There's an incredibly powerful scene in the second Batman installment, THE DARK KNIGHT, where the Joker has set two ferry boats out each loaded with an explosive device, and each boat has been presented a detonator to the other's bomb. One is full of prisoners being transferred, the other has regular citizens. He offers each boat a choice - blow up the other boat first taking all those people with it, and your boat will survive. If neither boat acts by midnight, both will be destroyed.
As Batman is facing off against The Joker, both of them wait for the strike of midnight. Naturally, an argument ensues on each boat - the boat with the regular citizens proffer the idea that the prisoners deserve to die because they had their chance and failed. They decide to vote on a course of action. Meanwhile, aboard the prisoner's boat, the guards discuss what to do. Are they willing to blow up the other boat?
A prisoner steps forward and tells his chaperones they don't know how to take a life -- to hand over the detonator to him and he'll have the courage to do what they can't. Simultaneously, because a decision has not been reached and they're running out of time, a gentleman citizen steps forward and volunteers to blow up the prisoner's boat.
This scene is at the core of everything Batman and Joker stand for, and it's not coincidental that the two are face to face at this moment in the movie, the Joker leering over Batman, who he's pinned down. The moral heart of each character is at stake, and if either of the ferry boats blow up, the Joker proves that Batman's gallant fight is all for naught. It will rip the soul out of Batman and anyone who believes Gotham can be redeemed.
But what happens? The Prisoner, insisting his overseer give him the remote, granting his superior the excuse that he can say he was overpowered by the prisoners, takes the remote and promptly tosses it out the window, sealing their fate. All of the guards' faces collectively sink in the realization they're all going to die. Ironically, the murderer, the thief, lowest of the low, the supposedly unredeemable still has the ability to understand life's value its most basic level. He is unwilling to take any life this way, even if it means sacrificing his own.
The citizen, initially certain he's able to turn the key, holds the remote in his hand and freezes. He swallows hard and realizes that talking about doing something so destructive is one thing. Actually doing it is another. He cedes the remote back to the staff of the ship in shame and retakes his seat. Both find themselves equally unwilling to kill, metaphorically equalizing the prisoner and civilian as equal creatures that are often situation dependent.
Batman and Joker await the outcome, and as midnight comes and goes without action, Joker is distraught. Before he can blow up both boats, Batman is able to turn the tables on Joker, finding strength in society's reaffirmation of his fight. Good still does exist.
This is essentially a fictional version of a more terrifying story that played out of a real life. Not long ago, I heard a story that came from the son of an Auschwitz survivor. His father recalled seeing a father and son get off the train at the camp, and a Nazi guard pulling them aside. He told the boy to lay on the ground on his back and gave the father a shovel. He told the father to place the edge of the shovel over the boy's neck and to step on it. The father refused. So the guard told the father to lie down on his back and offered the boy the same choice, to step on the shovel into his father's neck. He refused. The guard then summarily shot both of them dead.
In the recent months since the Capitol Riot, I have found myself pondering this question over and over. What do you stand for? What would I sacrifice my life for? Is there anything? What would I immediately react to and not think for a second about myself or my future?
The first answer was naturally my kids, my wife.... but is that where it ends? What about innocent children, women, or men? Where are our voices to be found in an age where things happen to other people on our television screens and many can't even acknowledge that it could very well have been one of us.
I once witnessed a car hit a bicycle as the vehicle entered an onramp to the 134 freeway. It was very early morning so the roads were empty, and the bicyclist flew over the front end of the car, off the side and onto the cement. The driver of the car stopped, got out, and stood frozen, looking at the fallen rider. I made an immediate U-turn and pulled over to the curb. I ran across the street to the gas station opposite the onramp and yelled for them to call 9-1-1. Shockingly, the first response came from a worker inside the repair garage. His reply was "You call 9-1-1." This was before cell phones were common, and I may have told him to "F off and call 9-1-1, that we had a man down who had been hit by a car. Another person at the station yelled he would make the call. I ran to my car and grabbed my emergency blanket out of my trunk, and approached the rider. He was lying on his front, and appeared possibly unconscious. I summoned every recollection I had from being a lifeguard a few years prior and did whatever first aid I could (calmed him, told him help was coming and he'd be ok, took his pulse, told him to stay still). The driver never moved. He was in shock. I don't remember if he drove off or hung around.
I don't tell this story to extol any virtues of my own, but I do think it speaks to how I react in critical situations. I didn't know the cyclist or the driver, yet my reaction was immediately to stop and help.
I've found myself asking this of cohorts who supported the Trump mandates, who allowed him to label the virus the "Kung Flu" or the "Chinese Virus" which is now linked to a 150% increase in hate crimes against Asians in America. I have posted how vile this is, but what have I done about it? I have asked myself if I saw a woman getting beaten up, like an elderly Asian woman was a few weeks ago, would I have leapt to her defense, knowing the assailant is more likely to have a gun now than ever. The answer was yes I would do something for sure.
Those who have continued to justify these words as "just talk" seem unwilling to even consider the power words have, particularly when coming from leadership. That blind spot, has me wondering, if someone came armed and attacked me for being Jewish, who would step in? Would there be a voice stepping up to help me and my family?
Ask yourself the same question. What do you stand for now? If you support a particular candidate or party. what do they stand for that you believe in? Do you actually believe in something, such that if your candidate turned his or her back on it, you would vote that candidate out? Would you speak out against the candidate you once voted for? Why wouldn't you?
There was a story on NPR this morning about Asians now feeling the need to arm themselves due to the increased chance of a violent encounter. Are you going to speak up against that? I certainly have and will continue to do so.
Today is Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day. It is a day that reminds Jews particularly that those that remain silent in the face of great horror are complicit. There is no other way to look at it. And after seeing the complicity that took place over the last four years in this country, which led to January 6th of this year, one has to wonder how this scene would play out now?
My greatest fear in watching this scene and surveying the America I now see is that perhaps both the prisoner and civilian trigger the explosions. That our divisiveness and need for self gratification and self importance have overtaken our morals, and that given a choice, we would downgrade the value of other's lives as meaning very little when compared to our own.
I hope I am wrong.
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