Shabbat Chazon ~ Shabbat Devarim ~ Fear

~ As we read our portion, please find the mentions of fear. What are they? What is the idea?

There is a vision, and you know the vision of the swords becoming plowshares. It is not only Isaiah, but the prophet Micah says the same words in chapter 4.

Isaiah this Shabbat brings us a previous vision, a vision of destruction caused by not upholding our end of the brit, the covenant: people are treated unfairly, criminally, cruelly, AND people are bowing down to idols. This Shabbat, Shabbat Chazon, is the one before Tisha beAv. We stand between those two visions. The idea that there is nothing to fear, because God is there for you, abounds in our reading of Devarim. However, the converse is also there: by abandoning the brit, the covenant, we will feel fear when there is nothing to be afraid of.

~ So, even if there is no reason, the fear will be pervasive - and we all know, the fear of a thing is worse than the thing itself, many times.

But now, we have to face the facts: we are afraid, and with reason.

In the last two weeks, we have three mass shootings that became famous, two of them merely hours apart.

In July 28th, the people from Gilroy, California, were disabused of the notion that they could go to a Garlic Festival in peace.

In August 3rd, the people from El Paso, Texas, were disabused from the notion that they could shop at a Walmart in peace.

In August 4th, the people from Dayton, Ohio, were disabused from the notion that they could go to a bar in peace.

And the sad thing about all these shootings is that they are nothing unique in America's recent history. Since Columbine we have been constantly disabused of the notion that there are safe places.

And as the years go by, the numbers keep rising: the more lethal the weapons and the weaker the laws, the more people die in single shootings, and the more people die overall due to gun violence alone.

After Sandy Hook in 2012, merely seven years ago, America said never again. But then we, our American collective, in the form of loosening of laws and inaction, let 2,179 mass shootings happen.

Mass shootings, you might be interested in learning, are shootings that hurt or kill more than four people. Please look at the next chart. We have more guns than people in the US.

Developed countries with more guns also have more gun deaths ^

America has become the Land of Fear. And with everything that numbers show, we have to admit that America has become a place where idolatry of guns is pervasive.

Idolatry, the worship of anything other than God, is quite an obsession in the Tanach. Idolatry didn’t just mean worshiping little statues representing the Canaanite, Egyptian, or Babylonian pantheon. The prophets made clear you also may not worship any thing, or yourself, or money, or power - and the very continuation of Isaiah Chapter 2 explains that.

The right to bear arms is enshrined in the Second Amendment. In the 2008 landmark Supreme Court case District of Columbia v. Heller, clarified that the Second Amendment means that a person has the right to own a gun even unconnected with a militia.

But guns are inside American culture. Guns are cool. Guns are fun. You can order an AR-15 in different colors. The gun is a symbol of freedom: the National Rifle Association has as one of its talking points: “When all other freedoms are gone, you still have the right to bear arms.”

That sentence imagines a world when it is everyone for themselves, where democracy has disappeared, and the only thing that stands between you and the mob is your gun. It is the apocalypse.

Taking advantage of feelings of fear is the bread and butter of the gun industry. Gun manufacturers, gun advertisers, and politicians whose reelection is paid for by the NRA are all complicit in their greed. They all profit from our collective fear.

~ No one spends millions of dollars in lobbying without expecting to make a profit above that.

I also want to add that according to the Gun Violence Archive, almost every other week a toddler or child kills a playmate or someone in the house because they found the gun lying around, with bullets.

Nearly every twelve hours a woman is shot by her domestic partner, making domestic abuse more lethal than anywhere in the world: we see 509 women being killed by their partners, in average, per year. Suicides are also more effective with a gun: we can boast 61 effective suicides with a gun per day. All these numbers are in the links at the bottom of your source sheets.

And here is the Torah of guns.

A gun is an important and powerful tool. It must be used responsibly. But if it becomes an idol, we all pay a price.

Worship of guns, with the faster and the more bullets the higher one goes up in the pantheon, harms all of us.

The rabbis are no strangers to violence and weapons. To paraphrase the Talmud (Sanhedrin 72a), you have the right to self-defense and have the commandment to take a pursuer's life in order to save your life or someone else’s. But the Talmud also makes clear (Avodah Zara 15b) that there are some people to whom you may not sell a weapon, nor even give them equipment that goes with the weapon. Because some people cannot be trusted to be responsible with guns.

Speaking of responsibility, if you choose to have a weapon in your home, you must do so with the utmost care for the lives of other people. The Talmud in Bava Kamma 46a explains that the command to “not bring blood upon your house” (Deuteronomy 22:8) applies to many dangerous things that you may have to guard your house, such as a vicious dog.

Finally, the Rabbis teach that weapons are not “cool” in Shabbat 63a. They are not ornaments and toys, they are things that kill and bring us further away from the second vision of Isaiah, the one in chapter 2. The Rabbis understand that weapons at best are necessary evils. We look forward to the time when people “shall beat their swords into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks.”

I want to close by telling you that having sensible gun laws is a religious issue.

To pray for things that are impossible are what the rabbis call a "bracha levatala", an empty blessing, a taking of God's name in vain. Do not say your prayers and do not send your thoughts if they are unaccompanied by actions.

Join up organizations such as Moms Demand Action on Gun Control, Everytown for Gun Safety, Coalition to Stop Gun Violence and the Brady Campaign. Joining these groups and contacting Congress has never been easier. You can do so online in minutes.

We have to put pressure on law-makers and we have to vote for those who are not receiving their money and their orders from the gun lobby.

It is not enough as an American citizen to simply pay taxes, vote every few years, and show up for jury duty - democracy demands participation. We need passion and engagement.

There are places selling for 150 dollars bullet proof backpacks - that do not save a child against a AK-15, just against a regular bullet. That there is a market for that, that we are afraid enough to wonder if we should get one of those, is unacceptable.

Our children are doing lockdown drills in their schools, including here at B'nai Israel. I think this is unacceptable.

That people cannot go to a Walmart, to a bar or to a Garlic Festival, of all things, safely, without being afraid, ein macharid, is unacceptable.

I hope you will dedicate this week and your actions to do something about it. Amen.

Statistics on Guns:

https://www.bradyunited.org/key-statistics

On general about guns and culture in the US:

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/10/2/16399418/us-gun-violence-statistics-maps-charts

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-41488081