Author of "Embracing Auschwitz" and "Mensch•Marks: Life Lessons of a Human Rabbi - Wisdom for Untethered Times." Winner of the Rockower Award, the highest honor in Jewish journalism and 2019 Religion News Association Award for Excellence in Commentary. Musings of a rabbi, journalist, father, husband, poodle-owner, Red Sox fan and self-proclaimed mensch, taken from essays, columns, sermons and thin air. Writes regularly in the New York Jewish Week and Times of Israel.
As America prepares to celebrate 250 years since Lexington and Concord - just one month from now - we seek inspiration from the courage of the Minutemen and students of Tiananmen Square.
Remember the Goddess of Democracy? It was the symbol of the great student-led struggle for democracy in China in 1989. Back then, during the Tiananmen Square protests, the statue, designed to evoke the Statue of Liberty, was assembled quickly out of paper mâché. It was destroyed by the authorities on June 4, 1989, but replicas were built in cities across the world, from Hong Kong to San Francisco to Vancouver. The dream of freedom and equality never died.
It was a quintessentially American dream, a hope inspired by our story, our people, our courage, and it all began 250 years ago next month, in the bucolic hamlets of Lexington and Concord.
At Tiananmen, the students were inspired to stand up for freedom - by us, and we were in turn inspired by them - particularly one of them: the one who stood alone and defiant before a column of tanks. The iconic photo of the Unknown Rebel, known forever as Tank Man, was taken by Jeff Widener of the Associated Press. The rebel and the photographer combined to remind us of what freedom is all about.
At the time, I paid tribute to that unknown soldier of conscience by writing the poem that I share below. It’s based on Psalm 109. The psalm (you’ve got to read the whole thing!)1 is a product of amazing political courage. Think of how the psalmist would have been trolled and doxed on social media after writing this, were he living today. It fits this moment perfectly - and pastors across the nation could do worse than inserting Psalm 109 into your bulletins and liturgies this weekend. If you get into trouble, it will be Good Trouble (just tell them, “Hey, I’m just quoting scripture, not being political or anything,”) and it will be nothing compared to the trouble faced by that guy with the tanks, or those farmers in Lexington and Concord.
As for my poem, change a couple of words here and there, and it too could have been written over the past few weeks.
[ This is from the project: MHS 225th Anniversary]
We also don’t know who fired the “shot heard round the world” - some speculate that it was Paul Revere - but we do know that, decades later, it was Ralph Waldo Emerson who made that shot famous3 (long before Bobby Thompson hit that pennant-winning homer for the Giants). We also know that the colonists won at Lexington and Concord, and that broke the perception of British invincibility. And that changed history.
Pastors across the nation could do worse than inserting Psalm 109 into your bulletins and liturgies this weekend. If you get into trouble, it will be Good Trouble (just tell them, “Hey, I’m just quoting scripture, not being political or anything,”) and it will be nothing compared to the trouble faced by that guy with the tanks, or those farmers in Lexington and Concord.
Similarly, the students of Tiananmen may have lost their battle, but the ripple effects were profound, in the liberalization of China’s economy, the liberation of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union - and the inspiration of their Goddess of Democracy, which continues to inspire those of us living in America, the original “wretched refuse” on Lady Liberty’s “teeming shores,”4 as we wretch with nausea while refusing to succumb to our own toxic predicament.5
Right now, there are plenty of stories of courage from which we can gain inspiration. Next month’s 250th anniversary will need to feature the valor of these humble farmers. They should be the focus and not the various “Don’t Tread on Me” flags of the Revolution wose symbolism has been distorted by the far right. Let’s pray President Trump doesn’t order a military parade complete with tanks rumbling past Monument Square in Concord.6 But if he does, will anyone volunteer to be the Tank Man this time?
If the Minutemen could see what’s happening now in Congress, they might be of a mind to lay down their muskets and pledge allegiance to King George.
What the hell - if this is how it’s going to end up, let’s fish that tea out of Boston Harbor and serve it with Dunkin to our overlords.
I love the Kierkegaard quote I found for my poem. We are afflicted right now, by injustice, shame, financial burdens and sheer shock. But that very affliction will recruit hope rather than leave us bereft of it. Affliction will help us to drown out the noise.
The lamp of liberty, that spark of eternity, burns brightly in all who treasure freedom. The Chinese were inspired by our fight for liberty, and now we can be inspired by theirs.
