In face of violence, we should be our brother’s keeper

I was standing amid forty-four thousand people at Baltimore’s Camden Yards last weekend, about to sing the National Anthem, when the announcer asked for a moment of silence for the loss of life in Louisiana, Minnesota and Texas. He called for national unity and asked that we stand still for about 20 seconds before the Star Spangled Banner began.

Did we listen?

Did we pray?

Did these events of violence and death matter to us as we waited for the baseball game to begin?

Surely the citizens of Baltimore know the pain of the racial divide between the African American community and the police. The city has seen the trajectory of rage and violence inflame public protest after the death of Freddy Gray. Now, in Dallas, it is the police who are under attack, suddenly moving from being oppressors to being victims.

I think back to the Torah and the story of Cain. We don’t know exactly why he hated Abel, but might we infer he was simply resentful of his brother’s success?

Despite the choices God gives Cain, with the hope that he could benefit by making peace with Abel, Cain rises up to murder his brother. God asks Cain “Where is Abel?” and Cain immediately denies knowing where his brother is. Moreover, he exhibits no interest in knowing where Abel might be. “Am I my brother’s keeper?” he asks.

Cain never responds to God’s question. All he cares about, when God expels him with a mark on his forehead, is that God will give him a chance to live and carry on his life without being harassed by others. So God exiles him to the land of Nod, east of Eden.

As Americans can we feel the voices in our bones, from the cries of the police officers slain and the mourning of their loved ones, just because a man wanted to kill white cops?

As Americans, can we feel the cry of those African Americans who have been victims of police violence?

Is Cain only a criminal because he murdered his brother, or because he didn’t care what happened to him? Isn’t his refusal to feel any responsibility for his brother a moral abdication?

There are good and bad in every group and society, including those who serve us diligently every day. Do not generalize and stereotype any group. The real culprit is the hatred that creeps into our moral bloodstream and poisons everything we do by contaminating our morality and self respect.

We need more than a baseball game’s moment of silence to unify us and to remember that life is sacred and that the taking of life is an immoral and indefensible act.

Are we our brother’s and sister’s keepers? The spiritual dimension of this problem cannot be disconnected from the moral dimension. Today, because of the power of social media, we become witnesses to the actual crimes. So the question of whether are we our brother’s keeper is on the line.

God never directly answered Cain’s rhetorical question.

Shouldn’t we?

In referring to the duty that Holocaust survivors have to testify to what they saw, the late Elie Wiesel wrote, “For the survivor who chooses to testify, it is clear: his duty is to bear witness for the dead and for the living. He has no right to deprive future generations of a past that belongs to our collective memory. To forget would be not only dangerous but offensive; to forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time.”

Are we not also obliged to remember what we have seen in Dallas as well as in Baton Rouge and Minneapolis?

Are we also duty bound to remember those who lost their lives, to prevent these events from becoming a forgotten memory for future generations?

We are responsible for protecting the public good, including the safety of the police, because they risk their lives to serve and protect us. We are responsible for protecting the lives of citizens who are at risk - because of race or for any other reason - of becoming targets for violence. Is that not our moral imperative at this hour?

Wiesel, my teacher, wrote,“We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere. When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant. Wherever men and women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must - at that moment - become the center of the universe.”

We are all witnesses as Americans for the living and the dead, so let us not forget them but remember that we are our brother’s keeper.

This story was originally published July 12, 2016 at 6:55 AM with the headline "In face of violence, we should be our brother’s keeper."