If we want to understand antisemitism, the answer lies within the verse Yeshno am echad mefuzar umefurad bein ha’amim... ve-dateihem shonot mikol am, “There is a certain people who are different from everyone else.” That is why Jews are hated, because we are different. Antisemitism is the paradigm case of dislike of the unlike. And you will say, “But everyone’s different, every nation is different.” And it’s true, every nation is different, but only Jews throughout history consistently insisted on the right to be different, the duty to be different, the dignity of difference. They were the only people over the long haul of history who refused to assimilate into the dominant culture or convert to the dominant faith.
And now we have to take a further move, and that is this: Difference is what makes us human. Never was this put better than by Chazal in the Mishnah in the fourth chapter of Sanhedrin, when they said, “When a human being makes many coins in the same mint, they all come out the same. God makes us all in the same image, His image, and we all come out different.” It is our differences that mean that every one of us is unique, none of us is exactly like anyone else. Even genetically identical twins only have 50% of their attributes in common. And because each of us is unique, no one can be substituted for anyone else. That is what makes every nefesh echat ke’olam malei, that is what makes each of us a universe. We are irreplaceable, and that is what makes human life sacred, the fundamental axiom of Judaism. And that is why - I had to explain this to non-Jews - an assault on Jews is an assault on our humanity. A country or a world that doesn’t have room for Jews doesn’t have room for humanity.
This week, we read parshas Ki Tissa, in which Moshe Rabbeinu is going up on the mountain to pray for forgiveness for the Golden Calf. He utters the most inexplicable sentence in the whole of Tanach when he says the following:
Im na matzati chein be’einecha, If I found favor in Your eyes, yelech na Hashem bekirbeinu, please be in our midst, ki am k’shei oref hu, because this is a stiff-necked people. Ve-salachta la’avoneinu u’lechattateinu u’nechaltanu, therefore, forgive us. (Shemot 34:9)
Is the fact that we’re a stiff-necked people a reason to forgive us? It’s a reason not to forgive us. He should have said af al pi, despite the fact that we’re a stiff-necked people, forgive us nonetheless. Some people say that’s what the word ki means in that verse. The Ramban says that Moshe Rabbeinu delivered a really chutzpadik speech, saying, “Ribono Shel Olam, if You’re away for one minute, we’ll be killing each other and practicing idolatry. Because we’re so difficult, we need the teacher to be in the class the whole time, so please be close to us because we need You. Nobody else can control us.”
And that, of course, is the story of Purim, which began with the phrase U’Mordechai lo yichra velo yishtachaveh (Esther 3:2). Mordechai was the one person who wouldn’t bow down to Haman. And if there is to be freedom in this world, the world needs the nation that taught us that every life is sacred, that God gives us, each culture and each religion, the right to be different. And that we must never bow down to those who would set themselves up in God’s place. That is why we were hated, but that is why the world needs us.
Therefore, since antisemitism is hatred of difference, and since difference is essential to our humanity, antisemitism always begins with Jews, but it never ends with Jews. It wasn’t Jews alone who suffered under Hitler, it wasn’t Jews alone who suffered under Stalin, and it will not be Jews alone who suffer under the theocratic Republic of Iran. We are the front guard of humanity, and antisemitism is not a crime against humanity.
RABBI JONATHAN SACKS
