Mark: Examples of Courage abound throughout the Bible: Daniel demonstrated physical courage when he challenged Goliath; Moses displayed moral courage when he stood before Pharaoh demanding his people’s freedom; Abraham mustered spiritual courage when he debated and argued with God over the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah; Esther discovered hidden courage when she recognized who she was, where she came from and to whom she belonged.
Each of these forms of courage are examples of the varieties of courage we are often called upon to discover and deliver throughout the course of our lives: physical courage, moral courage, spiritual courage, and hidden forms of courage, often buried deep within ourselves and our souls.
Frank, which of these forms of courage do you feel to be the most crucial to display and why? Is there just one, many or all of them?
Frank: Mark, while there is much to be said and written about physical, spiritual, and hidden courage, I am most intrigued about the issue of moral courage. Where does moral courage come from and how is it displayed in the way we live our lives? It seems to me that one can define moral courage as doing the right thing when the right thing is considered controversial, complicated, and based on a variety of ethical and religious elements. It can be defined as the willingness to stand up for what is right based on one’s ethical beliefs and values, even when doing so involves risk, fear, criticism, loss, or personal sacrifice. It means speaking the truth when it is unpopular, defending someone who is being treated unfairly, refusing to participate in wrongdoing, and acting according to conscience despite pressure to conform.
I have an episode in my life which meets these definitions and demonstrates the use of moral courage. It was when I was asked to help our judicial system place a ban on a controversial type of abortion that was being practiced by a small group of physicians in this country.
In 1998 I was asked by four states to defend a law which would ban a type of abortion called “partial birth abortion”, I knew that if I accepted that task, I would be criticized for defending a law which would curtail a woman’s right to choose during late stages in pregnancy. Despite being a strong pro-choice advocate for abortion rights, I had been an out- spoken critic of performing an abortion after a fetus had reached a gestational age at which it had a reasonable chance of survival outside the womb which at the time was 24 weeks of pregnancy and referred to as a late term abortion. The procedure of partial birth abortion represented infanticide more than anything else with a fetus usually more than 24 weeks of gestational age. Even the Talmud had a passage that condemned this type of procedure. While there were only a limited number of these procedures performed each year, many lawmakers throughout the country wanted to ban this procedure. Abortions had certain limits and this was one of those limitations I could support.
As expected, many of my peers severely criticized me, yet I felt that I was doing the right thing. My testimony was presented to the United States Supreme Court and eventually, a ban on partial birth abortions was upheld. Since that ruling, no woman has suffered medically due to a cessation of this procedure, and a measure of ethical and moral correctness prevailed.
Looking back at this historical event in my life, I am proud of the moral courage that helped me make what I considered to be the right thing to do. The question I have for you Mark, is what causes someone to utilize moral courage and what factors prevent those who fail to display this important form of courage?
Mark: Frank, the question you raised has been asked and answered in two different yet related ways, each profound and compelling. Elie Wiesel, the Holocaust survivor, author, poet, and Nobel peace prize winner, once said: “The opposite of love is not hate, but indifference. To remain silent and indifferent is the greatest sin of all.” Rabbi Yoachim Prinz, the final speaker before Dr. Martin Luther King’s address to those gathered for the March on Washington, offered these words, echoing those delivered by Elie Wiesel: “The most urgent, the most disgraceful, the most shameful and the most tragic problem is silence.”
Both men urged their fellow human beings to find their voice, to stand up for and to stand by their neighbors, defending their rights and freedoms as those equally created in God’s image and therefore worthy of our love and worthy of our protection and our voice. These two individuals reminded us that moral courage
involves taking the risks involved in taking a stand that others may find uncomfortable or unsettling, but that is worthy of articulating and defending.
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I became a Reform rabbi because I was inspired by the moral courage of the rabbis who spoke out during the civil rights era, delivering brave messages from their pulpits, which they knew were right, but which their congregants were not always ready to hear. And yet, they had moral courage to deliver those remarks anyway. They offered the wisdom of the ancient prophets. They were anything but silent or indifferent.
In my decades as a rabbi, I never shied away from those controversial issues of the day. I remember High Holy Day sermons I delivered such as “Can I vote for a black man?” during the Obama campaign; “Is healthcare a right or a privilege?”; and during a nationwide campaign of Islamophobia, “Why do Jews need to defend the rights of religious freedoms of others, including Muslims?” I was often fearful of what the reactions of my congregation would be. As expected, not everyone agreed or was sympathetic to my remarks and some were quite angered by them. A few were furious with my message, and with me. However, I was always proud of having the moral courage to deliver them, and grateful to the congregation for defending freedom of the pulpit. I was proud of finding my voice and my courage to use it.
Frank: Mark, we have both had quite similar experiences with this issue of moral courage and both of us are proud that we acted as we did. Moses’s father-in-law, Jethro gave Moses a standard for legitimate authority which argued that power is not validated by popularity, charisma, or force. It is validated by character. That character is best displayed by elements of moral courage. May we all be blessed with the genetics, nurturing, life experiences, and the wisdom of our faith traditions that bring us to the place where we are able to stand tall and proud as we display our moral courage.
Rabbi Mark Schiftan can be reached at mschiftan@aol.com
Dr. Frank Boehm can be reached at frank.boehm@vumc.org
