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- Aug 25, 2009
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THIS IS PART 1
Thank you "Oldtimer", it is long but I think worth reading. I have to
post it in 2 parts.
First Day of Rosh Hashanah 2010
Sermon delivered by Rabbi Schlomo Lewis of Atlanta
I thought long and I thought hard on whether to deliver the sermon I am about to share. We all wish to bounce happily out of shul on the High Holidays, filled with warm fuzzies ready to gobble up our brisket, our honey cakes and our kugel. We want to be shaken and stirred ? but not too much. We want to be guilt-schlepped ? but not too much. We want to be provoked but not too much. We want to be transformed but not too much.
I get it, but as a rabbi I have a compelling obligation a responsibility to
articulate what is in my heart and what I passionately believe must be said
and must be heard. And so, I am guided not by what is easy to say but by
what is painful to express. I am guided not by the frivolous but by the
serious. I am guided not by delicacy but by urgency.
We are at war. We are at war with an enemy as savage as voracious, as
heartless as the Nazis but one wouldn?t know it from our behavior. During
WWII we didn?t refer to storm troopers as freedom fighters. We didn?t call
the Gestapo, militants. We didn?t see the attacks on our Merchant Marine
as acts by rogue sailors. We did not justify the Nazis rise to power as our
fault. We did not grovel before the Nazis, thumping our hearts and
confessing to abusing and mistreating and humiliating the German people.
We did not apologize for Dresden, nor for The Battle of the Bulge, nor for El
Alamein nor for D-Day.
Evil ? ultimate, irreconcilable, evil threatened us and Roosevelt and Churchill had moral clarity and an exquisite understanding of what was at stake. It was not just the Sudetenland, not just Tubruk not just Vienna, not just Casablanca. It was the entire planet. Read history and be shocked at how frighteningly close Hitler came to creating a Pax Germana on every continent.
Not all Germans were Nazis ? most were decent, most were revolted by the Third Reich, most were good citizens hoisting a beer earning a living and tucking in their children at night. But, too many looked away, too many cried out in lame defense ? I didn?t know.? Too many were silent. Guilt absolutely falls upon those who committed the atrocities, but responsibility and guilt falls upon those who did nothing as well. Fault was not just with the goose steppers but with those who pulled the curtains shut, said and did nothing.
In WWII we won because we got it. We understood who the enemy was and we knew that the end had to be unconditional and absolute. We did not stumble around worrying about offending the Nazis. We did not measure every word so as not to upset our foe. We built planes and tanks and battleships and went to war to win?.. to rid the world of malevolence.
We are at war? yet too many stubbornly and foolishly don?t put the pieces together and refuse to identify the evil doers. We are circumspect and disgracefully politically correct.
Let me mince no words in saying that from Fort Hood to Bali, from Times Square to London from Madrid to Mumbai from 9/11 to Gaza the murderers, the barbarians are radical Islamists.
To camouflage their identity is sedition. To excuse their deeds is contemptible. To mask their intentions is unconscionable.
A few years ago I visited Lithuania on a Jewish genealogical tour. It was a stunning journey and a very personal, spiritual pilgrimage. When we visited Kovno we davened Maariv at the only remaining shul in the city. Before the war there were thirty-seven shuls for 38,000 Jews. Now only one, a shrinking, gray congregation. We made minyon for the handful of aged worshippers in the Choral Synagogue, a once majestic jewel in Kovno.
After my return home I visited Cherry Hill for Shabbos. At the oneg an elderly family friend Joe Magun came over to me.
?Shalom? he said. ?Your abba told me you just came back from Lithuania.?
?Yes,? I replied. ?It was quite a powerful experience.? ?Did you visit the Choral Synagogue in Kovno? The one with the big arch in the courtyard??
?Yes, I did. In fact, we helped them make minyon.? His eyes opened wide in joy at our shared memory. For a moment he gazed into the distance and then, he returned. ?Shalom, I grew up only a few feet away from the arch. The Choral Synagogue was where I davened as a child.?
He paused for a moment and once again was lost in the past. His smile faded. Pain filled his wrinkled face. ?I remember one Shabbos in 1938 when Vladimir Jabotinsky came to the shul? (Jabotinsky was Menachim Begin?s mentor ? he was a fiery orator, an unflinching Zionist radical, whose politics were to the far right.) Joe continued ?When Jabotinsky came, he
delivered the drash on Shabbos morning and I can still hear his words burning in my ears. He climbed up to the shtender, stared at us from the bima, glared at us with eyes full of fire and cried out. ?EHR KUMT. YIDN FARLAWST AYER SHTETL ? He?s coming. Jews abandon your city.
We thought we were safe in Lithuania from the Nazis, from Hitler. We had lived there thrived for a thousand years but Jabotinsky was right his warning prophetic. We got out but most did not.
We are not in Lithuania. It is not the 1930s. There is no Luftwaffe overhead. No U-boats off the coast of long Island. No Panzer divisions on our borders. But make no mistake; we are under attack ? our values, our tolerance, our freedom, our virtue, our land.
