Eight Nights in Dedication of Jewish Nonviolence
FIRST NIGHT
“NOT BY MILITARY MIGHT
NOT BY FORCE OF ARMS
ONLY BY SPIRITUAL PRESENCE” Zecharia 4:2
What is spiritual presence? The spirit of shmirat shalom.
Rabbinic tradition highlights the meaning of Hanukah with a verse from the prophet Zecharia. Why did they choose this verse? In their struggle to survive the brutalities of the Roman Empire, the cultural creatives of Jewish tradition emphasized spiritual resistance through nonviolence. They replaced the eight day long celebration of the Macabees military victory of 65 BCE with a new ceremony, the kindling of increasing light in a new ritual object, a hanukiah. With the Temple in ruins, the spirit of the people crushed by a brutal occupation, women and men used olive oil and a wick to symbolize spiritual strength. They instructed their community to place a Hanukah oil lamp in the window at dusk, which is the time people return home from the world of work and commerce. The lights are kindled to remind each other of the true value of living: human compassion and joy.
In the face of Empire and militarism, we kindle these lights to remind each other that ‘a force more powerful’ than tear gas, guns and walls is the spirit of people demanding justice,
the spirit of the people demanding freedom. The lights we kindle outshine empire, occupation and forced assimilation.
SECOND NIGHT
SHOMER SALAAM by Eprhyme, hip hop artist
Eprhyme’s music is available on the web: www.myspace.com/eprhyme
The passage from Zecharia has been expanded by Eprhyme. If you are occupying
a place that symbolizes militarism and corporate injustice, please do recite this amazing poem
in the streets. This poem also represents the spiritual unity that a shomeret shalom seeks
with other Children of Abraham, Sarah and Hagar as well as with everyone in the human family.
(chorus)
not by might and not by power, but by spirit alone shall we become free/
not by money media manipulation, but by spirit alone shall we become free/
not by macho military occupation, but by spirit alone shall we become free/
not by might and not by power, but by spirit alone shall we become free/
Avraham- shalom aleichem- w’laikum asalaam/
arise to greet the dawn with a song- we’re all one/
beyond the differences they try to belittle us with/
we flip the script and spit images of the infinite/
b’nai adamah- la illa ha ila allah hu akbar- adonai echad shma!/
its the law according to the Quran or Torah/
that we all get along/
what you think your families for?/
but to help you come to terms with who you really are/
from the sand to the stars and all that came before/
we related to the ancients and inherit their greatness/
as well as mistaken statements and self serving fabrications/
lets face it- the human race has wasted oppurtunities/
to lose the lunacy of racist based religious hatred/
make a statement- take a stand dont be complacent/
peace must become a priority for our peoples preservation/
(chorus)
not by might and not by power, but by spirit alone shall we become free/
not by money media manipulation, but by spirit alone shall we become free/
not by macho military occupation, but by spirit alone shall we become free/
not by might and not by power, but by spirit alone shall we become free/
Bereshit bara elohim- Bismillah rachmanir rachim/
both of our holy books begin with a “B”/
what’s it mean? it seems there’s a blessing hidden in between/
the beams of the second letter- b’racha and baraka/
two brothers- one abba/
two nations wrestling in the belly of their momma/
now we dealin with their drama/
their conflict karma character armor and suicide bomber/
sergeant slaughter says the trauma is tangible/
some blame it on history while others point to mystery/
to justify brutality in the name of victory/
but violence is a sword with a blade for a handle/
like burnin down your house so that you can light a candle/
we’ve all lost firends and we’ve all lost family/
we’ve sacrificed our sanity and martyred our humanity/
for the promised land we lay down with a lion/
in the spirit of a lamb- understand yerushalayim/
(chorus)
not by might and not by power, but by spirit alone shall we become free/
not by money media manipulation, but by spirit alone shall we become free/
not by macho military occupation, but by spirit alone shall we become free/
not by might and not by power, but by spirit alone shall we become free/
THIRD NIGHT
What is Nonviolence? Mai Shmirat Shalom?
