Crossing The Line Poem by gershon hepner

Once we have crossed the line, says Bernhard Schlink,
there’s nothing to prevent us doing what
we had believed we shouldn’t do. The brink
that had inhibited us from doing not
to others as we would have them not do
to us is what protects us from the devil,
which is the side of us can be true
to falsehood, and indifferent to evil.
Since God is moribund if He’s not dead,
what can restrain us now from crossing lines?
Are there alternatives to Him? Instead
of God, can institutions be our shrines?
That’s our dilemma. We must dwell upon it,
since Kyrie Eleison is not our sonnet.

Inspired by Charlie Rose’s December 23,2008 interview on with Bernhard Schlink, the author of “The Reader, ” which according to Stephen Daldry is read by every German, having been added to high school curriculums. The book has just been made into a major motion picture, with a screenplay by David Hare. Schlink, who is a judge, is one of the outstanding exponents of what the Germans call Vergangenheitsbewältigung, which means, more or less, “coming to terms with the past.” He told Charlie Rose that he thinks that once people cross a line there is nothing that remains that can inhibit their conduct. He considers that is why the Weimar Republic gave way to Hitler in 1933, when the institutions of which German had been so proud collapsed like thin ice. Institutions like the Church and the Communist Party provided minimal opposition to Hitler, but ultimately either succumbed or proved to be impotent.

12/24/08