Metaphorically speaking, let our resolve be the shot heard round the world, so that the heroism of Lexington, Concord and Tiananmen will be seen all over again and their sacrifices gain renwed significance.
Here’s the complete psalm. Packs a contemporary punch.
For the leader. Of David. A psalm. O God of my praise, do not keep aloof, for the wicked and the deceitful open their mouth against me; they speak to me with lying tongue. They encircle me with words of hate; they attack me without cause. They answer my love with accusation and I must stand judgment They repay me with evil for good, with hatred for my love. Appoint someone wicked over him; may an accuser stand at his right side; may he be tried and convicted; may he be judged and found guilty. May his days be few; may another take over his position. May his children be orphans, his wife a widow. May his children wander from their hovels, begging in search of [bread]. May his creditor seize all his possessions; may strangers plunder his wealth. May no one show him mercy; may none pity his orphans; may his posterity be cut off; may their names be blotted out in the next generation. May God be ever mindful of his father’s iniquity, and may the sin of his mother not be blotted out. May GOD be aware of them always and cause their names to be cut off from the earth, because he was not minded to act kindly, and hounded to death the poor and needy man, one crushed in spirit. He loved to curse—may a curse come upon him! He would not bless—may blessing be far from him! May he be clothed in a curse like a garment, may it enter his body like water,his bones like oil. Let it be like the cloak he wraps around him, like the belt he always wears. May GOD thus repay my accusers, all those who speak evil against me. Now You, O GOD, my Sovereign, act in my behalf as befits Your name. Good and faithful as You are, save me. For I am poor and needy, and my heart is pierced within me. I fade away like a lengthening shadow; I am shaken off like locusts. My knees give way from fasting; my flesh is lean, has lost its fat. I am the object of their scorn; when they see me, they shake their head. Help me, O my ETERNAL God; save me in accord with Your faithfulness— that all may know that it is Your hand, that You, O ETERNAL One, have done it. Let them curse, but You bless; let them rise up, but come to grief, while Your servant rejoices. My accusers shall be clothed in shame, wrapped in their disgrace as in a robe. My mouth shall sing much praise to GOD; I will acclaim in the midst of a throng, because [God] stands at the right hand of the needy, to save them from those who would condemn them.
Here’s the list of American dead: This Boston broadside lists the names of provincial men killed, wounded, or missing after the battles of Lexington and Concord. Asterisks indicate those "killed by the first Fire of the Regulars." Named among the wounded is the Lexington slave Prince Estabrook, the first black soldier of the Revolution.
Mr. Jonas Parker, * Mr. Samuel Hadley, * Mr. Jonan Harrington, * Mr. Caleb Harrington, * Mr. Isaac Muzzy, * Mr. John Brown, Mr. John Raymond, Mr. Nathaniel Wyman, Mr. Jedediah Munroe.
Of Menotomy.
Mr. Jason Russel, Mr. Jabez Wyman, Mr. Jason Winship,
Of Sudbury.
Deacon Haynes, Mr. ----- Reed.
Of Concord.
Capt. James Miles,
Of Bedford.
Capt. Jonathan Willson,
Of Acton.
Capt. Davis, Mr. ----- Hosmer, Mr. James Howard.
Of Woburn.
* Mr. Azael Porter, Mr. Daniel Thompson.
Of Charlestown.
Mr. James Miller, Capt. William Barber's Son.
Of Brookline.
Isaac Gardner, Esq;
Of Cambridge.
Mr. John Hicks, Mr. Moses Richardson, Mr. William Massey.
Of Medford.
Mr. Henry Putnam. Of Lynn.
Mr. Abednego Ramsdell, Mr. Daniel Townsend, Mr. William Flint, Mr. Thomas Hadley.
[column2]
Of Danvers.
Mr. Henry Jacobs, Mr. Samuel Cook, Mr. Ebenezer Goldthwait,
The Minutemen and those Chinese students remind me of what the ill-trained Jewish youth who fought against five Arab armies at the time Israel’s creation in 1948. “We are the silver platter on which the Jewish state was given,” the souls of those youth who were killed say in a famous Hebrew poem by Natan Alterman (see below).
And for Jews, another moment of supreme courage is recalled on Purim, which begins tomorrow evening. Jews recall the heroism of Esther, Mordechai and the Jews of Persia, who stood up as a small minority against the decrees of a foolish king and his evil sidekick who sought to destroy them (yes, there are contemporary parallels).
