Jerusalem Working Group
for Recognition of Major Jewish Rescuers during the Shoah
POB 23718 Jerusalem 91236
lpfeffer@actcom.co.il
Some Jewish Perspectives on Activism, Individualism and Time
Notes based on secondary sources prepared by Larry Pfeffer for:
Fifteenth International Conference in Jerusalem, Israel
RESCUE AND RESCUERS: DIFFERENT FORMS AND ACHIEVEMENTS
Wednesday, December 27, 2006
Please email corrections and additional
verified Jewish thoughts with source citation to
lpfeffer@actcom.co.il
Our laws and traditions don't allow us to idly stand by when there are grave circumstances. Perhaps it is because of this that we Jews are so often the world's conscience and stand at the forefront of social protest.
“Love that does not include an element of criticism is not really love.” (Midrash Genesis Rabbah)
We are responsible for one another – arevim ze le ze.
For the sake of justice and to save lives we are required to struggle even with God as did Abraham who is recorded as one of the early rescuers followed by Moshe and later Queen Esther and Mordechai. In contrast to Abraham, Noah was reprimanded by God for not being an activist and failing to interceded to save the world from the flood almost extinguishing all life..
"If a man of learning participates in public affairs and serves as judge or arbiter, he gives stability to the land. But if he sits in his home and says to himself, 'What have the affairs of society to do with me?... Why should I trouble myself with the people's voice of protest? Let my soul dwell in peace!' If he does this, he overthrows the world." (Tanchuma to Mishpachim)
“Whoever is able to protest against the transgressions of his own family and does not do so is liable for the transgressions of his family. Whoever is able to protest against the transgressions of the people of his community and does not do so is liable for the transgressions of his community. Whoever is able to protest against the transgressions of the entire world and does not do so is liable for the transgressions of the entire world.” (Talmud Bavli)
It is said that “A man stood at the gates of Sodom crying out against the injustice and evil in that city. Someone passed by and said to him, "For years you have been urging the people to repent, and yet no one has changed. Why do you continue?" He responded: "When I first came I protested because I hoped to change the people of Sodom. Now I continue to cry out, because if I don't they will have changed me."
Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik writes: “Man is obliged to engage in creation and renewal of the cosmos.” and “This wondrous spectacle of the creation of worlds is the Jewish people’s eschatological vision, the realization of all its hopes.”
A well known dictum is that “It is not your obligation to complete the task but neither are you free to desist from it."
The Talmud relates a story of how apparently righteous individuals were punished along with the wicked because "they had the power to protest but they did not."
The Kozker Rebbe said: “Do not be satisfied with the speech of your lips and the thought in your heart, all the promises and good sayings in your mouth, and all the good thoughts in your heart; rather you must arise and do!”
"If I am not for myself, Who will be? If I am only for myself, What am I? And if not now, When?" (Hillel)
Ba makom she ein ish tihje ish – where there is no man be a man
The major Jewish and non-Jewish rescuers were distinguished not only by their achievements but by their individualism and the extraordinary scope of their aspirations and activism. Judaism has much to say on this as well.
“If in the after life I will be asked why wasn’t I like Avraham Avinu, I will have a good answer: I wasn’t born with his qualities. If I will me asked why I wasn’t like Moshe Rabbeinu I will also have a good answer: I wasn’t born with his qualities. If I will be asked why I wasn’t Zussia I will be unable to answer.” (Zussia, paraphrase)
Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik writes
“The peak of religious ethical perfection to which Judaism aspires is man as creator.”
“Halakhic man is the man who longs to create, to bring into being something new, something original.”
The Kotzker Rebbe says:
“If I am I because I am I and
you are you because you are you then
I am I and you are you.
If I am I because you are you and
you are you because I am I then
I am not I and you are not you.”
Man must “ guard himself and his uniqueness, and not imitate his fellow ... for initially man was created in his own image, and only afterwards in the image of God.”
“Just as it is the way of an ape to imitate humans, so too, a person, when he has become old, imitates himself and does as was his manner previously.”
“A person must renew himself, and his world with him, each and every day. But one who does not do so, and rather performs his deeds as a mechanical function, does nothing other than the actions of a monkey. Just as this monkey has no personality of his own, but rather copies his own actions and his fellow, so too this person.”
“Just as it is the way of an ape to imitate humans, so too, a person, when he has become old, imitates himself and does as was his manner previously.”
Rabbi/Dr. Norman Lamm says:
“Group action--yes; group thinking no.”
“Mutual commitment to ideals--yes; the stifling of all dissenting notions--no.”
Time: Past, Present and the Future
In "The Unique Experience of Judaism" Rabbi Soloveitchik writes about Judaism's linkage between the past and the future:
“The time awareness of youth is future oriented while the time awareness of the old centers on the past. Existentially, to be young means to be committed to the future, while to be old means to contemplate what once was but is no longer. The young man is essentially a searcher, a questioner, and a believer, while the old man is primarily a reviewer, a mediator, and a skeptic.
Judaism attempts to combine the experience of youth and age and requires of the Jew that he be simultaneously, and perhaps paradoxically, both young and old. Like a tree whose roots absorb their nourishment from the soil and whose foliage is caressed by sunlight flowing from a distant and unknown future, the Jew must be deeply rooted in the past and inspired by a vision of the future.
Just as the past can be experienced in the present, so can the future. Experiential anticipation means that the Jew anticipates an event not just because it is bound to occur -- that would only be intellectual anticipation; it means that the Jew becomes excited and rejoices and sings and dances as if an event which will first transpire on some unknown date in the future had already taken place. The future is experienced as reality and is integrated into the frame of reference of reality even before it occurs.”