In God’s Name

I recently returned from a family trip to Barcelona. It was my first time in Spain and certainly the first big trip taken during this pandemic. It was truly a blessing to be able to explore a new place with my daughters. The architecture alone is reason enough to go. Huge, stately old homes and castles which are now mostly apartment buildings, and of course the genius work of Gaudi. I was very much looking forward to touring the Jewish quarter. Spain has a rich Jewish history that dates back centuries. The oldest synagogue in all of Europe is in the Jewish quarter of Barcelona, and that’s saying a lot. We also saw the site of one of the oldest ritual baths (a Mikvah) which is now in the back of a store. The owners were nice in letting us come see it, but it’s mostly covered by merchandise being stored. I love both history and Judaism so I was very moved learning about some of the ancient Jewish sages that stood in those very streets. Ramban, Abarbanel, and Rashba to name a few. The Jewish and gothic quarters neighbor each other. I had known a bit about the Spanish Inquisition, which was essentially the Holocaust of that time and region, but since it was hundreds of years ago I never felt deeply connected to it. This is my fear with the Holocaust itself; that generations to come won’t be emotionally tied to this brutal and important period in history that has all but defined 20th century Judaism. That’s obviously a natural progression over which we have no control. As survivors die out and time simply moves us further away from these major events in history, it’s almost impossible for future generations to deeply internalize the weight and complexity of any such event, no matter how massive. During the Inquisition, there were numerous punishments and methods of torture doled out that almost make mass shootings and gas chambers seem like no big deal. I don’t say that lightly. This went on in Spain, after originating in Italy, for centuries. The most disturbing piece is that all of this brutality, torture, and murder was done entirely in the name of God. It was mandated and carried out by the church. Anyone practicing a different religion was considered a threat to the church, so Jews, among others who disagreed with this for whatever reason, were basically given the choice to convert or be killed. Neighbors ratted out Jews to save their own families, some rabbis were forced to give over all the names of their hidden congregants, and it was a murderous and terrifying bloodbath that lasted for generations. I’d never go to Warsaw or Berlin on vacation for all the obvious reasons a granddaughter of survivors wouldn’t go, yet I was having a grand old time, as well as spending Shabbat, in a city that absolutely tortured and destroyed it’s Jews. As I said to a friend, from a Jewish perspective Barcelona is Krakow but with better packaging. It was a very heavy thing to hold; what Jews worldwide and throughout history have gone through just to stay alive. Just to breathe, live, love, procreate, pray, work, laugh, dance, eat. Normal things that humans do. It’s just been so much harder for us than what it should be. It made me incredibly sad, and given the recent global anti Semitic climate, none of us are out of the woods. We have almost always had the looming threat of death being lorded over us. Why can’t we just be left alone? Why is our very existence just such a problem and a threat? We learned about how after certain rabbis were forced to convert to Christianity and take positions in the church to prove their loyalty, they’d carve stars of David into the stained glass windows, as a secret code to let fellow Jews know they were there. The church ordered all Jewish tax records and accounting books to be burned in order to erase the history, so rabbis took apart the tax records page by page and hid the pages strategically in non Jewish records. This later allowed historians to piece together all the individual Jewish pages, thereby giving back a sense of certain aspects of Jewish life and history in Barcelona. The lengths we’ve had to go through just for basic self preservation is devastating. The need people have to hurt others is also devastating, as is using God as an excuse to do so. Whether it’s anti Semitism, racism, homophobia, or any other form of separation and elitism, using God as the justification is pathetic, cowardly, and a disrespectful distortion. The God I believe in doesn’t want any of us to hurt anyone else. He doesn’t believe in sexual conversion therapy, aryan superiority, or that people should be bludgeoned to death for picking up one prayer book vs another. My God thinks the Crusades were disgraceful, and I imagine Him weeping every time a human invokes His name to harm or torture another of His children. To pin a defective human need for blood on God is the craziest means of passing oneself off as righteous. Believing in God, as I see it, is a way to a kinder, more meaningful life when said belief is used in a healthy and loving way. Even in religions where there are sects and varying denominations warring against differences and nonsense (don’t get me started on how this plays out in Judaism. Really? It matters how big the brim of a black hat is or where the fish goes on the dinner table? REALLY??) this is shameful. I just think it’s really selfish for human beings to judge, command, decide, divide, and condemn “in the name of God”. If we are going to act in shitty ways, at least let’s not blame anyone else. To “atone” is to be “at one” with our behavior. It’s to take clear accountability of our actions. Atonement is bullshit if we blame anything or anyone else for our choices, and it’s also impossible to change for the better without stark admittance of our own roles and decisions. The image of the bloodthirsty priest during the Inquisition taking all sorts of confessions and then issuing a decree to pry Jewish bodies apart with steel traps, putting anyone accused of treason on the Swedish rack (even children), and cutting off the heads of innocents in the town square as entertainment, was truly sickening. I will go to my grave as saying that though I don’t have a direct phone line upstairs, I am certain this isn’t what God has ever wanted. I’m talking to you, KKK extremists. The tears God must’ve cried throughout the history of mankind over misuse of His name, as well as our human gifts and potential, can create new oceans. I imagine Him saying, “this is not at all what I intended. Not at all”. Any of us claiming to believe in God, whichever one it is, have a responsibility to represent Him properly, kindly, and well. If not then we are all frauds and we can only blame ourselves. You can’t blame whom you claim to love.