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G-d's message is a tolerant message–no religion is an island. In today’s day and age, it is easy to believe that certain peoples and certain religions are abhorrent. The path of least resistance is to distrust and to put up walls of intolerance, suspicion and prejudice against Muslims, as we see currently expressed in the presidential campaign. Many folks, jarred by recent events such as the growth of ISIS and home-grown terrorism, take the position that certain quarters cannot be trusted in any way, shape, or form. But it is important to keep channels open, and not paint and condemn whole communities based on the barbaric acts of those who hijack religion.
I am privileged to have signed a clergy petition against terror, circulated by Ransaq, that reads, “We, the undersigned clergy, representing a diversity of religious backgrounds and organizations, are deeply pained by all acts of terror, and especially those acts committed in the name of G-d. Our faiths are designed to promote peace and mutual understanding, not terror or indiscriminate death. Those who believe that such acts are in any way heroic or noble, are the victims of insidious deception. Such acts do not guarantee entry to heaven. To the contrary, those who commit such atrocities walk a road that is divorced from our sacred traditions and alien to G-d. The clerics who convince others to give their lives and take the lives of others are charlatans. They have abused their power and influence, recruiting others to advance their own personal political and military objectives with false promises of eternal bliss. We unequivocally condemn their actions and demand that they cease from further profaning God’s name. We dare not be silenced by those who have distorted G-d’s great message to all of humanity. That is why we have signed our name to this petition.”
This petition was penned by Yousuf U. Syed, Trustee, Islamic Association of Long Island, The Selden Mosque, who also wrote the following in an “Open Letter of Muslims to fellow American Citizens,” The Selden Mosque (The Oldest Mosque of Long Island) stands in solidarity with all our fellow Americans. We send our heartfelt condolences to all the families of the victims, who were murdered and injured in San Bernardino’s mass shooting. The Prophet of Islam said: “A strong person is not the one who throws his adversaries to the ground – a strong person is the one who controls and contains himself when angry.” Such are the teachings of Islam–for those who can understand. Rev. Wes Granberg Michaelson, from The Reform Church in America, has called the Paris incident an “Identity theft of the Muslim Faith.” Islam, in fact, is indeed a peaceful religion. The true blasphemers are those who ridicule and insult other faiths. The killers and others like them who do not understand that by forcing their false and murderous distortion of Islam, which in its truest expression is a religion of peace, do great damage to the image of Muslims and Islam. Islam requires that Muslims possess “ upright character” and deal justly with the entire human race, irrespective of their ethnicity, nationality, creed, and whether they are friend or foe. These are the teachings of Islam. How could a man like the San Bernardino killer, claim to be Muslim, when he has no respect for his own one-year-old innocent baby child, whom he left behind without mercy. I cannot call him an animal, because it would be an insult to animals. They would not abandon their offspring like that, they will fight to death to protect them.”
No religious strain has a religious monopoly. Rabbi Jonathon Sacks, in his new book Not in God’s Name, tells us that violence in the name of religion is never something that G-d endorses. Abraham got it wrong when he tried to slaughter Isaac and when he banished Ishmael and sent them with few provisions into the desert. “Chosen-ness” does not necessarily mean rejection of the unselected. Jacob does not mean the rejection of Esau. Esau, too, inherits Edom. Ishmael may not inherit Abraham’s legacy but he still becomes a great nation. Abel may have been a victim, but so was Cain, as his brother never allowed him to speak to him. Rachel may be the more loved, but G-d cannot abide this, so he makes Leah more fertile. In Exodus, the reaction to enslavement in the Israelite religion is not to, once freed, enslave others; it is to create a minimally classist society–a social safety net–and a system that limits the power of the ruling class. It is to found a Shabbat day when we can release all our servants. It is to create an anti-Egyptian hierarchical structure. Because we were victimized, we cannot victimize others. Love, to the stranger, is the most frequently repeated mitzvah. At the end of the Exodus story, G-d tells the Israelites to take their due in silver, gold, and clothing from their Egyptian neighbors. Says Rabbi Hertz, this was not to exploit the Egyptians (Nitzal); it was to rescue them (lehatzil)–to allow them to be elevated to a status well above their terrible ruler rather than lumped them together with the cruel elite.
To follow our basest instincts exposes us to the dark side and lowers us to the thought level of the Islamists and the terrorists. Lately, Israeli society has had to peer into the national mirror and focus more sharpened condemnation of Jewish vigilantism in Judaea and Samaria. An “evil weed” has sprouted within the national religious sector due to too little condemnation of the destruction of property and vandalism, called the Price Tag Movement, and to rabbis who have preached racism. Such Jewish reprisals have been treated too benignly or rationalized away as acts of hot-headed youth. Such perversions of religious nationalism need to be addressed and rooted out or they will become more and more prevalent in Israeli society. Here in America we should guard against such sweeping prejudice and bias as well. Speaking of American bans against members of an entire faith is not only unwise, it bankrupts most all of what America stands for. Here, before yet another Martin Luther King Jr. day, we must be careful how we characterize people. We must judge people neither by creed nor by skin color, but rather by “content of character.” As one reads from the themes of Abraham Joshua Heshel,
No religion is an island; there is no monopoly on holiness.
We are companions of all who revere God We rejoice when the Divine name is praised.
No religion is an island; we share the kinship of humanity, the capacity for compassion.
God’s spirit rests upon Jew and Gentile, man and woman, in consonance with their deeds.
The creation of one Adam promotes peace. No one can claim: My ancestor is nobler than yours.
There is no monopoly on holiness, there is no truth without humility.