Who are God's self-portraits?
(26) And God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. They shall rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the cattle, the whole earth, and all the creeping things that creep on earth.”
Who are we responsible for?
Who exactly left Egypt, anyway?
What is our attitude towards those who are strangers to us?
Can we remain on the fence about justice, about things that are others' problems but not our own? That are commanded of us but seem very hard to do or very far away?
Whose job is it to act appropriately and to make the world a better place for all?
(ה) הוּא הָיָה אוֹמֵר, אֵין בּוּר יְרֵא חֵטְא, וְלֹא עַם הָאָרֶץ חָסִיד, וְלֹא הַבַּיְשָׁן לָמֵד, וְלֹא הַקַּפְּדָן מְלַמֵּד, וְלֹא כָל הַמַּרְבֶּה בִסְחוֹרָה מַחְכִּים. וּבְמָקוֹם שֶׁאֵין אֲנָשִׁים, הִשְׁתַּדֵּל לִהְיוֹת אִישׁ:
(5) He used to say: A brute is not sin-fearing, nor is an ignorant person pious; nor can a timid person learn, nor can an impatient person teach; nor will someone who engages too much in business become wise. In a place where there are no men, strive to be a man.
(טז) הוּא הָיָה אוֹמֵר, לֹא עָלֶיךָ הַמְּלָאכָה לִגְמֹר, וְלֹא אַתָּה בֶן חוֹרִין לִבָּטֵל מִמֶּנָּה. אִם לָמַדְתָּ תוֹרָה הַרְבֵּה, נוֹתְנִים לְךָ שָׂכָר הַרְבֵּה. וְנֶאֱמָן הוּא בַעַל מְלַאכְתְּךָ שֶׁיְּשַׁלֵּם לְךָ שְׂכַר פְּעֻלָּתֶךָ. וְדַע מַתַּן שְׂכָרָן שֶׁל צַדִּיקִים לֶעָתִיד לָבֹא:
(16) He [Rabbi Tarfon] used to say: It is not your duty to finish the work, but neither are you at liberty to neglect it; If you have studied much Torah, you shall be given much reward. Faithful is your employer to pay you the reward of your labor; And know that the grant of reward unto the righteous is in the age to come.
If you see a wrong perpetrated by your whole society, what is the appropriate response?
What is the worst transgression of all?
If you build your society on something that is stolen, what is your obligation to those you stole from?
Is it appropriate to distinguish between your treatment of Jews and your treatment of non-Jews?
§ The mishna teaches: One does not protest against poor gentiles who come to take gleanings, forgotten sheaves, and the produce in the corner of the field, which is given to the poor [pe’a], although they are meant exclusively for the Jewish poor, on account of the ways of peace. Similarly, the Sages taught in a baraita (Tosefta 5:4): One sustains poor gentiles along with poor Jews, and one visits sick gentiles along with sick Jews, and one buries dead gentiles along with dead Jews. All this is done on account of the ways of peace, to foster peaceful relations between Jews and gentiles.
How do you really complete a process of teshuvah, or righting a wrong, in the end?
(א) אֵי זוֹ הִיא תְּשׁוּבָה גְּמוּרָה. זֶה שֶׁבָּא לְיָדוֹ דָּבָר שֶׁעָבַר בּוֹ וְאֶפְשָׁר בְּיָדוֹ לַעֲשׂוֹתוֹ וּפֵרַשׁ וְלֹא עָשָׂה מִפְּנֵי הַתְּשׁוּבָה.
(1) What is complete repentance? He who once more had in it in his power to repeat a violation, but separated himself therefrom, and did not do it because of repentance, not out of fear or lack of strength.
Are you better for having sinned and made amends, than you were before you even sinned in the first place?
What is our model for getting to a better place?
"-- first, that wherever you live, it is probably Egypt; -- second, that there is a better place, a world more attractive, a promised land; -- and third, that ``the way to the land is through the wilderness. '' There is no way to get from here to there except by joining together and marching." - Michael Walzer, from Exodus and Revolution
Have we seen this before? Doesn't all of this sound familiar to us as Jews?
The core elements of the Spanish Inquisition, which targeted Jews and recent converts from Judaism to Christianity/conversos, are also key elements of the War on Drugs/The New Jim Crow and how they target Black and brown people in the United States. To wit:
- Constant and continued suspicion of and prejudice against a class of people
- Unsubstantiated accusations have substantial material economic, physical and existential consequences
- Light sentences are given in exchange for guilty confessions on inflated charges
- The accused receive no assistance to defend themselves
- The accused are often ignorant of the charges against them
- Confessions are obtained through coercion, threats of confiscation of property, confiscation of children, or more
- The state has clear financial incentives to accuse, arrest, and convict, including but not limited to confiscation of property and the receipt of additional government funding
- Accusers do not necessarily face the accused
- An entire class of people which used to be subject to pogroms/vigilante violence is now terrorized by agents of the state which can show up at any moment
- An entire class of people are permanently marked and shunted off to the margins of society in terms of employment opportunity, asset acquisition, public opinion of their worthiness and more, and kept to the margins of society
- Extrajudicial killing at the hands of state agents of the marginalized class of people
- State-sanctioned capital punishment targets the marginalized class of people
Sources: 1) history.com/topics/religion/inquisition, 2) brittanica.com/topic/spanish-inquisition, 3) Cullen Murphy: God's Jury: The Inquisition and the Making of the Modern World, 4) Michelle Alexander: The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness