New Eyes to See

A time of crisis gives us new eyes to see truths hidden in plain sight. It took a pandemic to alert us to a failed public health system and racial injustice. It took the protests responding to the death of George Floyd and countless others to gear up America for systemic change.  Why weren’t our eyes opened to these truths before?

Torah cautioned us about our inability to truly see. Parsha Shlach opens with Moses sending a dozen spies to the land of Canaan. Ten report their terror at the giants that inhabit the land. Only two, Joshua and Caleb, are able to see the true picture. Ten spies operated from a paradigm of doubt. Two were activated by faith.

Until now many of us have been like the ten spies. We’ve been blinded by fear of change while protecting our turf. The status quo, even though set in a wilderness of racial injustice, has seemed sufficient. Change is scary.  But those religious leaders who could see the Promised Land, Martin Luther King and Abraham Joshua Heschel, had faith. As with the Jews in the desert, even leaders of great faith could only move this nation partway along the path when so many were willing to be blind to the truth. 

We have wandered as a nation for more than 40 years since the Civil Rights movement prime of the 1960s.  Now 60 years hence, voter suppression, unrelenting poverty, and police brutality remain. We’ve wandered long enough in this wilderness. Americans of color have suffered enough. The generations of the confederacy and the epochs of bigotry should have “died out” by now. 

For those Jews who feel detached from the urgency of repairing racial injustice, I offer these thoughts – none are novel. Jews became “white folks” as overt anti-Semitism retreated and Jews took commanding roles in various industries across America. Our alienation, if you will our “blackness”, is diminished but for episodic confrontations with anti-Semitism. If we have benefitted from the educational systems and economic engines of America, Jews have done so with the assistance if not at the expense of people of color who lived and worked in a way to support our endeavors. 

Shabbat 54b teaches that we have an obligation to protest. Our obligations don’t end there. Leviticus 19:16 says “Do not stand by the blood of your fellow.” We are reminded that when Cain killed Abel, the bloods (plural) of Abel called out. This is to teach us that the destructive and calumnious behaviors of the past call out for generations. The blood of George Floyd calls out to us for action today.

I cannot speak of the moral imperative any better than two giants of Jewish thought of the 20th Century so I leave you with their brilliance as an exhortation to each of us to move America from the wilderness into the promised land. As the story of the spies teaches us, see the future with faith not fear.

“…morally speaking, there is no limit to the concern one must feel for the suffering of human beings, that indifference to evil is worse than evil itself, that in a free society, some are guilty, but all are responsible.” –Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel

“Being human means being conscious and being responsible. By becoming responsible agents for social change we actualize not only our humanity but also our mission as Jews.” Viktor Frankl

Rabbi Evan J. Krame