Unity in Diversity

Unity in Diversity
| Rabbi Max Nussbaum

There seems to be confusion about the ideal of national unity on the one hand and religio-cultural diversity on the other. There are apparently some who feel that there is a discrepancy between the idea of the unity of the American nation and the religious differences within our American people. I believe—and here the National Conference of Christians and Jews completely concurs—that this approach is entirely wrong.

The American nation is composed of a multitude of churches and synagogues, of a large number of denominations and cultural backgrounds. The question of their existence doesn’t have to be raised within the confines of our discussion this morning, because neither you nor I would like to change the situation even if we could. The Catholic Church, the Protestant Church and the Synagogue are here to stay. The sooner one learns this truism the better. It isn’t up to us to investigate another’s truth. There are theologians who specialize in this field. But that doesn’t concern us. A specific religion is an approach of a specific group to God, and indicates a certain philosophy of life. It isn’t a matter of “investigating,” like in physics or in chemistry. Each one of our religions has its own approach to what it considers the truth, according to its own “weltanschauung.”

If uniformity would be the American ideal, it would be almost frightening, because that would mean that on this American continent we have not created a new experiment in human relationship, but simply preceded Hitler by preaching what the Germans called “Gleichschaltung,” which means a uniformity of a nation, goose-stepping to the same order, thinking alike and worshipping alike, with a younger generation imitating the “fuehrer” in blind faith, and thus creating a society of robots. I do not believe that any American with any sense of responsibility would advocate such an ideal. Here a choice has to be made between uniformity and diversity. The National Conference, and I fully concur, believes in the ideal of religio-cultural diversity within national unity. It has always stood for the ideal that “to be an American means the right to be different.” It is important to reaffirm this faith in these critical days.

There is a second point, closely related to the one I have just discussed, which needs analysis and clarification. There are people who, for some unknown reasons, entertain the opinion that in order to give minorities human rights, the smaller groups have to give up their religio-cultural background in exchange. This, too, is one of the frightening aspects of the thinking of our generation. The religio-cultural groups within our nation, large or small, are an integral part of the American people. Their cultural and religious background is their own province, and it is for the ideal of freedom of worship that the overwhelming majority of them came to the United States in the first place. None has the right to ask them to sell out a heritage for which they suffered, in order to build a new life on this continent. It is a completely preposterous idea to expect of an individual to sell his soul in order to buy human rights. “Selling” and “buying” is entirely unrelated to this subject. Human rights are not “bestowed” upon individuals or groups because of special graces. It is a fundamental principle of democracy that human beings should be free and should have rights. It is not a “gift,” made by a monarch to his subordinates. We still live in a free society, and I hope that we are going to continue it for centuries to come. To have one American say to another “sell me your differences and I will give you your rights” is so low a level, that I believe the overwhelming majority of our people would reject it with distaste. Deeply ingrained in the soul of the American people is the basic belief that all men are created equal, and have equal rights to freedom and justice.

There is, finally, a third and last point, which may even overshadow the first two subjects under discussion. It goes to the very roots of our responsibility in the strained times in which we live.

With all the differences between religions, that do exist and should not be overlooked, there are certain fundamental ideals which are common to all of them. Justice is one of them, and so are mercy, and fair play, and decency in human relations. Beyond the divergencies of a ritual or a hymnal or a prayer book or a ceremony, these social ideals are basic to all classical religions. Unfortunately for our generation, the emphasis on these social ideals has, at its best, become a matter of the National Conference of Christians and Jews, or of a sermon of the Priest, the Minister or the Rabbi on Sunday morning or Friday evening. It has become a matter of phrases and formulations, of statements and high-sounding words, which have lost their meaning in the daily lives of our laity. I know that what I am going to say now will be most unpopular, but I cannot help but stress the point, that if you listen to a sermon on the topic of “love your neighbor as yourself" on Friday evening or Sunday morning, and do not rent an apartment to a Negro on Monday afternoon, you are guilty of religious hypocrisy, and religion forfeits its position. The test of religion, my friends, is not so much in your going to Synagogue or Church, but in the influence which the weekend services exert on your daily lives on Mondays and Tuesdays. This is the central point of our discussion or it ought to be the one: Our generation must take religion very seriously, if it wants to survive. And the test of how seriously you take your own religion, can only be measured by your habits of discrimination and attitudes of prejudice in your deeds and in your actions, and in your relationship to human beings in your daily lives. If religion doesn’t accomplish this, it has lost its importance. If you don’t live according to its precepts, you have never been religious, though vou went through the motions of it. This conception has to come out of this Institute in full clarity. If we have learned nothing else but this, we have accomplished much this morning. Some months ago, I came across a Chinese word of wisdom, which is breathtaking in its truth. A wise Chinese, says the story, should always pass each word he utters through three golden gates. Before he utters a word he should ask himself “Is it true?” If the answer is yes, he should pass his words through the second golden gate and ask himself “Is it necessary?” And, concludes the tale, before he utters the word, let him pass it through a final and third golden gate, and ask himself, “Is it kind?” By doing this, one will omit many difficulties, says the tale, and even find out that sometimes a word is true, but isn’t necessary, and sometimes it may be necessary, but not kind. Only if a word can pass through all three golden gates should one utter it.

I am saying this to you, my friends, because it is a good image to sum up our discussion. Before you utter such words as “they,” “the Jews,” “the Catholics,” “the Negroes,” “the Mexicans,” try and pass the word through the first golden gate, called “is it true,” and you will easily learn how much of malicious gossip can be eliminated. And when you have done this, and you still have something to say, ask yourself whether there is any need for it and whether it is necessary. Eighty per cent of the scandal and the prejudices would be eradicated if you would constantly ask yourself “is it necessary” to say that particular word. And finally, if you would only remember to be on guard and to ask yourself “is it kind to say it”—in other words: does it make for better human relations, for a better America, for a sounder world? If you would do all this you would easily discover how much we could accomplish with our daily lives in the building of God’s Kingdom of human brotherhood, which is not only the basis of religion, but the source from which we and future generations will derive happiness.