Meditation

“I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.”

– Elie Wiesel





We must always take sides… Being Switzerland, neutral, silent, passive observer, is wrong. Elie Wiesel was a Holocaust survivor. And he has spent his life remembering… not only remembering, but speaking out against destruction, against hatred, genocide, oppression.

Does God always take sides? And if this is the case, how are we to address issues like immigration, Islam, etc. – the hot button issues of our time – ? The Islamic center in Manhattan has a right to build their center, do they not? Do they have a right to buy the building and create a center, free from government interference? Are people reacting out of fear? Anger? Because they don’t like this idea, does this mean they do not have a right to do this?



I remember when I was a young Intelligence Officer, during my first school, they told us Americans don’t torture – why? For a few reasons: 1- torture is ineffective, people will say anything you want them to say under torture, even if it’s a lie. And 2- we’re Americans! We just don’t torture. There was a reputation around the world, that you could surrender to Americans, they would treat you humanely.

We hold up our rights, our constitution, even if we don’t happen to agree with who or what they are protecting. Let’s never forget that being American stood for this for many, many generations! We as a people stood up for rights, whether we agreed with the protected people or speech… or not. And our borders were open to all freedom-loving people.



I’m not saying we should be unwise in our politics, but that we should not let our emotions trump the freedoms on which we have been standing for over two hundred years. Don’t let fear win! There are problems we have to address for sure! And we must work on them, together.

But don’t let anxiety about the future (or the present) cause this country to extinguish the light it has fought to hold up for so long!



Elie Wiesel is reminding us to not be silent, to stand up for rights, even if it’s distasteful to us… especially if it’s distasteful to us.