JEWS REGULARLY RECITE a prayer called the V’ahavtah, which comes from Deuteronomy and Numbers. The word V’ahavtah means “and you shall love” and entreats us to love God with all our heart and soul. It teaches us how we can embody these principles in our lives.
“Take to heart these instructions with which I charge you this day. Teach them to your children. Recite them when you stay at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you get up … Inscribe them on the doorposts of your house … Thus you shall remember to observe all My commandments and to be holy to your God.”
This prayer instructs us to follow these moral guidelines no matter where we are or what we are doing. And we must teach our children that this is how to live life in a caring and compassionate way.
Rabbi Sidney Greenberg asks us to consider if a stranger saw us or our children in our everyday activities, would they be able to tell from our actions that we were living with morally upright choices? He encourages us to always act as if someone were watching over our shoulder (Words to Live By).
In the last few years, we have seen distressing situations in which people have been treating others in a callous, hurtful and threatening way, not caring that they are doing so in full public view. It seems to have become acceptable to threaten violence against someone simply because of a disagreement in viewpoints. Teachers, election workers, politicians, journalists, health care workers and judges are all receiving threats of violence, even death, to themselves and their families. Sadly, some people have followed through with those threats.
When people are being assaulted and harassed, and the media reports it day after day, often without making a judgment, one cannot help but think of our children who are watching, and the commandment in the V’ahavtah that “You shall teach it to your children.”
Laws are being passed that require the erasing of historical events that don’t fit with a particular political agenda. Protecting minorities from harassment is now seen as being too “woke” and unfair to white citizens. This approach allows bullying, intimidation and violence to again become acceptable.
Apparently the people openly encouraging and perpetrating such harassment and violence do not seem to care that our children are watching. They aren’t concerned about what others might think of their behavior. Rabbi Greenberg’s admonition that they should worry about how others might see their actions doesn’t seem to register, and their lack of concern for our children is tragic.
Jews just celebrated the joyous holidays of Sukkot, our harvest festival, and Simchat Torah, rejoicing in the beauty of the Torah. On Simchat Torah two years ago, Israel suffered the worst massacre since the Holocaust, and this year, blessed be God, we rejoiced as the remaining living hostages were returned. There is hope that we are seeing the beginning of a lasting peace process.
Although this administration deserves credit for the cease fire, we must not forget that this very process was proposed in the last administration, but Netanyahu refused to accept it, thus continuing the agony and deaths from the war. And we must remember that the previous administration was responsible for the release of 140 Israeli hostages. The Middle East is a complicated place and there are no simple answers in attaining peace. We must pray that level heads will prevail on all sides.
In the meantime, for the sake of our children, we must begin to change the narrative in our culture so that disagreements are just that … a back and forth of differing ideas, and understand that compromise is not a weakness. Our children learn more when they watch what we do than what we say. If adults preach compassion and kindness, but then treat others in a hateful and cruel manner, that is the lesson the children will learn.
All faith traditions have a version of the Golden Rule —treat others as we wish to be treated. Teaching our children the importance of that principle could do so much to heal our world. When we respond to others with love and respect rather than hostility, we pave the way to reconciliation.
Anger is destructive to our very souls. The Talmud teaches “One who does not lose control of his temper is a beloved of God.”
May we learn to recognize that everyone is imbued with a holy spark, created in the Divine image.
Repairing our world begins with us. Our children are watching.
Kein yehi ratzon … may it be God’s will.
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Issues of Faith is a rotating column by religious leaders on the North Olympic Peninsula. Suzanne DeBey is a lay leader of the Port Angeles Jewish community. Her email is debeyfam@olympus.net.