Now before some folks roll their eyes and glance at their watches let me state emphatically, unmistakably ? I have no pathology of hate, nor am I a manic Paul Revere, galloping through the countryside. I am not a pessimist, nor prone to panic attacks. I am a lover of humanity, all humanity. Whether they worship in a synagogue a church a mosque a temple or don?t worship at all. I have no bone of bigotry in my body, but what I do have is hatred for those who hate, intolerance for those who are intolerant, and a guiltless, unstoppable obsession to see evil eradicated.
Today the enemy is radical Islam but it must be said sadly and reluctantly that there are unwitting, co-conspirators who strengthen the hands of the evil doers. Let me state that the overwhelming number of Muslims are good Muslims, fine human beings who want nothing more than a Jeep Cherokee in their driveway, a flat screen TV on their wall and a good education for their children, but these good Muslims have an obligation to destiny, to decency that thus far for the most part they have avoided. The Kulturkampf is not only external but internal as well. The good Muslims must sponsor rallies in Times Square, Trafalgar Square, the UN Plaza, on the Champs Elysee, in Mecca condemning terrorism, denouncing unequivocally the
slaughter of the innocent. Thus far, they have not. The good Muslims must place ads in the NY Times. They must buy time on network TV, cable stations, in the Jerusalem Post, in Le Monde, in Al Watan, on Al Jazeena condemning terrorism, denouncing unequivocally the slaughter of the innocent ? thus far, they have not. Their silence allows the vicious to tarnish
Islam and define it.
Brutal acts of commission and yawning acts of omission both strengthen the hand of the devil.
I recall a conversation with my father shortly before he died that helped me understand how perilous and how broken is our world; that we are living on the narrow seam of civilization and moral oblivion. Knowing he had little time left he shared the following ? Shal. I am ready to leave this earth. Sure I?d like to live a little longer, see a few more sunrises, but truthfully, I?ve had it. I?m done. Finished. I hope the Good Lord takes me soon because I am unable to live in this world knowing what it has become.
This startling admission of moral exhaustion from a man who witnessed and lived through the Depression, the Holocaust, WWII, Communist triumphalism, McCarthyism, Strontium 90 and polio. ? Yet his twilight observation was ? ?The worst is yet to come.? And he wanted out.
I share my father?s angst and fear that too many do not see the authentic, existential threat we face nor confront the source of our peril. We must wake up and smell the hookah.
?Lighten up, Lewis. Take a chill pill, some of you are quietly thinking. You?re sounding like Glen Beck. It?s not that bad. It?s not that real.?
Thank you "Oldtimer", it is long but I think worth reading. I have to
post it in 2 parts.
First Day of Rosh Hashanah 2010
Sermon delivered by Rabbi Schlomo Lewis of Atlanta
I thought long and I thought hard on whether to deliver the sermon I am about to share. We all wish to bounce happily out of shul on the High Holidays, filled with warm fuzzies ready to gobble up our brisket, our honey cakes and our kugel. We want to be shaken and stirred ? but not too much. We want to be guilt-schlepped ? but not too much. We want to be provoked but not too much. We want to be transformed but not too much.
I get it, but as a rabbi I have a compelling obligation a responsibility to
articulate what is in my heart and what I passionately believe must be said
and must be heard. And so, I am guided not by what is easy to say but by
what is painful to express. I am guided not by the frivolous but by the
serious. I am guided not by delicacy but by urgency.
We are at war. We are at war with an enemy as savage as voracious, as
heartless as the Nazis but one wouldn?t know it from our behavior. During
WWII we didn?t refer to storm troopers as freedom fighters. We didn?t call
the Gestapo, militants. We didn?t see the attacks on our Merchant Marine
as acts by rogue sailors. We did not justify the Nazis rise to power as our
fault. We did not grovel before the Nazis, thumping our hearts and
confessing to abusing and mistreating and humiliating the German people.
We did not apologize for Dresden, nor for The Battle of the Bulge, nor for El
Alamein nor for D-Day.
Evil ? ultimate, irreconcilable, evil threatened us and Roosevelt and Churchill had moral clarity and an exquisite understanding of what was at stake. It was not just the Sudetenland, not just Tubruk not just Vienna, not just Casablanca. It was the entire planet. Read history and be shocked at how frighteningly close Hitler came to creating a Pax Germana on every continent.
Not all Germans were Nazis ? most were decent, most were revolted by the Third Reich, most were good citizens hoisting a beer earning a living and tucking in their children at night. But, too many looked away, too many cried out in lame defense ? I didn?t know.? Too many were silent. Guilt absolutely falls upon those who committed the atrocities, but responsibility and guilt falls upon those who did nothing as well. Fault was not just with the goose steppers but with those who pulled the curtains shut, said and did nothing.
In WWII we won because we got it. We understood who the enemy was and we knew that the end had to be unconditional and absolute. We did not stumble around worrying about offending the Nazis. We did not measure every word so as not to upset our foe. We built planes and tanks and battleships and went to war to win?.. to rid the world of malevolence.
