At the Pesach Table

It has always seemed remarkable to me that widely different viewpoints can be correct at the same time.  Human nature does not easily accept this truth, though.  We are quick to register that only one opinion can be correct.  So, once we have decided which direction represents the right course, everything else must therefore be wrong.  Yet, experience proves this to be incorrect.

Pesach is a case in point.

On this date we celebrate our freedom from the ruthless tyranny of the taskmasters.  Yet burning questions remain.  Did all the Egyptians really need to suffer in order to free the Jews?  Did so many have to die in the thick waters of the Reed Sea?   Why did our enemies have to die?  Or, why didn’t they have to suffer as greatly as the Jews for their crimes?

And exactly how are we supposed to feel “as if we were personally liberated” (as the Hagggada indicates) when we have never suffered that kind of pain?  That is why the Pesach seder assists with the difficulty by telling the story of Liberation in four different renditions.  One narrative is about numbers.  One is about history.  Another is about empathy through stories and one is through the descriptions of the Pesach plate and foods.

The complex variety of perspectives reminds me of a story I once heard about a father and his son driving to an engagement party.  The father, impatient, asks, “How far have we gone already?”  The son, looking forward to his bride says, “How much more do we have to go?”

Because of their inner world the father and son perceive the outer world entirely differently.  They are both correct.

Families are often difficult to keep together because each member possesses their own reality which at times may not only be different, but conflicting.  The same is true for larger groups.  Communities are hard to form and contain because every person has their own reality.  Is it any surprise that some of the Israelites were rebellious?  Or that some wanted to return back to Egypt? That should be no more shocking than people harboring disparate views on Israel.  Or the fact that someone’s seat at our seder table may be unoccupied.

Not so long ago before the Russian revolution, an advisor to the Czar and his general were assassinated.  The assassination was a bomb, which tore through the carriage, slew the horses, and killed the prince.  Some reactions at the time: The Imperial Guard mourned their general.  A coachbuilder bemoaned the destruction of his artistry. The prince’s horses, the finest in Europe, horrified a horseman.  A New York Times reporter wrote, “The old regime is dead; a new order is born.”

Of course, they were all correct.  Yet, I suspect, if they were in the same room after the event discussing what had happened they might have had vigorous, loud, and perhaps painful disagreements.  Our faith insists that we overcome our personal objections to differences by getting along.  That is why the term “k’llal Yisrael” (the corpus of Israel) figures so prominently in nearly every Jewish text.  We do not have to agree – in fact, arguing is a measure of testing truth – but we do have to take care of one another.  How we accept or reject divergent opinions is a measure of our faith and this sacred principle.

A colleague was constantly asked by his children whether he liked certain congregants.  When they asked him, “Daddy, here comes so-and-so, do like him?” he would answer, “I like the whole world.”

After a while they learned to ask, “Daddy do you like this one or do you like the whole world?”

At Pesah we are reminded of the incalculable value of accepting differences.  When we do, we become better people and more responsible stewards of our fellow Jews.

“What a caterpillar calls the end of life the Master calls a butterfly.”  –Richard Bach

On Differences

On Differences

In his book Intolerance, Henrick Van Loon describes a primitive people who lived in a remote valley surrounded by treacherous mountains.  They had a belief that beyond their home, outside the valley, lived vile and dangerous evil spirits.  If anyone ventured beyond their homeland they would surely perish. 

Once a courageous villager made his way to the outer world.  After along time, he returned and reported what he had found.  When they heard what he had done, the villagers immediately put him to death for blasphemy.

The story has real implications for the way we approach those who voice dissent.  We do not put them to death but often we marginalize them.  We call them “misled” or “deranged” (poor thing!).

In our faith, we encourage questioning.  That is what the Talmudic tradition is all about.  Only by asking thoughtful questions do we arrive at new understanding and real personal  growth.  Here is an example.  In the Torah, it states, “Do not oppress the stranger because you were strangers in Egypt.”  Exodus 23:9

There are four named methods to interpreting any verse in the Torah.  Below they are applied to not oppressing the stranger.

The first is called “p’shat.”  “P’shat” is the obvious meaning of the text.   Exodus 23 indicates that we are not allowed to take people who are “not like us” and treat them as less than equals.  This is especially true where the “others” are a minority and already at a disadvantage, as we once were in Egypt.  Rashi adds that if we taunt the stranger they have every right to respond, “But weren’t you once just like me?”

Additionally, the Hebrew word for stranger is the same as convert.  The verse has the added meaning of respecting those who cast their lot with the Jewish people.  They must be accepted as any born Jew.

The second methodology is called, “remez,” hint.  Every Hebrew letter has a numerical equivalent (called gematria).  “Stranger” has the same value as “limb.”  What this comes to teach us is that a stranger is actually a part of us, a member of the same body.  Why would we hurt ourselves?

Author Naomi Remen describes speaking with a Holocaust survivor.  Here is what he says regarding strangers:  “I say to Him ‘God, is it ok to ‘luuf strangers?’  And God says to me, ‘Yitzak, vat is dis strangers?  You make strangers.  I don’t make strangers’.”