This passage is a reflection on the question, What is shmirat shalom/Jewish nonviolence?
Please write your own reflections and add them to the Shomer Shalom community reflections.
Nonviolence is more than analysis, resistance, and condemnation of violent systems and actions – it is the positive flowering and proliferation of multiple thriving cultures and ecosystem forming a planetary whole. Unity in diversity is nonviolence in action. Fragmentation and disconnectedness are the roots of violence. Even though history records that Hanooka began in violence, the contemporary manifestation is (or should be) a symbol of light victorious in the darkness, a common human theme throughout time and space, creatively dancing with all of the metaphors the mystery is clothed in – Christmas, Diwalli, Yule, Yalda, Bodhi Day, Solstice – the miracle is that we are not always stuck in resistance to violence, but at times and at our best, we let the beauty of human culture and unity shine through our differences. Segulah Sher
In light of this view of shmirat shalom, we stand in noncooperation and resistance with all violence done in our name. That is why a shomeret shalom protests the terrible abuse of Palestinian human rights. Here is a story that comes from Rabbi Lynn’s latest trip to Palestine during the month of September. May all the Walls of Separation fall down.
Getting between Palestine and Israel is challenging, even for someone who possesses an American passport. To visit Jerusalem from Beit Sahour where we are staying, our small artist delegation takes a cab to the Separation Wall for 20 shekels where Palestinian cab drivers in various states of economic desperation wait to snag anyone coming through in the other direction. We walk the long uphill corridor toward the Israeli side and arrive at the first checkpoint. We are standing outside without cover next to an empty parking lot that connects to the other internal checkpoint. Luckily it’s not raining. If you are disabled, I can only image the trip must be nearly impossible, because the circular iron gates with many bars through which one must pass are not built for wheel chairs.
At the checkpoint booth, a Palestinian woman waving a permission slip with one hand and holding a fidgety toddler in the other pleads with the girl soldier behind the glass barrier to let her through. The young soldier with a pony tail shakes her head no and looks exasperated. The young mother is speaking Arabic, the soldier Hebrew and they don’t understand each other. The young mother turns to me and starts telling me her story in Arabic, perhaps assuming I know her language since I’ve come by foot through the checkpoint from Bethlehem. Tourists take the bus. Israelis do not enter. Only Palestinians come this way. The Jewish soldier sees me talking to her and asks me in Hebrew if I can translate. I can. My Arabic skills have gotten a lot better. The young Muslim woman wants to take her baby to the hospital and her permission slip is good for one day only. The soldier says, “Tell her, whoever gave her the permission slip should have known that no one is permitted to go through from this Wednesday through Saturday because of the Jewish holidays. Please translate.” I translate most of it and find myself on the verge of tears. I can only imagine how long it took this woman to apply for and receive permission to cross over, or how far away she lives from the check point, or what is wrong with her child. “Can you check with someone?” I ask the soldier? “Aren’t medical cases allowed through at any time?” The soldier picks up her phone, makes a five second call, talks to her superior, looks back at the mother and shakes her head no.
The mother begins to cry as she waves her permission slip in front of the woman behind the glass booth. A small line is accumulating behind us. The soldier commands the three of us to proceed to the next check point across the parking lot, but the mother refuses to move and is still trying to explain to the soldier that her permission slip is only good for this particular day. I ask the soldier again if she can check with someone, as this is a medical case and the entire scene repeats itself. I gaze at a huge sign on the Separation Wall that says, ” Jerusalem and Bethlehem: peace and love.” There are a lot of ironic signs posted between the two territories.
A Palestinian joke I heard from Zoughbi Zoughbi of Wiam a few days later: Henry Kissinger has been appointed manager of the Biblical Zoo in Jerusalem. After a few months, reporters ask the dignitary what he has achieved. Kissinger replies with pride, “I have successfully caused the lion to lay down with the lamb!”
“Really?” exclaim the reporters. “How did you do it?”
“Everyday, a new lamb.”
The occupation is sacrificing all of us and is our common enemy. The good news, as Zoughbi likes to say, is that the wall will fall because no injustice can last forever.
