Mr. Rogers' Moment

When I was young, I admired clever people.
Now that I am old, I admire kind people.
—Abraham Joshua Heschel

Mr. Rogers is having a moment: a new movie starring Tom Hanks; a recent book about his life and legacy; and a 2018 documentary about his life about which (it was the law) every liberal pastor and rabbi in the world had to give a sermon.

The new movie, in which Hanks amazingly transforms himself into the legendary children’s TV host, is sweet and critic-proof. I mean, it’s the cinematic equivalent of a Mitch Albom book: it’s not exactly great art, but picking apart something so well intentioned would be churlish and harsh. After all, it’s about kindness, decency of the spirit, forgiveness, and giving people the benefit of the doubt.

And during these sick and unkind times, you have to be pretty jaded not to appreciate such a message. It’s worth remembering the famous quote attributed to Henry James:

Three things in life are important.
The first is to be kind.
The second is to be kind.
And the third is to be kind.

The real secret is that kindness itself is a radical and countercultural gesture. What could be more against the grain of today’s cultural moment than to affirm a stranger’s self-worth, and to receive one another with honest affection despite our differences?

It’s curious that one of the persistent themes in the recent works about Fred Rogers is that “he wasn’t perfect” and “he wasn’t a saint.” It’s repeated so many times that it made me wonder why. Who thought that a gentle and mentoring children’s TV host was a saint? Why is it not enough to be a thoroughly decent and kind human being—and just to leave it at that?

Why is there an expectation that people who do good need to morally perfect? In Jewish terminology, is it not enough to be a Tzaddik—must one also be a Tzaddik Gamur?

That’s a particular pathology that seems to be relevant to our own Mr. Rogers-less age and the world of cancel culture. There’s a cynicism in our society that has been building up for years, that assumes that there is a dark underbelly waiting to be exposed in every do-gooder.

Somebody performs remarkable feats on the athletic field? They’re probably abusing PEDs. A political leader advocates for justice and decency? Surely they’re hypocritical and corrupt. A prominent and compassionate clergyperson? Probably a secret pedophile. And all the well-publicized disgraces of certain athletes, politicians, and religious figures have solidified this point of view in many people’s minds—each scandal is an affirmation that one day all of them will be exposed for what they really are. That’s a secondary part of their tragedy (the primary tragedy must always be their victims).

To be sure, there are real predators and manipulators out there. But it’s tragic to traffic in a culture of cynicism that assumes that everyone’s motives are suspect; that solipsism and self-promotion are at the core of most people’s behavior; that decency is probably a cover for horrible impulses that pervade unwoke culture.

That cynicism seems to me an outgrowth of expecting that a hero has to be perfect, and always in hero-mode; otherwise that person is no hero whatsoever.  Which seems a shame, because if you get rid of all the imperfect heroes, you aren’t going to be left with any heroes at all.

Everyone has their tremors and their doubts. Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi told a story about a time, as a young Hasid, when he went to visit his rebbe for counsel. When he arrived, he was denied admittance and told to come back tomorrow. Returning the next day, he was received with the graciousness that he was used to. Forgive me about yesterday, the rebbe explained; “The one you wanted to see yesterday was not here. Today he is.” He didn’t cease being a rebbe because he had an off day.

The new Mr. Rogers movie ends on a fantastic note (so to speak). To understand it, you have to know that Tom Hanks’s Fred Rogers wears the same slight, gentle smile throughout the entire film. Earlier in the film, Mr. Rogers is asked if he ever feels frustrated or angry. Of course I do, he replies. So how does he handle these feelings? He responds: by going swimming, or “banging all the low keys on a piano at the same time.”

In the final shot, the day’s filming has wrapped, and Fred Rogers sits alone at a piano, playing Schumann. Suddenly he stops and unexpectedly slams his fists down on the low keys of the piano.

Then he resumes playing the light, classical melody that had been interrupted.

It’s a great, ambiguous moment. There’s no warning that he was experiencing a particular crisis or having an unusually difficult day. What gave him that moment of anguish? It’s one moment in the film where we get a glimpse that there exist some troubled, churning currents underneath his placid demeanor, and the film doesn’t choose to specify what’s stirring them at that moment.

It doesn’t matter. What matters is the measure of goodness and decency that he brought into the world. So a hero is troubled occasionally by self-doubt. So he is, in fact, un-saintly and complicated. Perhaps that’s the only kind of hero we’ve ever experienced, and we should be grateful enough for that.