We are at war? yet too many stubbornly and foolishly don?t put the pieces together and refuse to identify the evil doers. We are circumspect and disgracefully politically correct.
Let me mince no words in saying that from Fort Hood to Bali, from Times Square to London from Madrid to Mumbai from 9/11 to Gaza the murderers, the barbarians are radical Islamists.
To camouflage their identity is sedition. To excuse their deeds is contemptible. To mask their intentions is unconscionable.
A few years ago I visited Lithuania on a Jewish genealogical tour. It was a stunning journey and a very personal, spiritual pilgrimage. When we visited Kovno we davened Maariv at the only remaining shul in the city. Before the war there were thirty-seven shuls for 38,000 Jews. Now only one, a shrinking, gray congregation. We made minyon for the handful of aged worshippers in the Choral Synagogue, a once majestic jewel in Kovno.
After my return home I visited Cherry Hill for Shabbos. At the oneg an elderly family friend Joe Magun came over to me.
?Shalom? he said. ?Your abba told me you just came back from Lithuania.?
?Yes,? I replied. ?It was quite a powerful experience.? ?Did you visit the Choral Synagogue in Kovno? The one with the big arch in the courtyard??
?Yes, I did. In fact, we helped them make minyon.? His eyes opened wide in joy at our shared memory. For a moment he gazed into the distance and then, he returned. ?Shalom, I grew up only a few feet away from the arch. The Choral Synagogue was where I davened as a child.?
He paused for a moment and once again was lost in the past. His smile faded. Pain filled his wrinkled face. ?I remember one Shabbos in 1938 when Vladimir Jabotinsky came to the shul? (Jabotinsky was Menachim Begin?s mentor ? he was a fiery orator, an unflinching Zionist radical, whose politics were to the far right.) Joe continued ?When Jabotinsky came, he
delivered the drash on Shabbos morning and I can still hear his words burning in my ears. He climbed up to the shtender, stared at us from the bima, glared at us with eyes full of fire and cried out. ?EHR KUMT. YIDN FARLAWST AYER SHTETL ? He?s coming. Jews abandon your city.
We thought we were safe in Lithuania from the Nazis, from Hitler. We had lived there thrived for a thousand years but Jabotinsky was right his warning prophetic. We got out but most did not.
We are not in Lithuania. It is not the 1930s. There is no Luftwaffe overhead. No U-boats off the coast of long Island. No Panzer divisions on our borders. But make no mistake; we are under attack ? our values, our tolerance, our freedom, our virtue, our land.
Now before some folks roll their eyes and glance at their watches let me state emphatically, unmistakably ? I have no pathology of hate, nor am I a manic Paul Revere, galloping through the countryside. I am not a pessimist, nor prone to panic attacks. I am a lover of humanity, all humanity. Whether they worship in a synagogue a church a mosque a temple or don?t worship at all. I have no bone of bigotry in my body, but what I do have is hatred for those who hate, intolerance for those who are intolerant, and a guiltless, unstoppable obsession to see evil eradicated.
Today the enemy is radical Islam but it must be said sadly and reluctantly that there are unwitting, co-conspirators who strengthen the hands of the evil doers. Let me state that the overwhelming number of Muslims are good Muslims, fine human beings who want nothing more than a Jeep Cherokee in their driveway, a flat screen TV on their wall and a good education for their children, but these good Muslims have an obligation to destiny, to decency that thus far for the most part they have avoided. The Kulturkampf is not only external but internal as well. The good Muslims must sponsor rallies in Times Square, Trafalgar Square, the UN Plaza, on the Champs Elysee, in Mecca condemning terrorism, denouncing unequivocally the
slaughter of the innocent. Thus far, they have not. The good Muslims must place ads in the NY Times. They must buy time on network TV, cable stations, in the Jerusalem Post, in Le Monde, in Al Watan, on Al Jazeena condemning terrorism, denouncing unequivocally the slaughter of the innocent ? thus far, they have not. Their silence allows the vicious to tarnish
Islam and define it.
Brutal acts of commission and yawning acts of omission both strengthen the hand of the devil.
I recall a conversation with my father shortly before he died that helped me understand how perilous and how broken is our world; that we are living on the narrow seam of civilization and moral oblivion. Knowing he had little time left he shared the following ? Shal. I am ready to leave this earth. Sure I?d like to live a little longer, see a few more sunrises, but truthfully, I?ve had it. I?m done. Finished. I hope the Good Lord takes me soon because I am unable to live in this world knowing what it has become.
This startling admission of moral exhaustion from a man who witnessed and lived through the Depression, the Holocaust, WWII, Communist triumphalism, McCarthyism, Strontium 90 and polio. ? Yet his twilight observation was ? ?The worst is yet to come.? And he wanted out.
I share my father?s angst and fear that too many do not see the authentic, existential threat we face nor confront the source of our peril. We must wake up and smell the hookah.
?Lighten up, Lewis. Take a chill pill, some of you are quietly thinking. You?re sounding like Glen Beck. It?s not that bad. It?s not that real.?