In
the year 2000, I applied to and was accepted into a fellowship of people
from all over North America, applying to graduate school to become Jewish
Communal professionals. The fellowship
brings together students becoming cantors, rabbis, educators, social workers,
academics, and non-profit managers/CEOs from across religious denominations
into a community called the Wexner Graduate Fellowship.
The
Wexner Graduate Fellowship was created so that Jewish professionals from
different backgrounds and orientations might reach across boundaries of
religious observance, beliefs, and disciplines to create bridges and
friendships that otherwise might never have been.
At
the time, I thought the best part of the fellowship was that the program paid
for the majority of graduate school and brought us together for all-expense
paid conferences twice a year for several days of learning. And it’s true, having the Wexner fellowship
during graduate school was extraordinary.
But the gift of tuition and professional development pales in comparison
to what I’ve gained since then, in the last 11 years since I completed
the graduate fellowship and became a part of the Wexner Alumni community.
The
alumni of the program include some of the most interesting and diverse leaders
in their respective fields of Jewish communal life. There are right-leaning Orthodox rabbis and
secular humanist academics who have studied together and learned from one
another, each having gained an invaluable tool: how to listen to and accept
difference without becoming defensive, reactive, or closed-down. In fact, we’ve learned not just to tolerate
difference, but to welcome it. We’ve
learned that expanding the circle of those with whom we share ideas and challenges
strengthens us all, and it strengthens the Jewish people as a whole.
I
could never have known in 2000 how my acceptance into this fellowship would
change me; how it would open my eyes and my heart to people who looked and
sounded and thought SO differently than I did.
And
when I look around at our world today in 2016, I lament the uniqueness of these
skills. The vast majority of us have
limited capacity for anything or anyone different from us. We proudly wave our flags, declaring our
political and social affiliations in much the same way as we declare loyalty to
a favorite football team. It’s me versus you. My team or yours. If you win, I lose. If I win, you lose. And none of us seems to see that when we live
like this, we all lose.
I
dare say the discourse in our country in 2016 is less tolerant, less open to
difference, and more polarized than it’s been since the Civil War. Sure, issues and ideologies have created
divisions in our society many times in the past, but the stark intolerance for
even a conversation with someone from a different perspective is strikingly
new.
This
is what worries me most. There exists a
social acceptability to refusing to accept or understand differences of
opinion. And this acceptability of a
polarized society alongside threats of violence against those who disagree
makes it a particularly scary time.
We
Jews have a collective memory of an eerily similar time in history: Nazi
Germany. Hitler rose to power and was
democratically elected by a populace mobilized to hate those who were
different; he promised to bring the people of Germany together with his
nationalist platform - using a combination of political acuity, deceptiveness,
and evasion. He advocated violence against anyone who disagreed with his ideas
or looked or sounded different than his ideal.
A
strikingly similar arena exists today, not just in national politics, but in
our own communal life as well.
You
may have read an article last week in the JTA, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
about something that happened to a colleague of mine.
She’s a
Jewish educator and a rabbi who has been the target of a smear campaign taking
aim at her love for Israel and professional integrity. She has received
hundreds of pieces of hate mail, aggressive phone calls, social media attacks,
attempts to have her fired from her job and even death threats.
The
reason? She supports a different
political position on Israel than do her attackers. One of the letters she received began with a
harsh critique of her political beliefs and then continued, “I regretfully must express my utmost hope that
you are hit by a car to put a stop to the injury you will cause the children
that I love.”
As the authors of the JTA piece note, “This was not an anonymous comment hiding in the murky
depths of a blog post somewhere. It was a signed letter fervently praying for
the violent demise of a leader in the community.”
What
is this about? When did it become
socially acceptable to call for the death of someone whose ideology differs
from our own?
Have
we as a society forgotten what it means to be part of a democracy? To be a citizen of a country founded to be a
place of refuge for those whose political or religious beliefs differed from
the mainstream?
It
is decidedly un-Jewish. Our Talmud is a
compilation of disagreements between respected sages, each of whom were given a
voice in the text and canonized alongside one another. The Talmud includes even minority opinions,
opinions that were never instituted as law, opinions from sages more and less respected as scholars and
leaders of their time. The editors of
the Talmud as it exists today not only tolerated or valued differences of
opinion, they venerated them. The more
ideas, the more scholarly debate, the more potential to learn.