Furthermore, he says, “Hope is a form of nonviolence. The struggle keeps us sane. Transformation is possible.” All this is true. But not inevitable. As darkness falls, may this day of fasting strengthen bonds of friendship and trust so we can find our way
through every obstacle to justice and peace.
FOURTH NIGHT
Spears into vessels of light by rabbi lynn gottlieb
“They shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. And nations shall no longer study war.” Isaiah 2:4
When the children of the Hasmonean high priest defeated the (ancient) Greeks, they entered the Temple and found eight iron spears. They stuck candles in the spears and kindled them for light.
From Megillat Ta’anit
Another message from the lineage of nonviolence: transforming instruments of violence into instruments of peace and illumination.
One of the great lies of the financial crisis and our current economic system is that there is not enough. We’re told that we need an austerity budget, that we have a housing crisis, that we Medicare is going to run out, that our country has limited resources and must therefore build electrified walls around our borders to keep other people out. Meanwhile, we continue to find billions of dollars for waging war, incarcerating our own citizens, and giving bonuses to the same Wall Street executives whose businesses had to be bailed out.
The truth is, we have all of the resources we need. This is what we have discovered this fall as we occupied Wall Street. Like the children of the Hasmonean high priest who walked into the Temple and discovered that spears make a perfect menorah, we have just had to re-imagine how our resources could be used. And so some creative activists turned first Wall Street, and then an unremarkable, little-known park nearby, into the home of a movement. We transformed Zuccotti Park, the Wall Street Atrium, the Brooklyn Bridge, and sidewalks and parks across the city into places where we could dream, create, strategize and protest. There are more empty homes than homeless families in this city, and so two weeks ago we reclaimed a foreclosed house as a home for one of those families. In defiance of a country that says we don’t have money for social services, we created a temporary community that found everything it needed for its own library, internal security, educational system, media, medical care, chaplains, mediators, meals, systems for composting, recycling and removing trash and even laundry services. As long as we continue to think that spears can only be spears, we will have nowhere to light our candles. We have all the resources we need. They’re simply waiting to be transformed. Carolyn Klaasen
For the fourth night, invite someone who participated in Occupy Wall Street to share their story
during this night of Hanooka. Tell a story from the history of nonviolence when a force more powerful
(shmirat shalom) overcame violence with acts of kindness, resistance or spiritual transformation.
FIFTH NIGHT
Taking a stand to stop violence against women
by rabbi lynn gottlieb
A medieval Hanooka story tells the tale of a sister of the famous Macabean brothers named Hannah who protests the alarming custom of the lord of the manor receiving first right to intercourse (rape) with a woman becoming a serf’s wife. Hannah strips naked underneath the hupah canopy on the day of her wedding. When the shocked crowd begins to gather stones to throw, she calls upon all the people to defend women against sexual violence. Her call rallies the people to resist Antiochus, take back the Temple and restore women’s dignity.
This tale casts a new light on Hanooka, one that reminds us that there is no liberation with an end of violence toward women.
To honor the story of women’s resistance against violence, tell a story about a woman brave in the face of danger. Support your local women’s shelter or Shalom Bayit
in San Francisco, a leader in the movement to prevent domestic violence against women. http://www.shalom-bayit.org/
SIXTH NIGHT
A candlelight ceremony of Muslims, Christians and Jews,
celebrating our common path as the children of Abraham. Take this opportunity to bring a multifaith community together to share the meaning of nonviolence
in your respective traditions. Here is a passage from Rabia Terri Harris who is the Muslim Elder at The Community of Living Traditions in Stony Point, NY
where the Shomer Shalom House is also located.
Nonviolence is one of the most misunderstood words in the English language, and one of the most misunderstood ideas in the world. This confusion is not surprising, since the word means two things at the same time. And the one idea behind both meanings, though very simple, is not easy. It goes against the way many people think.
Here are the two different meanings of nonviolence.
