Blaming and Its Consequences
Yom Kippur Morning 5766
Rabbi Joseph R. Black
Congregation Albert -  Albuquerque, NM

My Dear Friends,

Earlier in this service, in the Unetaneh Tokef prayer, we read the following:

On Rosh Ha Shanah it is written, on Yom Kippur it is sealed: How many shall pass on and how many shall come to be; who shall live and who shall die; who shall see ripe age and who shall not; who shall perish by fire and who by water; who by sword and who by beast; who by hunger and who by thirst; who by earthquake and who by plague........
Gates of Repentance, p.313.

It is difficult to hear those words at any time; but this year it is especially painful in light of the natural disasters that we have seen. From the Tsunami in Asia; to Katrina and Rita in the Gulf Coast; to the recent devastating Earthquake in India, Pakistan and Afghanistan; to fires in Los Angeles and Mudslides in Central America - the Unetaneh Tokef seems to be less a prayer this year than a page taken out of recent newspapers.

How do we deal with these multiple tragedies - some in far away places - others at our own shores? Their scope is immense - they are almost impossible to comprehend. Many of us, upon hearing of these disasters, felt compelled to act. We gave Tseddakah in unprecedented amounts to victims of the Tsunami and the hurricanes. Now, we must give again - to help those ravaged by earthquakes in Asia and Mudslides in Guatemala. Members of our congregation volunteered their services and expertise in the relief effort in New Orleans. I am proud of the way that this community came together and continues to come together to help those who were affected by tragedy.

Unfortunately, while a common theme in relation to the tragedies was to pitch in and help, another theme also was prevalent - we looked for someone or something to blame. And we did that with a vengeance.

For some, disasters are seen as omens - they are proof that God's wrathful revenge is being wreaked on sinners and infidels who are receiving their just desserts. We see this in the hateful voices of extreme fundamentalists who claim that New Orleans' tragedy was the direct result of a sinful and permissive culture of Hedonism. Michael Marcavage, the director of an anti-gay, Christian Fundamentalist group called, "Repent America," suggested that

".....this act of God destroyed a wicked city. New Orleans was a city that opened its doors wide open to the public celebration of sin. May it never be the same."
www.RepentAmerica.com this is a Christian, anti-gay ministry that advocates direct confrontation with Gay and Lesbian events - in the hope that they will "repent" of their sexuality through exposure to the Gospels.

Pastor Bill Shanks of the New Covenant Fellowship of New Orleans recently had this to say:

"New Orleans now is abortion free. New Orleans now is Mardi Gras free. New Orleans now is free of Southern Decadence and the sodomites, the witchcraft workers, false religion - it's free of all of those things now. God simply, I believe, in His mercy purged all of that stuff out of there - and now we're going to start over again."
http://www.covenantnews.com/storms050907.htm

What these flawed interpreters of God's will are leaving out, of course, is the fact that New Orleans was also swept free of churches and synagogues, hospitals and nursing homes. The old and infirm, the young and the weak, the innocent and guilty were all caught up in the flood.

Unfortunately, Jews are not exempt from this hateful and vengeful rhetoric of blame. Rabbi Ovadia Yosef - the spiritual leader of the Israeli Political party, Shas and a former Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Israel - recently said that Hurricane Katrina was sent by God because there were too many people - and I shudder to quote him - in particular African Americans - who didn't study Torah. He added to this racist obscenity by saying that the Hurricane was also the result of the United State's support of the withdrawal from Gaza.

RabbiYosef was quoted as saying:

"....[Bush] perpetrated the expulsion (of Jews from Gaza). Now everyone is mad at him. This is his punishment for what he did to Gush Katif,."
4 Haaretz, September 21, 2005

There is no doubt in my mind that soon we will hear that the earthquake in Pakistan was divine retribution for Osama Bin Laden and Al Kaeda, the mudslides in Central America were sent to deal with drug traffickers and communists, and the fires in Los Angeles were designed to punish the producers of "American Idol" and "Return to Gilligan's Island."

Where will this end? Why is it that we have to place blame and find meaning in the face of tragedy? Can't we accept the fact that there are things beyond our control?

But it is not only in the discourse of Divine Will that we have seen finger pointing in the aftermath of disaster. Soon after the (LEH-VEES) Levees broke in New Orleans, the accusations began:

• it was the fault of the Federal Government,
• it was the fault of the City Government
• it was because of the looters and the lawless;
• it was FEMA,
• it was the Army Corps of Engineers,
• it was the National Guard,
• it was the mayor,
• it was the Governor,
• it was global warming
• it was the Lazy Welfare Cheaters,
• it was a well planned, racist conspiracy to remove Black people from New Orleans

If you can name it - you can blame it. And where has it gotten us? How many lives were saved, how many homes were restored as a result of all of our blaming?

