Monoculture

Driving across a beautiful bridge one morning this week, on the way to a Sydney Catholic Schools study day, I cracked the monoculture riddle.

It has been bothering me for years: the apparent justification of a monoculture in the Torah.

“If you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land before you, those whom you will leave over, will be spikes in your eyes and thorns in your sides, and they will persecute you upon the land.” (1)

A compelling counterexample of approval for a monoculture is in the Book of Esther. The villain of the story argues to the King: “There is a certain people, scattered and dispersed among the other peoples in all the provinces of your realm, whose laws are different from those of any other people and who do not obey the king’s laws; and it is not in Your Majesty’s interest to leave them.  If it please Your Majesty, let an edict be drawn for their destruction (2).”

Surely, if Haman (the villain in the Book of Esther) was evil then he must be wrong.

And, of course, there is a context. “This (guidance about dealing with the Canaanite population) is an exceptional Divine decree in a particular time and context that no human ruler has the right to apply in any other situation (3).”

However, no Halachic authority of any standing that I am aware of has advocated for ethnic cleansing or mass expulsions of any population anywhere in more than 1000 years. While these words above were not written by any major classical authority, they do reflect a common contemporary attitude by religious Jews.

Still, until that morning, the idea of characterising the “other” as a thorn in the side did not sit well with me.

A day or two later, I thought about the textual and historical contexts of the verse about the “thorns in your side” and I think it makes a little more sense.

The verses (4) prior to the “thorns” comparison are clearly about polytheism or idol worship rather than ethnic difference. Having polytheists hanging around the Israelites would blind their eyes to God’s guidance (5), just as bribes cause moral blindness to the eyes of judges (6). The thorns are a type of hedge that obscures one’s view and thus can be misleading (7).

The historical context is of a people trying to create a counter-cultural ethical monotheistic society around 1300 BC, in a world in which the religious norms of the time were polytheism and (according to traditional Jewish commentaries) decadent.

It has been suggested that everyone “does religion” as a way of managing uncertainty. Polytheists in 1300 BC apparently “did’ theirs by creating many gods that they could manipulate and hopefully do their bidding in exchange for some offerings, with a bit of ritual temple prostitution thrown in on the side.  

Along comes a crazy group of people who believe in an invisible God that sets the terms of the relationship between humans and Himself. This fragile idea had to be protected for the good of humanity and the purpose of creation with extreme measures. One of these measures was the execution of a social misfit ̶blasphemer ̶, about whom I wrote about before (8); the second was a temporary measure, monoculturalism.

King Saul failed to recognise that monoculturalism was an exception rather than the rule. The focus in his policy were the Gibeonites, whom “Saul had tried to wipe [them] out in his zeal for the people of Israel and Judah.” (9) 

The punishment for Saul’s discrimination was shocking. Seven members of his royal family were executed, then hung and left for months to publicise the severity of the crime of oppressing the stranger and reinforce the message that even royalty must be held accountable for such crime (10).

The Talmud’s discussion of this episode is worth quoting.

The Talmud poses the question: How could they have left Saul’s executed sons unburied all that time?  “Isn’t it written: “His body shall not remain all night upon the tree; but you shall surely bury him the same day” (11)? … It is better that one letter be uprooted from the Torah and thereby the name of Heaven [God] be sanctified in public. How so? As the gentile passersby would say: What is the nature of these people? They were told that these are sons of kings. And what did they do to deserve such a fate? They had laid their hands upon and caused harm to the stranger.” (12).

The Torah contains repeated commandments in the Torah that call for loving the stranger and never to oppress the stranger, which in modern terms would include members of minority groups. The punishment of Saul’s family and its interpretation in the Talmud makes a strong case to me that the Torah generally rejects monoculturalism.

 Notes

1)      Numbers 33:55

2)      Esther 3:8

3)      ArtScroll Chumash commentary to Numbers 33:55

4)      Numbers 33:52

5)      Ramban on Numbers 33:52

6)      Exodus 23:8

7)      Samson Raphael Hirsch on Numbers 33:52

8)      https://torahforsociallyawarehasid.blogspot.com/2012/05/outcast-offenders-understanding-and.html

9)      Talmud, Yevamot 79a

10)   II Samuel 21:2

11)   Deuteronomy 21:23

12)   The term used in the Talmud to refer to the Gibeonites here is complex, but I think the moral argument that I present here is accurate enough

Kashrut, Rules and Spirit An Interfaith Perspective

Religion can be expressed either as self-transcending and compassionate or as ritual and rules. On the fourth day of Passover, I listened to a Muslim scholar, Dr Samir Mahmoud, assert that all things are alive and sentient, that the Prophet Mohamed listened to pebbles whispering and that Halal should, more rigorously, include ethical considerations such as the conditions in which animals are kept prior to slaughter. I felt moved as I listened to him.

