Sermons: High Holy Days

I didn’t expect to have a spiritual awakening at a gym, but that’s exactly what happened.  In Oregon, I saw a man lifting weights, his hair dyed an unnatural shade of black. Thick metal piercings sliced through his ears and his nose.  Most alarming were his arms and legs, covered in elaborate symbolic tattoos. One on of his legs he had a large tattoo of Charles Manson, an image of this murderer’s face with wild eyes beneath the swastika scratched on his forehead. 

Why would this guy have an image of Charles Manson tattooed on his leg?  In 1969, Manson inspired his followers to brutally murder several people.  In Manson’s trial, prosecutors alleged that he wanted to start a race war.   Did the guy in the gym venerate Manson?  Could he be a white supremacist with violent tendencies? My mind circled around these questions.

The Northwest has long been home to racist and anti-Semitic groups.  It was quite possible that he was one of those hateful people. 

Given that we were in Oregon, and given the looks of this guy, I decided that yes, he was probably a member of a hate group.  He must hate me and the people I love.  I decided to hate him right back.  

Many of us have been quick to hate others this past year.  From the insurrectionists who stormed the Capitol Building in January, smashing windows and terrorizing lawmakers, to those who scoff at the dangers of the coronavirus, to those who spread falsehoods and harmful conspiracies -- there is no shortage of targets for our feelings of contempt.

Human nature makes it easy to hate.  It begins with our reflex to sort other people into simple, binary categories. Friend or foe. Good or bad.  In human evolution, this way of quickly sorting people into categories helped us make quick decisions that were necessary for survival.  There was little room for complexity or nuance.

But hatred can also take on a life of its own.  Hatred can be reinforced by the algorithms of social media, stirring us to react viscerally and simplistically to the words and actions of others.  Hatred can lead us to perceive threats from people even when the threats are not there.  Ultimately, hatred can distort our vision and imprison us in a dark place.

On Yom Kippur we confess:  Al chet shechatanu lifanecha al sinat ḥinam.  For the sin we have committed against You by hating without cause.

This confession does not suggest that hatred itself is a sin.  After all, we cannot control the feelings we have towards other people.  What is sinful is hating without cause.  This means that when we feel hatred towards another, we must examine those feelings to determine if our hatred is justified.   

In the Torah story this morning, it seemed that Joseph had every reason to hate his brothers.  Joseph’s brothers sold him into slavery and then led their father to believe he had been killed.  Joseph lived in exile in Egypt, enslaved and  imprisoned for years before he ascended to become Pharaoh’s second-in-command.

After the death of their father, Joseph’s brothers feared that he would take revenge on them, believing that he would finally act on the hatred he must have harbored ever since his brothers harmed him.  They knew the enormity of their crime and assumed that Joseph would act on his rage.

But Joseph did not take revenge on his brothers, nor did he express hatred towards them. Quite the opposite:  Joseph reassured his brothers, telling them not to be afraid. How is this possible?

Joseph knew his brothers well.  Maybe he recognized that his brothers were complex people.  Perhaps Joseph understood that his brothers were still his brothers, and that their crime should not define them.   

Rob Mundy, a former member of a hate group, says that “Hate wants people to be simple.  It wants things literally to be black and white.” But people are not simple.  We are actually quite messy. At times it can be hard to understand what is in our own hearts.  How can we presume to fully understand the hearts of others?

Back in the gym, as the man with the tattoos was lifting weights, a petite elderly woman in a faded Obama t-shirt walked over to him.  The man set down his bar bells and greeted her warmly.  They stood chatting for a few minutes, talking about the juice bar in the food co-op across the street and which produce was available at the farmer’s market.   Then woman asked the tattooed man about the proper way to use a weight machine, and he coached her through a set of bicep exercises.

The tattooed man did not seem like a hateful person at all.  Maybe his tattoos represented who he been in the past, and not who he was in the present.  I had judged him to be a hateful person so quickly and easily.  Perhaps, in that moment, I was the one who was hateful.  

How do we guard ourselves against sinat chinam, baseless hatred?  

Our tradition teaches that everything is created for a purpose, even fleas, gnats and flies.  (Genesis Rabbah 10: 7).  If we are to regard pesky, biting insects as having a purpose in our world, even more should we regard every human as having a purpose.  Even people who annoy or provoke us have a purpose. Even the people who do hateful things have a purpose, even if that purpose is only to prompt us to reflect on our own actions and values.

Joseph tells his brothers who had sold him into slavery: “Although you intended me harm, God intended it for good.” Joseph had the perspective to realize that were it not for his having been enslaved in Egypt, he would never have been in the position to save his family and all the people of Egypt from starvation. His wisdom gave him the strength to refrain from hating those who had harmed him.  Joseph’s words to his brothers reflected his faith that God can turn the actions of the people who harm us to the good. 

We are called to be part of that turning to the good. We turn to the good when we resist the reflex to sort people into categories.  We turn to the good when we recognize that people are far more complex than they may appear.  We turn to the good when we recognize that when we feel hatred burn in our hearts, our hatred may not be justified.

It is a sign of great strength to choose empathy over hatred.   We are strong enough to make this choice. In the coming year, what would it feel like to view others without a filter of bias?   How might we be liberated if we see and accept others for who they are, imperfect creatures like us, living as best we can in the messy fullness of our humanity?