On the 24th Yartzeit of Yitzhak Rabin ז״ל

Today is the 24th anniversary of the murder of Yitzhak Rabin ז״ל - a sobering anniversary. Rabin was murdered in a maelstrom of hate at a time when political conversations amidst family, friends, and communities broke down to such a complete degree that communication across lines no longer seemed possible. It was a time when the tinderbox of violent radicals was fertilized by politicians and rabbis with the most extreme rhetoric - who then walked away saying, "It wasn't our fault."

I'm revisiting this piece I wrote in 2016 - and I can't help but remain haunted by those first words I wrote then: "A horrible question arises: was the murder a complete and unmitigated success?"

A sobering anniversary indeed.

On the Anniversary of the Terrorist Attack in Pittsburgh

On the one-year anniversary of the Terrorist Attack at Tree of Life Synagogue in PIttsburgh, I sent this letter out to the Babson College community:

In Jewish tradition, which values memory so preciously, a yartzeit—the annual anniversary of a death—is a significant milestone. And in the next few days, we’re coming up on a significant yartzeit, as we mark one year since the massacre at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh.

I’ll always remember where I was on October 27, 2018: in another synagogue, celebrating my cousin’s bar mitzvah in Chicago. I don’t carry a cell phone on Shabbat, but that morning before the service my aunt leaned over and showed me her screen, which already was carrying reports of the shooting in a Pittsburgh synagogue by a white nationalist. 

Do you remember how you felt that day? I recall all the conflicting emotions…

I remember feeling profound sorrow for people who were murdered simply for being Jews, doing Jewish things, celebrating Shabbat and the bris of a baby boy that morning, in a sacred space where they were supposed to utterly safe.

I recall the feelings of vulnerability and fear, and the questions that Pittsburgh raised: Just how safe are we as Jews here, really, in this land of so-called religious freedom? And the constant drumbeat of antisemitic attacks around the country in the past year hasn’t made those feelings dissipate.

And anger. Anger is a valid, human emotion; the biblical prophets were often enraged when they observed injustice and the abhorrent abuses of power all around them. I felt (and still feel) a lot of anger towards the perpetrators and enablers of hate, both before and after Pittsburgh. Not to mention the anger born of frustration when it seems, from a yartzeit’s perspective, that not so much has really changed when it comes to guns, racism and antisemitism, and the mentality of us-versus-them.

But I also recall some other feelings, such as a sense of unity and purpose. I recall the amazing outreach that came my way from my multifaith community of friends and colleagues. I remember standing in Glavin Chapel with Christian, Muslim, and Hindu neighbors, all sharing their sense of sorrow and compassion. It makes me realize that there are far more allies out there than there are enemies, and it’s nice to be reminded of that periodically.

Most of all, Pittsburgh reminds of how proud I am to be a Jew. To be a Jew is to be part of a family that is both ancient and modern; that has obligations [Mitzvot] to build lives of holiness; and that is called upon to be a perpetual voice of justice and peace. If that threatens hateful people, so be it; we’ve been there before.

It’s a sad time, to be sure, but that should make us more grateful than ever for being part of a dynamic and caring community that stands with one another.

Hearing Without My Ears

Early each morning, the Jewish prayerbook prescribes a blessing for the wonders of the human body:

 בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה ה' אֱלהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעולָם אֲשֶׁר יָצַר אֶת הָאָדָם בְּחָכְמָה וּבָרָא בו
…נְקָבִים נְקָבִים חֲלוּלִים חֲלוּלִים

Blessed are You, O G-d, Ruling Spirit of the Universe, who has formed human beings with wisdom, creating us with countless holes and orifices.

It continues: 

שֶׁאִם יִפָּתֵחַ אֶחָד מֵהֶם או יִסָּתֵם אֶחָד מֵהֶם אִי אֶפְשַׁר לְהִתְקַיֵּם…
.וְלַעֲמוד לְפָנֶיךָ אֲפִילוּ שָׁעָה אֶחָת
.בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה ה' רופֵא כָל בָּשר וּמַפְלִיא לַעֲשות

If one of them should be open when it should be closed, or closed when it should be open, it would be impossible to exist or stand before You even for a single moment. Blessed are You, O G-d, Healer of All Flesh, who performs wonders.

That’s right, it’s the infamous Prayer for Going to the Bathroom, known as the Asher Yatzar. It’s a blessing of wonder and awe for our bodies that work as amazingly well as they do much of the time. It also indicates an awareness that when something malfunctions in these tiny valves, vessels, organs, and tissues, the whole system is impacted.

