Before I begin my reflection on a homily I heard this morning, first let me say that I am one of those people whose religion was twisted hard by the past--not the distant past, but the past of my grandparents and my mother. My grandparents were Jews born outside of Kiev but ending up in the United States by way of Lithuania and Canada; my mother did not remain Jewish but converted to Christianity as a young adult. I was raised Christian, but, oddly with Jewish overtones.
This dichotomy, this pull in two directions has been with me all of my life. As a child, I could not understand why I and my family were different from my classmates; as an adult, I found my heritage impossible then irresistible to avoid. Now, I am in an uneasy, if not unsteady truce between Judaism and Chrisitanity which mostly enriches my life, but sometime causes me trouble.
That was the case of the homily this morning. I have, of late, been struggling with the idea of justice. If there is anything the present age seems to hate it is stopping evil with anything more than persuasion; I find this at best ineffectual and at worst, a sort of appeasement which leads evil to become bolder and good to uneasily look the other way as if giving silent assent. This, of course, for any Jew has reverberations of the reaction of the common German to "discovering" that his Jewish neighbors were disappearing into the ovens of Auschwitz. So, some causes now, just as then, are okay to discuss if not yell at the top of one's lungs. It is not that there was no cause either then or now; it was that some issues are the cause du jour (voter ID as racism) and others are not spoken of by anyone (firebombing of a synagogue in New Jersery a month or so ago).
Enter today's homily. It was based the verse "And you shall love your neighbor as yourself."
Father talked at length of how we were all of the same family of man. We were descended from Adam. Therefore, I am not only related to those in my family as we commonly think of it; no, I am related to those who are far away, who speak different languages and practice different cultures and religions. Some of these people may irritate me and some I irritate. "And," Father said, warming to his theme," You are even related to Hitler and Stalin. We are all part of the hunan family."
Undoubtedly,but I was still aghast. I might in some far away siense be related to them as part of the human family, but to say let's kumbya with the dictators who so were so driven to eradicate every Jew on the planet was a step too far. Exactly where does evil enter into that equation? Is there not evil for which men are truly culpable? Why are we so slow to say that anyone deserves hell?
Is it wrong to say evil is evil? Is it so bad to believe I am related to Hitler in that we both harken from Noah, but that is where the connectedness ceases? Do the children of light have anything at all to do with the children of darkness? I think not.
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