The Power Of Words - From The Rabbi

In the spring of 2004 I made a lifetime dream come true. I was accepted at Rabbinic School. I received a list of fourteen books to read before I started the course in the autumn of that year. I started a frantic reading of all fourteen volumes that included the entire Tanakh, the Jewish Bible and a few other thick books. I missed one little detail as I concluded a long and intense reading period. The small print stated that it was a recommended list, rather than a mandatory one. Words are very powerful indeed, no matter how small they might be! 

Still, there was one book that I started reading but could not get to complete. The bookmark is still on page 362 where I left it 14 years ago. The book is titled ‘The Holocaust’ by the historian Sir Martin Gilbert. In his book Sir Gilbert describes in dry academic language the history of the Holocaust. 
Gilbert begins his book in 1933 with the rise of Hitler and his Nazi party to power.

What was apparent for me from the book was the gradual nature of the Nazi genocide of the Jews. Nobody in Nazi Germany of 1933 was talking about the elimination of Jews. By the time I reached page 362, in the spring of 1942, killing of Jews and other ‘undesirable elements’ or ‘enemies of the German People’ was common. 

Sir Gilbert did not include in his book the early years of Nazism. It all started with ideas. These ideas were developed into words, and words were eventually translated into actions. actions took the form of discrimination, boycotts, burning of books, shops and synagogues, deportations, imprisonment, sporadic killings, and eventually genocide. There is an old joke about two Jews sitting on a bench in Berlin in 1935 and reading the papers. "Herr Altmann," said one of them. " I can't understand why you are reading Der Stürmer, a Nazi anti-Jewish propaganda sheet! Have you gone mad? "Not at all, Herr Baum. I used to read the Jewish papers and all I learned about were pogroms in Russia, riots in Palestine, and new anti-Jewish laws in Germany. Now that I read Der Stürmer, I see so much more: that the Jews control all the banks, that we dominate in the arts, and that we are on the verge of taking over the entire world. You know – it makes me feel a whole lot better!" 

Beyond the joke, Der Stürmer was a part of the Nazi propaganda machine that was a vehicle in translating Nazi anti-Semitism into actions. They objectified the Jews, depicted them as vermin, mice and snakes, to be excluded and eradicated. The words spoken then were perhaps crude, yet they were an effective method of selling the myth of unity, national pride and greatness to Germans who desired a break from the painful past. This was achieved by the creation of a myth of an alien race that feeds on the host nation, and poisons its culture and blood - the hated Jew. It was easy for the Nazis to exercise control over the German People by making a minority people the ultimate enemy within. 

We have a responsibility to ensure that the words of community leaders and politicians are not directed at uniting ‘us’ by separating ‘them’ from ‘us’, accepting the ‘similar’ by rejecting the ‘different’, loving ‘my neighbour’ by hating ‘the stranger’. 

The Torah, the holiest Jewish text, begins with creation of the world. “And God said, “let there be light”, and there was light.” (Genesis 1:3) The world was created with words. Human civilisation was created and formed with the words of philosophers, scientists and religious leaders. And it is the ability to form words and find meaning in words that distinguished us from the rest of creation. The book of Proverbs (18:21) describes all too well the power of speech: “Death and life are in the power of the tongue.” Just as the tongue can bring life, prosperity, and growth, it can bring death and destruction. 

In Nazi Germany crude, yet powerful words and ideas brought misery, death and destruction upon millions of victims, and millions of their perpetrators. Let us resolve to use words wisely to the benefit of the individual, the community, our country, humanity and Planet Earth, this Garden of Eden entrusted into our care. Let us take phrases such as ‘us and them’ out of our vocabulary. Let every person, regardless of their skin colour, race, religion, sexual orientation, or place of origin, be a part of our family, one of ‘us’. 

Rabbi Yuval Keren.