Date: Tue, 15 Aug 2000 18:47:40 -0700
From: David M James <shddemon-AT-concentric.net>
Subject: When a Temple of Liberty is Shattered


Wednesday August 09, -AT-08:39PM


When a Temple of Liberty is Shattered
By Rabbi Arthur Waskow 
 
 
hen a society severs itself from justice and decency,
disaster follows.
Last Shabbat the Jewish community read a Prophetic outcry to
-- -

Seek justice!
Help the oppressed!
Defend the orphan!
Befriend the widow!


Alas, the city that was once fulfilled with transformative
justice, Where upright fairness dwelt -- Now murderers live.

Your rulers are rogues And cronies of thieves -- Every one
avid for bribes, Greedy for payoffs. They do not plead for
the orphan, And the widow's case remains lost in the
dockets.

Says God of hosts: I will turn My hand against you, Smelt
out your dross in a crucible, And remove all your slag. Then
I will restore your judges as of old And your mayors as in
the early days. Then once again you can be called City of
Upright Justice, Faithful City.

(Above from Isaiah 1, various verses) 

We are taught to read this passaage just before we remember
with grief the destruction of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem,
when the Jewish community of the Land of Isael lost both its
sacred comnnection with the land and its sovereign ability
to exercise political power in a just and responsible way.

Today (Tisha B'Av), as we recall the Destruction of the
Temple, we remember that stark equation: If we do not act
justly, we lose the power to bring justice about. If we
alienate ourselves from the earth, the earth treats us as
aliens: we lose touch with her.

Last week, thousands of people came to Philadelphia with a
Prophetic outcry:

Put an end to the corporate greed that is despoiling our
earth.

Meet the needs of the poor.

Create a justice system that is truly just, that does not
shovel African-Americans, Hispanics, and youth intio prison,
that does not celebrate the death penalty.

A few of those who came -- we are sad and sorrowful to say
-- held so much rage, fear, or alienation that they lifted
their hands in violence.

But almost all lifted their voices as Isaiah did -- with
compassionate, disciplined nonviolence: marches and civil
disobedience.

And the result was that this prophetic outcry -- no matter
how committed to nonviolence -- was met with -------

o threats to prosecute legitimate acts of non-violent civil
disobedience with maximum penalties.;

o enormous unprecedented bails;

o brutalization in prison;

o infiltration and placement of provocateurs;

o illegitimate search warrants.

A society that will not heed its Prophetic voices, a city
that imprisons them, silences them, beats them, has already
shattered its own deepest holy places.

The history we Jews recall in grief today reminds us: when
you shatter holiness, disaster follows.

In our ancient tradition, it was the Holy Temple in
Jerusalem that was the cradle of our freedom and our
holiness.

Today, in America, Philadelphia is the cradle of our
liberty. It should not be where Liberty is strangled in its
cradle.