The Inside Should Match the Outside, For People and Nations©
Topics include: Amnesty UK’s statement on Israel and Apartheid and the 2022 Winter Olympics and Chinese treatment of the Uyghurs
Rabbi David Baum
Parashat Terumah 2022/5782
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I read an interesting story this past week about the newest and hottest celebrity in New York over the past couple of weeks. This new celebrity is so wealthy, that the clothing they wore for a stroll in Central Park is estimated to be worth $11.7 million dollars. Their outfit was so expensive that they had their own security detail surrounding them in the park.
This celebrity doesn’t have a name though, and I don’t mean that their name is a symbol like late musical artist Prince did when he changed his name to a symbol.
This celebrity isn’t actually a person, rather, it is a 24 karat solid gold cube. This week, in New York City, German artist Niclas Castello brought his latest creation, a 410-pound glimmering work of art to Central Park. But Central Park was just the cube’s first outing because later that evening, the Cube went to an exclusive downtown dinner where numerous celebrities could dine with the newest and hottest influencer of New York.
This is not the introduction to some elaborate and terrible joke; this actually happened this week. The gold cube, or block, was a promotion for the artists’s upcoming crypto currency project. He said, “it will be the first Coin in history to achieve its level of recognition through a unique, physical artwork,” bringing the worlds of crypto and traditional art together. Of course, the artist is also advertising a new NFT, non-fungible token, which will be sold later this month on auction.
The reaction to the newest and hottest celebrity in New York was as cold as the weather this week up north, especially when people learned that this so called solid gold cube was actually hollow on the inside.
Of course, the cube being hollow on the inside wasn’t what people were upset about. Some said it was a metaphor for crypto currency, a technology that promises to change the world but doesn’t actually deliver anything. Others pointed out that there were 125 unhoused people living in Central Park, and four days prior to the cube taking its place in Central Park, a person was found dead just a half mile away.
I bring this up because this week’s parashah has a similar story: a piece of gold is placed in the middle of the camp, the center of the community. In our case, it is the Mishkan, but more specifically, the Ark of the Covenant. Here is how it is described:
וְצִפִּיתָ אֹתוֹ זָהָב טָהוֹר מִבַּיִת וּמִחוּץ תְּצַפֶּנּוּ וְעָשִׂיתָ עָלָיו זֵר זָהָב סָבִיב׃
Overlay it with pure gold—overlay it inside and out—and make upon it a gold molding round about. (Exodus 25:11)
The commentators ask an interesting question that many asked about the cube: why would they have made it gold on the inside if only one person, the High Priest, would actually see it?
We find an answer to this question in the Talmud.
״מִבַּיִת וּמִחוּץ תְּצַפֶּנּוּ״. אָמַר רָבָא: כׇּל תַּלְמִיד חָכָם שֶׁאֵין תּוֹכוֹ כְּבָרוֹ — אֵינוֹ תַּלְמִיד חָכָם.
The verse states concerning the Ark: “From within and from without you shall cover it” (Exodus 25:11). Rava said: This alludes to the idea that any Torah scholar whose inside is not like his outside, i.e., whose outward expression of righteousness is insincere, is not to be considered a Torah scholar.
Those words, Tocho K’Baro, the inside should match the outside, is the lesson that was sent to Bnai Israel on that day until today.
This is a teaching that might be more relevant today than it was even when it was taught. If you have a social media outlet, you have a choice on what you show to the world. We all curate a certain image online, whereas the truth of what happens inside might be far different. Sometimes, what we show to the world are performative acts, but in secret, we act contrary. For example, Boris Johnson is now in hot water because while he outlawed public gatherings for Covid, he threw secret elaborate parties in the Prime Minister’s residences.
Each one of us struggles with authenticity, what we show to the world and how we internalize it in our lives.
But this timeless lesson, tocho k’baro, the inside should match the outside, can also be applied to nations.
This week, Amnesty UK, a wing of Amnesty International, released a report charging Israel, both in Israel proper and the disputed territories, of apartheid. The report is titled: “ISRAEL'S APARTHEID AGAINST PALESTINIANS: A LOOK INTO DECADES OF OPPRESSION AND DOMINATION”
Before we go on, I think it's important to define the term apartheid. I’ll use Amnesty’s definition:
The term “apartheid” was originally used to refer to a political system in South Africa which explicitly enforced racial segregation, and the domination and oppression of one racial group by another. Apartheid can best be understood as a system of prolonged and cruel discriminatory treatment by one racial group of members of another with the intention to control the second racial group.”
