Human face reflects lessons of history

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By Times Staff | Thursday, May 08, 2008 |

The human face. It is what Rabbi Michael Samuel points to in today’s guest column as the most vivid reminder that we all share the same human traits. “Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer,” as William Shakespeare wrote in “The Merchant of Venice.”

Today begins the weeklong annual Quad-City Holocaust Remembrance. It is a time not only to remember the mistakes of our forebears, but to consider how well we have learned the lessons of history.

The past has taught us that colleagues can turn into scapegoats when hard times pressure leaders to place blame. It has instructed us in the methods by which individual merit is obscured by misconceptions and stereotypes. It has exposed how willfully ignorant people can be when a climate of fear pre-empts public outcry.

History has also tutored us in the strength of the human spirit to refuse to capitulate to terror and domination. It has divulged the power of one person’s story to open the minds and hearts of millions. It has shown us it is possible to find friends among our enemies if we take the risk of looking.

Looking into each other’s faces — the eyes, mouth, nose, ears we all share.

“If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die?” continues Shakespeare’s famous passage.

“And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that.”

The most important lesson the school of history has to offer goes back to the dawn of humanity. It is the golden rule, karma, the principle of reciprocity: Treat others as you would be treated.

We struggle still to internalize this message, even though history has shown the ugliness, the destructiveness that the reciprocity of revenge, anger and hatred can incur.

Take time this week to look at the faces around you. Tell your story and listen to others. Today we create the lessons future generations will learn.

Quad-City Holocaust Remembrance Events

Yom HaShoah Service: 7 p.m. today, Tri-City Jewish Center, 2715 30th St., Rock Island

Geifman Lecture: Eva Schloss:

7 p.m. Monday, Wallenberg Hall, Augustana College

‘And Then They Came for Me’: 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Davenport North High School, 626 W. 53rd St., Davenport; 7 p.m. Friday, Alleman High School, 1103 40th St., Rock Island

Hope for Humanity Award

Congratulations to Alan Egly. Today he receives the Richard A. Swanson Hope for Humanity Award, presented by the Quad-Cities Yom HaShoah Holocaust Remembrance Committee.

In addition to his role as executive director of the Doris & Victor Day Foundation, the committee cited Egly’s involvement in establishing the Community Resources Corporation, the Holocaust Education Committee of the Rauch Family Foundation and the Association of Small Foundations as a few of the good works he has done in the Quad-Cities.

Egly will receive the award at the Yom HaShoah Service, 7 p.m. today at the Tri-City Jewish Center.