Fleeing Terror
This year I’m operating on the premise that we inhabit every image we see, we take in with complete sympathy the heart of the perceived be they whales, plants or human beings fleeing a terror state. The sadness and mourning today, in a year that we could not fill with enough mourning, is overwhelming. We grieve because we live in a world where the images we saw yesterday are real.
The finger pointing distracts from the pain of the heart, which is worthy of investigation, because the evolution of our world, beyond terror and patriarchy, is dependent on this very work. In us, not in anyone else. Some of the pain we feel today is tied precisely to our direct and indirect participation in what is transpiring in Afghanistan.
First, we might recognize that not a single deed of our own volition is the reason for the goodness of our lives. The absurd lottery of the fates birthed our souls into American bodies, and other souls into Afghani bodies. Pure chance separates our fate from theirs. On top of that, we fill our days with complaints, while others cling to planes for a chance at what we have. Life, health, and freedom. Every day should be filled with gratitude for those gifts, and a desire to repay them, by working for the wellbeing of those who are less fortunate.
The dark history of America, slavery, imperialism, ethnic cleansing, has not yet been forgiven. The idea that we could force our ideal of democracy upon others before rectifying the sins of our own past is absurd. Our own notion of democracy is a lie. Our own senators fight to restrict the voting rights of BIPOC. We’re debating whether critical race theory is essential education. Less than a year ago our own awareness of these issues was trapped in the incessant inclination to numbness in our humanity.
The city on a hill sits atop a graveyard. Such is the facade of America that we take part in when our veneer of liberalism hides untilled soil within. The values of feminism, multiculturalism, ethos of honoring the land we steward and the ancestors that brought us here, live not in our words, but in the movement of our heart when we meet a stranger. How far do our kindness and sympathy extend? Are we doing the work within, that our spoken words will ring true?
You cannot heal a city across an ocean with warplanes. We can mend the wind above our sky, and pray it be our messenger.
With you in mourning,
Rabbi Zach Fredman