Shabbat and Kristallnacht, November 2015

Shabbat and Kristallnacht

Shabbat in the eyes of the mystics is a wedding ceremony between God and the people of Israel, a moment of union and renewal out of the week-long tide of work, routine, responsibility, and the roller coaster that is life. 

At a wedding, one of the most recognizable traditions we perform is that we break a glass at the end of the ceremony.

Traditionally, we would say that we break the glass to remember the destruction of Jerusalem our holy city even at this time of celebration, lest we forget the sadness of loss and exile as we sing ‘Od yishama be’arey yehudah uve’chutzot Yerushalayim’, ‘Again the sound of celebration and happiness, bride and groom will be heard in the cities of Judah and in the courtyards of Jerusalem.’  Often the phrase, “If I forget you, Jerusalem…” was also included in the ceremony.

And increasingly we think of the glass as a symbol of a world that is broken and in need of healing and repair, a world in need of renewal, reshaping, and remaking.

And so Shabbat and the Jewish wedding ceremony share symbolism and meaning.

The broken glass began though in the world of folklore, a way of using a loud noise to scare away evil spirits from the place where we are celebrating with hope.

All three symbolisms are meaningful as we observe in just a couple of days the 77^th anniversary of Kristallnacht, the German-Nazi term for pogroms in November 1938 that plundered 75,000 Jewish owned businesses, murdered 91 Jews, and sent 30,000 Jewish men to concentration camps.

It was a 48 hour period of time when the tragedies and terrors of destruction and exile were horribly and violently rekindled in Jewish minds nearly 2,000 years after the Roman legions, after whom the Nazis designed their own symbols, destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem.

It was a pogrom that reinforced just how broken and inhuman humanity and leadership in Germany had become, when police and fire fighters stood by and watched the atrocities and the burning and enabled them instead of preventing them.

It was a day that the demonic side of humanity broke out and the sound of the breaking glass did nothing to electrify and activate other nations.  A report on world reaction to Kristallnacht published two years ago explains:

What is also noteworthy about the [diplomatic report] documents is what they do not contain. In this respect, they point to the failure of the international community and its far-reaching consequences. The diplomats almost unanimously condemned the murders and acts of violence and destructions. The British described the pogrom as "Medieval barbarism," the Brazilians called it a "disgusting spectacle," and French diplomats wrote that the "scope of brutality" was only "exceeded by the massacres of the Armenians," referring to the Turkish genocide of 1915-1916.

Nevertheless, no country broke off diplomatic relations with Berlin or imposed sanctions, and only Washington recalled its ambassador. Most of all, however, the borders of almost all countries remained largely closed for the roughly 400,000 Jewish Germans.

Kristallnacht memories burn us today as we watch in continued horror the violence against Israelis in the streets, violence right here in New York, two brutal attacks on Jews in Brooklyn.

And perhaps the saddest reflection on Kristallnacht is that, like the Nazis after the 2 days of the pogrom, many still blame the Jewish people, the State of Israel, for creating the “issues” that lead others to commit violence against them.  The world still blames the victims.  And sadder still is that this mentality extends beyond anti-Semitism to poisonous words and actions against anyone who is different, gays and lesbians, refugees from war torn countries in the Middle East and Africa, people of different skin colors and religions.  We see the disturbing overtones here, the same victims the Nazis targeted in the course of their persecutions, despite advances in rights and privileges here and abroad, still become victims, even after the world has studied to the last details what the Nazis did in the years after 1938.

This weekend when we recall Kristallnacht, let’s keep the glass broken, remember the pain of destruction and exile, and hear again the loud noises of breaking glass so that we can with God’s help and courage become sensitive and responsive to injustice.