Parshat Bo – Darfur Awareness Shabbat – January 2010

I am always amazed by our tradition, which can take ideas that are so particular to Judaism and draw universal implications for the world around us.

Take today’s Parashat Bo. It contains the roots of Passover, THE festival of OUR people’s liberation.  And yet, as I noted last week, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel and others have used “Let my people go” as the slogan for the 1960’s Civil Rights Movement.  Even in the pesach seder, the words of the Haggadah after the meal speak of a futuristic universal time of pure freedom for all people.

Take the prayer “Aleinu.”  Its first paragraph speaks of the uniqueness of the Jewish people.  Yet its second paragraph speaks of the unity of all people, when everyone will one day recognize the oneness of God.

When it comes to universal concern after a natural disaster, all people know to come forward.  The earthquake in Haiti, which I spoke about last week, has brought nations of the world together in helping to ease the plight of millions of people.  Israel has sent many experts there.  Jews around the world are among those raising tzedaka.  If you can, please give through UJA Federation or some other reputable charitable organization.

Today is a special thematic Shabbat, launched by Canadian Jewish Congress.  Months ago, synagogues were asked to dedicate these moments to Darfur – A Jewish Response.

For inexplicable reasons
— The world has stood silent.
— The media has stood silent.
— The Jewish people have stood silent on an ethnic cleansing genocide of major proportions. 

Since 2003, a Sudanese Government backed militia called the “Janjaweed” has waged a campaign of ethnic cleaning and genocide against black African tribes in Darfur, Western Sudan.  One million people have been displaced.  Almost half a million people, men, women and children have died.

I have no answers for the lack of a meaningful moral response.  Some individuals, like Elie Wiesel, have raised their voice.  But the collective voice has been deafening.

Our Torah calls on us to empathize with any form of slavery because we were once slaves in Egypt.

Our Torah calls on us “Do not stand idly by the blood of your neighbor.”

Our Torah calls on us to recognize that all people are created in the image and likeness of God.

Our Tradition teaches us that to save one person is to save an entire world.

Today, our Bar Mitzvah boy has twinned his celebration with a young man who died in the Shoah.  My friends, there was only ONE HOLOCAUST, ONE SHOAH.  But there are many forms of GENOCIDE.  Where would we be if ultimately World War II had not taken place?  Where would we be if the Nazis had not been vanquished?  When we say Never Again! Is that only in regard to Jewish challenges – or the challenge of Tikun Olam, doing our part to repair the entire world in God’s sovereign name?

If we lament 70 years after the fact that almost no one stood up for our people in Eastern Europe, then what do we say now, when almost no one is standing up for the poor and innocent of Darfur?

That we respond to the two weeks ago disaster called an earthquake is laudable!  That we don’t respond to a seven year old ongoing genocide is reprehensible.

I encourage each of us to take the handout literature waiting for you by the door and doing something constructive for our universal brothers and sisters in Darfur and beyond.

During the plague of darkness, which we read in today’s parsha, the Torah tells us regarding the ancient Egyptians that a man did not see his brother. Until that plague, the Egyptians saw only each other as brothers.  The Israelite, the “other” of that community, was seen as different or inferior, then, during the plague of darkness, the Egyptians could not even see themselves with a light of caring, compassion or respect.  They could not and would not see each other as brothers.

According to an ancient interpretation, the Egyptians did not recognize their own people even after the sun came up.  Their darkness of hatred and contempt for others was never lifted.  They never admitted the light of love into their view of humanity.

Since 2003, darkness has hovered over our world in that no meaningful effort has been undertaken to bring light to th people of Darfur.  On this Shabbat, Canadian Jewish congress and participating synagogues call us to action before it becomes too late, and “never again” becomes reduced to a slogan of words recited in vain.

In next week’s parsha, we read how the Egyptian soldiers drowned in the sea.  The Midrash, based on the verse in proverbs…  “Do not rejoice at the downfall of your enemies,” teaches us that the Egyptian soldiers also are God’s creation.  They too, were created in the image and likeness of the Divine.

My friends, all people regardless of race, religion and creed are a mosaic of the one universal humanity that began with Adam and Eve, Noah and his descendants.

Our Jewish way is on the one hand a particularistic way, denoting our distinctiveness and always taking care of our own.  Our tradition is also universalistic, looking after all of God’s creation as we strive to repair the world in the name of God the Sovereign one.

Dr. Efraim Zuroff, (Director, The Simon Wiesenthal Center, Jerusalem) “A Plea for Jewish Action Against the Crimes Begin Committed in Darfur” writes the following:

We who have preached to the world for decades about its failure to save the Jews who faced Nazi genocide, cannot ignore the plight of other victims of heinous crimes.  Our response, moreover, will in no way diminish or impugn the memory of the Holocaust.  If anything, the success of a Jewish effort against the perpetrators of contemporary mass murder, ethnic cleansing, and genocide will only reinforce the power of the memory of the Holocaust and its unique importance not only for us but for the entire world.  So as we face the terrible crimes being committed in Darfur and its vicinity by Arab militias supported by the Sudanese government, we have a Jewish obligation to speak out against the murders and try our utmost to facilitate prompt action to save those targeted by the killers.  For years we have been preaching “Never Again,” and we have time and again proven our dedication to saving Jews in distress but the time has come to demonstrate to the rest of the world.  Standing up for Darfur will not betray the memory of Europe’s murdered Jews, it will honour that memory.  In the words of Hillel, “If I am not for myself, who will be for me, and when I am only for myself what am I, and if not now, then when?

I conclude with the words of Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks, A prayer for the People of Darfur.

O God of peace, who commands us to seek peace, send peace to the people of Darfur.

O God of compassion, who hears the cry of the afflicted, hear the cry of the victims, the bereaved, the injured, and all those who live their days in fear.

Rouse the hearts of the leaders of the world to put an end to the bloodshed, the violence, the rape, the starvation, and the terror that has ravaged and endangered an entire population.

Be with those who are working for peace, or tending the sick, or bringing food to the hungry, or shelter to the homeless, or hope to those who are close to despair.

O God of justice and love, let us not be indifferent to the cry of the persecuted and the ears of those who have seen their homes, their families, and their communities destroyed.

And may their plea and their plight reach the ears and hears of those who have it in their power to bring peace to a troubled region and aid to a devastated people.

Oseh Shalom Bimromav – may You who makes peace in Your high places help us make peace down here on earth.

Rabbi Howard Morrison, Beth Emeth Bais Yehuda Synagogue
100 Elder Street, Toronto ON  M3H 5G7 |www.beby.org