The problem is, this conflict isn’t about race. As we Whoopi Goldberg still hasn’t learned, Jews aren’t a race, and neither are Palestinians.
I have sent everyone the Conservative movement’s statement against this report, and have printed copies here, I advise you all read it, but here’s the first paragraph:
We reject Amnesty International's outrageously dishonest claims and are deeply disturbed by the lies, obvious biases, and use of material from anti-Israel organizations to prepare its unfair report on Israel, which at the same time erroneously disregards and downplays the oppression and suffering of minority communities under the apartheid system in South Africa,” say leaders of the RA and USCJ speaking together.
The letter goes on to talk about Arab involvement in the state, comparing it to the South African regime that enforced segregation, and the dehumanization of citizens in law and practice. The letter states:
“It’s one thing to criticize Israel but it's quite another to attempt to knowingly mislead the world with defamatory, antisemitic language, which implicitly calls Israel a racist state and puts lives at risk. Let us not conflate the two.”
The letter points out the double standard that the only Jewish state in the world is held to, and the dangers that this double standard will have for Jews around the world, not just in Israel.
What I found interesting was, where’s the report on China?
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| Photo by Vytautas Dranginis on Unsplash |
But, you wouldn’t know that by watching the opening ceremonies. At one point, they trotted out a Uyghur cross-country skier named Dinigeer Yilamujiang to be one of two Chinese athletes to light the Olympic caldron. A journalist quipped: “China must have thought it was so smart: That’ll show the West we don’t kill and torture the Uyghurs, we love them so much we’ll let one of them light the caldron.”
But this week, Amnesty UK decided to give China a pass on their human rights abuses. It’s not just them, but most of the world, including athletes, music and movie stars.
I couldn’t help but recall the 1936 Berlin Olympic games. In August 1936, the Nazi regime tried to camouflage its violent racist policies while it hosted the Summer Olympics. Most anti-Jewish signs were temporarily removed and newspapers toned down their harsh rhetoric, in line with directives from the Propaganda Ministry, headed by Joseph Goebbels. Thus, the regime exploited the Olympic Games to present foreign spectators and journalists with a false image of a peaceful, tolerant Germany.
As a token gesture to placate international opinion, German authorities allowed the star fencer Helene Mayer to represent Germany at the Olympic Games in Berlin. Mayer was viewed as a “non-Aryan” because her father was Jewish. She won a silver medal in women's individual fencing and, like all other medalists for Germany, gave the Nazi salute on the podium. No other Jewish athlete competed for Germany in the Summer Games.
The U.S. Holocaust Memorial website comments:
With the conclusion of the Games, Germany's expansionist policies and the persecution of Jews and other "enemies of the state" accelerated, culminating in the Holocaust.
Authoritarian governments are like the golden cube in Central Park. They promise most of you a perfect world where you will all be rich, but don’t look inside! Pay no attention to the people who are starving and freezing, just look at the gold.
As Jews, we know better than this. As Rava taught us, Tocho K’Baro - the inside should match the outside.
Israel has a lot of work to do in human rights, so does America for that matter, but it pales in comparison to China and other authoritarian regimes.
The problem is, the world is silent when it comes to China, but quite the opposite when it comes to Israel.
So what can we do?
First, we cannot reflexively deny humans rights abuses by Israel or America. Liberal democracies not only encourage, but demand that our governments are held to a high standard. However, have to learn the nuances of these incidences, and give our tochecha, our criticisms, with love.
In the cases where Israel is unfairly targeted, we must stand up and make our voice heard.
You can sign a letter calling on the UN Secretary-General to end the biased targeting of Israel
https://form.jotform.com/220324936989973
You can also make the plight of the Ugyihur people known to the world, especially during the Winter Olympics. Imagine if the world stood up for the Jews during the 1936 Olympic games in Berlin?
Please join the RAC and the Uyghur American Association for “If Not Now, When? Uplifting Uyghur Voices” on February 14 at 6 pm on Zoom. Listen to a survivor’s testimony and learn more about what’s happening to the Uyghurs and what you can do to help.
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