Keeping the Faith Thursday, 24 January, 2008 by Sam Garber #tbt. I was looking for an old doc and found this in a folder by itself. I thought that I would hate it because I wrote it in 08 and that was years ago. But I can still relate with my 2008 self... Unabridged. Keeping the Faith Faith can be vibrant, empathetic, showing up in the strangest places in meaningful and mighty ways bringing light and shalom to dispel gloom and despair. Passionate faith can blow by ancient barriers and divisions bring about restoration and equity. Faith can be cold, indifferent, detached from the salient screams of humanity; even next of kin. Passion for the complexities of faith deadens compassion for neighbors who differ or perhaps appear indifferent. My faith was on the wire as I read Elie Wiesel’s ‘Night.’ The eleven year night of horror for well over 11 million people only 64 short years ago, crimes regressing further and deeper, far beyond what surely most of us care to imagine our species are capable of committing. After reading only a fraction of Elie’s history of that Night and the other fragments I’ve heard or seen of the Holocaust such as the Diary of Ann Frank, the Hiding Place, and the Holocaust museum – I thought with Elie: “Yes, man is stronger, greater than God. When Adam and Eve deceived You, You chased them from paradise. When You were displeased by Noah’s generation, you brought down the Flood. When Sodom lost Your favor, You caused the heavens to rain down fire and damnation. But look at these men whom You have betrayed, allowing them to be tortured, slaughtered, gassed, and burned, what do they do? They pray before You! They praise Your name!” I heard with him the question: “Where is merciful God, where is he?” “For God’s sake where is God?” And I imagined myself answering with him: “Where He is? This is where—hanging here from this gallows . . .” So I was fascinated to discover that he exhibited a nuanced faith by his speech in the epilogue from 1986: Human rights are being violated on every continent. More people are oppressed than free. How can one not be sensitive to their plight? Human suffering anywhere concerns men and women everywhere. That applies also to Palestinians to whose plight I am sensitive but whose methods I deplore when they lead to violence. Violence is not the answer. Terrorism is the most dangerous of answers. They are frustrated, that is understandable, something must be done. The refugees and their misery. The children and their fear. The uprooted and their hopelessness. Something must be done about their situation. Both the Jewish people and the Palestinian people have lost too many sons and daughters and have shed too much blood. This must stop, and all attempts to stop it must be encouraged. Israel will cooperate, I am sure of that. I trust Israel for I have faith in the Jewish people. Let Israel be given a chance, let hatred and danger be removed from their horizons, and there will be peace in and around the Holy Land. Please understand my deep and total commitment to Israel: if you could remember what I remember, you would understand. Israel is the only nation in the world whose existence is threatened. Should Israel lose but one war, it would mean her end and ours as well. But I have faith. Faith in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and even in His creation. Without it no action would be possible. And action is the only remedy to indifference, the most insidious danger of all. Isnt that the meaning of Alfred Nobels legacy? Wasnt his fear of war a shield against war? There is so much to be done, there is so much that can be done. One person — a Raoul Wallenberg, an Albert Schweitzer, Martin Luther King, Jr. — one person of integrity, can make a difference, a difference of life and death. As long as one dissident is in prison, our freedom will not be true. As long as one child is hungry, our life will be filled with anguish and shame. What all these victims need above all is to know that they are not alone; that we are not forgetting them, that when their voices are stifled we shall lend them ours, that while their freedom depends on ours, the quality of our freedom depends on theirs. I have no idea how Elie’s faith revived. I really didn’t suspect it would be possible. There was a time I would have said – but – “is he a converted Jew?” Not bothering myself to consider either what he had been through or the words he spoke of the amazing world his faith envisions; looking only for a carefully worded confession of faith, not faith itself or the fruit of compassion, but a creed, a statement. That’s one place we needn’t divide – over statements – not faith in YHVH – faith in statements. I’m not so remiss as to leave my faith entirely undefined though. I completely concur with Elie – who is my new found hero btw – I have faith; faith in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and even in His creation, including but not limited to all the people of the world. There’s a picture, here, of children just before they were mercilessly executed, you can see they have faith, faith in their new guardians, they don’t seem fearful or suspicious. Faith is naiveté. Oh no, wait, “faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Oh yeah, that’s naiveté. I remember my innocence, my naiveté; I had faith in everyone. I got bit a few times; then I didn’t trust anyone Faith is a hunch.
Posted on: Sat, 19 Jul 2014 10:51:03 +0000
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