Jews Against Korah

בס׳׳ד

2 Tammuz, 5772
June 22nd, 2012

Parshat Korah

           

            A few years ago, at a Coffee Bean, I watched a young woman put her stuff down, and then go in to order. A few older gentlemen arrived afterwards and, seeing that she had claimed their favorite table, surreptitiously moved her belongings to the ground. When she came back, they claimed that they had not seen her possessions.

            Now I have a bit of a superhero complex, so I stood up and, in public, told these gentlemen that the seat was hers, and that they should not have disregarded her (let's just say my wording was different).

            To their credit, the men moved. But afterwards one of their number confronted me. I'll never forget how livid he was.

            What remains with me from the incident is that we were both justified. The men lied to that woman and tried to take advantage of her. But in order to confront them, I took them apart in public. There is no way to experience such a situation except as deeply humiliating, and I can understand his anger.

            It seems to me that we have no real way to politely critique social behavior. As far as I can tell, all that's available to us is either to ignore the peccadilloes of others or confront them. The confrontations rarely yield the desired result.

            This lack is a problem. Everyone offends, even egregiously. No person lives blamelessly. But when our only two options are to suck it up or go toe-to-toe, life becomes an unpleasant combination of repression and aggression - rarely reconciliation.

            In 1994, Bogota, Colombia was a mess. The murder rate was triple that of New York City. The traffic fatality rate more than quadruple. There was so little acceptance of traffic laws that to cross the street was literally to take one's life in one's hands.

            That year, a very quirky man named Antanas Mockus became mayor. Mockus implemented policies that would make him a laughingstock. He positioned, of all things, mimes at traffic lights. When a person would run the light or similarly be a jerk, the mimes would follow their car (Bogota is congested), and silently mock the driver to the amusement of those around. He also sent the citizens of Bogota red and green cards, just like in soccer, and told them to thrust the appropriate card in the air when someone acted for good or ill.

            People thought this was hilarious. When traffic fatalities dropped by 50%,  and homicides by 70%, they stopped laughing.

            The point is that when there are relatively harmless and inoffensive ways of communally critiquing social behavior, life gets a lot better. I would take a mime over a furious email every day of the week and twice on Shabbes.

            In the Book of Judges, the Bible describes people doing, "ish hayashar be-einav,"   - every person doing that which was right in his/her own eyes. Please understand, Tanakh means this as an insult. To act without regard for the feelings of others is boorish, not independent.

            To build a community of learning is our mission. And Jewish learning is not academic. We must ask the question how do we, communally, make ourselves better. The rewards reaped by the answer will be enormous.

Mountains and Molehills

בס''ד

Parshat Shelah

25 Sivan, 5772

June 15^th, 2012

In New Orleans, it’s a huge deal. The Times-Picayune is stopping its daily print editions, opting for a more internet-heavy publishing approach.

This is not small. The Times-Picayune, which has been in publication since 1837, actually kept writing during Katrina with only three days of online-only coverage.

However, the newspaper laid off about 600 people yesterday. By any means, the layoff is a tragedy for the New Orleans community, and a troubling sign of more to come in journalism.

It is not, however a national disaster.

Mark Schleifstein, one of the reporters who shared the Pulitzer for Katrina coverage, referred to the layoffs and publishing shift as, “a sort of Katrina without water.”

And I have a serious problem with that simile.

I have noticed that, when serious trauma affects a community, the memory of that trauma gets trotted out at the most insignificant, inappropriate moments possible.

A couple of colleagues, recounting staffing crises in their synagogues, told me that various people had said to them over the firing or leaving of a clergy member – and I quote literally – “this is like the Warsaw ghetto,” and “if more people had spoken up, the Holocaust would not have happened.”

Now I’ve beat this hobby horse of mine to death before, but it was not like the Holocaust. Inter-synagogue politics, no matter how nasty, are not like the Ghettos. Firings at a newspaper are not like the worst American civil disaster of our time.

The Talmud teaches, “[Rabbi Meir] said to [Akher], ‘everything that God created, God created something in opposition to it: God created mountains – and created hills; God created seas – and created rivers…” Bavli Hagigah 15a.

Though it may seem obtuse, this is a very important point. Rabbi Meir teaches that meaning is creating by treating distinct objects differently from one another. The point is not academic: when one conflates big with small, one actively destroys the meaning of both, and people become unable to respond well to either. To call a firing a “Holocaust” or a “Katrina” means stopping the atrocity, not resolving an employment conflict. To continually wear down the sharpness of a disaster may leave people unable to respond when actual tragedy hits.

