There’s a story about a rabbi who was new to a congregation.
When it was time to share the Shema, half the congregation stood while the
other half remained seated. The rabbi asked, what’s the tradition here? And the
ones standing argued it was to stand, it had always been to stand. Similarly,
the ones seated argued it was to stay seated, it had always been to stay seated.
So the new rabbi paid a visit to a founding member of the
congregation who at this point was very elderly. And the rabbi asked, which is
it? What’s the tradition around the Shema? Standing or sitting? They’re arguing
about it.
And the elderly founding member said, Ah! Arguing about it -
That’s the tradition.
To argue, to disagree… much has been made over the millennia
that this is the Jewish way.
We don’t argue to argue… though sometimes it feels that way.
What we really cherish as a people and appreciate is our ability
to engage in the difficult conversation. We have a long history in Judaism of
preserving debates. Refusing to erase dissenting voices, we recall both the
majority and the minority opinions.
Pirkei Avot proclaims: An argument for the sake of heaven
will have lasting value. What is an example of an argument for the sake of heaven?
The debates of Hillel and Shammai.[1]
And it’s true. We’ve preserved Hillel and Shammai’s 2000-year-old
debates and while the halakah, the law often followed Hillel in the end, we’re
taught Eilu v’eilu - Both these and
these are the words of the living God.
Debate is healthy - holy even - when that debate is an
attempt to figure out how we as human beings can best act in the world. If
Judaism is about lifting up the holy art of disagreement, then might it have
something to say about the state of affairs where we currently find ourselves
in America?
It turns out maybe Judaism and these United States of
America might have more in common than you think.
Eric Liu recently wrote in the Atlantic:
America doesn’t just have arguments; America
is an argument—between Federalist
and Anti-Federalist world views, strong national government and local control,
liberty and equality, individual rights and collective responsibility,
color-blindness and color-consciousness, Pluribus and Unum. The
point of civic life in this country is not to avoid such tensions. Nor is it
for one side to achieve “final” victory. It is for us all to wrestle
perpetually with these differences, to fashion hybrid solutions that work for
the times until they don’t, and then to start again.[2]
America
as a perpetual argument about who we are and who we aspire to be - that’s an
idea worth embracing. But this current state of affairs we are in? Today’s
disagreements remind me very little of an argument for the sake of heaven.
Lest
we think otherwise – and this is for the conflict-averse among us - debate and disagreements
are not inherently bad; they’re necessary for a healthy democracy. Conflict can
be a sign of intense interest, ownership, and engagement.
However, when our debate descends into something decidedly
darker, when arguments are entrenched in ego and triumph rather than what’s
best for our nation and our people as a whole, then we know we are in trouble.
A story:[3] There
were once two study partners, a chevruta pair. Resh Lakish and Rabbi Yochanan.
Their study and debate were legendary until one day Rabbi Yochanan retorted not
with a solid argument, but with an insult instead. They had been discussing the
ritual purity and impurity of weaponry and had come down on different sides of
the matter. They go back and forth until finally Yochanan throws up his hands
and says to Resh Lakish, “A robber understands his trade.”
You see, what you need to know here is that Resh Lakish in
fact was a robber before he met Yochanan and it was precisely his meeting with
Yochanan that returned him to the path of Torah. “A robber understands his
trade” then was not a factual you-would-know because you used to handle
weapons. No, Yochanan employed it as a dig at Lakish’s past when his own
argument wasn’t getting him the win. Rabbi Yochanan took the low road with his
insult. To win was seemingly more important than the feelings of a friend.
When Resh Lakish falls ill, his wife who is also Yochanan’s
sister comes calling, begging Yochanan, please, brother come make peace with
your friend. But he refuses, stubborn and Resh Lakish dies. Words are left
unsaid.
A final image from our sacred text: Yochanan tearing at his
clothing filled with a deep grief, sobbing, Where are you Resh Lakish? Where
are you, Resh Lakish?
When we fight without care, when we lay relationships to the
side in order to be right, it leads to dire consequences.
How many of us have lost friendships or even relationships
with family members over conversations that have gotten out of hand or over
political debates that boiled over? How many of us have resorted to the use of
insults or taken the brunt of an insult ourselves? How many of us are fed up
and have decided nope, I am not talking politics anymore because I do not want
a fight.
And I get it. I really do. I understand how hard it is to
have these conversations. How sometimes it is easier to avoid them altogether
in order both to maintain our integrity in what we believe as well as to respect
our relationships.
My father and I, while not quite polar opposites, are pretty
close to that when it comes to politics. Talk about a border wall left us both drained
and exhausted. Talk about ways to stay gun violence got us nowhere. But I love
him. And while the grandkids are usually the first and safest go-to for our
talks, I refuse to not talk to him about the big issues facing us in our world.
Because I respect him too much to not
talk about what keeps me up at night or to wonder with real curiosity how and
why he thinks and believes what he does.