Our weekly Torah reading contains many mundane laws for Kosher food [1], which come across very differently from Dr Mahmoud’s talk. This begs the question: is Judaism more interested in the rules than the spirit?  

Rules!

There is no denying that there are a lot of rules in Judaism. On Passover, when my family and I performed the Seder, we read about the “clever son” who asks a question about the three types of rules of Passover [2]. The question annoyed me; it seemed so technical and to miss the awe-inspiring bigger picture of the Exodus, such that I felt like crossing out his question and replacing it with: “How can the Exodus story inspire me and our community to be better versions of ourselves and to maintain hope in trying times?”

One way of understanding the rules is that they lead to self-transcendence. This idea is expressed in this teaching, “What does God care whether one slaughters an animal from the throat or from the nape? Thus, we learn that the mitzvot were given only to refine the people” [3]. In other words, the rules are a means to an end. As we prepare and eat our food, we think about divine rules and this leads us to think about our creator, develop self-control and become better, more mindful people [4].  Indeed, the ending of the Kashrut chapter in Leviticus includes a call to holiness. [5]

 

Laws Beyond Rationale

Another way to think about Kashrut is that we do it because God commanded us to do so. When the laws are introduced in Leviticus, it says nothing about mindfulness. This animal is permitted as food because it has split hooves and chews its cud; the other one is forbidden because it does not [6]. This is the way many Jews experience Kashrut [7] and how I would usually relate to it.

Harmful Food

Two more approaches assume that the problem with unkosher food lies in the food itself, that either these foods are harmful to your health [8], or that they contain spiritual or chemical properties that dull your spiritual sensitivity [9] and they create cruelty in your heart in the case of eating the flesh of predators [10]. Hasidism teaches that there are divine sparks in all things – similar to Mahmoud’s point – but the sparks in Kosher foods can be elevated by eating with positive intention, while non-Kosher foods are “tied down” and cannot be elevated, regardless of one’s intentions [11]. 

Evidence

However, the health thesis has been strongly rejected on the basis of evidence [12]. We see non-Jewish people who eat non-Kosher food and are healthy. However, this same logic surely applies to the spiritual properties approach, one of the arguments being that if these foods are spiritually harmful, then non-Jewish people who do not keep Kosher should be of inferior character, which is manifestly untrue. Furthermore, if these foods are so inherently spiritually harmful, shouldn’t non-Jewish people be protected from them [13]? 

About the person, not the food

A careful reading of the Torah text in Leviticus suggests that the problem with these foods is more about the person eating them than about the foods alone. Sixteen (16) times in this passage, we have variations of the idea that these are a problem for you [14]. According to the Midrash, the prohibition of these foods will be reversed in the messianic era and are only forbidden now to see if we will obey the divine command [15].

Our tradition teaches us not to proclaim that we do not want to eat the flesh of the pig, but rather to say, “I want to eat it but I won’t because my heavenly Father decreed that I should not” [16]. The process of self-denial itself transforms the person who overcomes their desires [16].   Experiments by psychologist, Roy Baumeister, found that intentional eating, or eating “virtuous food”, such as radishes or celery while resisting the temptation to indulge in chocolate takes a lot out of us. The people who ate radishes “will [tend to] give up earlier than normal when faced with a difficult cognitive task” [18]. If one practices the Kosher laws as intended according to this approach, it could be a taxing, and intense but ultimately might be a rewarding effort

Chewing it over

The link between spiritual and personal growth and Kosher eating is linked symbolically to one of the signs that an animal that is “chewing the cud”, literally and figuratively, is Kosher. After the animal swallows its food, it regurgitates it and chews on it again. “… we have to constantly re-evaluate our situation – reflect and prob our conscience - and make certain that we are on the right path” [19].

Conclusion

In the interfaith encounter we must not exaggerate or understate our similarities. Dr Mahmoud’s understanding of his faith and the nature of all things and its relationship to Islamic dietary laws is different to the teachings I cited about Kosher. On the other hand, the striving for the transcendent and compassionate is expressed in both our faiths and in the strivings of people of all faiths or none. As a Hasidic Jew, I too am taught to see spiritual life in all of creation [20] and to see links between my practice, ethics [21] and spiritual growth, following the unique pathways and rules of the Torah.  

 

Thank you to Hazel Baker for editing this blog post. Her edits have made this post clearer and stronger. Thank you.

