Tolerance
March 8, 2003

Fred Rogers, an ordained clergyman, who took as his ministry encouraging young boys and girls to behave like a mensch, succumbed to cancer last week. He was a gentle soul who, through his televised children’s program, showed young people the way to self-esteem, responsibility and creativity.

In an illuminating juxtaposition of events, just as the media was extolling Fred Rogers in its editorials, late breaking news was telling of the arrest of Khalid Shaikh Mohammad in Pakistan. Here is a person who would have benefitted immeasurably from Fred Roger’s counsel to young people about how to deal with anger and how to respect other people and value them.

Mr. Mohammad was the architect of the most deadly terrorist attacks in our world, including 9 -11. What a sharp contrast between Mr. Rogers who dedicated his life to bringing out the good in people and Mr. Mohammad who dedicated his life to destroying people. Fred Rogers exemplifies the heights of humaneness to which individuals can ascend, while Kalid Shaikh Mohammad personifies the pit of depravity into which individuals can sink.

Ironically, just two weeks ago was the first yarzheit, or anniversary, of Daniel Pearl’s death. Daniel Pearl was the Wall Street Journal reporter whom Muslim fanatics in Pakistan tortured and ultimately brutally slaughtered because he was a Jew. According to intelligence reports, Khalid Shaikh Mohammad was the mastermind behind Pearl’s kidnaping and may even have been his killer.

Daniel Pearl’s father, Judah Pearl, appealed to the American people to use the anniversary of his son’s murder to promote tolerance. He expressed the hope that “the spirit of the day will serve as a catalysts for building alliances against the rising tide of fanaticism, dehumanization, and xenophobia.” Khalid Shaikh Mohammad embodied that rising tide just as Fred Rogers represented the spirit of kindness and humanity that, hopefully, will arrest that tide before it engulfs our world.
Clearly, in a world as diverse as ours, where ghettoes have been eliminated and people holding different beliefs and truths live side by side, tolerance is the only hope for peace and safety for humanity.

Tolerance is a relatively new concept. It became prominent as an ideal with the rise of humanism. The French Revolution with its slogan of Liberty, Fraternity and Equality gave this ideal a great boost. Indeed, as a consequence of that revolution, political tolerance was extended to the Jews of France who became the first Jews to gain citizenship in a European country.

But even France, or some may say especially France, has not practiced these ideals perfectly. French conduct during the Dreyfeus Affair, the Second World War, as well as attacks on Jews in France today, are sad reminders of how implacable and unyielding bigotry and prejudice are, even in the land that first preached equality for all.

In America, also, the promise of brotherhood has not always resulted in its practice. Blacks, gays, Jews and Catholics have all felt the sting of discrimination and prejudice. Epithets such as kike, faggot, nigger and spic are vivid evidence that intolerance still plagues our society.

In Judaism, tolerance toward all people is the foundation of our ethics. It is demanded by our torah. The torah describes human beings as being created in the image of God. All human beings whatever their faith, whatever their political beliefs, whatever their color, whatever their ethnic background, whatever their sexual orientation, are the likeness of God and, therefore, deserving of our respect and proper treatment. The torah says, “love your neighbor as yourself.” Whoever your neighbors are: rich or poor, wise or foolish, Jews or gentiles, light skinned or dark skinned, natives or newly arrived, you are to love them as you, yourself, would want to be loved.

Rabbi Akiva, one of Judaism’s greatest sages, said that the commandment to love your neighbor is the supreme principle of the torah. The prophet Malachi echoed this teaching in a magnificent verse from his writings in the Bible:
Have we not all one father?
Has not one God created us? (Malachi 2:10)

And later Job stated:

Did not God who made me in the womb make him?
Did not the One God fashion us in the womb? (Job 31:15)

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, whom I was privileged to have as a teacher at the Jewish Theological Seminary, commented: “The idea of the metaphysical dignity of man, the divine preciousness of life, is Judaism’s great contribution to human thought.”

But a realistic look at our world reveals that the idea of the inherent dignity of all people is far from universally accepted. The musical South Pacific has a line in it: “You have to be taught to hate.” But it is equally true that you have to be taught not to hate. That is why the teachings of the Bible and Judaism are so germane to humanity now. That is why clergy, teachers and we parents, have as our duty to promote tolerance and love. It doesn’t come naturally.

In this regard let me tell you about an outstanding chronicle of human life on this planet titled, The Family of Man. This volume contains photographs taken by the acclaimed photographer Edward Steichen of people from around the world of every race, religion and ethnic group. Edward Steichen once revealed how he became interested in this project. I once shared this with the congregation but it bears repeating. He said that one day as he was about to enter his mother’s hat shop, he turned to a kid passing on the street and shouted at him, “You are a dirty Jew.” His mother, overhearing these words, left her customers, took her son into a back room, and explained to him at length that all people are God’s creation, regardless of race or religion; and, therefore, it is wrong to express bigotry or intolerance toward any human being.

Edward Steichen said that his mother’s words to him constituted the single most influential moment in his growth into manhood. From her words about tolerance were planted the seeds of his book, The Family of Man, whose photographs “mirror the essential oneness of humankind throughout the world.”
Several hundred years ago, one of the founding fathers of our country, Thomas Jefferson, preached tolerance to the people of his native Virginia. He couched it in the pragmatic language of live and let live. Addressing the Virginia House of Delegates in 1776, Jefferson said, “It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. . .” Jefferson recognized that in a society that is no longer monolithic, peace can only come about if people tolerate each other despite differences. E. M. Forster said tolerance “is just a makeshift, suitable for an overcrowded and overheated planet. It carries on when love gives out.”

Today, we conclude reading the book of Exodus from the torah. I once heard a wonderfully instructive story about a ten-year-old studying the Exodus events. He was perplexed by the third plague - hoshekh - darkness. Why, this child wanted to know, didn’t the Egyptians simply light lamps so that they could see. After all, we must assume that is what they did each evening when darkness fell.

The teacher explained to the youth that the darkness in Egypt did not affect the eyes. It affected the heart. Physically the Egyptians could see, but in their hearts they didn’t recognize the misery that their intolerance and persecution were causing other people. The Egyptians were blind to the suffering of others. That is what is meant by the plague of darkness.

Today, also, the plague of darkness is afflicting our world. Fanaticism, dehumanization, and xenophobia are causing hatred and violence throughout our globe. People are blind to the common humanity that unites us all as one human family.

We as Jews must be a source of light during this darkness. We have the special obligation of opening up people’s eyes to see the sacredness of every individual. We are a people that was freed from slavery, yet never allowed itself to forget what it meant and felt like to be the object of prejudice and ill treatment. “You shall be kind to the stranger, the torah teaches us, “because you were once strangers in the land of Egypt.” We appreciate and honor the dignity of all human beings because we know what it is liked to be stripped of it – in Egypt, during periods of expulsions and pogroms and most recently during the Holocaust.

Let me conclude with the beginning: the beginning of our earth as found in the opening verses of the Bible. "Now the earth was unformed and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And a wind from God was sweeping over the waters and God said 'Let there be light.'” Even as it was God’s goal at the time of creation, so, too, it is our struggle today to take the chaos of our world and form "cosmos; to dispel the encroaching darkness by the light of tolerance and love.

Shabbat Shalom