The first thing that Adam haRishon (the first person) did when created was to call God’s creatures by their true names. It’s an action worth emulating.

Gut Instinct

בס''ד

Parshat Naso

11 Sivan, 5772

June 1^st, 2012

I occasionally ask people how God lets us know whether an action is moral or immoral. What I mean is that, when a person has a moral dilemma, what source should she trust to tell her whether she is acting well? Most people answer, “trust your gut,” and believe that God has put an innate sense of morality inside all of us.

I have found, after much experience, this belief to be untrue.

As Proverbs says, mikol melamdai hiskalti – I have learned from all who teach me. And what I have learned is that plenty of people have exactly the opposite gut instinct over precisely the same dilemma. Just think about various cadres’ reactions to homosexuality.

Secondly, I have found over the course of my life that my gut has changed. I remember the first time I saw a female rabbi, and how much I hated the experience. Last year I was unsettled by a promo picture for an Orthodox yeshiva: why were no women learning in the beit midrash?

The point, I think, is that the gut is trained.

Here’s an analogy: when people stumble, it is natural instinct to put their hands out to block their fall. It’s also a really stupid idea. The lower arm bones, caught between the ground and the weight of the body, shatter easily. But if you go to an Aikido or Ju-Jitsu class, you’ll see people being thrown all over the place, and falling from six feet or more without ill effect. This is because they have trained themselves to fall.

To live morally is to live one step beyond the gut: to train one’s self in compassion, in wisdom, in understanding, in Torah – and then to let the intuition free.

When I Say “Dawn,” You Say “Idiot”

26 Iyyar, 5772

May 18^th, 2012

41^st Day of the Omer

By now, most have heard of Greece’s “Golden Dawn,” - the neo-Nazi party that recently won 7% of Parliament in elections. 

Now, it’s clear that Golden Dawn’s power came through its opposition to the Greek Austerity Plan. However,these charming individuals are also known for opposition to foreign “filth”(read, immigrants), Holocaust denial, and general thuggery. 

On days like this I think of Aldous Huxley’s Ape and Essence: “The leech’s kiss, the squid’s embrace,/The prurient ape’s defiling touch./And do you like the human race?/No, not much.”

There is a prayer that Jews every morning: “May it be your will, our God and God of our ancestors, to keep us from insolence in others and arrogance in ourselves; from an evil person, an evil friend, an evil neighbor, an evil encounter, and from destructive accusations.”

This prayer is not the height of optimism, but this week I understand it. May God keep us far away from such people. May God reduce tolerance for their views in our midst. May God change their hearts.

I am forced to point out that the prayer mentions others and ourselves. Such mention is not accidental. A few weeks ago, this came across my desk. 

For the many who do not speak Hebrew, this gem is a mock wedding invitation between a Muslim man - Muhamad, son of Navil and Oum Jihad - and a Jewish woman, whose name rendered means “You should hope that this isn’t your daughter.”

The e-postcard, put out by an Israeli “anti-assimilation organization” called Lehavah, therefore urges:

“Do not let your daughter work with Arabs. Do not let her do National service with goyim. Do not buy from stores that employ enemies (Arabs); Do not let goyish workers into your home.

This, of course, goes hand in hand with a recent-years decree from rabbis not to sell or rent to Arabs.

What must be said is that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is beyond complicated. There are no butterflies or rainbows. We are talking about deep hatred and enmity. However, how we respond in our anger is of paramount importance. And before one goes to justify the sentiments behind such an ad, please read the following. They are from various German laws and speeches of the late 1930’s. My hope is that, seeing them, your blood will run cold.

Ultimately, we will be judged not only for what we believe, but for which beliefs we benignly tolerate. 

 SECTION 1

  1.  Marriages between Jews and nationals of German or kindred blood are forbidden.  Marriages concluded in defiance of this law are void, even if, for the purpose of evading this law, they are concluded abroad.

 SECTION 3

Jews will not be permitted to employ female nationals of German or kindred blood in their households.

Article 7

1. Jews cannot legally acquire real estate and mortgages.

Deutsche! Wehrt Euch! Kauft nicht bei Juden (Germans! Defend yourselves! Do not buy from Jews) – Slogan from the Nazi boycott against Jews.

The Dumb Tongue

בס''ד

19 Iyyar, 5772

May 11^th, 2012

34^th Day of the Omer

My grandfather, of blessed memory, was a man of few words but remarkably strong convictions. Now one must understand: I basically talk to people for a living; I was an English major; words are my bread and butter. One might think the disparity drove a wedge between us.

