IN THE MIDST OF DARKNESS CALL DOWN THE LIGHT

Do not fear monsters but do not ignore them

(Not to subscribers: I apologize for the fact that you received two copies of yesterday’s post. Obviously I’m not a technological genius - M.)

Naga Film

I’m always fascinated by how octopuses are able get themselves out of a jar. You’d think you had one contained, then damn if it doesn’t escape its container.

So it is with more than octopuses. Octopuses are not dangerous, but many things are. And some dangers seem immune to our efforts at control, even when we have them temporarily trapped. They can take the form of monstrous malfunctions of the heart, lying still for years or even centuries, then escaping the grip of societal, legal, or moral strictures with which they’d been bound. They are ideas, after all. Of course they can escape a jar.

Several such dangers abound these days; ancient evils that apparently didn’t die but were only sleeping. Times and places in which they do not appear are more the exception than the rule of history, however much we like to forget that when we are living blessedly free of them. Desperate are those gazing in horror as the monster eerily announces its return: “I’m baaaack.” Even greater despair when we realize this isn’t fiction, this is history.

As both a woman and a Jew, I’m particularly aware of two monsters rambling towards us these day. Both misogyny and antisemitism are barreling down the road, sending weapons before them to attack and destroy those who refuse to keep our heads down. We see it. We’re watching in almost frozen disbelief. I see images in my mind of how women dressed in Iran before the Iranian revolution. How do we absorb the fact that such things can change in the space of a day? I think of the bravery and grit of the American Suffragists, their success in passing the 19th Amendment now undermined by those set on repealing it. How do we absorb the fact that a rogue Supreme Court cannot be trusted not to do so? I see images of Jews being gunned down in DC, in Manchester, in Sydney. How do we absorb the fact that these things are happening again….?

The only antidote to any of this is knowledge, and a sophisticated recognition that in the words of Hunter Thompson, “The bastards never sleep.” My father used to tell us that as Jews we should always advocate for the oppressed and marginalized, that even if antisemites “aren’t coming after us now, they always tend to come back around.” The work of social justice should never be limited to a stand for only this group or that. The work of social justice should be a stand for social justice on behalf of everyone, everywhere, all the time.

Antisemitism is particularly pernicious when it hides behind a mask of concern for someone else’s suffering, then suggesting all Jews are at fault. To hear the likes of Candace Owens tell it (to her millions of social media followers, no less), Jews are basically a demonic people for whom doing evil is our basic code of conduct. Insanity? Yes. But there are kids on American college campuses today who echo this. To such as they, not only do Jews regularly inflict suffering on others, but Jewish pain does not even matter. Even among rational people, there’s a lot of “all lives matter-ing” when it comes to violence against Jews these days. An ancient blanket of obfuscation has often been used to muffle the sound of Jewish suffering, echoed by Shakespeare when Shylock in The Merchant of Venice says, “If you prick us do we not bleed?”

Everyone suffers and everyone bleeds. No one’s pain is more or less important than the pain of anyone else. We are one humanity, created equal and loved equally by God. The world we want to create is a world where no one is left out of the circle of our compassion- neither Jew, nor Christian, nor Muslim, nor anyone. It’s astonishing to me that any American need be reminded of this.

Whether it’s a government not wanting us to even discuss Blacks, LGBTQ+, or women; whether it’s the wave of antisemitic fervor now minimizing and even adding to the active global threat to Jews; whether it’s acid thrown in the face of women who dared show their beauty and in so doing offended someone else’s sense of God; whether it’s the billions of dollars now spent to make sure only White Supremacists and Christian Nationalists can gain power in the United States of America, the very ideal of a pluralistic and democratic society is now under active attack. Women and Jews, and others as well, have reason to cower. Yet we must not.

We should not fear monsters, but neither should we ignore them. Do not be lured. Do not be silent. Do not be afraid. In the midst of darkness call down the Light. God is more powerful than monstrous ideologies. In the name of God, command that they go. They’ve only been able to assume such power because we the people have not assumed ours. Assume yours now. Rise up and stand. That is the important lesson here. Lay passionate claim to the world you want. Claim this planet for the kingdom of love.