In other words, the word “stranger “is subjective and negative.  Nobody has to be a stranger unless we make them so.

Third is “drash.”  In explaining the verse in terms of “drash,” the rabbis note that the parsha in which this mitzvah comes is right after the one with the Ten Commandments and it begins with the conjunction “and.”  Therefore, they say, not oppressing the stranger is equal to any commandment given at Mt. Sinai.  This is a big mitzvah.

Finally, the last method of interpretation is called “sod,” or secret.  A prominent modern rabbi, Noach Weinberg, has made the observation that the motivating force for Jews is “program or pogrom.”  In other words, it takes a lot to shake us out of humdrum lifestyle.  We do not change easily.  Only when we are challenged do we open ourselves to real growth.  The “sod” of not oppressing the stranger is: When the day comes that the stranger will be one with us, we will be at the portals of the messianic era.

It may be said that arguments for the sake of heaven are the pathways to God.

Looking for Gold

On the flight back from Chicago (American Airlines!) some time ago the flight attendant announced, “Please collect your garbage and someone will be coming around to collect it.  Do not discard your empty soda cans.  We will recycle them.  Also, any unopened food packages please return to the stewardess.  We give them to a food shelter.” 

Wow.

Best flight I ever took.  With all the pain America has endured these past two months and the economic kick that all the airlines have received, this was unexpected and welcome.

At the airport and on the aboard airplane I had my photo checked three times; tickets checked four times, endured tedious lines to get clearance for the plane.  And everybody was happy.  Passengers happily chatted with one another.  The flight attendants were eager to assist and bright. 

People have told me that it is adversity.  The reason why people are so helpful and kind is because we are all suffering from the trauma of the World Trade Center and then the anthrax scare.  That may be true.  It would not be the first time that fear has brought out the best in people.  Our common enemy has caused countless Americans to bravely wave their patriotism from their cars, houses, in the streets.  Acts of goodness abound because we feel vulnerable.

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The ancient ones used the two tales to illustrate relationships; Amnon and Tamar and Jonathan and David.  Amnon desired Tamar.  Desperately he wanted her: Amnon dreamed of being with Tamar day and night.  He could not get her out of his mind.  After relentlessly pursuing her in his heart, he forcibly took her.  After the act, Amnon hated himself for what he did and, subsequently, hated the woman he had defiled.

David and Jonathan, on the other hand, had a love that developed from the soul.  They had no agenda, just love.  Love, the Sages tell us, can be based on getting a desired outcome, i.e. the status that comes with keeping company of influentials; or it can be based on the feelings of the heart.  If we ‘love’ someone to a desired outcome (read: Amnon) the relationship will eventually fail.  Only genuine love will be strong enough to survive tumultuous times.

Perhaps Americans are banding together because we need one another.  That is a conditional love.  Mutual fear of the terrorists has caused Americans to join hands in song.  We have marched miles with candles forging a blazing trail of light snaking through the blank nights on the streets of America.  Children have stood proudly with their parents once again, bearing placards that read “Honk for America!”  For those who grew up in the Vietnam era, this is the United States’ proudest moment.  For older generations this time is a vivid reminder of the gathering of the American psyche during the Second World War.

So what happens next?  Back to angry fingers and curses directed at cars moving too slow along route 9?  A return to the disconnected, unconcerned society?  Amnon and Tamar?  Or Jonathan and David?  In fact, what is really the underlying difference between them?  Is it just that one wants something from the other?  Are all such relationships doomed from the outset?  If that is so, why do anyone a favor unless we are absolutely altruistic?

There is an old argument in the Talmud about motivation.  It goes something like this: Mitzvot should be done for the sake of love of God.  What then if a person does the mitzvah out fear instead of love?  Does that cheapen the deed?  Is this kind of mitzvah inferior in God’s eyes?  Better, concludes the Talmud, that the mitzvah be done for the wrong reason.  If it is done often enough, perhaps it will eventually be done for the right reason.

Did you know there is a brakha (blessing) to be said when you see someone with a different appearance?  In the past such people were placed in circuses and had pages reserved for them in Guinness books.  The Jewish response is totally different.  We are supposed to say “Barukh Ata…Mishaneh haBriot,”  Blessed is the Lord God, Master of the Universe, who has made such diversity among His creations.”

In other words, the weak and strong, tall and short, well-built and handicapped are all made in the image of God.  They are all as holy as one another.  Every one is utterly precious and irreplaceable.  Perhaps if we were to say this brakha each time we would see someone different it would drive home the necessary point treating others with disrespect gives us the ultimate disfigurement.  Saying such a blessing is a learning tool to make us more refined, better human beings.

Perhaps we can say the same for the full love which embraces America.  Practiced long enough it could become part of our fiber.  The same goes for us as individuals: give love for the wrong reason long enough and it will eventually turn out to be for the right reason.