We discuss without the intention to sway the other. Things
are a little too far afield for that, but it’s important that we talk. Because we
believe that America is an argument. A worthy argument. And America depends on
these types of conversations, especially between those with different opinions.
More and more, it seems like that type of healthy debate is
no longer desired. What’s replaced the healthy debate is the desire to drown
out the other voice in whatever way possible. It’s like sometimes we think if
we just shout a little louder, a light-bulb will magically appear over our debate
partner’s head having been enlightened by us. And when that doesn’t happen and
we’ve all raised our voices and we’re all frustrated, we sometimes encounter
that old refrain, “Be civil.” And sometimes, it means just that: Be civil,
Rabbi Yochanan, no more low blows. But other times, Be civil is code. It’s code
for “Sit down and be quiet now. Your anger is not welcome here.” Be civil can
be a powerful weapon in shutting down debate.
It’s not easy to listen to an opinion distinct from our own.
It’s much easier to dismiss what we can’t understand.
Author of the book Being
Wrong[4],
Karen Schulz argues that in order to explain to ourselves how anyone can
believe anything other than what we believe, we often resort to what she calls ‘a
series of unfortunate assumptions.’
The first unfortunate assumption: those on the other side of
the debate are ignorant.
And maybe sometimes that’s true… But if it turns out that they are operating from all the same information
that we have, and they still come to a different conclusion than our own, then it’s
time to break out the second unfortunate assumption: they must all be idiots.
And then if it turns out that they are operating from all
the same information that we have, and it turns out that they are actually
smart people and they still come to a different conclusion than our own, well
then – third unfortunate assumption - they must just be evil.
If we thought beforehand that it was difficult to talk
across lines of difference, well now it’s just near impossible.
There are of course other ways to explain why we have come
to different conclusions, the first of which is to consider the radical possibility
that it is we indeed who are wrong.
In her Ted Talk[5], Karen
Schultz asks the audience in front of her, what does it feel like to be wrong? And
think for a moment about how you would respond to that question, too. People
begin to call out: it’s dreadful, it’s embarrassing. But then she explains:
those are responses to a different question. Those are the responses to the
question, what does it feel like after
you realize you are wrong.
You see, when we’re wrong when we think we are right, we feel like we are right – right?
To illustrate this point, she tells the story of a surgeon
at Beth Israel Deaconess right here in Boston who operated on the wrong leg of
a patient. The Hospital Senior Vice President for Healthcare Quality later
said, “For whatever reason, he simply felt that he was on the correct side of
the patient.”
What does it feel like to be wrong? It feels like being
right.
If we never slow down and carefully, intentionally question
our assumptions once in a while, we may end up making horrific mistakes.
Here’s another take on why we may disagree. It’s not that we
are wrong at all, but rather that morality is complex.
I’ve been reading Jonathan Haidt’s book, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided
by Politics and Religion[6]
and in it, he argues that we all approach the world weighing different aspects
of morality more or less heavily than others. He calls these aspects our six
moral foundations. Liberals, his term, tend to favor the moral foundations of
care and fairness while conservatives, his term, tend to favor all of the moral
foundations relatively equally adding a little extra weight to the other four: to
liberty, loyalty, authority, and sanctity.
Haidt understands that we are not
creatures governed by reason despite what a whole score of 18th
and19th century philosophers may say. Rationality won’t win here
even if it should. Because it is our emotions, our moral foundations that drive
our very human behavior.
And that’s exactly what we see playing
out in our country today. We can continue to choose to drive against human
nature and appeal entirely to logic to straighten out the mess that we are in or
we can work to better understand human beings and what really makes us tick.
It’s possible that we may be able to
get somewhere by appealing to the intuitive, moral foundations of our sparring
partners, for example, shifting the frame of a debate from caring about others vs.
not-caring to caring about others vs. respect for authority. Grounding
conversation in an understanding of competing moral foundations rather than
immediately demonizing a different intuitive approach may, at the very least,
get us talking differently. And that’s a step. And if we can do that, then
maybe, just maybe we can begin (just
begin!) to unpack this stalemate in which we currently find ourselves.
What we know for sure is that we’re living in extraordinary
times. We’re more divided than ever. And the knowledge is ever present in our hearts
that this is no mere intellectual exercise; for many, people’s real lives are
on the line – and that is why we simply do not have the option to disengage.
There will be times when the chair on the other side of the
table will be empty. There will be no partner with whom to engage, no one who
is willing to listen. At least in that moment.