But my grandfather never had trouble making himself understood. I knew his principles with clarity and felt the boundlessness of his love. Without saying much, he was the most righteous and kind man I have ever known.

Watching him taught me a lesson that is one of my treasured possessions: words are a means, not an end. The ability to produce great words amounts to nothing of itself.

There is a rampant misconception that, in the sphere of public debate, the person with the best words wins. Remember that the victor should be the one who has the best ideas, not the glibbest tongue.

What I know is that the strongest of our convictions, the best of our ideas, our most deeply held values are extremely difficult to articulate. People like me spend a lifetime just learning to give them voice.

However, because one cannot articulate them well does not mean that such convictions are invalid. Prettier words should not take away what you believe.

The inverse is true as well. Just because someone has an elegant way to express dishonorable feelings, inhuman in their intent, does not somehow give them an advantage. Finding a fancy way to transmit ugly sentiment is of no avail.

The substance of ideas matters more than their verbal expression. Thus the heart matters more than the mouth. So do the Psalms say, “[God is the One] who created all their hearts together, and [therefore] understands their actions.” Psalm 33

In Praise of Honored Dead

בס''ד

In Praise of Honored Dead

12 Iyyar, 5772

May 4th, 2012

27th Day of the Omer

A few weeks ago, Rex Huppke (hell of a name) published a brilliant, tongue-in-cheek obituary in the Chicago Tribune in memory of...facts. 

He believes that facts died when Rep. Allen West “steadfastly declared that as many as 81 of his fellow members of the U.S. House of Representatives are communists.”

Know that Huppke’s point is not partisan. Rather he points out the decidedly across-the-aisle degradation of facts’ health over the decades, including the Clinton-Lewinsky affair. To my mind the beginning of the end may have come in 1982, when the nation watched opposing psychiatrists find John Hinckley both legally sane and insane, respectively, in his attempted assassination of President Reagan.

I saw facts’ fatal wound came at a Shabbat lunch a few months ago. A very intelligent woman, a former teacher of physics, far more observant than I, claimed that “the theory of evolution has been all but discredited by academics.” Thoroughly shocke, I asked her to produce evidence. Sure enough she presented me with an academic citation claiming that evolution had been debunked.

The problem with her assertion and her paper is that they’re both nonsense. The vast, preponderant, overwhelming majority of the scientific community accepts evolution as valid. Whether or not one thinks the theory is valid, one should not deny this reality of what most scientists think.

However, the explosion of information that is at the heart of our new society makes it possible that, no matter what my point, I can find statistical, academic, and journalistic work to support me. And thus we’ve arrived at a place in which facts inevitably work to support our own opinions, which is to say that facts are now irrelevant, which means that they are truly dead.

It is possible to resurrect them from this backwards existence, however. The Psalms say, “Who can live in Your tent, who may dwell on Your holy mountain? (i.e., who’s a good guy?)...one who swears to his own detriment and does not abdicate his vow.” Psalm 15

The point being that a tzaddik is one who keeps his word, even when his word works against him. So in memory of honored dead, I propose we do the same thing. If we believe in facts, let them work against us. It’ll be a sign of our righteousness.

Practice

בס''ד

5 Iyyar, 5772

April 27th, 2012

20th Day of the Omer

Parshat Tazria-Metzora

“Says the author: I did not compose this essay to teach people what they do not know, but rather to remind them of that which is already known to them and hugely wide-spread between them. For you will only find in most of my words things that most people know and about which they have no doubt; only, it is because they are so famous and that their truth is obvious to everyone that their absence is prevalent and the forgetting of them is great.”

These are the words that begin one of the most famous popular works of Jewish spirituality in history, the Mesillat Yesharim, The Path of the Upright. Written by the immensely brilliant and highly eccentric Moshe Haim Luzzato, this book is the precursor to the Mussar movement - the 19th century ethical/spiritual movement that focussed on perfecting the self and radical improvement of one’s virtues as the greatest way to serve God.

At the heart of these words is a prescient realization - human beings are likely to forget precisely that which is most obvious. We take quite a bit for granted, and unless we actively remind ourselves of that which is unambiguously important - family, courtesy, kindness, helping others, making a positive impact on the world, investing in spirituality, giving to charity, etc. - we simply will not devote the time to these values that we would wish.

So I want to draw your attention to the second of two words that always go together: spiritual practice. These two words cannot be separated, for the path to a more noble life begins with constantly reminding oneself of that which is important. Thus every spirituality is grounded in daily practice.

It is sometimes thought that one must realize the importance of a practice before beginning it. But those who are wise know that the opposite is true - important realizations only come through practice.