Soul writ large

If the state is the soul writ large, as Plato said a mere 2,400 years ago, then we have nothing to worry about, at least in the United States.

I was reminded of this recently after meeting two groups of luminous souls. The first was when I attended a Holocaust remembrance event at the internationally recognized Laboratory Theater in Fort Myers.

Yeah, that Holocaust, and let me recall the numbers so we don’t forget what this little three-syllable word means.

The National World War II Museum in New Orleans defines it this way: “The Holocaust was Nazi Germany’s deliberate, organized, state-sponsored persecution and genocide of approximately six million European Jews. The genocide of the Jews is also sometimes referred to as Shoah, a Hebrew word for ‘catastrophe.’ The Nazis also persecuted other groups, perpetrating a genocide against the Roma (derogatorily called ‘gypsies’) in which more than 250,000 people were murdered, and killing over three million Soviet prisoners of war, nearly two million Poles, over 250,000 people with disabilities, over 1,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses, hundreds of men accused of homosexuality, and other victims.”

Some people, called haters, have been trying to kill other people, called Jews, for a long time. The Nazis didn’t invent the idea.

Robert Hilliard and family friend, Nash Williams ROGER WILLIAMS/FLORIDA WEEKLY

And let’s not forget that roughly 141,000 American troops were killed on the ground, and 42,500 more were killed at sea or in the skies over Nazi land by the Nazis, so they couldn’t complete their extermination or put us in a hole.

And why were the histories of those Americans, each a long-woven family thread sewn into the fabric of our culture, suddenly cut off, never to become part of our futures — the children and grandchildren they would have given us who now do not exist? What contributions might they have made?

Well, in part so I or somebody like me — you, for example — can mouth off in this column or on a street corner or at a diner or anywhere else and say what we think to be true about politics, religion, the food, the county commissioners, or the quality of the neighbor’s music, without being arrested, jailed or shot.

And in part so I could sit in the Lab Theater and stare at a row of men and women one recent evening that included the following: an imam; a rabbi; survivors of the Holocaust who had been children when it happened; an African American who lives near the neighborhood where two young Black teenagers, R.J. Johnson and Milton Wilson, were tortured and lynched by a mob of angry whites 100 years ago this week, on May 24, 1924; and a combat-wounded veteran of World War II.

Born in New York City to immigrant parents and Brooklyn shopkeepers, he staggered out of the Battle of the Bulge and into the end of the war at 19, not only wounded but with frozen feet. Then he managed to save hundreds if not thousands of Jewish refugees — people who somehow survived the Nazi concentration camps — from poor treatment by the Americans and allies. Wandering the roads and near death after the German surrender, they’d been put behind barbed wire with little medicine, poorly clothed, woefully underfed, and ignored.

With another Army private, he pointed to that callous abuse in letters home while sneaking food from the mess hall against orders into one of the nearby camps, known as St. Ottilien. A letter found its way to Washington and to the desk of President Harry Truman, who investigated and ordered then-Allied Commander Gen. Dwight Eisenhower to fix the problem. He did.

Robert Hilliard, now professor emeritus of Emerson College and the author of many books and plays, turns 99 next month, so his soul is still actively inspiring the writ-large United States, as are those of the men and women who appeared with him.

Our strength, our glory, shines in its willing diversity of souls.

From that fact alone, I conclude that the United States is going to be okay. Unfortunately, however, Professor Hilliard is on a European cruise right now with his wife, JoAnn Reese. So, I couldn’t ask him to corroborate my conclusion by offering actual wisdom and good judgment without all my rosy optimism — two qualities I’ve been known to lack on occasion, free speech or not.

But I didn’t have to because two other American souls, Bill Berland and Judi Migdol, invited me to speak (freely) during a Friday evening Shabbat at their synagogue, Temple Shalom in Port Charlotte.

The place was packed with other vibrant, welcoming congregants who watched my mouth go up and down for about 20 minutes without throwing tomatoes or falling into a deep and restful sleep.

American Jews are deeply anxious about the fate of Israel. In October last year, that nation was assaulted by the latest hybrid of haters. Now, it’s under assault by the concerns of many Israelis and Americans alike about the history, behavior and military response of Israel directed by its current and long-time prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

And every single one of my hosts at Temple Shalom understood that the American state will forever depend on the right of every soul to express any opinion, or practice any religion or no religion, as they wish.

They didn’t know what I was going to say (I wasn’t entirely sure, myself), but they appeared eager to listen.

Their opinions about the war in Gaza likely varied. But their opinion about the right of each person to express that opinion peacefully, didn’t.

In that synagogue, therefore, I felt I was home — home among the souls and in the state we Americans remain at our best. ¦

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