths, if there’s a chance that they’ve grown stale, that they’ve remained unquestioned and unscrutinized for too long. When we get too complacent, bad things happen.

This week’s Torah portion, and my blog post online, try to remind us that we STILL have a responsibility, even if we commit sins unwittingly, or think that we can stand on the sidelines and avoid getting involved. We cannot. We are all responsible. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” So we cannot afford to turn a blind eye, or look the other way, or hide behind the ‘stone tablets’ of how we’ve always done things or ‘that’s just the way Americans think.’ We are all affected by the violence that is perpetrated every day, and so we have an obligation to act RIGHT NOW!

That is how I feel. However, that is not ALL I feel. I mentioned earlier that I have two, conflicting responses to Moses’ smashing of the tablets, and my other response comes specifically BECAUSE of how much we are dependent on one another, how we are all indirectly affected by the actions of others. Can we always respond as Moses does? Can we tear down the fabric of society, pouring out our outrage and fury, without concern about the consequences? What about dialogue and communication? Finding middle ground, and reaching consensus? Yes, some issues are more important, and in the moment it may feel as if anything and everything is warranted, but how does Moses then go back to talking to individual Israelites after his furious display? How does he resolve minor interpersonal disputes and hear someone’s mundane complaint after they’ve witnessed ‘angry Moses’?

If we are looking to make sustainable, long-term change – and I believe we are – we need to bring everyone with us. We need to work long and hard, and focus on the eventual goals, not just the immediate ones, if a culture shift is ever going to occur. And we cannot alienate others, demonize those across the aisle, or label someone the ‘scapegoat,’ and still think we’re going to reach consensus. Right now, we have a problem. Are there deep political divides on this issue? Yes, there are. Should we therefore avoid talking about it? No, we cannot. We simply cannot afford to. But let’s not therefore IGNORE that it is a divisive issue, filled with tensions and personal stories. We have to give room to all the fears and concerns, family stories and cultural norms, frustrations and grievances. All of it needs to be brought to the table, otherwise we aren’t cleaning out the closets and creating a fresh start.

And as we approach the holiday of Pesach, we must indeed focus on cleaning out those closets. And specifically, we need to work on those issues we would perhaps prefer to leave behind, to fester and ferment. ‘Chametz,’ comes from the same root as vinegar ‘Chometz,’ and it has to do with fermentation. We need to rid ourselves of the Chametz that festers in our lives, and give ourselves a fresh start. We need to work together with all members of our society, leaving behind issues that divide and enrage us, and focusing on the real changes that need to happen to reduce the amount of innocent deaths and instances of gun violence. To make sure that the James Holmeses and Adam Lanzas of our county can’t get a hold of weapons and make tragic decisions that ruin lives. Because there are solutions out there that can lead to these changes, and most of us support them. We just allow ourselves to get distracted, to focus instead on the Chametz, when we really need to pay more attention to the Charoset, the mortar that we remind ourselves of on Passover that brought bricks together and built civilizations.

At our Second Seder on Passover, in another week and a half, we’ll talk more about that strange and entertaining song we sing, Dayeinu. What do we mean when we sing about Dayeinu? The verses of the song suggest that if God had brought us out of slavery but abandoned us in the desert, Dayeinu – it would have been enough. If God had brought us to Sinai, but somehow FORGOT to also give us Moses’ infamous Ten Commandments, that too would have been Dayeinu, enough. Or if we’d been given the Land of Israel but no Shabbat, no problem, Dayeinu, we’d have been fine. But we would NOT have been fine. The song is really facetiously trying to get us all to shout out loud, “NO! It would NOT have been enough!” We need God’s help, because we’d have been nowhere without it.

And just as Moses’ dramatic, demonstrative act, commemorated in our friend, the statue next door, leaves us with two possible responses, so too Dayeinu yields two responses. And in both instances, we need BOTH paths. Dayeinu reminds us that it was not enough then, and it’s not enough now. We cannot be complacent, and settle for a flawed society, stuck in a proverbial desert, aimless and chaotic. We MUST keep striving. We must work together to complete God’s work, to acknowledge how much God has done for us, but recognize that it is now our task to keep going, keep building, keep striving, and keep changing to get this thing right. We’re not there yet, but we have the tools and the know-how to get there.

But Dayeinu, the word, and the new group which was formed here at Ohev Shalom, is also a reminder that we need to say ‘Enough.’ We have endured enough hatred, enough violence, and enough smoke-and-mirrors; now it’s time for change. Yes, this is a complicated issue. And yes, some people feel demonized, and we have to be respectful of different backgrounds and approaches to the overarching issue of owning guns. But there are also people, and specifically children, dying every day. And that’s a problem that truly, truly affects us all, and needs to be remedied. So we must find ways to bring everyone together, to get us all – in this community, in this country, and around the world – to say ‘enough!’ Let us begin to make changes.

Why would someone make an angry statue? Why depict Moses in that embarrassing moment for us all, in that heated, passionate, really, violent pose? Maybe because we need the reminder. We need to know the importance of anger. It can be empowering, and it can be strengthening. But we also need to use it wisely, and not fight consuming, destructive fire in kind. We can be better, and we can do better. We must act. We need to educate, we need to organize, and we need to make sure that change begins to happen. Then we will create a more just and peaceful society. THEN we will have earned the right to truly receive God’s commandments, and we will finally be able to start with clean cabinets and clean souls.

Shabbat Shalom!