Ours is a culture of fault-finding and litigation. Blaming others - and collecting rewards for our accusations can be a highly lucrative and seductive practice. But the more we give in to the culture of accusation - the more we become a society of blamers, the less we take responsibility for our own actions, and sooner or later, we will lose our ability to distinguish between accusation and accountability.

Now don't get me wrong, there are times when it is vitally important to find those who are guilty of wrongdoing so that justice can be done. But sometimes there IS no one to blame. Where is the injustice in an earthquake? Sometimes disasters happen - and we have to accept this fact.

Yet I believe that there is another, perhaps even a deeper reason for our national obsession with fault-finding. I believe that the quicker we are to find and place blame- even when there is no clear culprit - the less we will have to deal with the ugly images that we don't want to confront. At times, blame can be seen as a form of destructive procrastination, at best - deliberate and manipulative denial, at worst.

Blaming others - and holding on to blame - hinders Teshuvah - indeed, it is the antithesis to holiness. Blaming can be habit forming. Eventually, excessive blaming affects our ability to see the world as it really is. How many of you know someone who blames others for everything that happens to them? Someone for whom every slight is remembered, every disappointment is dissected and analyzed, every opportunity to hold a grudge is cherished. Eventually, these people become victims of their own blaming and retreat to a kind of half-life of rage and retribution. Gollum-like, they live in the shadows - they revel in their wretchedness - and come out only to feed on the misery of others.

Last night I spoke about the need to forgive those who wronged us because we all are Avaryanim-sinners. Life is too short to hold on to anger. There is so much more that unites us than separates us. Avoiding blame is not the same as avoiding responsibility or accountability, however. When mistakes are made, they can - they must be repaired - but the quicker we can come to terms with the fact that everyone makes mistakes, the quicker we can get on with our lives and do the real business at hand: being God's partners and working to make our world a better, more healthy place.

In the traditional Torah reading for Yom Kippur morning, we learn of the custom of the selection of two goats: one is marked for sacrifice, and the other is sent out into the wilderness - marked for "Azazel". On this second goat are heaped all of the sins of the people:

We read:

And Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat, and confess over him all the iniquities of the people of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins, putting them upon the head of the goat, and shall send him away by the hand of an appointed man into the wilderness;

And the goat shall bear upon him all their sins to an uninhabited land; and he shall let the goat go free in the wilderness.
Leviticus 16:21-22

The "scapegoat" becomes the repository of all of the sins of the people. Now I'm not recommending that we all go out to the Mesa this afternoon and reintroduce this custom, but in many ways, this ancient ritual, while crude, is also very affective. Its simplicity ensures that the community will work together. When all of the peoples' sins are sent away, there is no more need to point fingers and blame. The Israelites can then get down to the business of building a community - healing the wounds of the past year - and working to improve the world in which they live. If you think about it, the term "Scapegoat" is a misrepresentation of what this ritual truly tries to accomplish. Instead of finding a convenient target upon which to heap blame - the true "scapegoat" takes the need to blame and wanders off into the wilderness - leaving the community behind to deal with the true issues with which it is confronted.

In the aftermath of the gulf coast Hurricanes we have learned a great deal. We have seen our own weakness. But we also have seen our own strength. We have seen great beauty in the outpouring of compassion and caring that has flown from every corner of our nation - indeed the entire world. And, yes, we have also seen ugliness - in the exploitation of tragedy for personal gain - and in the pettiness and apathy that some have shown. We have created scapegoats. We have cast blame. But, by and large, the beauty of our response has far outweighed the ugliness.

Nonetheless, when the flood waters receded, we saw more than simply debris and damage in their residue. Everyone in the path of the storm was affected by its power and destruction - but some were more affected than others. All of a sudden, our nation was confronted with the reality that millions of our fellow citizens live lives of silent desperation - just inches away from ruin. I speak not of the disaster that comes from wind, water or fire, but the calamity of not knowing whether there will be food on the table - the tragedy of dire poverty that forces children to grow up in world void of hope and filled with horror. The waters of Katrina rinsed away the thin barrier that insulated us from the underclass in our midst. We now know that the city of New Orleans had an overall poverty rate of 28%: 84% of whom were people of color - and a child poverty rate of almost 50%. Truth be told, the latest statistics show that the poverty rate in Louisiana is only slightly higher than that of New Mexico.
http://www.plu.edu/~poverty/stats/home.html

My friends, the Unetaneh Tokef concludes with the words: U'teshuvah, U'tefillah, U'tzeddakah maavirin et roa ha-gezeyrah. -repentance, prayer and acts of Righteousness temper the severe decree. Note that our prayer does not say that these acts change or avert God's decree. Some things are unchangeable. Rather - the degree to which we engage in acts of teshuvah, tefillah and tseddakah help us to deal with and confront the whims of fate that are thrown our way.