Notes

 

1)       Leviticus 11

2)       The Passover Haggada, the four sons.

3)       Bereshit Rabba, 44

4)       R Bchaya on Leviticus 11, R Haim Donin in To be A Jew.

5)       Leviticus 11:44-45

6)       Leviticus 11:3-7, according to Maimonides, Guide for the Perplexed, 3:46, there signs are not reasons, they are only ways of identifying which animals are Kosher or not-Kosher

7)       Orenstien, W. and Frankel, H, (1960) Torah as our Guide, Hebrew Publishing Company, p. 27, “unlike many other laws in the Torah, the reason for these [dietary] laws is not given… Learned men of every generation have tried to explain them, but to this day no one has found the reason for them. But we observe these laws because they are the will of God.

8)       Maimonides, Guide for the Perplexed, 3:46

9)       Talmud Yoma, 39a as interpreted by others such as Mesilas Yesharim 11, the Talmud itself is talking about sin in general rather than specifically the properties of non-kosher food. “…sin stupefies the heart of a person, as it is stated: “And do not impurify yourselves with them.””

10)    Ramban, Leviticus 11:13

11)    Tanya Chapter 8

12)    Arama, R. Yitzchak in Akeidat Yitchat, Gate 60, Abarbanel on Shemini,

13)    An internet user going by the name Maximilian asked a question along these lines on the Ask Noah forum: “Hello! Is it alright according to Torah if I [as a non-Jewish person] avoid eating ‘unclean animals’ like G-d spoke in Leviticus 11? Even before Noah was on the Ark G-d spoke about clean and unclean animals, in Genesis 7,2. I can imagine that trying to avoid these spiritually unclean animals can help to get a better relationship with G-d? I feel better eating just animals which G-d called clean, is it okay if I do so?”

14)    Leviticus 11:4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 20, 26, 27, 28, 29, 32, 37, 40. Rabbi David Zvi Hoffman in his commentary to Leviticus page 216, makes the point that in Judaism the animals are not intrinsically bad, unlike his understanding of Zoroastrianism. It must be said that the Torah does attribute an element of “not pure” or pure to non-Kosher and Kosher animals respectively, in Genesis 7:2, I don’t think that attribute cancels the sixteen references to “Lachem” to you, in Leviticus 11.

15)    Midrash Tehillim 146:3 (explaining the verse "He permits what is forbidden”). What is meant by permitting what is forbidden? Some say that all the animals that became impure in this world, God will purify them in the future. As it says (Ecclesiastes 1:9) “What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again.” They were pure for the children of Noah. And He also said to them (Genesis 9:3) “Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. I have given you all.” Just as I have given you the green plants, I give you everything. Why did He forbid it? To see who accepts His words and who does not. And in the future, He will permit everything that He forbade

16)    Sifra on Leviticus 2:26.

17)    Arama, R. Yitzchak in Akeidat Yitchat, Gate 60.

18)    Buameister, R, in Kahneman, D., (2021) Thinking Fast and Slow, Penguin Books, p. 42.

19)    The Lubavitcher Rebbe, Likutei Sichos Vol 1, as reworked by Yitzi Hurwitz

20)    R. Schneur Zalman of Liadi in the Tanya, section 2, Sha’ar Hayichud V’Haemuna

21)   The problem of how animals are treated in preparation for human consumption is addressed under the laws of cruelty to animals, Tzaar Baale Chayim.

Jewish appreciation of non-Jewish people’s spirit – the case of Joseph’s brothers’ guilty talk

In this post I reflect on Judaism’s teachings about how to relate to non-Jewish people with a new argument for appreciation.

I write this reflection in the Crown Heights area of Brooklyn, New York. I am here celebrating with all my siblings both my son’s wedding and my mother’s 80^th birthday. While walking around Crown Heights during my visit now, I have noticed an apparently pleasant and easy coexistence between Jewish people and blacks. This is different to what I remember.

When I grew up in Crown Heights, I heard a lot of historical stories about non-Jewish persecution of Jews, pogroms and blood libels. I also felt contempt, animosity toward and fear of our non-Jewish black and Hispanic neighbours. These feelings about people that we had little understanding of were also related to muggings, burglaries and even murder. A young Jewish man named Avrohom Eliezer Goldman was murdered mere meters away from my current temporary accommodation on Montgomery Street[i]. I attended his funeral in 1977 as a seven-year-old boy. I still remember the heart-rending recitation of psalms and the crowd. It was not easy for anyone then.

Putting aside judgement of our community at the time, it is a fact that with one exception[ii], as I grew up, I had a consistent sense of a generalised negative attitude to non-Jewish people. There was no basis for me to admire the virtues of non-Jewish people, their compassion or altruism or how faith might move them to such stances.

