This may be one of those transitional moments in our life. Our generation has lived through several traumas in our lifetime as well as numerous social change movements. Many of us were nurtured on dreams of equality and a sense of social justice. For some, the traditional concept of “tikun olom” was a call to move the values of equality and justice from the text to the real world. Indeed, looking back we can see that progress, in many ways, has been accomplished in our life time.
Yet, we are now living in a time when so many of those ideas and ideals seem to be in flux. As we get older, we seem to be inundated with what we call the “promiscuity of information” which contains a “paucity of wisdom”. For many, living as we now do in an environment of crises, we have had enough and just wish to withdraw into the alleged security of home, friends and, we hope, family. The world which so many tried to repair now seems, in so many ways, broken. Between the wars in the Middle East, Ukraine, Africa and the growing social and economic divide here in the United States; too many of our generation are just opting out.
I write this in the middle of the great debate on the new economic tax etc. bill now on the way from the Senate back to the House. At the same time, I am watching reports of a new “detention center” in Florida, being built in the Everglades to house 5,000 illegal aliens. I am reading reports of the costs of the new legislation for border security and defense that are staggering, costs that will raise the national debt by trillions of dollars and, at the same time, reduce the safety net for people on Medicaid, food stamps and other programs that benefit so many people who just scrape by. In reading and listening and watching all of this I cannot help but hear the voice of the Prophets and much of our tradition calling from history and asking: WHY?
What are we as a society so afraid of? When did creating a society based on respect and civility become one based on fear and division? The laws being passed and discussed that point out LGBTQ and trans people, immigrants who do not look like what so many of us? Our tradition demands that society provide basic needs for all who lack them. We are commanded to “welcome the stranger”. Even we Jews are being used as pawns in the attempts by leaders to reign in and control academic freedom at universities. Is everything acceptable as long as the stock market rises? Has entitlement replaced empathy? Are we becoming that type of society where the divide between the “haves” and “have nots” is beyond repair? The reports of the economic and social impact of this new bill on huge segments of society should alarm us all. Will that power minority be permanently sequestered behind walled communities, both walls of concrete and walls of indifference? There are reports that in recent years the most wealthy in the country have accumulated even more wealth. How much is enough?
There will always be in our society people of difference views and beliefs. But we can disagree for “the sake of heaven” as Pirke Avot says. There are higher values than power and economic gain, there are basic human values of decency, due process, kindness, justice, humility and humanity. We have the benefit of hindsight, of life experience. We can lobby and work for civility and fairness. This may be a transitional moment in our society and if so, it calls for a reawakening of our values, before we are swept up in a spiritual, emotion, political and human dragnet of fear and hate.
Shalom,
Rabbi Richard F. Address
Rabbi Richard F. Address, D.Min, is the Founder and Director of www.jewishsacredaging.com. Rabbi Address served for over three decades on staff of the Union for Reform Judaism; first as a Regional Director and then, beginning in 1997, as Founder and Director of the URJ’s Department of Jewish Family Concerns and served as a specialist and consultant for the North American Reform Movement in the areas of family related programming. Rabbi Address was ordained from Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in 1972 and began his rabbinic career in Los Angeles congregations. He also served as a part time rabbi for Beth Hillel in Carmel, NJ while regional director and, after his URJ tenure, served as senior rabbi of Congregation M’kor Shalom in Cherry Hill, NJ from 2011-2014.
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