In Talmud, tractate Sanhedrin, we find a remarkable text:

Rabbi Joshua ben Levi asked the prophet Elijah, "Where shall I find the messiah?" The prophet replied, "At the gate of the city." "But how shall I recognize him?" "He sits among the lepers." Rabbi Joshua was startled and exclaimed, "Among the lepers? What is he doing there?" "He changes their bandages. He changes their bandages one by one."
Talmud, Sanhedrin, 98a

What a powerful image! The Messiah sits outside the city - waiting for us to find him. In the meantime, he occupies himself not with curing lepers - but caring for them - he is changing their bandages. My friends, we live in an imperfect world. Cures for poverty, for disease, for intolerance, for bigotry - are not close at hand. As I said on Rosh Ha- Shanah, waiting for the Messiah is steady work. And yet, as Rabbi Tarphon teaches: "Lo Alecha Hamlacha ligmor - v'lo atah ben chorine l'hibateyl mimenah - you are not expected to finish the task of healing the world - but neither are you free to stop trying."
Pirkei Avot 2:21

Our task - on this Yom Kippur and, indeed, every day of our lives, is to work to bring healing and caring into a world where all too often we find ourselves facing overwhelming odds against us. Our Repentance, our prayers are nothing if they are not combined with a call to action - to Tseddakah - to righteousness.

When faced with the enormous inequities in our society, all too often we are tempted to retreat into our cocoon-like comfort zones of blame and denial. This is the antithesis of what we, as Jews are called to do - especially on this holiest day of the year. As we read a few moments ago in our Haftarah for Yom Kippur:

"Is not this the fast I look for: to unlock the shackles of injustice, to undo the fetters of bondage, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every cruel chain? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and to bring the homeless poor into your house? When you see the naked, to clothe them, and never to hide yourself from your own kin?"
Isaiah 58:6-7

My dear friends, this next year will be filled with challenges and opportunities. Now that our eyes have been opened to the suffering that surrounds us - here in our own nation and around the world, we cannot sit silently. We are commanded to act.

If you have not yet made a donation to the hurricane relief efforts - do so now. On our website, you will find links to our movements' relief efforts. Soon we will be posting another link to help those devastated by the Asian earthquakes. But giving, while essential, is not enough. The antidote to apathy is activism. Instead of blaming, we need to be naming ways that we can make a difference - and acting to improve our world.

Lest you think that you cannot make a difference I want to share with you just a few examples of how members of our own community and others as well have acted to bring God's presence into the world in the wake of the flood.

• Our own congregants, Dr. Roger and Debbie Ames recently returned from New Orleans where they helped in the vital, but grisly task of identifying victims by their dental records.
• The students at Solomon Schechter Day School - here in Albuquerque raised over $6000 by holding a walk-a-thon to benefit those impacted by Katrina.
• Two weeks ago, our community held an impromptu "Mitzvah Day" where we raised several thousand dollars in donations and food and other essentials that will help local food banks support those who have come to our community in the aftermath of the hurricanes.
• Our own Reform Movement has set up shelters in its summer camps in Utica, Mississippi and Waco Texas. Volunteers - young and old - from all over the country have come to give of their time in these efforts. The stories of collaboration and cooperation - of healing and hope that have come from these efforts is truly astounding. I recommend that you log on to the URJ's website to read some of the postings that some of these volunteers - many of whom were displaced by the hurricanes themselves - have posted.
• The state of Israel - not waiting to be asked and, in some cases, in spite of bureaucratic roadblocks, immediately sent disaster teams to New Orleans to help with the rescue effort
• The islands of the Asian Pacific that were devastated by the Tsunami earlier this year and are still reeling from the fallout sent donations of scarce resources when they heard of our tragedy.
• Our youth group, TASTY, once again is collecting food to help the hungry.
• The list goes on and on

Now is the time to get involved in our community. Each of us can make a difference. Volunteer to help those in need. Give of your time to feed the hungry. Teach tolerance and live it as well. Join our social action committee and help shape the way we, as a congregation, perform the mitzvah of Tikkun Olam - repairing our all-too imperfect world.

My dear friends, the Untetaneh Tokef teaches that life is fragile - that nothing is certain in this world. And yet, the essence of faith is the idea that, despite the pitfalls that may confront us, when we, as a community come together to find solutions and provide loving care to those who are affected by the winds of change, God's presence is felt.

May all of us know the feeling of working to bring God's presence into the world.

AMEN.