This week I learned something in relatively recent Jewish commentaries about the story of the Biblical Joseph’s brothers that supports a more respectful approach (for readers who want more details of the story, see [iii] below).

Years after Joseph’s brothers sold him into slavery, they met again during a time of famine when they sought to purchase scarce food in Egypt. However, Joseph’s brothers did not recognise him in the Egyptian viceroy he had become, but Joseph recognised them. In this role, Joseph had them thrown into prison, on false charges of espionage, a parallel to their depriving him of his freedom all those years earlier. After three days, he offered to allow all of them, except one hostage, to go home.

It is at this point of the story that Joseph’s brothers finally express guilt over what they had done to Joseph. “They said … but we are guilty, on account of our brother, because we looked on, at the anguish of his soul, yet we did not listen, as he pleaded with us. That is why this distress has come upon us.”[iv]

What led them to this epiphany at this particular time and not before, even during the three days of their imprisonment?[v] It was their reflection on the Egyptian ruler’s statement: “Do this and you shall live, for I fear God. If you are being honest [and you are not spies], let one of your brothers be held in your place of detention, while the rest of you go and take home rations for your starving households.”

The brothers thought: “If this man who is not ‘from our faith’ is moved by faith in God to show mercy for our starving families, who are strangers to him, whose suffering he did not see, should we not feel regret for the way we treated our own brother, whose suffering we did see, as he pleaded with us?”[vi]

Of course, Joseph was not actually a person of another faith. Yet, the fact that the commentary has the brothers acknowledging the way an apparently non-Jewish person’s faith in God guided him to compassion is a source text for greater recognition of the ways that non-Jewish people are moved to altruism. I hope it helps encourage greater appreciation by Jewish people of non-Jewish people.

 

---

[i] https://www.nytimes.com/1977/06/14/archives/three-sought-in-killing-of-hasidic-rabbis-son.html

[ii] The case of Dama Ben Netina, a non-Jewish man who excels in honouring his father.

[iii] A summary of the story told in Genesis, Chapters 37-50.
Jacob had twelve sons but favoured his second youngest Joseph. He gave him a special coat. Joseph’s brothers were jealous of him and intended to kill him, but in the end sold him into slavery.

Joseph was taken to Egypt, where he was a slave. He was subsequently falsely accused of seducing his master’s wife and was thrown into prison. Directly, from prison he was surprisingly appointed to high office after interpreting troubling dreams for the Pharoah. As the second highest official in Egypt, Joseph – now with a new Egyptian name, Tzafnat Paneach - orchestrated a program of food storage to prepare for famine.

When all his brothers except for the youngest, Benjamin, travelled to Egypt to access some of the surplus food during the famine it was an opportunity for Joseph to meet his brothers. They did not recognise him, but he recognised them.

Joseph-Tzafnat - accused his brothers of being spies and told them that they would only prove their innocence if they brought their youngest brother Benjamin with them. After imprisoning them for three days, he released nine of them to return home with food to their hungry families but kept one, Simeon as a hostage to compel them to bring Benjamin.

When Benjamin arrived, Joseph contrived to have evidence of theft planted in Benjamin’s bag. This presented an opportunity for the brothers to demonstrate loyalty to Benjamin and complete their repentance for their betrayal of Joseph. When the brothers passed this test, Joseph reconciled with his brothers.    

[iv] Genesis 42:21

[v] Toldot Yitzchot and Maasei Hashem quoted in Tzeda Lederech by Yisocher Ben Eilenberg, in Chumash with 11 Meforshei Rashi

[vi] Be’er Hatorah and both in Chumash with 11 Meforshei Rashi

 

“Jewish Soul”, Is it a software thing? Yitro

The idea of the Jews being a “chosen people” (1) can motivate us in worshiping God (2) and service to humanity. I don’t think of it as me being better, or more worthy than virtuous people I know and admire who are not Jewish. However, there is a risk that the idea of being ‘chosen’ - if it is taken to mean that there is an intrinsic difference to the Jewish soul - can make some Jews feel less connected to, or to devalue their non-Jewish neighbours (3).

How we choose to understand ethnic identity can be compared either to computer software - that is installed and added on but not essential, or to hardware, in that we regard it as intrinsic to who we are (4). If it is software, the brotherhood of mankind is more plausible than if it is hardware. Jewish scholarship on this question is mixed and complex.  