1) Nonviolence is the life decision to live in harmony with the order of creation by giving up the domination of other people or the planet. Today, when put into community practice, this life decision is called culture of peace or peacebuilding.
2) Nonviolence is the method of pursuing necessary social change by relying upon the real long-term spiritual power of justice rather than the apparent short-term political power of injustice. Today, when put into community practice, this method is called unarmed struggle.
The idea behind both these meanings is that the universe is a seamless whole from which people are not separate.The order of creation is ethical and spiritual as well as a physical. Ethical and spiritual laws have necessary effects, just as physical laws have necessary effects. We can rely on these causes to produce their effects. Reality is not a chaos: something is in charge. By understanding, affirming, and moving with that which is in charge, we can reach whatever goals we have that are worth having.
So what goals have we got that are worth having? Why aim low? I’ll tell you one that I treasure, and that I expect we share: a world worth living in for everyone. That goal is one of the highest objects of all religion. Whether we might rationally hope to reach this goal is quite irrelevant. We are summoned to try – and there is no greater adventure.
The Arabic term for nonviolence as a life decision is islam.The Arabic term for nonviolence as a method is jihad. The Arabic term for the principle underlying both aspects of nonviolence is tawhid, the affirmation of the unity of God. For a Muslim, no principles are more basic.
SEVENTH NIGHT
ROSH HODESH TEVET AND A STORY ABOUT EDEL, THE DAUGHTER OF THE BAAL SHEM TOV by rabbi lynn gottlieb
The seventh day of Hanooka is Rosh Hodesh, traditionally a woman’s holy day. We are replacing the story of Judith who cuts off the head of Holifernes, with the story
of Edel, the daughter of the Baal Shem Tov. Although the symbol of resistance is powerful with Judith, a shomeret shalom seeks the power of resistance without
military or physical violence. This does not mean passivity, however. Rather, it means creating a powerful community of resistance that can act together in behalf
of social change.
Once the Baal Shem Tov stood in the midst of a ring of trees in the thick forest of his naive Polish town. He lifted his gaze skyward through bare winter branches but he could not see the slender crescent of the new moon. Although it was the time of gentle twilight, dark clouds obscured the sky. His spirit fell for he could not recite the blessing without actually seeing the moon. The Besht understood this as a bad omen and his thoughts turned to melancholy. His mind dwelled upon the sad condition of the people among whom he lived, Jew and Gentile alike. He lamented the faces of those he lost to illness and death and despaired over the cruel rod of injustice which beats down upon the poor and gasped at the immensity of suffering he witnessed in the world from the day his own beloved parents died and made him an orphan to the day he stumbled upon the broken bodies of an entire village slain and left to rot by Cossacks. The cry of those tormented souls rang in his ears: Why? Why?
At that moment the door of the tiny shul swung open. Hasidim poured through the opening into the night. They had noticed the solitary figure of their rebbe, believing that he was standing there because he had already sighted the new moon, they rushed to join him. The Besht turned to his disciples and friends and smiled in response to their warmth and fervor. As they gathered him into the circle a great realization swept over him and the clouds that covered the sky parted revealing the slender crescent smiling tenderly above the horizon.
Edel also smiled as she saw her father restored to his usual joy. She turned back to the women dancing with her in the open field in honor of the New Moon. Grandmother’s danced in the circle with newly swaddled babes. Women enjoyed cookies in the shape of the menorah, sweet hot tea and dried fruit. That night, the women would sit and tell each other stories to delight the spirit and deepen the bond of love between them. Edel felt her own baby stirring against her heart and great joy surged through her spirit. “Feigel, remember this night little bird. This is new moon of Tevet. We tell the story of women brave in the face of danger who bring us from fear to courage, from passivity to action, from sorrow to joy. So may it be for you, little one, a world of joyous occasions!”
The women finished their ceremony and walked back to the cottage of their father’s husbands, brother’s and friends. The Besht in his usual way, ordered the men to make way for the women. Edel, he said, come instruct us, what does the Shekinah have to teach us tonight?
EIGHTH NIGHT
A VOW OF JEWISH NONVIOLENCE