This is not the first time that religious Jews have attacked
non-Jewish religious sites, clergy, or symbols. Whether physically, verbally,
or symbolically. Unfortunately, it probably won’t be the last.
This is not OK.
The damage this kind of behavior does to the Jewish people
is incalculable. And yet that does not seem to faze the perpetrators. They
actually believe they are performing a fundamental mitzvah in opposition to
idolatry, its symbols, and those who serve it.
Sadly, I have heard this kind of teaching before. More than
once, and in more than one venue.
A few years ago, a local Chasidic rebbe in the Boro Park
section of Brooklyn distributed recordings of a speech he made about the
‘proper’ attitude Jews should have toward goyim (non-Jews) . He began by saying
that we must treat them civilly in our interactions and in public statements.
But, he added, that internally as a matter of Hashkafa, we must hate them!
In another instance, I came across a Hashkafa shiur given by
a high school rebbe to a group of impressionable students conveying identical
sentiments. With even greater emphasis.
There are several ‘explanations’ for the phenomenon of
instilling ‘hatred of the Goyim’ into our youth, An attitude reinforced well
into adulthood.
One of them is based on a comment by the preeminent Torah
commentator, Rashi, regarding Yaakov’s encounter with his ‘evil twin’,
Esav: “Halacha hi, Esav sonei l’Yaakov” - it is a law that
Esav hates Yaakov. Later Torah commentators have interpreted ‘Esav’ in this
comment as a euphemism for all Goyim hating all Jews - throughout eternity.
Sadly, Rashi’s observation has proven to be true in every generations since we
became a people at Sinai.
But what that comment does not say is that
we must hate them. While such hatred is an understandable emotional response to
our history of being oppressed it is not a mandate. Nor is it true that every
non-Jew hates us.
With respect to Christianity…
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