| It's a sign of the times that, when one hears a line like the title of this piece, it is natural to brace for the casualty count. We have become all too accustomed to hearing how humans are all too willing to use the flesh of anyone who seems different as a marking post for their political agenda. Nothing ever justifies terrorism. Nothing.
But it is false to think that terrorism is only measured in pounds of flesh and pints of blood. It is also measured in the dropping of a broken-hearted tear, the silent shock of victimization, and the unspeakable horror over the desecration of everything sacred. Kristallnacht was terrorism, pure and simple. And it makes little difference if it is stone that is broken rather than glass.
And it was broken stones and memories that mark our latest example of the perfidy of humans against each other. At this point, it is not being investigated as a hate crime, insisting it was just "criminal mischief". But a similar crime was discovered on Thursday. Twice in less than a week is a lot of mischief not to be driven by hatred. |
| I don't speak much of my faith here (there are other places for that). But I will say that my faith teaches me to forgive those who have wronged us and to love those who do us injury. I don't have any family in this cemetary, but I still feel the pain for those who do. I'm not sure how readily I would forgive were it my father's grave, my brother's grave, my best friend's grave that had been so callously desicrated.
But about a year and a half ago, I sat next to Rabbi Arthur Waskow as Israeli bombs were falling in Lebanon and Lebanese rockets were landing in Israel. With a tear on his cheek and a quaver in his voice, he asked that we pray that "peace may one day come to all of Abraham's children". Because I have learned so much from my friend, and because I must pray for forgiveness I cannot yet feel, I offer the following:
A Jewish Daven for Peace
May we see the day when war and bloodshed cease
when a great peace will embrace the whole world
Then nation shall not threaten nation
and humankind will not again know war.
For all who live on earth shall realize
we have not come into being to hate or destroy
We have come into being
to praise, to labour and to love.
A Muslim Dua for Peace
O God! O our Master! You are eternal life and everlasting peace by Your essence and attributes. The everlasting peace is from You and it returns to You. O our Sustainer! Grant us the life of true peace and usher us into the abode of peace.
A Christian Prayer for Peace
Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace;
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.
Amen.
Is it a hate crime to desicrate a cemetary? Perhaps not. But Elie Wiesel was quick to point out that the most shocking part of the Holocaust was not the hatred - Jews always knew they were hated by some - it was the indifference with which the Holocaust was met that froze his soul.
God, let us pray that our souls are never frozen. |
