For a brief moment the shouting, the marching and the melees subsided. For a span of a few hours everyone’s eyes turned heavenwards. Adult and child, teacher and student, professional astronomer and stargazer alike; all that mattered was the exceptional show staged in the heavens above. The rare and breathtaking astronomical event drew our attention away from the narrowness of competing perspectives of people who are incapable of sharing space with others.
For two weeks the chaos which erupted throughout and beyond Charlottesville has ignited a controversy- freedom of expression versus Nazism and removal of Confederate memorials versus the elimination of history.
For two weeks the chaos which erupted throughout and beyond Charlottesville has ignited a controversy- freedom of expression versus Nazism and removal of Confederate memorials versus the elimination of history.
We Americans cherish our most fundamental rights; free speech, free press, free assembly, freedom of faith and freedom to vote. While we enumerate these freedoms as Constitutional rights we can consider them all as one basic right - to freely express ourselves. That too many brave, passionate and dear souls gave their lives in wars too many to count to safeguard our freedoms of expression must never be forgotten or ignored. As many lands, tribes and terror groups hurtle their way towards darkness, I realize daily how blessed we are to live in a land wherein we can freely express our beliefs, opinions and ideas.
Our majestic nation remains the grandest experiment the world has ever known. The test of our republic is the capacity to construct a shared society- in spite of the many vagaries of expressed belief.
The greatest question before us is the most complex and challenging of all; how do we foster complete freedom of expression when such expression may contribute to our downfall? Even as fear of immigrants drives some Americans to wall-building, fear of curtailed expression prompts us to ask if our country is open to us ourselves. We have a long road before us; a road upon which we must walk together.
Two good friends, whose opinions I value, respectfully disagreed with part of my comment last week. I decried the march of Neo-Nazis and championed the march by counter-protesters. In my mind’s ear I heard drumbeats of 1938. To witness the hateful expression of obscene racism cloaked in the protections of our flag and Constitution more than deeply offended me. I saw such expressions as threatening the stability of our communal experience. I expressed my opinion that such utter hatred as propounded by Neo-Nazis has no place in America for it would unravel the tapestry of our nation.
Yet, my friends are very right when they point out the precariousness of curtailing any expression. If Madison, Jefferson and Adams had been constrained in their expression there would be no free nation in which we might dwell.
On the other hand, to see counter-protesters pull down a Confederate monument is nearly as frightening as seeing American citizens carrying Nazi banners. Our freedom of expression,which protects the tearing down of historic statues and defames that which is sacred to many Americans, is our very core.
This week, Jews the world over will hear the words of Torah. Parhshat Shofetim calls out to us and proclaims- ‘establish for yourselves judges and officers…justice, justice shall you pursue’. We are instructed to actively pursue justice; bringing it into our world with the inefficient and lofty act of appointing fellow humans to be judges. We must literally run after justice even as we recognize that justice may elude us. Will we be able to walk and run together? Or will we wind up running into each other instead?
Four days ago our nation stopped short, nearly paralyzed, by an act of cosmic beauty which lasted three hours and had no real impact on anyone. Will we ever be able to see the very real acts of beauty, the people who comprise our neighborhoods and occupy our shared earth, who are real enough to have an actual impact in our lives today?
Shabbat Shalom.
Rabbi Steve Silberman
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