“That’s not fair! She got more than I did! You love him more than me!” How many times have you heard those words from a small child? How many times have you thought them yourself – even as an adult?
We are born with the innate need to alter the things we experience as unjust. A toddler who needs attention drives his parents crazy, whining and needling, just to be heard. A teenager who feels unjustly assessed by parents or teachers will often act out in ways that assert her frustration with not being judged fairly. And as adults, we complain (or kvetch) about things that bother us or that we feel are wrong.
While mere complaining doesn’t necessarily rise to the level of meaningful protest, the continuum often begins with simple injustices. Why do we protest even the smallest unfairness? Because when something doesn’t feel right, comfortable or just, it is simply human to call out in response.
The Jewish people come from a long line of protesters. The granddaddy of them all is found in the Book of Genesis when Abraham confronts God about His decision to destroy the people of Sodom and Gomorrah. Abraham demands an explanation from God for His decision and boldly protests against it in words that have been described by the Jewish philosopher, Emil Fackenheim, as an incident of “citing God against God.”
With more moxie than Alan Dershowitz, Abraham challenges God by asking: “Will you sweep away the righteous with the wicked? Shall not the Judge of all the earth do justice?” Abraham’s protest set the standard for our moral compass; it is the basis of our legacy that, as Jews, we have both the right and the obligation to challenge injustice.
Jewish history is replete with examples of Jewish men and women who defied leaders and laws when they violated moral conscience. Moses challenged Pharaoh and demanded that he free the Jewish slaves from bondage to serve God. A lesser known but inspiring story is found in the opening chapter of Exodus where the Hebrew midwives, Shifrah and Puah, disobeyed Pharaoh’s order to kill all Hebrew newborn boys using the pretext that the babies were born before the midwives arrived. From Abraham to Rabbi Akiva, from Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis to Soviet dissident Natan Sharansky, Jews throughout history have protested vehemently against immoral and unconscionable acts and laws.
The Talmud defines our obligation to protest as follows: “If a person can protest the misdeeds of his household, yet does not, he becomes guilty with them. If he can protest the deeds of his townsmen, and does not, he is guilty with them. If he can protest the deeds of the entire world, and does not, he is guilty with them.”
This quote pretty much did me in when I first encountered it. I already feel bad about little things – like not calling my mother enough. Add to that my guilt over not doing more to prevent illiteracy, fight poverty, end hunger and put a stop to genocide and inhuman acts around the world, and I’m a mess.
But thankfully, Jewish tradition recognizes that the ability to protest is not the same for everyone, nor is it something we must do 24/7. Some of us are limited by our physical abilities, others by financial, time and family constraints. What is essential is the idea that each one of us has some capacity, whether great or small, to stand up to injustice when we see it.
According to traditional Jewish law, the heart of our obligation is found where we live, in our homes. Our primary duty is to protest against the inequities that reside within our own four walls. Our protest may take various forms: It might be at a family meeting where issues such as sibling rivalry, parental favoritism and perceived abuses are discussed respectfully with the hope of finding meaningful resolutions. It may lie in the conversations we have with our spouses, demanding more respect and appreciation, or arguments with our parents, in an attempt to establish more trust and better communication. As Jews and as people, it remains our responsibility to protest when things are not fair – within our homes first and then within our community and out into the world.
The beauty of living in a true democracy is that we are not abused, tortured or killed for advocating against our laws or government. The framers of the Constitution knew what they were doing when they drafted the First Amendment to safeguard our freedom of speech. We have the ability to protest because we have a protected voice, one that can be heard through our ballots at election time, through our spoken words (by protesting verbally against those who perpetuate injustice), through our written words (by writing to our state and federal representatives and to newspapers and radio talk shows about issues that are important to us) and through our pocketbooks (by supporting the people and concerns that need our help).
My issues of concern and the injustices I choose to fight against will not be the same as yours. Nor do we have the same capacity to protest. What we do share is an ability, to whatever extent, as well as an obligation and the freedom to do so. How much better a place the world will be when we each respond to that call.
