Pray for My Father

On Monday, August 22, I joined with a group of rabbis for a condolence call.  It was the first condolence call I'd paid to a Muslim family. 

On August 13, Maulama Akonjee, an imam in the Bangladeshi community in Ozone Park, was shot and killed, along with his associate, Thara Uddin, while walking home from religious services dressed in religious garb.

The New York Board of Rabbis (NYBR), which I serve as an officer, contacted the family and asked if they could bring a group of clergy – rabbis and Christian clergy as well – to offer condolences, and the family agreed.

So I drove to the family’s house and stood outside with the other clergy until we were ushered in.  We sat in the living room.  Two of the imam’s sons came out to sit with us, accompanied by other family members, one of whom helped with translation.  (The imam’s sons came to New York from Bangladesh just a few years ago and their English is not yet fully fluent.)

The sons sat quietly as several of the clergy, including NYBR Executive Director Rabbi Joe Potasnik, spoke.   When asked, the sons told a bit about their father – that he was a peaceful man, that he wanted his community to commit themselves to regular prayer and good deeds.

Rabbi Joe Potasnik with a group of clergy at the Akonjee home

A representative from the NYPD, a Muslim, chanted verses in Arabic that are traditionally recited in a house of mourning.  Rabbi Angela Warnick Buchdahl, senior rabbi of Central Synagogue in Manhattan and also a cantor, led us in the singing of the 23^rd psalm.  Rabbi Avi Weiss of the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale offered a blessing to the imam’s sons.   The oldest son said it was the first time he had spoken with a group of Jews. 

As we were about to leave, we each had the opportunity to offer personal condolences to the sons.  I said a few words to the oldest son.  He offered me a hug and he said quietly, “pray for my father.”

The oldest son is 23, the second oldest, who had to leave college to help with the family, is 21.  We were told their ages during the condolence visit, but only later, as I was thinking about the visit, did I make a personal connection – that they are the same ages as two of my sons.

Unfortunately we live in a world where politics and religion are eclipsing basic human truths. 

We are concerned about complex questions of freedom and coercion on the streets, parks and beaches of Europe.  We are trying to determine how to help refugees in dire straits without compromising our security.

But I wonder - has it become nearly impossible for us to look beyond the kippa, beyond the habit, beyond the hijab, beyond the burka and the burkini, to see human beings, the vast majority of whom, regardless of their faith, are looking to leave peacefully and deserve to be able to raise families peacefully and to walk the streets without being assaulted and killed?

Has it become difficult for us to remember that the children of a Bangladeshi imam, living in Ozone Park, Queens, are young people trying to find their way as emerging adults and to bring pride to their families?  Young people who now have to figure out how to carry on without their father?

We must participate in the larger conversations about religion and society, we must worry about the challenges facing Europe, we must have serious conversation about the impact of religion on community throughout the United States.

But in all of that discourse, in all of that back-and-forth, we can't forget that there are real people involved, real people who want to live their lives imbued with their sacred traditions,  who deserve to walk the streets safely,  who want us to pray for them and would be willing to pray for us. 

The more we allow rhetoric to eclipse humanity, the more we allow ourselves to assume we know what another person thinks or feels based on what he or she is wearing and how he or she worships, the less likely we are to ever make progress toward strengthening communities that are diverse, peaceful and secure.  

When Moses spoke to the Israelites, as recorded in parashat ekev, he urged them to be strong and to protect themselves, to be prepared to enter the land and to fight courageously with the nations there.  In the midst of that pep-talk, however,  Moses also told the people ומלתם את ערלת לבבכם umal’tem et orlat levavchem.  Cut away the thickening of your hearts.  Keep your hearts sensitive; don't become too hardened.

Part of keeping our hearts appropriately sensitive is allowing our hearts to be present one person to another, not to close ourselves off because of what we assume we know about someone else.  Not to allow the political to eclipse the human.

Eleanor Roosevelt said the following about human rights – I’ve quoted it before, and it bears quoting again:

“Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home - so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person; the neighborhood he lives in; the school or college he attends; the factory, farm, or office where he works. Such are the places where every man, woman, and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerted citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world.”

The broadest, most universal questions involve real people, right here, right now.

As discussions of national and international policy continue around the question of who is in and who is out, and what do certain outfits signify, I will remember the softly spoken request of a young man, exactly the same age as my middle son, whose father was doing the same kind of work that I do before he and his associate were shot down. 

Pray for my father.  I will pray for Maulama Akonjee and Thara Uddin.  I will pray for their families. I will pray for our ability to see beneath the clothing to the human being. I will pray that we find a way to remain vigilant and also sensitive, just as Moses asked of us. I will pray that we will all have the courage to protect when we need to protect, to hug when we need to hug, the wisdom to know the difference.  

Originally shared at Temple Israel of Great Neck on August 27, 2016