5 May 2019. The
following blog post was written early last week. Death is now raining down on
the people of southern Israel and Gaza. I feel devastated. I was also deeply
saddened by the loss of Lori Gilbert-Kaye when I saw two images side by
side: one with her and her daughter in joy together, and a second of her
distraught daughter at her grave. May her memory be a blessing.
27 April 2019. It is
Monday morning and I am tired. My Facebook feed is overflowing with expressions
of collective grief and condemnation relating to the attack on a Chabad
synagogue, in California on Saturday. Text messages of support from Arab Muslim
friends are received and gratefully acknowledged. Otherwise, I say nothing
publicly. A human being was murdered, a precious life taken, injuries and
trauma inflicted in this attack on Jewish people from my community. It follows
massacres in Sri Lanka, Christchurch, Pittsburgh and Egyptian places of
worship. A jumble of thoughts and feelings flow through me, but I have no
clarity.
I feel like I am 7
years old again, at summer camp in the Catskill Mountains. My cousin was in
hospital then. He had fallen out of a second floor window a week earlier. I was
not terribly upset on that particular day. I remember vividly walking with my
camp counselor between the house we were staying in at the infirmary when he
told me I was a “Pay-Tzadik” (a bad person) because I was not sadder or
praying for my cousin. I felt deeply ashamed and confused.
Of course, I agree
with the people, both Jewish and not Jewish, who urged more love and less hate.
It is just that the words have been said so many times that they sound hollow
to me. It was the raw outpouring of grief and outrage across the world that I
felt unsettled by.
There was a time when
I would be part of the choir. I would feel that this is not just any mass
murder. No, this is an attack on us! When I was growing up in Brooklyn and we
heard about a tragedy the first question was if there were any Jews involved.
Now it was the Jews in a Chabad synagogue who were involved! Should I have felt
like emoting like crazy? Instead I felt inclined to be quiet.
In the past my
loyalty to my own people was questioned by others because of my empathy with
Muslims. This time I questioned myself. Why am I not more upset about this?
It must be said that
it is, generally, not useful to judge ourselves for having the “wrong”
emotions. I care about hatred of Jews and I have done more to counter this than
many of the emotional posters on social media. This matters more than the
intensity of my current emotions.
Research into
reducing social distance between members of minority communities and the “white”
population found that it is possible “to improve children’s attitudes toward a
racial outgroup without causing a negative impact on their feelings toward
their [own] racial ingroup”1. I wonder if that finding is entirely true for me. Does my identifying
with Muslims and Aboriginal Australians and empathising with their plight make
me less tuned in to my own people? I am not sure.
What is clear to me
is that we must care for “our own communities”, however we define them, as well
as for those from backgrounds that differ to ours2. It is not for me, or any advocate for
coexistence, to minimize the hatred against any group, and that includes
Antisemitism in all its forms, which is wrong and must be combatted.
30 April 2019. The
one emotion that I am both drawn to at this time to but also feel a little
reluctant about is hatred toward bigotry itself. I think we learn from a young
age that hatred is a bad emotion. The Torah commandment states “do not hate
your brother in your heart”3. One commentator interprets the words “your brother” in this
verse to indicate the degree to which we must avoid hatred. He argues that even the kind of
hatred which is merely to feel a small measure of distance, e.g. to feel not
quite like a brother, is still forbidden4.
Perhaps because of
teachings such as these, hatred is a taboo emotion for many people. Yesterday I
asked a group of Muslim and Jewish twelve year olds spending a day together: if
hatred is so bad, why did God create hatred? The students replied that hatred
was created for the purpose of being rejected, or as a contrast so we can
better appreciate love.
It is nice to hear
these sentiments but I think hatred has a purpose. Once, a gay student in a
Together for Humanity program stated that she thought it was ok to hate her
tormentors, her peers who taunted her and made her life miserable. One opinion
in the Talmud suggests that hating evil doers has merit 5. Thankfully, this idea has been so
heavily qualified and restricted according to one scholar 6, as to make it practically meaningless
in terms of hating people. Instead we are taught to hate evil deeds 7 rather than sinners. I certainly and
passionately hate, the twisted thinking, the indulgence of stupid lazy and
insular thinking that legitimised the murder of a Jewish woman in a synagogue.
I will continue to work to counter it.
Notes:
1. Levi, S.R., West, T. L., Bigler, R.S., Karafantis, D.M., Ramizez, L.,
Velilla, E. (2005) Messages about the uniqueness and similarities of people:
Impact on US Black and Latino youth. Journal of Applied Development Psychology
26 p.728
2. Ethics of the Fathers, 1:14
3. Leviticus 19:17
4. Ohr Hachayim commentary, translation/adaptation is from Sefaria.org. His
“approach to this verse is based on the unusual structure of the verse. It
should have read: "לא תשנא בלבבך את אחיך,
the word "in your heart" which we consider central should not have
been written at the end. [Based on his understanding of Hebrew Grammar] the
source of the hatred, the heart, should have been mentioned before the object
of the hatred, a fellow Jew. ...the message is that a person should not think
that the Torah only forbids the kind of hatred which is the forerunner of acts
of revenge or violence but does not forbid harbouring ill feelings towards
someone in one's heart. By mentioning the object of one's hatred immediately next
to the prohibition to hate, the Torah made it clear that even the kind of
hatred which is not related to acts of retaliation is forbidden. As soon as a
person distances himself mentally and emotionally from his fellow Jew he begins
to violate the prohibition of hatred as defined by the Torah in this verse”.
5. Talmud Pesachim, 113b, Maimonides in Yad Hachazaka, Hil Rotzeach
Ushmiras Nefesh 13:14
6. Tanya, chapter 32
7. Beruria in the Talmud, Brachot, 10a
such courageous self questioning, Zalman - daring to say the unspeakable...
ReplyDeletewe have spoken about this - does being open to and loving those of other faiths diminish our connection with our own... for me, these connections are fluid, so many things affect emotions, and they change from day to day. The struggle is the thing thats holy, the thing that keeps apathy at bay. Anyway, thank you for your courage, may you be blessed in your work towards a better world.