Tom Paine wrote these immortal words during the dark days of the Revolutionary War. They seem apt today. To many it seems that the Republic has lost its way. It has jumped headlong into a quagmire in Iraq. Every day, grief strikes one or more American families as our enemies pick off their sons, brothers, fathers, and husbands. Our soldiers, men and women whom many of us deeply admire and who have performed so wonderfully in open combat, also seem to be making some horrendous mistakes, though horrendous mistakes always accompany warfare, even when the warriors act on behalf of a society that hopes to act beneficiently. We are being vilified around the world as we try to restore the Iraqi infrastructure and set up institutions that would enable the Iraqis to rule themselves without being subjected to horrendous tyranny.
Even though Europe and Japan, not the United States, were the principal importers of Iraqi oil, everywhere politicians and ordinary people, by no means all of them in the Arab World, are believed when they insist that America invaded Iraq only to steal its oil. Our remarkable victory in Afghanistan is now being described as a failure because Osama Bin Laden and some of his key henchman got away. Far from having hobbled Al Quaeda, we are told, we have generated a wave of new recruits. 9/11 may be a prelude instead of a quietus. Perhaps both perspectives are right, so it may be appropriate to counsel patience and to point out that the outcome of the Revolutionary War was in doubt during almost all of the seven long, dreary years, after Tom Paine wrote his famous introductory words. These, too, are times that try men’s souls.
And how about us Jews? From the end of World War II until some time in the 1990s anti-Semitism was all but completely unacceptable in the U.S. and Europe. Now we find it alive and well on many college campuses, among a vocal segment of African Americans (of whose rights we Jews were fervid champions) and in the streets, cafes, and newspapers of Europe. As ever, it is accompanied by threats and violence, as well as the most vile rhetorical garbage. Among the Islamic countries Jew hatred seems to be even more livid than hatred of America. The accusations against us there, when not the product of fantasy, are of mythic proportions and make us wonder whether conciliation will forever elude us. The dream that the Jewish people would at last be liberated and emancipated by returning to the Land of our Ancestors has, after a period of great vigor and accomplishment, been beset not only by our enemies but by invective among us that resembles nothing so much as the sinat hinam (the baseless acrimony) that the rabbis blamed for the Roman conquest of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Second Temple. And, to our shame, we know we have fallen short of our aspirations to assure equality and fairness to the Arab/Palestinians living in our midst. Peace, even an armistice, between us and the Palestinians seems impossible to arrange. “Oy va voy.”
Here in this good land, our politics has become so infected with mendacity, corruption, and silliness that it’s hard to imagine our ever returning to the days when policy and progress ruled our discourse. Government, once the proudest creation of our people, is now seen as the enemy by almost everyone except the hapless “bureaucrats” who have long toiled for the welfare of our people, and who now find themselves despised and belittled from all sides.
Oh that we could learn to resolve our disputes with fairness and equanimity! “When will they ever learn? When will they ever learn?” And then there is the economic contraction that, together with unfortunately timed tax changes, has drained the coffers of the agencies that take care of the most ill and poverty stricken in our midst and thrown millions out of work, including some of our own members. Thus far, the nascent recovery, if that’s what it is, has been insufficient for them to find jobs.
At times like these we properly turn to our faith, to Judaism, to save us from despair. The story of our people gives us the comfort of perspective and reasons to hope that God, the Divine in the universe, will help us rescue ourselves. The Holocaust, the riots, expulsions, and massacres that drove our people from Islamic countries where they had lived for millennia, and the invasions of Israel were far worse than the current carnage, yet “we’re still here.” We justly celebrate the freedom American Jews have enjoyed from the very birth of the nation (see the Kol HaNeshamah Prayer Book, p. 817), yet even here hatemongers, some with sizable national followings, turned their vicious rhetoric against us; and we were discriminated against in much the same fashion as Afro-Americans were, and at times still are, but without the legal protections erected primarily for their sake in the sixties. Yet we Jews have thrived, and some of us have prospered mightily.
But these are collective experiences that, however encouraging in the long run, do not by themselves relieve some of us from the gloom that our own difficult times inevitably generate. For that we need personal comfort. We fervently hope that our community provides an antidote through individual acts of gemilut hasadim (acts of lovingkindness) and through our communal prayers, music, and meditation. These, my own experience shows, lift our spirits. Then, too, there are the children growing up in our midst. Their boundless energy gives us hope. So does our recognition that our community (including volunteers and professionals whom we support) is “diligently teaching them [the words] to our children,” as the Torah commands. These, and countless other acts of communal service that we perform for one another remind us that we are not alone. Those acts and that awareness are among the best antidotes for the moments of gloom that must, in times like these, “try our souls.”
Finally, we may find strength in the Tanakh, the Hebrew Bible. It graphically records feelings of despair and the unexpected rescue that often follow has followed them. “Min ha meytzar karati yah, v’anani bamerhav yah.” “From the depths I called upon God. And from a spacious place God answered me. God is with me; I will not fear.” Psalm 118, vv. 5-6. This is the ancient call of our people. May it strike a responsive chord in our hearts and minds and lift up our spirits. And may the evils that beset us now speedily recede and disappear.
Rabbi George Driesen