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.

Lucky?

Prodigious twelfth century scholar Ibn Ezra produced incredible Torah insights that still provide illumination hundreds of years after his death.   Yet, there is reason to believe that Ibn Ezra was an unhappy man.  He wrote, “If I sold shrouds no one would die.  And if I sold lamps the sun would shine by night.”    These are not words of a man who saw himself as fortunate or successful; these are the words of someone who thought himself an umglick.  An umglick is someone who is severely handicapped by misfortune.  They are unlucky.

The first person who saw himself as unlucky in the Torah was Cain.  After he murdered his brother, Cain complained, “Am I destined to be nothing more than a vagrant and wanderer??” he cried after God expelled him.  Cain thereafter saw himself as an umglick. Life had soured. There was no point in finding the “silver lining” of life, there was none.

If we have ever experienced those dark nights of life we will remember that we had a choice to either continue to wander aimlessly in the darkness, bemoaning our misfortune, or seek light.

Many years ago I heard the story about a café on a long Texas interstate highway.  Truckers liked to visit the eatery and would often park on the shoulders of the highway and walk to it. Shortly afterward the highway department put up signs, “Emergency Parking Only” to discourage the trucks from parking on the side of the road.  The café then put up new signage, calling itself “Emergency Café.”

How we feel is a choice.  And, of course, how we feel strongly influences how we behave toward others and see ourselves.  A good friend of mine had a cubicle office in a large room crammed with lots of other cubicles.  There were no windows, fresh air, natural light only artificial walls and long florescent light bulbs.  One day, he brought in a poster of a glorious sunset and put it up on his moveable wall.  The next day he brought in a window frame with blinds attached and placed it over the poster.  Not only could he mentally transport himself into the picture but mused, “Sometimes, I would have to shut the blinds because the sun was too strong!”

Torah is about life.  It is about how we interact and function in a world that is about all of us. Not just us.  Yet, if we continually walk in a world of darkness and anxiety the joys of life become drained and we may find ourselves an umglick.  It is hard to be mindful of others when our outlook is bleak.  There is no redemption in such a world.  Light cannot pierce self-imposed blankness.

An old legend tells of the wise King Solomon who understood the danger of wallowing in self-pity.  Solomon knew well that staying in there would diminish his abilities and sap his joy. King Solomon commissioned a jeweler to make a ring that would jolt him out of the thick clouds of despair. The jeweler brought him a ring bearing the words, “This too shall pass.” 

They always do.

A Dog's Life

I went to see “Food Inc.” playing at the Nickleodean Theater.  The presentation about how food is prepared, what’s in it, the political behind-the-scenes trading that goes on is alarming.  

One facet of the film is outstanding, though.  The unnecessary and terrifying cruelty to animals is shameful.  Crowded to the point where they cannot move, fed powerful growth hormones that render them incapable of even walking, kept in perpetual darkness, fed unhealthy diets and so much more the animal industry appears macabre, at best.

I cannot help but wonder about Michael Vick who was sentenced to prison for his involvement for dog fighting.  Recently released, people reasonably argue whether he should be rehired as a professional athlete after his conviction.  

Why doesn’t the government crack down on the food industry in the same way as they prosecuted Vick?  Is it really that different?  True, Vick arranged fights and bet on the animals.  True, the food industry is supported by the public that buys from them.  But this is where the differences end.  The treatment of animals is vile.

It is not necessary to abuse life.  In fact, the Bible is quite clear when the Lord tells humanity that we are to take care of His creatures.  It is a sin to purposefully cause them pain and harm.   Here are just a few of the many references: Deuteronomy 22:10, 22:6-7, 22:4, 5:13, Leviticus 22:28, Exodus 23:5, 20:9, Psalms 23:1—3, Genesis 1:26.

Why do we punish one man and richly reward others for doing the same?

A New Day

There is no such thing as “having no choice.”  There is always an alternative.  In fact, the choice we make in any situation says something about us to others and something about us to us.

The first part of that last statement is pretty clear: if we are short-tempered people will be wary of us.  If, on the other hand, we are kind and generous, those around us will respond in kind.  The second part of the statement sounds confusing but it is as obvious as the first. Let me explain.

How we act creates self-definition.  We form an opinion about ourselves based on what we do.  Psychoanalyst Erving Goffman tells the story of a man who walks on the beach determinedly not looking at anyone.  He walks with a stride that says, “I do not see any of you.  I am busy doing something very important.  You can tell by my gait, by the way I gaze at distant objects, by my indifference, that I am outstanding.”  While striding along the seashore the man dons a mask that causes him to imagine that he is above all. 

