Decades ago now I tagged along with a doctor friend of mine to a lecture by the amazing Dr. Helen Caldecott. The address was sponsored, and largely attended by, Physicians for Social Responsibility, the doctors group that came together to make the case that nuclear weapons, whatever else they might be, are antithetical to human health. Caldecott spoke passionately and knowledgeably, as she has for the past thirty -some years now, against the US buildup of nuclear weapons. All these years later I really don't remember the specifics of what she said. But I do recall very clearly one snippet of the discussion that followed. A member of the audience, also obviously quite well-informed, was asking some very technical question about a particular weapons system -- along the lines of, "If the US produces fewer of Airplane X and Y, then how can we avoid a buildup in the production of Airplane Z?" And Dr. Caldecott answered, more eloquently than this, but essentially as follows: "You don't need to be an expert in the details of military strategy, nuclear physics or weapons economics. That's what you have politicians and their advisors for. Your job as a citizen is simply to say to your government, 'No Nuclear Weapons, period.' And they can figure out how to implement your mandate."
I often think of this comment now, when boggling political realities face us all the time. How am I, as a layperson, supposed to evaluate the threat of Saddam Hussein? How am I supposed to strategize about the responses of Iran, Pakistan or North Korea to invasion scenario A, B or C? How can I be clear about the role of oil in the impending war?
About three years ago the extraordinary Ruth Murray died well into her eighties. Ruth was an activist her entire life, a committed socialist, an advocate for working people and for poor and hungry people locally and worldwide. She was a huge example (in a very tiny person!) of a committed life, a great inspiration to all of us who knew her. After Ruth's death there was a chat around Claire Lobell's dinner table about how best to memorialize Ruth. And that day two of her close friends, also lifelong activists, and I began to meet monthly to write letters to our politicians on matters of concern to us and, we figured, probably to Ruth as well. Each month now we sit and drink tea and talk about the outrages of the day, and then we each write letters on the topics of our own choice.
I am embarrassed to say I had hardly ever written a political letter before that time. By now I've probably written hundreds, or at least dozens. I love to write letters to elected officials. By doing this small gesture I feel like a participant in world affairs, at least at the smallest level, rather than a bystander. Awhile ago I realized that the best antidote to political despair, for me anyhow, is to do something, however small, to move the world in the direction I think it should go. Writing a letter to my Senator, Representative or President is probably the smallest possible unit of political currency, the political equivalent of a penny. But at least I have a stake on the table.
But every time I set my pen to paper, I am besieged by some inner voice that says, "You don't know what you are talking about. What qualifies you to weigh in on welfare policy?" (Actually that's the one social issue I do know something about) "Or taxes? Or logging? Or corporate law? Or -- 'al achat kamma v'kamma,' as the Rabbis say, "if so in the minor case, how much more so in the major one' -- on war?" Who are you to have an opinion, much less to express it to a political leader, when you are no expert, when other people -- people in the Pentagon, people in the weapons industry, for example -- know so infinitely much more than you do?
In my particular case I came of age politically to the Watergate hearings. At age sixteen I remember watching H.R. Haldeman, John Erlichman, John Dean and friends on TV, and the President of the United States, testifying before Congress day after day, lying, foaming at the mouth as they were contradicted and found out. I think of Watergate as a kind of watershed -- the moment when it became a standard American assumption that we are being lied to. Now we take it for granted, wherever we identify ourselves on the political spectrum, that our information is flawed at best, that the news is "spin," that studies are skewed, that polls are slanted towards whoever funds them, that politicians fold over in the direction of lobbyists and big contributors. We assume that the real decisions are being made behind closed doors by people whose faces and agendas are unknown to us. I often feel like we live in the political universe of Alice in Wonderland, where good is bad and up is down and it is practically meaningless to have a political opinion because there is nothing solid to base it on.
And this is where I think back to Helen Caldecott. This is the time for us to speak our own moral bottom line, whatever it is, and then let the spin doctors and policy wonks and pollsters and lobbyists and media moguls figure out what to do with it. This is the time when people's politics need to be essentially religious in the best sense -- in the sense of basic spiritual values: the honoring of the spark of life in every person and every creature, the particular obligation to the poor and broken, wherever in the world they reside, the call to generosity and compassion, the absolute scandal and shame of wanton destructiveness. I don't need to know whether B1's, B2's or B52's are the worst idea. I just need to know the horror and vulgarity and outrage of the use of any of them. Our leaders can figure out how to disarm, once they know what we want.
I am assuming even in writing this that each of us has our own non-negotiable, passionately-held bottom line on the moral issues that face our world. As your local religious leader, I walk a fine line in this little column each month between telling you what I think you should think and encouraging you to speak your own truth, whatever it is. I usually do a little bit of each.
By the time this Megillah arrives in your mailbox at the beginning of February we may already be in a war that I passionately and non-negotiably believe is wrong and shameful and morally indefensible. I am thrilled that hundreds of thousands of regular people all over this country and the rest of the world are taking to the streets and signing petitions and writing letters to their elected officials and doing everything they can possibly imagine to speak this clear moral message. I am proud to be among them, and every day I think about what more still I might do, as one small person, to speak more clearly and pointedly against war. I am hoping and constantly praying that it will simply become impossible to invade Iraq over the protest of the mass of the US populace. I may win or lose on this stake, but it is what I yearn for with every fiber of my being. You're probably not surprised that I feel as I do.
You may agree or disagree with me. Of course I hope you think as I do, but even more, I think, I hope that you come to your own position from the place of your deepest, truest moral sense -- not from fear, not from vindictiveness, not from (God forbid) bigotry, but from your own clear vision of the values that you want to prevail in our world. We can talk with each other about whether justice or mercy is more important, whether safety or generosity is better policy. These are conversations worth having. Even if our letters cross each other off on some politician's ledger, let them read letters that come from a moral center. And then let them figure out how to make our visions into policy.
© 2003 Rabbi Margaret Holub
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Updated 02/06/2003 (rge)