One inspiring moment in the film Selma was the response to King’s call for support. He waited until thousands of religious and secular people arrived from all over the country to begin the third protest. In that moment of decent people marching for civility and democratic ideals, there was a display of hope and courage. When I saw the newspaper’s front page photo of the January 2015 march in Paris with the disparate leaders marching together, I was again inspired and filled with hope.
Sometimes I feel that the world’s current level of violence and hatred will never subside. Then, there are these moments of hope and the expectation that sanity, tolerance, compassion, and peace can prevail when people march together in solidarity.
Though I am not a political analyst, like many of you I am obsessed with reading everything I can to make sense of world events, and, being a Jew, the rising threat of anti-semitism. In an interview with Professor Deborah Lipstadt, author of the celebrated book, History on Trial: My Day in Court with a Holocaust Denier, she asserts that what happens to Jews (like the murders in the Kosher market) are a “litmus test and a weathervane” for hate crimes in general. The multicultural, liberal, and democratic societies, she claims, should be very concerned. It starts with the Jews but it never ends with the Jews.
In her article in the Jewish Journal, Dr. Tamar Frankiel, the president of the Academy for Jewish Religion in California, explained “Why Religion is a Laughing Matter.” The role of humor and satire, she says, is a “disruptive, liberating force,” and can be an outlet to release hate and defuse violence. Judaism has produced a large repertoire of humorous religious satire. Frankiel points out that in the Exodus narrative, which we have been reading in January and February, the Bible makes Pharaoh a laughingstock, a helpless victim of forces he thinks he controls. Unlike the literal Islamic terrorists, our tradition uses irony and satire because we are human and everything, even God, is subject to critique.
In the fight against intolerance, humor and satire can liberate the mind. There is much irony when we take ourselves and our God too seriously. Frankiel says:
“The best humor comes not with bitterness or revolutionary zeal, but with love and appreciation for the precarious and tender efforts of humans and divine partners to be in relationship.”
One of the cartoons that angered Islamic radicals depicted the founder of Islam holding his head in his hands saying, “It is so hard to be loved by idiots.” Frankiel tells us that this cartoon could have been one of God as the old bearded man in the sky looking down on His human creations. “It must be hard,” she says, “for God to be loved by those idiosyncratic creatures who forget what God is all about.”
Mark Twain said, “humans are the only animals who love their neighbors as themselves and then cut their throats if their theology is different from their own.” And Voltaire is attributed to saying, “I hate what you are saying, but I shall fight so that you are able to say it.”
It is not Islam which is evil; it is the extreme, literalist interpretation of Islam with its support of strict Sharia law which is a threat to peaceful coexistence. David Suissa, a writer for the Jewish Journal wrote,
“If Islam is a religion that stands for justice and peaceful coexistence, it needs to be modernized and reinterpreted to affirm and promote universally accepted human rights and values.”
May we all be motivated to continue to speak out, march, sign petitions, and learn about each other as we fight for a truly civilized and peaceful world. AMEN.