And he wonders later why everyone is so distant.

Here’s another example. A woman wears the persona of a sharp businesswoman.  Her words are terse.  She does not tolerate idle conversation.  She is methodical and critical of anyone who says anything “stupid” or meaningless.  When she looks in the mirror she ties her hair tightly back without looking to closely at the reflection she does not like.

The Mishna tells of the great sage Hillel who passed a stream one day and saw a skull in the water.  He remarked, “As you have done to others, so others have done to you.”  Hillel was commenting that the way we treat others will come back to us.  Yet, I suspect he was saying something even more profound: Hillel was sounding a warning.  If we behave cruelly we will come believe in cruelty as a way of interacting with others.  The way we are seen is the way we will ultimately see ourselves.

That is why our faith places such a strong emphasis on how we behave, the way the talk, how we treat one another, and the way we approach God.  All these things impact others and the world.  But they also impact us.   Nasty words spoken by us make us feel nasty, unclean.  For many, there is only one thing to do when feeling dirty by our deeds, do more of it, which is a downward spiral.

We have a Mikveh which is a demarcation point where we go to divest ourselves of the accumulated psychic grime.   We have a daily “confessional” where we strike our breast and beg for a new beginning (new self-definition).  And, of course, we have Yom Kippur as a grand, large scale, opportunity to change.

I like to think of the many holy days that dot the Jewish calendar as moments of potential transformation too.  Shavuot is coming.  Least appreciated of all the festivals, Shavuot celebrates God’s ultimate gift to the Jews, Torah. We pray, sing, and study into the long hours of night as we seek an encounter with the Holy One, blessed be He.  Such an experience would alter the trajectory of our life.  Perhaps every mitzvah is an invitation to change how we are viewed and how we perceive ourselves. 

There is a tale about a man who once rigged an electric battery to his doorbell.  He was happy when he heard a loud ring when someone pushed the button.  He then connected a wire from that same battery for a light in his bedroom.  However, the light did not work.  So he called an electrician who examined the contraption and said, “Don’t you know that it takes more power to shine than to make a noise?”

It may take more power to shine but when we do we are radiant.

God, History, and Torah

There is an ongoing tumult occurring in America.   The arguments are on campus too, largely waged between religionists on the right and religionists of the left together with secularists.  The distillation of the argument reached its apex a few years back in a courthouse in Pennsylvania.  The trial in Harrisburg is received a lot of coverage nationwide on CNN, FOX and virtually every newspaper in the nation.  The argument centered on the opening passage of the Torah describing creation.  How should biology –evolution -- be taught (if at all) in our school systems?

     One poll taken cites that 50% of Christian America                   believes the Biblical story of creation in the Bible should be          taken literally.  Various politicians have taken their stance on “intelligent design.”

What does Judaism have to offer on the subject?  In the Middle Ages, Maimonides one of greatest thinkers, teachers and physicians of his era and ours determined that science, by definition, could not be in conflict with religion.  That is, Maimonides believed that truth is not negotiable.  Torah is truth and to the extent that science would come into conflict with Torah, the Writ must not be understood properly.  If science proved something that contradicted Biblical thought, Bible required re-interpretation.    

Rabbi Abraham Kook, the first chief rabbi of Israel, wrote that there is no contradiction between the Torah and evolution.    Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, another Orthodox thinker, wrote that if the theory of evolution proved to be correct, it would be a testimonial to the wisdom of the Creator.

Albert Einstein said that science without religion is lame.  Religion without science is blind.

Jews must not be lame or blind. 

In the first Sidra of the Torah, Beresheet, the Text says, Vayhi ha-adam lnefesh chayah, “Man became a became a living soul.”  What does “living soul” mean?  Rashi, the medieval expositor said it indicates two things; Death and dibbur.  Rashi believed that the gift of God to humanity was that we were endowed with the faculties of reasoning and speech.   To deny these gifts is to deny our destiny.

Kabbalah has long taken that philosophic stance that the Torah is far above the tales we all learned in Religious School.  The Torah is about lofty principles.  It is not a history book; it is a book about God. 

Here is one obvious biblical fact: In its own narrative, Torah depicts light as having preceded the sun.  Two questions should be shouting at the reader: How could there be light without sun? And, how could there be a literal “day” of creation when there was no rotation of the earth around its star?

Our answer is that Torah wishes to say something powerful about humanity, God and, the universe without being reckoned as a textbook.  Truth is always the goal.