The Jewish Jesus: Revelation, Reflection, Reclamation

Before Whom Do We Stand?

315 Before Whom Do We Stand? Henry F. Knight Know before whom you are standing when you pray. (Berachot 28b) And the Sovereign will answer them: “Truly I tell you, just at I you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family you did it to me. (Matt. 25:40) But Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me and do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the rule and realm of heaven belongs. (Matt. 19: 14) “You’re wrong,” Pedro said. “The way is no less important than the goal. He who thinks about God, forgetting man, runs the risk of mistaking his goal: God may be your next door neighbor.” Elie Wiesel, Town Beyond the Wall. Before whom do we stand?1 After the Holocaust that question, echoing the instructions of Rabbi Eliezer to his disciples, that they know the One before whom they stand when they pray, calls Jews and Christians to reexamine their understandings of each other and of their own grounding traditions. In the reflections that follow, I explore this question, particularly as it is refracted through artist Samuel Bak’s iconic image of the Warsaw Ghetto Boy 2 and Elie Wiesel’s character , Michael, from Town Beyond the Wall. Bak has captured with his brush the image of his murdered friend’s face and, in multiple renderings, portrayed it in the iconic form of the Warsaw ghetto boy. His painting of Samek as a crucified child puts a face on Rabbi Eliezer’s text that challenges both his tradition and mine. In similar fashion, Elie Wiesel’s story of Michael in Town Beyond the Wall approaches other implications of Rabbi Eliezer’s admonition. As I wrestle with Bak’s image and Wiesel’s stylized story, I am also cognizant of two other texts that represent the confessional ground on which I stand as I undertake this task. 316 hEnry F. KnIGhT Those texts, both from the Gospel of Matthew, are familiar to Christians and non-Christians alike. One expresses how Jesus identifies with the other in his life and expresses the significance of his relationship even to the least of others in his and his followers’ lives. The second text represents how Jesus perceives the significance of children in God’s and our ways with the world. I invite my readers to join me in my wrestling as I seek to make sense of these various texts, my place before them, and my place before the Jewish figure who stands at the center of my wounded world. A Wounded Ark and A Defaced Summons One of the artifacts on display at the United States Holocaust Museum in Washington , DC, is a disfigured lintel that once framed the ark of a synagogue in Nenterhausen, Germany. Carved across the top in Hebrew text are the words, Da lifnei mi attah omeyd: Know before whom you stand. The lintel and these words overlook a glass display case that houses Torah scrolls that were defiled during the November pogrom of Kristallnacht. The words are Rabbi Eliezer’s instructions to his students from centuries earlier. They are recorded in the Talmud (Berachoth 28b) and have lived on in Jewish communities throughout the world, linking study with prayer and guiding the lives of Jews of every nationality. These The wounded lintel above a Torah ark from a synagogue in Nentershausen, Germany— damaged during Kristallnacht. Before whom Do we Stand? 317 wounded words invite visitors to the museum to enter into relationship with the human beings who experienced this atrocity. Rabbi Eliezer’s admonition is often carved or painted above the arks in synagogues and temples, marking the space set aside to house the sacred words of Torah. His words continue to reach out across the generations to teach new congregations. Their people face them each time the ark is approached. They greet whoever may be ascending the bima making his or her way to read or to take their place in the community. These words hold, like a Kiddush cup, the responsibilities human beings have to God and one another, the ties that bind us to each other and to all that we honor as sacred in our lives. And those ties, like these words, were betrayed on Kristallnacht. They were desecrated, along with the trampled Torah scrolls in the facing case. Physically, the words...