In
fact, the Talmud[1] holds up as a model two
schools of opinion that historically disagreed about everything and
anything. They disagreed about the
proper way to light a Chanukkah menorah; about the proper way to purify
something that’s been ritually contaminated; and the specifics of Jewish legal
divorce law. They disagreed about the
specifics of keeping kosher; the laws about appropriate behavior between men
and women; and about what constitutes legal marriage.
And
yet, the Talmud teaches - boasting about the fact - that the two schools would
eat together, study together, and marry each other. They were brethren. They placed high value on the opportunity to
debate and discuss. And these
disagreements did not isolate them from one other. They socialized, they co-mingled, they
respected one another and each one’s right to hold a different view.
Differences
of opinion were known as “disagreements for the sake of heaven” - which means
that their utmost hope was to sharpen their understanding of ideas and texts -
not to be right, not to prove that the Other was wrong. But to try to determine the best way to act.
Further,
the Talmud[2] recounts a story where the
conflict between these two houses came to a head and their opinions differed so
much that it seemed there existed two completely different Torahs. At this point, the Talmud teaches, “a divine
voice came down and said, ‘Elu v’Elu
Divrei Elohim Chayim,” (which means “these and also those are words of the
living God”). The argument is
interrupted by a heavenly voice proclaiming that there is truth in both
opinions, even as the two ideas seemed to completely contradict one another.
But,
lest we think that it’s like a “stale mate” in chess or a “draw” in checkers,
in which there is no conclusive end to the exchange, the heavenly voice
concludes,“v’HaHalakha K’Beit Hillel”. Even though there was value - even
divinity - in both opinions, the law was to go according to this one only.
While
differing opinions on the matter were valued, the society had to rely on rules
to guide right action. The ultimate
value, shared by both groups, was to co-exist in one society strong enough to
hold space for difference. It wasn’t
right to create two Torahs. They did not
crave autonomy or uniformity - but rather to live beside and among those with
whom they disagreed.
The
first half of the heavenly voice’s message provided the authenticity of two
very different schools of thought. And
the second half of the message allowed for the creation of a social fabric in
which both parties could co-exist with one standard of behavior. The opinion chosen and the opinion not
chosen are both holy. We are to learn
from both and to respect both as viable ways to understand things. But we live by only one of them.
Our
ancestors knew how to argue without fighting. They never would have imagined
inciting violence against the opposition.
They would not have understood the social, political, and intellectual
polarization that exists today.
The
world of the Jewish sages was a society deeply invested in serving God, finding
the way that best advocated justice, tolerance, and peace. They valued opportunities to learn - not just
from those who shared their opinions and biases, but, all the more so, people
who looked at the same world with completely different eyes.
They
would argue that a culture unwilling to tolerate difference is one that shuns
learning. A group that demands
uniformity and is willing only to hear that with which it already agrees, is
one incapable of growing.
A
modern orthodox rabbi and scholar, David Hartman, z”l, wrote a book whose
title, A Heart of Many Rooms, draws its inspiration from a text in
Tosefta Sotah suggesting that we place in one room those ideas and perspectives
with which we agree, and then in another room those with which we don’t
agree. This is what creates a heart of
wisdom: the ability to hold two differing positions - the holy and the profane,
the sacred and the mundane - in one heart.
Your heart.
As
November draws closer and the vitriol we hear likely becomes uglier and more
pointed, I want to encourage us all to remember the wisdom of the Jewish
tradition - the wisdom of a heart - and a community - of many rooms.
Let’s
build a community - here at Am Echod - and in spaces throughout our lives -
where diversity and difference are cherished, where we find we can learn and
grow from an open conversation with those who see the world very differently
than do we. Invite in the opportunity to
be challenged by those who look and sound different than you do. Remember: these
and those are the words of the Living God.
And understand that when the election draws to a close, we must choose
one path to walk together.
When
we embrace difference, we each grow stronger and wiser. Let this wisdom guide our steps and our
hearts.
Kein Yehi Ratzon / Shana Tova.
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