‘The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference.’ That’s a lesson we all must learn

(Editor’s note: Rabbi Bloom recently gave this speech and is sharing it with his readers.)

Thanks to my colleagues who are leading this communitywide interfaith service at the historic Queens Chapel AME Church, especially its spiritual leader Rev. Edward Alston. I was asked to speak on the theme, “Only love can conquer hate.” I will address this in a different way. Most would say that the opposite of love is hate. I tend to follow a different pathway, which is what I learned from my teacher Elie Wiesel, Holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace prize recipient.

He wrote back in 1985, “The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it’s indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it’s indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it’s indifference.”

I keep learning this lesson over and over again in my travels and life experiences. I just returned from conducting a wedding in Oklahoma City. I stopped by the memorial museum to commemorate the bombing of over 160 men, women and children, planned and executed by three American homegrown terrorists on April 19, 1995. I witnessed there the artfully done exhibits, including the outdoor exhibition of 168 chairs in multiple rows which symbolized the people who lost their lives.

All of these indoor and outdoor exhibitions told the horrific and heroic stories of the folks that made a huge difference by saving lives as well as the capture and prosecution of Timothy McVeigh, Michael Fortier and Terry Nichols for this horrific crime. The video clips of the children who died or were injured that day who were playing in the daycare center of the former Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building still bring tears to the eyes of the visitors to the center.

Whether we are visiting churches or synagogues or any public museums and memorials from hate crimes that took lives, it is incumbent upon us to remember that the initial step is the fight against indifference.

Love is critical and how each religion defines its meaning uses the love of humanity and God to defeat hatred, which we all recognize as critical toward achieving a just and peaceful society. But can we break the plague of the silence of indifference? Can we disturb the routine of life and teach our community that when hate crimes happen it is everyone’s business?

These years we continue to witness ongoing assaults against houses of worship from our own citizens. We see that the enemy inside our own society is the most dangerous compared to the foreign adversary. Yes, we all need to get a message of love and tolerance out to our communities. Our challenge is also to diminish indifference in people to someone else’s suffering. I pray that we can teach that being neutral toward hate or toward love is not acceptable in our world today.

Are religions and clergy exempt from helping out victims from other religions who suffer hate crimes? Do our Scriptures somehow give us a pass as long as hate doesn’t directly impact us? Dr. King understood this concept well enough when he wrote, ”It may well be that we will have to repent in this generation, not merely for the vitriolic words and the violent actions of the bad people who would bomb a church in Birmingham, Alabama, but for the appalling silence and indifference of the good people who sit around and say wait on time.”

This is why I am refocusing on the theme of “Only love can conquer hate.” I suggest an additional theme, “Only by opposing indifference can love defeat hate.”

All races and religions have the opportunity and challenge to transform indifference to an affirmation of activism for the world we envision for our children and grandchildren.

It is not about only attending ceremonies. Indifference is a drug that makes us feel a spiritual lethargy which must resist. As Dr. King said, “History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the vitriolic words and the violent actions of the bad people, but the appalling silence and indifference of the good. Our generation will have to repent not only for the words and actions of the children of darkness but also for the fears and apathy of the children of light.”

May our actions lead us into the light of God’s loving embrace and into the embrace of seekers of truth and justice.