Image by Steven Depolo, used under 
Creative Commons Licence 3.0
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0

On the hardware side of the argument is the idea of a unique Jewish soul (5) which, according to a mystical perspective, is “a part of God” (6). However, this needs to be taken in the context of the belief that God is present in everything in existence. Even rocks, according to the mystics, contain a “divine spark” (7), although these “sparks” are deemed to differ between inanimate objects and different peoples (8). 

We should not overstate the concept of the “Godly soul” because, according to its chief proponent, it is quite marginal to the lived experience of the Jew. The day-to-day life of the Jew is an experience of an “animal soul” rather than a Godly one. It is this animal soul that is the true everyday identity of the Jewish person (9). The Godly soul is something “that has been placed within him” (10) but is not him or her (11). It seems more like an obscure “plug in”, than a core element.

On the other side of the argument stands Maimonides (12). Repeatedly, he emphasises that it is an individual’s knowledge and motivations that are key to one’s spiritual standing. “Every person can be righteous like Moses” (13). “Every single person from all inhabitants of the world whose spirit guides him and whose intellect leads him to understand, to separate himself and to stand before God...to walk straight as God created him...he is sanctified [with the greatest holiness],“Holy of Holies”...” (14). 

A Chasidic master put it: “Holiness is not found in the human being in essence unless he sanctifies himself. According to his preparation for holiness, so it comes upon him from on High. A person does not acquire holiness while inside his mother. He is not holy from the womb, but has to labor from the very day he comes into the air of the world” (15). Indeed, whatever faults one might attribute to a non-Jewish idol worshipper’s soul would also describe our Jewish ancestors when we worshipped idols in Egypt, “with no difference!” (16). Clearly holiness is determined by behaviour.

Regardless of hardware or software, the idea of chosenness is linked to service (17). One form of this service is the role of the Jews in bringing an understanding of monotheism to all humans and uniting them in worship (18). This emphasises the importance of humanity as a whole, and sees the role of the Jewish people to benefit mankind rather than one of self-centeredness. This is because “all humans are cherished by God, and the Righteous of the Nations are precious to God without a doubt” (19). Furthermore Jews are urged to approach this concept with humility (20). 

I will end with a quote from one of the Rabbis, who, despite being aligned with the inherent differences approach, still strongly embraced love of all humanity. He wrote:

“The highest state of love of creatures should be allotted to the love of mankind, and it must extend to all of mankind, despite all variations of religions, opinions, and faiths, and despite all distinctions of race and climate. It is right to get to the bottom of the views of different peoples and groups, to learn, as much as possible, their characters and qualities, in order to know how to base love of humanity on foundations that approach action. 

For only upon a soul rich in love for creatures and love of man can the love of the nation raise itself up in its full nobility and spiritual and natural greatness. The narrowness that causes one to see whatever is outside the border of the special nation, even outside the border of [the people of] Israel, as ugly and defiled, is a terrible darkness that brings general destruction upon all [efforts at] building of spiritual good, for the light of which every refined soul hopes" (21).

 

Perhaps hardware or software does not matter quite as much as it would seem, as long as we can embrace all of humanity. 

 

Notes: 

I acknowledge Rabbi Hanan Balk and his essay referenced in the notes below as the basis of much of what I have written above. 

1. Exodus 19:5-6, Isaia 41:8-10
2. Targum Yonasan Ben Uziel to Exodus 19:6
3. Ohr Hachayim commentary to Exodus 22:20
4. Murray, D. (2019) The Madness of Crowds, Gender, Race and Identity, Bloomsbury
5. Zohar, Genesis 170, & 171, Kuzari, 1:41-43, in In Balk H., (2013) The Soul of a Jew and the Soul of a Non-Jew, p. 49, 
6. An Inconvenient Truth and the Search for an Alternative in Hakira, vol 13, http://www.hakirah.org/Vol%2016%20Balk.pdf 
7. Eitz  Chayim gate 5:2, Tanya chapter 1 and 2 by R. Shneur Zalman of Liady (1745–1815), and Nefesh ha-Ḥayyim sha’ar 1, ch. 4, by R. Ḥayyim of Volozhin (1749–1821)
8. Tanya, Shaar Hayichud V’Haemuna, chapter 1
9. cited in the discussion between the Lubavitcher Rebbe and Hilel students, cited in Balk, H.,  p.51 
10. With the exception of the extremely rare super saint or tzadik as defined in Tanya chapter 1
11. The text of the morning prayer Elokai Neshama, my God, the soul that you placed within me...
12. Tanya chapter, 29
13. Balk, H., (2013) ibid, see also his strong approach to the interpretation of the coerced divorce
14. Maimonides, Yad Hachazakah, Laws of Repentance 5:2
15. Maimonides, Yad Hachazakah, Laws of Sabbatical and Jubilee Years, 13:13
16. R. Simḥa Bunim of Przysukha, Kol Simḥa, Parshat Miketz, p. 47 and Mesharatav Eish Lohet, p. 228, quoted in Noam Siaḥ, p. 263. In Balk, p. 47
17. Ohr Hachayim commentary to Exodus 22:20, נשמות ישראל עצמם היו טבועות בקליפה ואם כן יהיה גר זה כאחד מכם באין הבדל
18. Targum Yonasan Ben Uziel 
19. Seforno on Exodus 19:5-6  
20. Seforno ibid
21. Chatam Sofer on Yitro, p. 38-39
22. Kook (Mussar Avikha (Jerusalem, 1985), p. 58, no. 10; Orot ha-Kodesh (Jerusalem, 1990), vol. 4, p. 405. In Balk p.54

