This spring, for the first time, I attended a hearing at the state house. The hearing was about proposed legislation to protect the rights of immigrants in the commonwealth of Massachusetts. The large room was packed, predominantly – although not entirely – with supporters of the legislation, who had to be continually reminded to be quiet and maintain the decorum of the proceedings. It was also uncomfortably warm in the hearing room.
For hour upon hour, with no break, the legislative committee respectfully listened to testimony from citizens ranging from high powered attorneys to a somewhat disheveled and incoherent man who seemed to be hearing God speaking to him directly. It was a marvelous, ordinary day of democracy in action.
I was proud of my Sharon Interfaith Action colleagues who were there to testify on behalf of the diverse immigrant population in Sharon and in particular our Muslim neighbors. But what I remember most about the day was a very different image.
A middle-aged white woman sat before the committee, and reading from a prepared text, testified against the proposed legislation. Her son had been struck and killed by a truck driven by an immigrant. But she did not say immigrant. She very specifically used the term “criminal illegal alien,” and she used it over, and over, and over in her brief testimony. It was like a drumbeat, and it was said each time with a tone of hatred and bitterness. To this woman, it was clear that her son would still be alive if there were no “criminal illegal aliens” in the commonwealth of Massachusetts. In the end, it was her pain – and her grief – that I heard, louder than the content of her testimony against the legislation.
I tell this story not to raise a debate about immigrant rights. I tell this story because I want to talk about fear, and about our souls’ response to fear. And about what we can do to consciously choose to take personal responsibility for how we respond to fear.
Fear is of course an inevitable aspect of being alive. Every “being” has an innate drive to continue to be. Every being contains mechanisms and systems for warding off the threat of not-being. What we call “fear” is just another name for one of these systems. Whether it’s biochemical or spiritual or something else, fear is a manifestation of our innate drive to exist.
Among the countless things that trigger fear, one thing that has been increasingly obvious this year is that we are afraid of the Other, of the Stranger. We humans react with fear to people whom we perceive to be not like us.
Unfortunately, this instinctual fear of the stranger is easily aroused and manipulated. The culture of our current political system feeds on this fear. Through the shock tactics on news and social media, both right and left, we are all being manipulated into high stress alert about supposed enemies and impending doom, day after day. Fear motivates, but at a huge cost.
Here’s the downward spiral we are all at great risk of falling into:
The more fearful we become, the more self-centered we become.
The more self-centered, the less caring and empathic.
The less caring and empathic, the more susceptible we become to messages of hate and fear.
The more Me, the less We; and that’s a dangerous downward spiral.
Rabbi Master Yoda from Star Wars says it better than I can. We have this quote on our refrigerator: “Fear is the path to the Dark Side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.”
I saw a photo recently which illustrated this deep teaching in a way more powerful than words: The photo was of two young white men, from opposing sides of a demonstration and counter-demonstration. They were screaming into each other’s faces, their lower bodies separated by a police barricade. Their faces were ugly with anger and hatred. And they were dressed almost identically, with bandanas tied on their heads. One of them, I thought to myself, is on “my” side. But which one? They both looked like they were angry, hateful, and suffering.
Acting on our instinctual fear of the stranger draws us into the downward spiral of anger, hate, and suffering. It happens to us too, not just to the obvious purveyors of hate – the neo-Nazis, the white nationalists. We are all susceptible to this downward spiral of fear, anger, hate, and suffering.
So what’s the way out of this downward spiral? How can we more consciously choose how we respond to fear – to create a world with less fear, anger, hate and suffering?
The answer from within our tradition is clear. Judaism emphasizes the power of free will. Not as an abstract philosophical principle, but as a very real, moment-to-moment, imperative. In every moment we have the free will to make choices. The challenge in every moment is to make choices which lift us above our instinctual, animal inclinations.
Our tradition is also very clear about the moral imperative of empathy and love. Torah tells us 36 times to care for – even to love – the stranger. Why? Because we were once strangers in a strange land. Because we know what it means to be a slave, a refugee, an outsider, an outcast, a hated “other.”
We have a responsibility – a commandment – to be empathic, even loving. We have a responsibility – a commandment – to think and act in terms of We, not just Me. Because even thousands of years ago, our ancestors knew our animal nature, the power of fear, and the necessity for the Soul to gain mastery over it.
How else does our tradition guide us to consciously choose how we respond to fear? During the high holidays, we remind ourselves of the power of teshuvah. Usually thought of in terms of repentance, apology, and forgiveness, teshuvah also means response. It also means turning, in the sense of re-turning to our moral path when we have strayed. Now, perhaps more than ever, we need to cultivate a greater awareness of our inner responses of fear and anger to what is happening in the world. And to what is happening in our personal lives as well. We need to continually seek reality-checks from our rational minds, our higher selves, and from other people we trust, to continually re-orient ourselves back to our moral path and vision.
About that grieving mother testifying against immigrant rights at the state house: On the one hand I want to have compassion for her suffering, and be careful not to judge her personally. Yet on the other hand she provides us with an example of how at some level we choose how to respond to our grief and fear. There are countless stories of people who choose to let their hearts be cracked open by their grief, leading them to pledge their lives to working for a more just, safe, and peaceful world for all. And there are people like the woman at the state house hearing, people who choose to channel the energy of their grief into hatred, who choose to see strangers as enemies – requiring more walls, more weapons, and hence even more fear and hatred.
For me, the most powerful statement of our ultimate free will comes from the African American prophet Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. I am slowly, slowly, working my way through the enormous volume of his collected works, and came across a brief magazine article entitled “Suffering and Faith,” written in 1960. The magazine editors, “aware that King constantly received numerous threats against his life, urged him to comment on his view of suffering.” In his response, King wrote (and I urge you to imagine his thunderous voice as I read):
"My personal trials have also taught me the value of unmerited suffering. As my sufferings mounted I soon realized that there were two ways that I could respond to my situation: either to react with bitterness or seek to transform the suffering into a creative force. I decided to follow the latter course. Recognizing the necessity for suffering I have tried to make of it a virtue. If only to save myself from bitterness, I have attempted to see my personal ordeals as an opportunity to transform myself and heal the people involved in the tragic situation which now obtains. I have lived these last few years with the conviction that unearned suffering is redemptive."
King’s words are so powerful that I am hesitant to say anything after reading them. So I will say only this:
We can – and we must – take personal responsibility for how we respond to fear and suffering.
We can – and we must – heed the prophetic call, and recognize the troubles of our time as opportunities both to transform ourselves and to transform the people who appear to be our enemies.
May we, and all the people of this great nation, be blessed with even a fraction of the dignity and hope that King modeled in his words and in his actions. And may our souls be called to respond to the fear in our hearts with greater courage and compassion – for ourselves and for those around us.