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Dafur: Our Call to Action; B'Ha' A Lot-Cha
By Rabbi Joel
R. Schwartzman
June 18, 2006 (sivan 20, 5766)
President Bush made a surprise trip to Iraq this past week. He did it in
order to look into the eyes of Prime Minister Nouri al-Malaki. Mr. Bush
seems to like to take the measure of people by peering into their eyes
and shaking their hands. He says that he derives a sense of their
character this way. However, we Jews would suggest to the President that
he might be using the wrong standard. We are taught to try to judge
people by their actions, not what we think or perceive might be in their
hearts, eyes or handshakes!
In this week’s parasha, Moses’ sister Miryam and his brother Aaron
cause the Israelite leader no end of problems when they spread calumnies
about their brother throughout the camp. In God’s anger at this
betrayal, Miryam is struck with leprosy. Horrified by what he sees on
his sister’s hands, and knowing the fate that awaits her if the disease
runs its course, Moses takes action. He pleads with God in a profound,
one line prayer: Ayl nah, r’fanah-lah: “O God, pray, heal her.”
Moses, the man of action, does not wait when his sister’s life is
threatened. Never mind that she gossiped about him; there is something
larger at stake. Saving and preserving life trumps any wrong that Miriam
may have committed. There are times when taking action is absolutely
essential. And, in the final analysis, it is what Moses does, not what
he may appear to be, that counts in our assessment of him.
The New Yorker magazine of 12 June carried what is, in essence, an
editorial in their “Talk of the Town” section which urged Americans not
to venture into the conflict in Darfur. While pointing out the seeming
absurdist position of the existence of an anti-genocide movement, Philip
Gourevitch, actually establishes that very position’s argument because,
incredibly, he advocates doing nothing while millions of Darfuran lives
are at risk, driven as they have been from their homes, and now savaged
by hunger, disease, and constant militia attacks on their refugee camps.
After all, the author contends, we didn’t do anything about the Jews of
Europe. We didn’t stop the genocide in Cambodia and Rwanda. So why
should we risk life and limb to help the people of Darfur? Why, indeed?
I was astonished no less by this morally vacuous article as I was by one
published the week before by the New Republic. It made virtually the
same argument. There is no reason for the United States to stick its
neck out when the world, especially the Moslem world, sees us as bullies
and cowboys, eager to throw our weight around, and apt to get ourselves
embroiled in yet another Somali-like conflict, one from which we
couldn’t extricate ourselves without our incurring many, many casualties.
Bring whatever arguments you wish against American action in Darfur, and
I shall bring only one in response: “You shall not stand idly by the
blood of your neighbor.” (Lev. 29:16) This is the Levitical citation
that Rabbi Debra Bronstein from Congregation Har Hashem in Boulder, used
to ignite the conscience of her baal-ah-bateem, her congregants. And
this is the self same reason why Americans should lead the world in
atoning for past inaction while millions of their fellow human beings
were being annihilated.
If America does not lead in this fight against genocide, then who in
this world will? If we, like Moses, don’t sense the greater danger to
and the basic value of human life here, and don’t move ourselves, our
allies and the United Nations to take quick action, how can we call
ourselves world leaders? And if we Jews who have suffered at the hands
of the greatest single, mechanized, killing machine in the history of
humankind aren’t the ones to lead the outcry and the charge to action,
then what, in fact, have we learned? What good was our suffering? What
lesson will we have taught the world after having righteously
proclaimed: “Never Again!” and “We shall never forget or let the world
forget.” And lastly, how can we call ourselves partners with God for
repair of our world, and, with integrity, use the words tikkun olam?
Will we be seen by the coming generation as the people of the Book or of
empty words? Will we be people of deed or only of appearances, feints
and facades?
Seemingly logical arguments can be brought against U.S. entanglement in
another dire world crisis. But first and foremost, we need to tap into
our senses of morality, because only on that level does intervention
make sense. We have nothing really to gain by following our consciences
except, perhaps, atonement for the dastardly deeds we were responsible
for at Abu Graib. We might get a reputation for fighting with Moslems
and jihad-ists around the world, but there are three ironies about this
plaint. The first is that we are already at war with radical Islam
around the world, against those who would take innocent civilian lives
to further whatever their maniacal purposes. And, second, the people of
Darfur are Moslems themselves! They are being murdered by their Arab,
Moslem, Sudanese neighbors, and by their henchmen, the janjaweed, who
are marauding Islamic militia men, set loose by their controllers in
Khartoum. And the third is that no one is asking the United States to
shoulder this entire burden, only to pick up the mantel of leadership to
bring about a cessation of the killing.
The reality of the situation in Darfur is that the United States does
not need to go it alone, nor should it. We ought to challenge those
great purveyors of virtue, our bombastically verbose critics, our
self-righteous European friends, to do what they did when we prodded
NATO to go into Bosnia and stop the ethnic cleansing of Moslems there.
We ought to challenge the United Nations to live up to its ideals and
put a force of some twenty or more thousand on the ground in Darfur
instead of the paltry number of African Union troops who have already
admitted that their group is too small and under-equipped to handle the
situation. And we must insist that this UN force have a mandate to
enforce a ceasefire, unlike the impotent force that failed the Rwandan
people so miserably. They must be able not simply to observe, but to
act, to act in such ways as they deem necessary to stop the violence
and enable NGOs to bring in desperately needed supplies.
Use of NATO air power is an absolute must to gain control over the
helicopter gun ships which have ravaged the villages of Darfur from the
skies. Those 16 or 17 craft nefariously clear the way for the
janjaweed to pillage, rape and murder, indiscriminately.
“And what, good rabbi, is our role in all of this?” you ask. My answer
is that no less than twice-a- week, you must help by calling
1-202-456-111 to register your concern about the genocide in Darfur with
President Bush. You found that number taped, tonight, on the entrance
doors to this sanctuary. You can also use the number, 1-800-828-0498, to
reach your Colorado Senators and Representatives.
Too many people for you to call? Then just limit your efforts to calling
the White House. And the reason you need to do this is, astonishingly
enough, the person you love the most. In order to protect their lives,
wouldn’t you move Heaven and Earth? Of course you would…and you would
want people from all over the globe to help you were your loved-ones
threatened! Well, it’s our turn. We can do this. It isn’t hard. It
doesn’t take but a few seconds. But our government will get the message
when Jews and non-Jews from all over this wonderful country put their
morals to work and their ethical values into saving human lives. We,
like Moses will have grasped the problem, and like Moshe rabbenu, we
shall be taking action!
Please don’t tell me that nothing can be done. Please don’t capitulate
into the kind of torpor that swept the globe when our relatives were
being herded into the gas chambers.
My father, alav hashalom, used to have a sign on his desk which read:
“All that evil needs to succeed is that good people stand by and do
nothing.” I couple that aphorism tonight with another that I used to see
on the desk of one of my rabbinic colleagues: “Say nothing, do nothing,
be nothing!”
When Moses confronted the horrors of his sister’s threatened life, he
rose up and spoke his pea to God: Ayl na, r’fanah lah!” Please God,
heal her. It is our time to internalize the threat to fellow human
beings. And our plea in this instance needs to be politically directed.
All genocidal evil needs to succeed is for us to stay silent and remain
dis-engaged. Let’s get it into gear. Let’s help stop the killing. Let’s
resolve this night to be people of action and of deed.
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