Dis/Connection and Crown Heights Jews and Blacks - Vayechi

I walked toward the forest in St Ives, this past Monday, as I do most mornings, but this time tentatively. Australia is burning! A place that is usually a refuge for me, teeming with bird sounds, animal life and tranquility, now feels ambiguous, even somewhat threatening, possibly on the verge of igniting with deadly fire. Many Australians have lost their lives, many more their homes or farms and we have lost so many animals.

A week earlier, I walked toward another oasis of nature: Prospect Park, at the edge of Crown Heights, Brooklyn, where I visited my parents over Chanukah.  It is usually a calming walk and I often like to go when I visit. This time was different. Religious Jews were being attacked on the streets of New York, one had been murdered in a shop in New Jersey and another was stabbed at home in Monsey. I hesitated as I thought: was I safe? Would I be attacked? 

These two causes call me as I write. Living in Australia, I feel empathy with my fellow Australians. Their suffering and terror stirs my heart to compassion and concern. Yet, I am also a Jew from Brooklyn, and my recent visit is pulling my attention to the simmering situation there.

Navigating between our ties to, or disconnections from, various places is explored in my Jewish tradition. Our patriarch Jacob, born in Canaan, is said to have only truly been alive during his last seventeen years, living in exile in Egypt (1) where he finally found happiness (2).  Yet, his new home was not where he wanted to be buried, among the fundamentally different Egyptians (3), instead he insisted that his body must be returned to the Holy Land (4). Even when Jacob was alive, he considered it important that his family remain apart from the Egyptians (5).

This way of being in a place but not of the place (6), reflects my own experience growing up in Brooklyn, which came back to me on my recent visit. While I was there I caught up with a black friend from Sydney, Mohamed. I showed him around Crown Heights, starting with my childhood home. I showed him a large apartment building with black families near our old home, and reflected how, in the twenty years I lived there, I never learned the names of any of my black neighbours. This wasn't unique to me. This kind of disconnect from our non-Jewish neighbours was a common feature of growing up as a Chasidic Jew in Crown Heights. 

I find it hard to write about my old neighbourhood. It is simple enough to speak about my experience, to acknowledge that I was racist then, and felt fear and loathing of my black neighbours. It is also a matter of historic fact, that in 1991 an Australian Jew, Yankel Rosenbaum, was killed by a black man, part of a hateful anti-semitic mob. I will never forget the terror I felt in 1991 when I returned from Australia, to what felt like a war-zone, and came to be known as the “Crown Heights riots”. In 2020, another black man from Crown Heights is in custody for  stabbing a Rabbi in his home, over Chanukah. But there is so much more to this tension, both past and present, that is contested and sensitive.

Ultimately, this blog post is far too brief to fully explore the painful history or current dynamic between Jews and African Americans in Crown Heights. However, I want to at least take an interest here in the efforts to bridge the divide between the two communities (7). It is good to see role models of inter-communal friendship going to schools and engaging children in conversation. However, as someone who has been using this approach - going to schools as  Muslim-Chrisitian-Jewish panels modelling goodwill, for almost two decades, I have learned that this strategy, while valuable in its own right, needs to be part of a multi-faceted approach (8). One important element that research recommends is ensuring that participants in intergroup contact, in cases where there has been tension, are assured that this contact is sanctioned by authority figures on “their side” (9).

