Parshat Bo: I Shall Not Be Silent

Parshat Bo:  I Shall Not Be Silent

January 24, 2015

     Did you know that immediately before Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his famous "I have a dream" speech at the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom that a rabbi spoke at the march? That rabbi was Joachim Prinz.  Prinz's rabbinic career began in Berlin, and he was expelled from Berlin in 1937.  He resumed his career in the States, serving a congregation in New Jersey.  (As an aside -- he was a friend of Leora' father, Rabbi Samuel Cohen who was in Livingston, NJ and Rabbi Prinz officiated at the wedding of Leora's parents.) Prinz later served as President of the American Jewish Congress and became a leader of the civil rights movement. He worked to organize the 1963 march and the title of his sermon that day was "The Issue is Silence" declaring:

"When I was the rabbi of the Jewish community in Berlin under the Hitler regime, I learned many things. The most important thing that I learned under those tragic circumstances was that bigotry and hatred are not the most urgent problem. The most urgent, the most disgraceful, the most shameful and the most tragic problem is silence."

(Click here learn about a new documentary about Rabbi Prinz.)  

     We cannot be silent about naming a plague in our midst:  the plague of anti-Semitism.  We saw another example of it just last Thursday at the New York City Council meeting.  At the NYC Council meeting on January 22, the council planned to vote on a resolution to honor the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.  Most would have expected resolution on that topic to be non-confrontational. But it turned out that there were pro-Palestinian protesters at the NYC Council, in the chambers. They waited quietly for 86 minutes until the resolution on Auschwitz was being discussed.  Then they disrupted the meeting.  Watch and hear how Council Member David Greenfield responded: 

The parsha this week, Bo, begins in the midst of the plagues.  We read seven in the previous parsha, and three in Parshat Bo.  It's as if the narrative is interrupted.  Why is the story read over two weeks?  The very name of the parsha, Bo, means 'come' and implies this:    God is saying freedom is important, and it's important to speak out for it, and when you do, I will be with you. Even as we rejoice in freedom and are prepared to fight for that freedom, God says "Bo" -- "Come with me, try to put an end to the plagues that impact upon humanity -- upon you and others."  

Like Rabbi Prinz and Councilman Greenfield, we need to speak up, speak out, and interrupt the narrative, to do everything we can to stop the plagues before they multiply.

May God be with us in that task.