Sacred Dissent: On Patriotism and Faith
An interesting thing about Jewish holidays is that each year they fall on different days in the secular calendar. The Hebrew calendar is based off the moon, with leap months every couple of years to keep holidays around the same time. Rosh Hashanah is always in the fall, Passover is always in the spring, but at times the dates can vary up to a month or so depending on where we are situated within the calendar cycle. This year is the year before a leap year: we will have an additional month of Adar which push everything back. As a result, holidays were earlier this year, including the High Holy Days.
It is quite the coincidence that this year, Rosh Hashanah begins the evening of September 11th. And not any September 11th, but the 25th anniversary of the attack which devastated our nation. Most of us can remember exactly where we were when we first learned of the attacks. While the survivors and those close to the victims were most affected, the trauma of the attacks rippled throughout the country. Even all the way in Southern California, we felt it. I was getting ready to go to school when I saw my mom glued to the TV. “I’m not sure you’ll have school today,” she said. “Something terrible has happened.”
We went to school not sure what to expect. All throughout my first period my teacher had the news on, unable to focus on the plan for the day. After about an hour of restlessly waiting for updates, school was cancelled and we were sent home.
There is a quote ascribed to Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl, which says: “Between stimulus and response is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” The greater the stimulus, the more important our response.
The 9/11 attacks were unlike anything many of us had seen in our lifetimes. We were overcome with shock, sadness, and fear. While we mourned what had happened, we braced ourselves for what would come next. While we were powerless in the face of the attack, we had power in how we would respond. “In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”
Although I was young, as a life-long advocate for peace, I knew a retaliatory war was not the choice we should make. Violence would not bring back those we had lost.
I had grown up learning that dissent is patriotic. That freedom of speech is the stronghold of democracy and American values. And yet, when I voiced my anti-war sentiments, I was given the opposite message: my dissent was unpatriotic, and my critique of our government was anti-American.
For a long time I was told I would feel differently when I was older. That adults had felt the naivete of pacifism when they were young, but they grew out of it, and I would too. With this feedback I hoped my viewpoint was only disrespected because of my age, and when I grew up, my ideology, even if disagreed with, would be accepted as valid.
Yet as the years passed, my ideology has become less and less accepted, despite my age and my increasing numbers of gray hairs. My dissent is even less patriotic today than it was 25 years ago. For so long I fought: I am a patriot. I critique my country because I love my country.
I must admit, I am tired of that fight.
We learn from our Torah that dissent is holy. Abraham, the first Jew, had no qualms about speaking truth to power.
In Genesis 18, God has just promised Abraham that Sarah will give birth to a son in a year’s time. God says, if Abraham continues to be righteous, then God will give Abraham all the blessings God had promised him.
Then God says: the people of Sodom and Gomorrah have sinned greatly. I will go and see the extent of their actions.
As if intuiting what God would do if the cities were found guilty, Abraham asked God: “Will you destroy the innocent along with the guilty? What if there are 50 innocent, will you wipe out the city and not forgive it on behalf of the 50 innocent? Far be it from you to do such a thing, to not judge justly, to punish innocent and guilty alike!”
Quite the rebuke from Abraham. Although he was 90, compared to the ageless God who has experienced eternity, God could have said: “Who are you? What do you know? You are young yet. Maybe when you have seen what I have seen, you will understand. Live a little more, then we can talk.”
Instead, God relents, saying, “If there are 50 innocent, I will forgive the city for their sake.”
Abraham then enters into negotiation with God. Having accepted 50 innocent, Abraham asks about 45 innocent, then 40 innocent, then 30 innocent, then 20 innocent, all the way down to 10 innocent, and each time God agrees.
Abraham had only met God in Chapter 12 of Genesis, and by Chapter 18 he was already arguing with God over matters of justice. And instead of dismissing him, God listens and relents.
Our Torah teaches us over and over again that there is no such thing as absolute power: even God’s power must be checked by righteous people, and they show their righteousness by standing up to God. Our Torah also teaches us that the most faithful followers of God are the ones who dissent, who ask for mercy, who exercise restraint.
What makes Abraham’s story so powerful is the people he was protecting were strangers to him. His nephew Lot lived in Sodom, but he did not say: Spare my nephew. He said, spare the city. His concern was for innocents in general, not innocents who were connected to him. And he was willing to spare the guilty on behalf of the innocent.
Holocaust survivor and prominent civil rights leader Rabbi Joachim Prinz said: When God created humans, God created us as everyone’s neighbor. Neighbor is not a geographic term. It is a moral concept.
Indeed, loving one’s neighbor was not about geography to Abraham, but morality. Opposing the loss of life in the Middle East along with the loss of life in NYC and DC was not about geography, but morality.
On this 25th anniversary of 9/11, I am considering two tragedies in one: the initial tragedy of the terror attack which stole innocent lives in NYC and DC, and the resulting tragedy of the countless innocents killed in Afghanistan and Iraq because of our own fear and anger, and our inability to judge justly, sparing the whole on behalf of the innocent.
Abraham’s comments, “What about the innocent?” got him labeled as one of our greatest leaders. Yet many Americans who asked the same question were labeled as anti-American traitors. The truth is, morality says innocent is innocent, regardless of geography.
For a long time the label patriot was an identifier which grounded the anti-war justice work I was involved in. But over the last decade or so, I have wondered if it is a label that still fits me. When someone calls themselves a patriot without any explanation, most people do not think of someone like me. If I use that term for myself, I feel like I need an asterisk to explain what I mean by it.
Maybe dissent is no longer considered patriotic. Maybe freedom of speech is no longer the hallmark of American values. Maybe this is no longer the country I was taught about in school. Just as most people today don’t think “faithful” means questioning God like Abraham did, they also don’t think “patriotic” means questioning their country.
Unfortunately, the term patriot may make us think more about January 6th than Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Labels change their meanings or get corrupted by those who claim them. I hope one day we can return to the belief that true patriotism questions and dissents. But until then, my aim will be to be like Abraham: thinking of those who deserve better, even if I don’t know them, even if I have no connection to them, because justice is justice no matter where we are.
On this anniversary of a tragedy, I hope we can look to the future while learning from our past. I hope we can aim to end wickedness rather than wiping out those we deem as wicked – and the innocents in their midst.
May the memories of those killed in 9/11 and the resulting wars be for a blessing.
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