May I have a word?

"Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me."

     - English language childrens rhyme

Many of us who grew up in English-speaking homes were taught this rhyme as children, to drive home the point that physical retaliation is not an appropriate response to verbal taunts.  Another, more unfortunate subtext of this rhyme is that words cannot hurt us as long as we ignore them.

Our tradition teaches us otherwise: Mishlei (Proverbs) 18:21 states plainly that “death and life are in the power of the tongue.”  Words can hurt; words can even kill. On the other hand, words have tremendous potential to affect people in a positive way and to help bring people and communities together.  Words are so powerful that the Mishna in Avot (Ethics of the Ancestors) 5:1 teaches us that God created the world ex-nihilo with ten utterances. 

Researchers have shown that children’s earliest memories date to the period of their life when they were first verbal.  Words are essential to forming memories.  The human ability to remember, to perceive, and to reason is predicated on being verbal.  Metaphorically speaking, our entire world is constructed of words. The gamut of our experience in life is shaped by and filtered through the words that we choose to describe it.

Parashat Noach is bookended by the description of two dysfunctional societies or civilizations.  The first civilization, which was wiped out by the flood, was characterized by “chamas,” or extreme anarchy.  The second civilization, in attempting to build the Tower of Babel, is ultimately dispersed to the four corners of the planet.  While the dysfunction of the first civilization is self-evident, the dysfunction of the second one is not made clear in the text.

The Netziv zt”l (R’ Naftali Tzvi Yehuda Berlin, 1816-1893) in Ha’amek Davar, his brilliant commentary on the Pentateuch, analyzes the phrase “the same language and the same words” (Genesis 11:1) as well as the subsequent description of what the words were, and describes a society much akin to a twentieth-century Communist dictatorship. (It is worth noting that the Netziv was well-read and was contemporaneous with Marx and Engels; certainly he must have had familiarity with their theories and his commentary expresses what he thought about those theories.) According to the Netziv, the society was the polar opposite of the anarchic society described at the beginning of the parasha (Torah portion.)  It was of such a single-minded purpose that all settled in one place, contrary to God’s instruction that humankind inhabit the entire world.  Furthermore, their leadership enforced this mandatory, common vision on all citizens on pain of death and the tower they were building was a watchtower to ensure that none could escape.

From a slightly different perspective, strongly enforcing a single language necessarily shapes how people perceive their world and even how they think, and greatly reduces diversity of opinion that is necessary for personal and intellectual growth.  Compare, for example, Netziv’s vision of the Tower of Babel civilization with the societies describe in Orwell’s dystopian novels, especially Nineteen Eighty-Four. In those novels, one of the themes that Orwell explores is the power that words have to shape our lives.  Taken to an extreme, the societies described by the Netziv and Orwell reduce the individual to a cog in a wheel, with no unique characteristic, no personality, and no ability to appreciate others.

God’s remedy – that of establishing widely diverging languages that ultimately resulted in humankind dispersing to the four corners of the Earth – makes sense in this context: Where lack of diversity leads to stagnation and, ultimately, violence in the name of homogeneity, a strong corrective is necessary, forcing people to recognize that they are unique and distinct, and potentially very, very different from one another. I like to think that each individual walked away from the Tower of Babel with their own unique language and a total inability to understand anyone else – even their own close relatives.  This unique language shaped their own experience and perspective, and only by learning to communicate with others by taking the time to explore someone else’s perspective, were they able to work cooperatively, and form communities and societies once again.

As citizens of the United States of America, we will be confronted next week with the choice of any of a number of individuals to lead our country for the next four years.  The election season has stressed, disappointed, and saddened many.  As other election seasons before, it has been dominated by words. This election, words have been used mostly to hurt, tear down, and destroy.  Candidates disparage and belittle those with whom they do not agree, and while, arguably, candidates have not yet murdered innocent citizens in pursuit of their personal agenda, the rest seems eerily similar to the Netziv’s depiction of the Tower of Babel society.  Our candidates and leaders tell us, “if you don’t think the way I do, if you don’t support me, if you’re not with me, then you’re against me” which is hardly an environment that leads to mutual respect and understanding.  Echo chambers such as Facebook and Twitter lead to confirmation bias and inflexible thinking, and serve to reinforce rather than to challenge.  That we are left to choose our leadership from the least evil rather than making a positive choice is truly appalling.