One suggestion I offer to my old community is to utilise religious education to guide children how to truly coexist, while also honouring our religious traditions of being separate. This is not at all simple, but it is eminently doable. It could begin with discussion of behaviour, such as the halachic principle of supporting needy and sick non-Jewish people, not only Jews, as part of 'the ways of peace' (10). It should involve exploration of what it means to be truly ethical in our ways of thinking and behaving toward one non-Jewish or black neighbours, to strive to make them so “beautiful” that G-d Himself would be proud of us (11). The children might be invited to ponder how it came to be that so many Egyptians deeply mourned the death of a Jewish man, Jacob (12). Perhaps, as one commentary suggested, throughout the years Jacob lived in Egypt, he spent time sharing his wisdom with wise Egyptians (13), not just hanging out with his Jewish grandchildren.

Eventually this discussion arrives at the question of identity. Who are we as Jews and human beings? G-d created humans with a common ancestor to prevent discord (14) based on beliefs in superiority (15) or ideas of purer lineage (16).

As for me, like people of various faith backgrounds and none, I must turn my attention to the needs and suffering of my fellow Australians at this difficult time. 

 

Notes:

 A big thank you to my learned and skillful editor, my son, Aaron Menachem Mendel Kastel. 

1)     Midrash Hagadol, in Torah Shlaima to Genesis 47:28, 81, p. 1724. 

2)     Lekach Tov, in Torah Shlaima to Genesis 47:28, note: 81, p. 1724. 

3)     Old Tanchuma, in Torah Shlaima to Genesis 47:29, 114, p. 1730, "they are compared to Donkeys and I am compared to a sheep..."  

4)     Genesis 47:29-31.

5)     Midrash Hagadol, in Torah Shlaima to Genesis 46:34, 188, p. 1700. 

6)     See also Likkutei Sichos, Vol. 20, pg. 235-242 and especially pg. 241.

7)     https://www.wnyc.org/story/attacks-against-jews-crown-heights-stir-old-fears-and-new-dialogue/

8)     Halse, C (2015), Doing Diversity, report on research project, Deakin University, https://www.education.vic.gov.au/Documents/school/principals/management/doingdiversity.pdf.

9)     Alport, G. in Pedersen, A., Walker, I., & Wise, M. (2005). Talk Does Not Cook Rice: Beyond anti-racism rhetoric to strategies for social action. Australian Psychologist, 40, 20-30.

10)  Talmud Gittin 61a. See Rabbi Jonathan Sacks' elaboration of this concept in The Home We Build Together, Continuum Books. See also statement in the Talmud Gittin 59b. That all of the laws of the Torah are for the sake of the ways of peace.

11)  Kedushas Levi, end of parsha Vayechi, Sifrei Ohr Hachayim edition, Jerusalem, p. 116.

12)  Genesis 50:3.

13)  Rabbi Moshe David Vali, Ohr Olam, Genesis Vol. 2, Hamesorah edition, p. 464.

14)  Talmud, Sanhedrin 38a.

15)  Rashi ad loc.

16)  R. Yosef Hayim (1835 – 1909), better known as the Ben Ish Chai, in Ben Yehoyada, ad loc.

Violence and Resilience of the Aggrieved - Leader and Survivor Kathryn Jones (Pinchas)

The other day I felt embarrassed when I reflected on how I had performed in an important meeting. Unfortunately, I had talked too much and listened far too little. On reflection, as I went into that meeting I felt quite anxious about the anticipated outcomes of that meeting but I was too preoccupied with work to deal with the fear. Dealing with our fears and grievances ensures they don’t fester and explode into an avalanche of words, or even violence. In this blog I reflect on my encounter with Kathryn Jones, a tall woman of Muslim faith and Anglo-Saxon-Australian heritage, who is a survivor of sexual abuse as a child and years of crushing domestic violence (1). She is a passionate advocate for thinking based strategies to counter it. However, I also want to explore how violence and fury might arise not out of mere thoughts but rather out of deeply held beliefs and ideals. As an example of the latter, I examine the case of Pinchas (or Phineas) that opens the Torah reading of this week and appears to approve of the extrajudicial execution of a sinner (2). 

Thoughts are powerful. At a recent Islamic Schooling Conference, I heard from Professor Stephen Dobson about one common thread between the Norwegian far-right terrorist Anders Behring Breivik and the attacker of the Mosques in New Zealand. In both cases, there were long simmering grievances that we can assume were never adequately dealt with.

At the same conference I had the privilege of listening to Kathryn Jones talk about resilience. In her book,'Step Up, Embrace the Leader Within', Kathryn writes movingly of her profound pain: “My forehead rested heavily on the prayer mat soaked by the flood of tears…" She felt “worn down, beaten and empty”; (3) as her suffering in her abusive marriage became progressively more acute. Despite her childhood and her more recent pain, when I listened to Kathryn I felt a strong and positive energy emanating from her. In addition to her mentoring work with Muslim women, she is also engaged in interfaith outreach work in schools, with the Abraham Institute in Adelaide, South Australia.

