After Losing His Mother to Racial Violence, a Rabbi Speaks of Repairing a Fractured Nation

This has been a tumultuous time for our country. Innocent deaths, violent protests and a heightened sense of racial tension threaten to divide our nation. There seems to be no end to the steady widening of our racial disparity.

As a religious leader at the University of Missouri, students turn to me for guidance and counsel. They seek advice into repairing past damage and direction into forging a more tolerant path forward. There is no one correct stance, one sure approach, yet I feel that my life experiences—both as a religious representative and a personal victim of racial violence—have provided me with invaluable insight into repairing a fractured society.

I grew up in the Crown Heights of the 1990s, an ethnically diverse Brooklyn neighborhood, which during the beginning of that decade experienced unprecedented levels of racial tension. The 1991 riots are etched into my childhood memories, my upbringing being wrought with feelings of agitation and unrest. It was only months later, on Feb. 6, 1992, that, as a 5-year-old returning home from elementary school, I was informed of the murder of my mother by an African-American man in an act of cruel hatred and bitter violence.

How was I to move forward—to maintain my inborn respect for all of mankind—after experiencing firsthand the human cruelty that had torn my innocent life apart?

The following is my take on the matter, in addition to the insight I have gained from my own life experiences.

The issues facing our community are reflective of a failing in modern society at large: the inability to treat a person of a different background, race, religion or opinion with an equal degree of respect.

Contemporary sociology has turned our perspective of humanity into a rigid caste structure, where an individual’s positioning in the societal hierarchy is determined by a variety of man-deemed-important factors, the majority of which are beyond the control or choice of the individual they are used to classify.

A dramatic shift in perspective is necessary to counter such ingrained divides.

The biblical reasoning against harming one’s fellow—whether physically, emotionally or psychologically—is given as: “For in the image of G‑d He made man.”

Man’s value is not, as modern society is so wont to purport, a product of their social status; nor is man’s value a product of their upbringing, religion or skin color. Man’s value is a result of his being created in the image of G‑d, the knowledge of which suffuses his being with an inherent sense of worthiness and respect. The stronger we identify with this G‑dly portrayal of human import, the greater our appreciation and tolerance for others will become, even for those with whom, externally, we may appear to differ.

This outlook on humanity, which comforted me as I grew up motherless, was communicated to me by my own mentor and teacher, the Rebbe—Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson—whose passing was commemorated this year on July 9. The Rebbe’s entire being embodied the values prescribed by the Torah, his life wholly dedicated to promoting a greater awareness of G‑d, love and respect for a fellow human being, and to building a better world for all.

The Rebbe, too, had firsthand experience of the extent of human depravity: He lost his brother to the Nazis and his father to Soviet persecution. Notwithstanding the brutality he was personally dealt, the Rebbe held a conviction regarding the innate nature of man that remained resolute—namely, that it was the image of G‑d, in all of its purity, that defined the core of human existence.

The Rebbe did not hide his optimistic perspective, and he used every opportunity to impress his view upon others. In an encounter with David Dinkins, New York City’s first African-American mayor, the Rebbe expressed his hopeful dream that “in the near future, the ‘melting-pot’ [of America] will be so active that it will not be necessary to underline every time [when speaking of others], ‘They are Black’, ‘They are White’, ‘They are Hispanic,’ because they are no different. All of them are created by the same G‑d and created for the same purpose, to add to all good things around them.”

Following the 1991 riots—which came after a tragic motor accident that resulted in the death of a young African-American boy and led to the horrific murder of a Jewish student by a mob of young African-American men—the Rebbe expressed his hope to Mayor Dinkins that “the mayor would be able to bring peace to the city.” The Mayor added, “to both sides.” Which the Rebbe then corrected, explaining: “We are not two sides; we are one side. We are one people living in one city under one administration and under one G‑d. May G‑d protect the police and all the people of the city.”

In the face of the tragic murder of one of his students and followers, the Rebbe responded not by finger-pointing and culture-blaming. His response was a call to unite, to highlight our similarities over our differences and to draw upon our shared mission in bringing otherwise disparate communities together.

As a 5-year-old boy who had experienced pain that no one should have to know of, this optimistic perspective on humanity served as a salve for my wounds. The Rebbe’s message helped me maintain my respect towards others despite the grief I had suffered at their hands, and taught me to view each individual as an individual, as G‑d’s unique gift to this world.

This outlook also chartered the course of my future, serving as a beacon of light in all my life endeavors. It would become my mission, I decided, to promote a universal message of peace, tolerance and mutual respect. Only by dedicating myself to such a worthy message would I find solace in my loss, and it is only such a worthy cause that could perpetuate my mother’s legacy.

In my work at Mizzou, I strive to share this message of a collective responsibility, shared by all of humankind, towards building a better world, regardless of one’s upbringing, religion or race.

Our motto of “In G‑d we trust” is not a replacement of “E Pluribus Unum”; it is its justification and rationale. “From many” can come “one” when society will appreciate that we are all, in truth, “one nation under one G‑d.”

Rabbi Avraham Lapine is co-director of Chabad at MU in Columbia, Mo.