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Rabbi Chefitz' Remarks on Darfur
Rabbi Chefitz' Remarks on Darfur
A summary of our rabbi’s remarks during the Friday evening service, July 15, 2005:
This is a National Weekend of Prayer and Reflection for Darfur for churches and synagogues of all denominations.
What do they expect us to do? Is it possible that any of us aren’t familiar with the situation? Rabbi Ike Serotta spoke powerful words about it from this pulpit a few months ago.
Is it possible to launch helicopters from the Bertha Abess Sancutary and bring relief to a problem half a world away?
A problem like a shortage of blood we can address right here – with a blood drive on Saturday morning, July 30. But what are we to do for a spilling of blood in Darfur?
We’re not being asked to come up with a solution – only a prayer and a reflection.
Reflection comes first. Don’t reflect on the murder of 400,000 people. Rather reflect on the murder of one person, 400,000 times. Imagine one person being hacked to death. Then multiply that to have a sense of the horror.
Then pray. What do prayers do? Prayers go up from the Bertha Abess Sanctuary. And with prayer, letters. A few hundred letters from us, merging with hundreds of letters from every other congregation participating, may amount to 400,000 letters, one for every soul lost. Perhaps two million letters, one for every soul still in danger.
What if such letters rose through the houses of Congress to the President. “Mr. President,” they might say, “last September you labeled the actions in Sudan a genocide. Last September you also called for reform to Social Security. Your actions for Social Security have not found much support. What if you put those actions on the back burner, and brought to the fore the security of the millions in Darfur? Their security is in much greater danger than ours. Here you have an opportunity really to be a light unto the nations.”
For a sample letter to your senator or representative in Congress, call us at 305-573-5900 or email vsimo@templeisrael.net |