Kathryn typically begins her talk by using a bubble machine that creates a continuous stream of soap bubbles that rapidly and continuously appear and disappear. The bubbles serve as a metaphor for thoughts. “Feelings come from thoughts in the moment...” (4) Kathryn told us. Jewish mysticism teaches that emotions are the offspring of our cognitive faculties (5). However, there is a difference between the traditional insight and Kathryn’s point, in that the cognitive faculties are not the same as the fleeting thoughts in the moment, instead they are our underlying processes of cognition, including understanding and knowing, and also encompass convictions.  

What Kathryn did next really struck a chord with me. She blew up a balloon and kept blowing until the balloon popped in a loud bang. The balloon was a metaphor for our minds, and holding on to all the air inside represents  ruminating and not letting go of painful, shameful and angry thoughts. The pressures that accumulate usually harm the person holding on to those thoughts, and, often enough, also cause harm to others.

I agree with Kathryn that violence often stems from the challenges of the human condition, and that it is wrong to intrinsically link it to any particular faith, as many do in  equating Islam with violence (6). However, religious as well as other ideals and ideas have often led to violence. One example of this is the way that the socialist dreams of the Soviet Union led to the purges, gulags and repression that have had a direct impact on members of my Chabad Jewish community including my own grandfather. The Torah reading this week has another example, in which a violent act, done for the love of God, appears to be condoned.

God rewarded Pinchas for his killing of a prominent Jewish man named Zimri and a non-Jewish woman named Kozbi, who had sex during a broader moral breakdown involving prostitution and idol worship among the Israelites (7). Thankfully, the Talmud tells us that Pinchas' act was disapproved of by the sages (8), which implies that this exceptional case should never be taken as license for anyone else to imitate his act (9). Still, this passage disturbs me. A surface reading of it seems to justify killing someone for what appears to be an inter-ethnic consensual sexual act. However, according to one traditional commentary this actually involved coercion. When Kozbi refused to sleep with Zimri, “Zimri grabbed Kozbi by her plaited hair...” (10). Be that as it may, it is still a confronting story.

Without irony, the Torah tells us that the killer is to be rewarded with a covenant of peace for his act of zealotry. His act of violence against a man who transgressed God’s expectations of the Israelites is said to have restored peace between God and the people (11). One commentary suggests that God’s gift of a covenant of peace was “a protection against an inner enemy, lurking inside the zealous perpetrator of the sudden deed, against the inner demoralization that such an act as the killing of a human being, without due process of law, is liable to cause” (12). We can say that while Pinchas acted out of zealous anger stemming from his deeply held beliefs, rather than from stewing in lingering unprocessed thoughts, he was nonetheless at risk of being haunted by the deed after the fact.

Violence can certainly be driven by outrage against a violation of a religious or secular ideal. In many cases there is a need for tolerance of divergent beliefs, in other cases there is a need to stand up to those who violate standards that are worthy of being upheld. On the other hand there are a myriad of grievances and hurts that cause harm to the people who continue to hold on to them; Kathryn’s example of letting it go is often worth emulating. Perhaps as people resolve lingering anger or resentment, it will be less likely to bubble out in violence, or even just expressions of unreasonable irritability with people, harsh words or sub-optimal ways of dealing with others.

Thank you very much to my son Aaron Menachem Mendel Kastel for his editing and assistance with this blog post. 

Notes

1)    Jones, K, (2018), Step Up, Embrace the Leader Within, Busybird Publishing, Victoria, Australia.

2)    Numbers 25:11-15.

3)    Jones, K. (2018), ibid, p. 7.

4)    Jones, K, (2019) Back to the Fitra Mentoring Program - Unbreakable Social Justice Through Emotional Resilience, presentation at the Islamic Schooling Conference, Melbourne Australian, 14.07.2019.

5)    Tanya chapter 6, et passim.

6)    Jones, K. (2018), ibid, p. 8.

7)    Numbers 25:1-15.

8)     Jerusalem Talmud, Sanhedrin 9:7.

9)    Torah Temimah to Numbers 25:13, note 31.

10)  Talmud Sanhedrin 82a.

11)  Ralbag, Be’er Basadeh, on 25:12.

12)  Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Berlin, in Ha’amek Davar, as quoted in Leibovitz, N., Studies in Bamidbar, Pub. Department for Torah Education and Culture in the Diaspora, the Joint Authority for Jewish Zionist Education, Jerusalem, p.331. Cf. also Ohr HaChaim Deuteronomy 13:18 for a similar concept in another context.