How about an angle on this Easter message from a Jew – a cantor at the Reform synagogue in Lincoln, Nebraska. His name is Michael Weisser.
When Michael moved to Lincoln a few years ago, he received numerous harassing phone calls from a man named Larry Trapp. Trapp was a neo-Nazi and the Grand dragon of the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. He was also a paraplegic who had lost both his legs to diabetes and was confined to a wheelchair… a man whose father had ridiculed him for his disabilities.
At a certain point, Cantor Weisser fought back. He said to Larry Trapp: “You know, Larry, with your physical disabilities, the Nazis would have made you the first to go.” And then, “You know, Larry, one day you’re going to have to answer to God for all this hatred.”
Not too long after that, Larry Trapp called Michael Weisser back. This time it was not to spew his neo-Nazi racist rubbish, but to talk seriously. He wanted to talk to the cantor about the real things in life. From this a relationship sprouted. Unbelievably, the entire Weisser family began helping Larry Trapp. They went shopping for him. They took care of him. Eventually, he shed his hood and gave away his weapons. Finally he resigned from the Klan.
He decided that he owed it to himself to learn about the people he had despised, and to learn about their faith, and how they survived centuries of irrational hatred. Cantor Weisser taught him. In June, Larry Trapp, the ex- Grand Dragon of the Klan, converted to Judaism, and joined the Reform synagogue in Lincoln.
When Larry Trapp became too weak to take care of himself, the Weissers took him into their home. Julie Weisser quit her nursing job to take care of him. Trapp once sent Julie flowers with this note: “Thank you for changing me from a dragon to a butterfly.” It takes eyes blessed of God to see the butterfly within the dragon.
On September 6, 1992, Larry Trapp died at home in Lincoln. The Weisser family was at his bedside when he departed. A eulogy was given at the funeral by Donna Polk, a black activist whom Larry had harassed in his previous life. She said, “I do not have to tell you what this story is about. This I do know: only God gives the power to sift through the ashes of a very mean world and to find spark of truly human.”
(related in sermon “To Lift Up the Sparks,” by Jeffrey Salkin, The American Rabbi, August 1993.
=========================================================================== Version by Rev. Brett Blair, 1/27/02:
A few years ago a story came out in the news about two men living in Lincoln, Nebraska.
One of them, a man named Larry Trapp, was, you might say, walking in darkness. It might be more accurate to say that he was sitting in darkness, for he was wheel-chair bound, and diagnosed with a fatal disease. The darkness he was in (or that was in him) was not caused by his disease, but was the result of hatred. Larry was a Grand Dragon in the Nebraska Ku Klux Klan.
The unfortunate focus of his hatred, the other man, happened to be a Jewish cantor named Michael Weisser. Larry harassed Michael with threatening phone calls and a barrage of hate mail. His goal was to get him out of the community.
Michael decided to take a bold approach; to confront his tormentor. He decided to call Larry on the telephone.
“I just kept leaving messages on his answering machine,” says Michael, “until finally one day, Larry Trapp, in a fit of anger, picked up the phone. ‘What do you want?’ he said. ‘You’re harassing me! My phone’s got a tap on it.’
“I was real quiet and calm” says Michael. “I said I knew he had a hard time getting around and thought he might need a ride to the grocery store.
He just got completely quiet, and all the anger went out of his voice, and he said, ‘I’ve got that taken care of, but thanks for asking.'”
The remarkable end of the story is that the two men eventually became friends. The Weisser’s, this Jewish couple, would have Larry, former grand dragon in the KKK, over for dinner. Amazing! Someone who was so full of hate.
Eventually, Larry decided to devote the time he had left to freeing others from the destructive power of hatred and bigotry.
And the people of Lincoln, Nebraska, and other places saw a great light, the light generated by a sudden reversal, a change of heart, which in turn was caused by someone reaching out, not responding in kind.
Both love, when it is practiced, and hatred, when it is destroyed, give off a great light.
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Philip S. Windsor, “This Little Light of Mine,” January 21, 1996. Story taken from: Time, 2/17/92, as quoted in Word & Witness 1/21/96.