In those times, we are like the lone man who lived in Sodom
who would take to the streets protesting each and every day against the immorality
perpetrated around him. One day, a traveler stopped in Sodom and saw the man in
his protest and said: “Why do you keep shouting? No one is listening.” The man
responded, “At first I
protested because I hoped to change them. Now I protest because if I don’t,
they will change me.”[7]
And
there will be other times when yes, someone will be ready to sit down across
from us; we will have a partner with whom to study and discuss and debate. Take
that opportunity. It’s precious and increasingly rare. Be at the table. There may be moments when insults will replace
reasonable retorts, but we will be ready keeping in mind the tragedy of Rabbi Yochanan
and Resh Lakish. We’ll strive to engage - and emulate the greats: the houses of
Hillel and Shammai. And on the good days, the conversation will be healthy – and
maybe even holy. And on the not-so-good days, we’ll commit to keep returning to
the table because America is an argument and a worthy one at that.
Will our willingness to engage in a difficult conversation
change the state of politics? Probably not. Will it change you and the person
across the table from you? Maybe.
Change has to start somewhere. Why not with you?
Starting in just a few weeks, we will begin a series here at
Temple Isaiah called Difficult Conversations: Right, Wrong, and Righteous.[8]
Groups made up of about fifteen people each will meet over
the course of a month to begin a shared conversation about what it means to be right,
what it means to be wrong, how we can disagree with grace, how we can understand
the limits of debate, and how we can stand in our own truth and integrity
despite the storm raging all around us. This series is not issue-based; rather,
it is about what Judaism and other great wisdom sources can offer us about how
to engage in thoughtful, intentional discourse. After Yom Kippur, head to our
website; register today. Many groups are already filling up.
We need these conversations. We desperately need to talk.
In a New York Times op-ed entitled “Invite your Neighbors Over
for a Barbeque this Weekend,” Marc Dunkelman argues that our “middling relationships,” that is, those relationships with
people outside our core, but with whom we are still in close physical proximity
“are the best suited to pierce our much-bemoaned filter bubbles. A left-wing academic might
talk with a conservative banker while in line at Blockbuster — if that’s how we
still rented movies. An activist could explain the benefits of paid leave to a
skeptical businesswoman on the sidelines of the P.T.A. meeting — if that were
how we spent our Tuesday nights. Experiments that compel ordinary people to
discuss a fraught topic face-to-face have illustrated that those conversations
quite frequently lead participants to think differently.”[9]
So come and talk more to these neighbors right here, the ones all around you through our Difficult Conversations groups. Lest you be lulled into the false impression that we are all of the same political bent here at Isaiah, that this is an extension of your bubble, let me pop that bubble right now. While we might not quite be a microcosm of our country as a whole, I can assure you that there is a diversity of beliefs and opinions right here in our temple family.
Let’s talk to one another and create a shared conversation grounded
in our sacred text and our Jewish values.
There was a debate a number of years ago here. A
conversation ensued at a board meeting: did we want to be a congregation that
was a sanctuary from the world around
us or one that prepares us to live our Jewish values, to live Isaiah each and
every day beyond our four walls.
Isaiah is our home and haven, but we are not doing our duty as
a moral community if we are only a shelter from the storm.
Our values and texts guide us to engage and look
outward. They implore us: Do not separate yourself from the community.[10] Do not hate your neighbor in your heart.[11] Do not be indifferent.[12] Do not stand idly by.[13]
May we never forget the Talmudic teaching: a sanctuary
must always be built with windows.[14] Why? Because windows look out into the world! And therefore, so must
we.
Judaism is a conversation, an argument about how we can
be our best, most moral, most responsible selves in the world.
America is an argument, too. May we bring our full
selves, our open selves, our courageous selves to this argument – and may it be
an argument worthy of all who count America as their home. An argument worthy
of the sake of heaven.
Shanah tovah.
G’mar tov.
[1] Adapted
from Pirkei Avot 5:17.
[2]
Liu, Eric. The Atlantic. “Americans Don't Need Reconciliation—They Need to Get Better at Arguing”
Nov 1, 2016. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/11/post-election-reconciliation/506027/
[3]
Bava Metzia 84a.
[5]
Karen Schulz, On Being Wrong, TED2011.
https://www.ted.com/talks/kathryn_schulz_on_being_wrong
[6] Haidt, Jonathan. The Righteous Mind:
Why Good People Are Divided By Politics and Religion. New York: Pantheon Books, 2012.
[7]
Adapted from Wiesel, Elie. "Words from a Witness," Conservative
Judaism, XXI (Spring, 1967), p.48.
[8]
Registration for Temple Isaiah Difficult Conversations groups can be found
here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScg-DseRRRBgKZrQv1EkhxJ5LlroYWXbkgYbKi5eVvJzF9nAQ/viewform
[9]
Dunkelman, Marc J., The New York Times.
“Invite Your Neighbors Over for a
Barbecue This Weekend.” May 26, 2017.
[10]
Pirkei Avot 2:5
[11]
Leviticus 19:17
[12]
Deuteronomy 22:3
[13]
Leviticus 19:16
[14]
Brachot 34b
Wooden Planters and troughs are best for lanscaping ideas. Many designs and styles are available at discount rates
ReplyDeletevery popular product in this season.
Wooden Trough Planter
Wooden Planter