I have been fortunate in this election season to have begun a unit of CPE (clinical pastoral education) which has restored my faith in the essential goodness of humankind and has served as a strong counterweight to the rhetoric surrounding the upcoming election.  I am doing my clinical work at Saint Barnabas Medical Center, a hospital in suburban Essex County, New Jersey, in an area with individuals from a wide range of racial, socioeconomic, and religious backgrounds.  I have the privilege of meeting individuals from all walks of life, and taking the time in a pastoral role to get to know them, listen to what’s on their mind, and appreciate them as unique individuals with life experience and perspective vastly different than my own.  Despite our differences, I can recognize the essential humanity and goodness of each patient that I visit.  This pastoral work, done almost entirely with words, has given me hope that in the (maybe very) long run, we will come out of this election bruised but otherwise OK.

No matter who wins the election this Tuesday, one thing is certain:  The words used throughout the election season have served to divide and isolate us, and to desensitize us from the plight of others with whom perhaps we feel we have nothing in common. The words are stain upon our collective soul, if such a thing can be said to exist. Come Wednesday morning, we will need to start to pick up the pieces and heal the rifts that now divide us.  Unfortunately, none of the candidates look likely to be up to the task.

I suggest that we don’t need to wait for some elected official to take the lead in this regard. Perhaps they will, perhaps they won’t; perhaps they will be effective, perhaps they won’t; perhaps it’s not even their job.  Let our elected leaders continue their dysfunctional and ineffective leadership.  We don’t need them to heal.  We are empowered – each and every one of us – to use our own words in a positive way to begin to rebuild what has been torn down.

This Wednesday, resolve to be part of our national healing: volunteer in a hospital, in a homeless shelter, or in a soup kitchen. Take the time to get to know the people there.  Ask open-ended questions. Listen, really listen, and appreciate their different and unique perspective on life.  And use words – positive words – to offer comfort and encouragement.   By reaching out to others who have vastly different experiences than our own and beginning to understand their different, unique perspective, we can once again begin to appreciate the essential goodness of all people and help to make America great – truly great – once again.

Shabbat Shalom

Why I AM Fasting on Tisha B’Av

Next Saturday night and Sunday, we will be commemorating Tisha B’Av, a day of national Jewish mourning. Tisha B’Av is the anniversary of a number of tragedies that have befallen our people – among them the destruction of both Temples in Jerusalem, as well as the return of the spies in the desert, and, more recently, the Expulsion from Spain.

There are those who have suggested that since the Land of Israel is once again under Jewish sovereignty, and Jerusalem is a bustling metropolis, that it is no longer necessary to fast on Tisha B’Av. There are others who suggest that Tisha B’Av is particular to Orthodox Judaism, and on principle refuse to participate in a fast which represents a longing for a future where Orthodoxy will be “large and in charge.”

I suggest that both of these views are myopic, overly literal, and entirely miss the metaphorical point of Tisha B’Av.

Here are the reasons that I will be fasting once again this Tisha B’Av:

I am fasting because we as a people are more concerned with what other Jews think than how we ourselves behave.  Judaism is first and foremost a religion of personal responsibility, where the actions of individuals towards each other and our Creator matter, and are the foundation upon which our society is built. “Litmus tests” of others’ belief, while certainly good press, are a side show and at best a distraction from the important work we need to do as individuals and communities. Fear of people, rather than fear of Heaven, is now the standard operating paradigm.

I am fasting because we have turned our religion into an exclusivist one – so much so, that we need to find ways to be “inclusive” of others. The Torah admonishes us numerous times that our mitzvot are intended to model an attitude of inclusion, especially to those who are marginalized within our society. Inclusion – whether it be of those with different theological beliefs, genders, birth religion, sexual orientation, physical disability, race, or family background – is essential, not an afterthought or add-on.

I am fasting because we have set all sorts of “high bars” that individuals must meet or exceed to be members of our particular “club” – whether it be political, economic, or religious.  We fail to follow the rabbinic dictum not to judge others whose circumstances differ from our own, and fail to recognize that each individual’s circumstances are different, people are humans, and many fail to live up to our expectations.  We feel compelled to label anyone and anything in sight, rather than having an appreciation for the fact that life is messy and people are unpredictable and inconsistent.

I am fasting because we sow the seeds of discord by making pronouncements and self-fulfilling prophecies about those with whom we disagree, and then we go about engaging in behavior to ensure that those pronouncements and prophecies come about. We actively exploit schisms within our people, or create new schisms where none have existed before, for personal or political gain.

I am fasting because the security of Am Yisrael and Medinat Yisrael is threatened on a daily basis. The divisive forces from within the Jewish people, a number of which I have enumerated above, prevent us from being unified in the face of numerous external forces which threaten us collectively as a people.

I am fasting because God has exiled Godself from us for close to 2000 years, because of our manifold sins of sinat chinam – baseless hatred. Apparently, we still have not learned our lesson. 

Oy na lanu, ki chatanu.  Woe is to us, for we have sinned.