RELIGIOUS BELIEFS: HANDLE WITH CARE
By Susan Estrich
The Wenatchee World Online
August 17, 2009
I was in elementary school in Swampscott, Mass., when I learned that
the Jews had killed Christ. Or so we were told, right around this
time of year. Most of the kids in the class just nodded when they
heard. It seems they already knew. I was shocked.
I went home to tell my mother, for whom the news provoked the familiar
dilemma of whether to fight back or not make a stink. My mother spent
much of her life afraid of what people might think or do, which may be
why I have spent so much of mine fighting back. This time my mother
decided, probably wisely, that the problem belonged in hands more
experienced with such matters.
She called our rabbi, who called the school, and the next week we were
told that, actually, the Romans killed Jesus Christ at the behest of
the Jews.
In a way, it all made sense. There had to be some reason, after all,
that my dad couldn’t play golf at the closest course and I couldn’t
be Mary in the school play (even though I had the longest hair); some
reason that my mother looked at the world in terms of what "they"
could do to "us"; some reason that the big relief in my house was
that at least the man who shot JFK wasn’t a Jew, even if his assassin
was. Better to be responsible for Jack Ruby than Lee Harvey Oswald.
Growing up in the shadow of the Holocaust, we knew from hate. Assigning
a reason to the unreasonable, trying to make rational what is insane,
has always been one of my defenses against life’s terrors. If you
can understand something, maybe you can change it.
If you can change the beginning, change the motive, control the
uncontrollable, maybe you can change the ending, as well.
Except that it doesn’t work. There is nothing I can do about what
happened in Jerusalem two thousand years ago. There is nothing any
of us can do about the wrongs committed by our "ancestors." And at a
certain point, there is nothing we should try to do about the wrongs
committed against them.
Learning the lessons of history is vitally important so that history’s
worst chapters do not keep repeating themselves. Embracing the injuries
of history only makes certain that the injuries will never heal.
Were Armenians the victims of a Turkish genocide a century ago,
or was it, as the Turks were urging last week on the eve of the
president’s visit, a case of atrocities on both sides? The lessons
of history matter, but do they matter at the cost of finding peace
today? Can we learn lessons without hating the grandchildren or
great-grandchildren of those who wronged us? Can we study Jesus’
death without blaming his descendents for their role?
The president this week reached out to Muslims, making clear that
America has no quarrel with their faith.
But we do have a very big quarrel with those who would use that faith,
who would use the words of the Koran, as a basis for violent attacks
on us as "infidels." That they "believe" in what they are doing makes
them more dangerous and more deadly.
Religion is one of God’s and man’s great gifts, a source of faith
when life is hard, a source of meaning when life is cruel, the tie
that binds us together as families and people. It is also the greatest
source of hatred in the world today. Handle with care. Happy holidays.
Susan Estrich is a syndicated columnist and professor of law at the
University of Southern California.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
