Remarkable Story of the Power of TOV over Institutionalized Hatred

The power of TOV over institutionalized hatred is seen in Not by the Sword by Kathryn Watterson. She tells the story of Michael Weisser, a Jewish cantor, his wife, Julie and Larry Trapp.  The following is from Bruce Η. Lipton and Steve Bhaerman’s book Spontaneous Evolution: Our positive future (and a way to get there from here).

Michael and Julie Weisser had recently moved to their new home in Lincoln, Nebraska, in June 1991 when their peaceful unpacking was interrupted by a threatening phone call. Shortly afterward, they received a package of racist flyers with a card that announced -- “The KKK is watching you, scum.”

The police told the Weissers it looked like the work of Larry Trapp, a self-described Nazi and local Ku Klux Klan grand dragon. Trapp had been linked to fire bombings of African American homes in the area and a center for Vietnamese refugees. The 44-year-old Trapp, leader of the area’s white supremacist movement, was wheelchair bound and had diabetes. At the time, he was making plans to bomb B’nai Jeshuran, the synagogue where Weisser was cantor.

Julie Weisser, while frightened and infuriated by the hate mail, also felt a spark of compassion for Trapp, who lived alone in a one-room apartment. She decided to send Trapp a letter every day with passages from Proverbs. When Michael saw that Trapp had launched a hate-spewing TV series on the local cable network, he called the Klan hotline and kept leaving messages: “Larry, why do you hate me? You don’t even know me.”

At one point, Trapp actually answered the phone and Michael, after identifying himself -- asked Trapp if he needed a hand with his grocery shopping! Trapp refused, but a process of rethinking began to stir in him. For a while, he was two people -- one still spewing invective on TV – and the other -- talking with Michael Weisser on the phone, saying, “I can’t help it, I’ve been talking like that all my life.”

One night, Michael asked his congregation to pray for someone who is “sick from the illness of bigotry and hatred.” That night, Trapp did something he’d never done before. The swastika rings he wore on both hands began to itch, so he took them off.

The next day, Trapp called the Weissers and said, “I want to get out, but I don’t know how.” Michael suggested that he and Julie drive to Trapp’s apartment so they could “break bread together.” Trapp hesitated, but then agreed.

At the apartment, Trapp broke into tears and handed the Weissers his swastika rings. In November 1991, he resigned from the Klan and later wrote apologies to the groups he had wronged. On New Year’s Eve, Larry Trapp found out he had less than a year to live, and, that same night, the Weissers invited him to move in with them. Their living room became Trapp’s bedroom, and he told them -- “You are doing for me what my parents should have done for me.”

Bedridden, Trapp began to read about Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and to learn about Judaism. On June 5, 1992, Trapp converted to Judaism — at the very synagogue he had once planned to blow up. Julie quit her job to care for Larry Trapp in his last days. When Larry Trapp died on September 6, 1992, Michael and Julie were holding his hands.

TOV is the Hebrew word that describes acts that -- protect life, preserve life, make life more functional and improves the quality of life. It is the Standard the Creator used to describe His acts in the Creation accounts recorded in the first book of the Torah in Genesis chapters 1-10.

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Shalom

*SOURCE: Spontaneous Evolution: Our positive future (and a way to get there from here) by Bruce Η. Lipton and Steve Bhaerman © 2009 by Mountain of Love Productions and Steve Bhaerman; New York, NY; pp. 349-350.