How do we?? (Va’yikra)

Last week, like I said, I felt speechless with regard to the war in Ukraine.

I think I’m finding my voice, though.

It's not that I didn't actually have anything to say about it. I've just been in shock. I still feel a little like, what's the point in talking about it?

I hear of and see the images, like everyone else, of air strikes on hospitals and schools; of thousands leaving on foot in freezing temperatures; of food and water shortages, refugees entering Poland, the doors to the borders open—still.

My heart breaks. Can we all take just one more thing? After two years of pandemic?

Of course, analysis is necessary in order to understand, and that takes talking.

And then there is the manipulation of words and speech—like Putin’s excuse for the invasion, calling Ukraine a place full of Nazi-sympathizers.

Meanwhile, he is the Anti-Semite Nazi-sympathizer. Ukraine has moved beyond that to a great extent it would seem, with their elected president a Jew, and with a huge Jewish community that was stable and safe, unlike in the rest of Europe.

In terms of speech, I’m also thinking about the silencing of journalists in Russia, but also about the outpouring of support for the refugees from Poland and other countries.

I’m wondering, as we watch the images, if there is more sympathy for these refugees than others; so many references to and parallels with WWII from the start. True, there are important Jewish sites, yet this is not a Jewish war.

Is the outpouring of support for these refugees greater because they are European and white—more “like Americans”? Is it because they dress like us and their way of life is more familiar to us?

Do we see them as more human than we did and do those forced to flee from Iraq and Afghanistan—the dark-skinned Muslims, labeled terrorists—labeled less than human, like the Jews were during World War II and throughout history? 

How much did we buy into that?

Why is our government and the European Union not taking a stronger stance? Is it really about not wanting to repeat the errors of war over the past 20 years? How is this at all the same as our invasion and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan?

The people of Russia may be in the dark about what is going on in Ukraine, though I imagine that’s changing as companies like BP and McDonald’s close up and pull out.

But we are not in the dark, and haven’t been.

Yet our response, like God’s in so many places in the Bible, is too late to prevent the suffering of millions of people. 

This week’s parsha is all about how to make expiation for different types of wrongdoings contrary to Israelite law: when one does so knowingly; when one unwittingly does so—and when one does not speak up when they know someone else has done so.

Of course, in the Bible it’s as simple as bringing animals as offerings for sacrifice. It’s all laid out for us, clear, though maybe not so clean; there’s always lots of blood.

The journalists in Russia are in a position where, if they speak out, they are arrested, tortured, maybe killed–yet they and Anti-War activists continue to do so.

Their blood is being spilled—and they are doing so willingly, sacrificing themselves, so to speak, for the greater good.

How can expiation be made for the rest of us, though, in a case like this?

The crimes are committed knowingly, but expiation must be made for those who unwittingly commit crimes as well, not to mention those who are silent.

If we believe that Mashiach (the Messiah) will come when we create a world of love and peace, equality and justice, then we need to scream louder.

The trauma we have all experienced over the past two years of the pandemic, in addition to the ways the pandemic has plunged many into deeper debt, greater housing and food insecurity, leaves people feeling zapped of energy to participate in protest, not to mention more depressed; trauma leaves people without the strength to speak out effectively.

Again, I am still kind of speechless, but I know I must find my voice.

May we all find our strength and our voices, despite the trauma, and may our governments find more than their voices.