Shabbat Greetings
(This week’s Shabbat Greeting is inspired by the words of Rabbi Craig Ezrig) – This week’s portion is called, Shemini (Leviticus 9:1-11:47). The word translates to the number, eight. The Eighth Commandment is, Thou Shalt Not Steal. Most of you here today have probably seen a lot of movies about cops and robbers. While those who just want to rob someone of their purse or their wallet, might do so with the words, “Stick ‘em up”; those who want to steal something of immense value, tend to be much more quiet as they go about their thievery. They don’t loudly break into a house or a museum. No, they sneak in as silently as possible. Such crooks are often referred to as, Cat Burglars. Why? because cats are known to be very soft on their feet. And, unlike dogs who bark loudly, a cat, at most, purrs or meows.
So, while we have many wonderful and positive expressions about silence; like, “Silence is Golden”, there are times where silence is used as a way to steal and rob, to take something away from someone. In this week’s Torah Reading we learn of the death of not one, but two of Aaron’s sons. In fact, they die at one and the same time, and, we are told that Aaron’s reaction is silence.
Many interpreters say that Aaron is silent because he has total trust in God. That, even though, he, for the life of him, cannot understand God’s taking the two young men from him, he knows that God must have a reason, thus, he quietly accepts his sons’ being taken from him. But, as yesterday was Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Memorial Day), I want to talk with you about another type of silence. The idea for this week’s greetings all started during a funeral service I was doing where a couple of people in attendance, were rudely holding a conversation and, apparently their hearing was going, as they seemed to be talking at the top of their lungs. And that is when someone else in the service opened her mouth and said, “Don’t speak so loud or you’ll wake up the dead”.
Oddly enough, for a moment there, I thought to myself, what if that were really possible. What if our talking loud could wake up the dead? I don’t know about you, but I think I would be shouting at the top of my lungs, as I would love to see and hear my father, and my brother, and other family members. But then I realized that there are other people who are no longer with us that my shouting might also wake up. And, the truth of the matter is, I fear what some of them might have to say.
This is especially true when it comes to Yom HaShoah. I can’t even begin to imagine what those who perished in the horrors brought upon us by the Nazis might have to say. Back when Pope Benedict XVI headed the Catholic Church, he made a visit to the Great Synagogue of Rome and, while he was there, a small group of Holocaust Survivors were there as well and they presented the Pope with a letter. ……after sharing some of their stories with His Holiness, they added, “There are other stories like ours, but they are stories without a voice, stories that are mute. ……For that reason, in the memory of those who are not here, those who did not return as we did, we leave our witness…….We are here but we never left Auschwitz. We are here, but our thoughts go every night to those who remained in Auschwitz without a name and without life. We have never lost our faith in people, but people never came to our aid.
“The silence of those who could have done something has marked our lives, and those of our children who have shared our suffering all these years. ….Our hope is that the silence of those who did not prevent this absolute evil will be overcome by the cry of those who desire that what happened will not happen again, so that our yesterdays will not be their tomorrows.”
The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.” And so, while we make sure to acknowledge those Righteous Gentiles who silently went about doing whatever they were able to help us, we cannot forget, we must not forget, the silence of our “friends”. We must remember to never be silent when others are in distress; but, we can also not be silent when our friends remain silent as well.
SHABBAT SHALOM