My teacher Professor Eugene Borowitz ז״ל used to say that he always considered the Asher Yatzar to be rather innocuous—and perhaps even an example of the Jewish overkill when it comes to saying blessings—until he developed a kidney stone. That’s when he realized that something no larger than a grain of salt could bring a healthy man to his knees, eyes tearing in pain. After that, he said, he finally understood this prayer, and its words became for him one of the most spiritually profound passages in the entire siddur.

For me, the problem is further up the body. The human ear is a miracle of delicacy and intricate sophistication. Sensations on the eardrum trigger vibrations on tiny bones in the middle ear (the malleus, incus, and stapes), which in turn stimulate the cochlea. The movement of the liquid in the cochlea sends signals to the auditory nerve, and the brain decodes these signals, providing hearing. I don’t think I can explain what happens in between each of those steps—why one signal sounds like an oboe and another like a fire alarm and yet another like my grandmother’s voice. Still, the whole marvelous system is sublime, and each of us carries this technology around in our head.

But years ago, an audiologist showed me an x-ray of the bones in my middle ear—and how they were gradually ossifying, and thus losing their sensitivity. They’re so small and located so far inside my head, the doctor explained, that I was not a candidate for surgery. My hearing was only going to get worse. It’s the family curse.

But on Thursday, I’m confronting the curse head-on. I’m headed to Massachusetts Eye & Ear for cochlear implant surgery.

The procedure takes place in two stages. On Thursday, they’ll implant a magnetic transmitter in my head, with the promise of setting off security detectors at airports for the rest of my life. A few weeks later, I’ll be fitted with an external processor (it looks like a hearing aid) that works in tandem with the implant. Effectively what happens is: these devices bypass my ear and send electronic signals directly to the brain, which the brain decodes as sounds. Hearing without using your ears. Unbelievable!

There is a long rehabilitation period. The surgeon, Dr. Felipe Santos, tells me that when the processor is switched on a few weeks after the implantation, I’ll notice an immediate impact (in my left ear—you only implant one ear at a time), but it will be far from perfect. Then, over a series of weeks and months, my brain will adapt to this new way of hearing, and it will get better and better.

It won’t be perfect, but perfection is a stupid standard to live by. It will be much improved, G-d willing, and will make me a lot more functional in classes, meetings (in Buber’s sense of the word), and generally, in life. It will mean an enormous difference to my family, whom my hearing loss impacts perpetually.

I’m anticipating the surgery with excitement and only the normal amount of trepidation and nervousness. I’m curious about voices and music will sound like when my left side is operational once again. They warn me that at first sounds will be “tinny” and “robotic” – I’m imagining the sounds of voices through a vocoder—as my brain learns how to hear all over again.

Despite all the reading and preparing that I’m doing, I’m not 100% sure what to expect—but I’m going to ride this like a roller coaster, and hold on tightly.

But a few things I do know. We live in an unbelievable, breathtaking time, when technology can restore a lost or damaged sense. And I know that I’m astoundingly fortunate and privileged—that this technology is not readily available to millions or billions of other people around the globe, and that the appropriate response to that is radical gratitude.

And I know one more thing: in a few days, when I say the Asher Yatzar, it’s going to have all sorts of nuances that I never knew were there.

It’s going to sound different.

Invisible Disability

Who gives a person speech? Who makes a person mute or deaf, seeing or blind?
(Exodus 4:11)

So when you see your neighbor carrying something, help him with his load
And don’t go mistaking Paradise for that home across the road.
(Bob Dylan, “The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest”)

My hearing loss began to manifest itself around the time I was thirty-eight. It probably was screwing up my life for a while before I really began to notice that I couldn’t hear people sitting across the table. Or, as those of us who are accomplished in the art of self-denial might eventually realize, perhaps not everybody in my life was mumbling all the time.

Thirty-eight was pretty much the age my Dad was when he started losing his hearing, so maybe somewhere in the back of my mind I had an ominous awareness that this might be coming. 

But I didn’t totally lose my (well-attuned) sense of absurdity. The first time I went to an audiologist, it was with a big gulp, and the sudden slam of reality when she told me the diagnosis. “Give it to me straight,” I said to her. “Does this have anything to do with playing Metallica really loud in the car?” 

“How clear can I make this?” the doctor replied. “It has nothing to do with that. It’s just your crappy genes.”  I thought about this for a minute, recognized a small victory, and pumped my fist and replied, “Yes!”

I tell that story because I’d hate to think I’ve lost my sense of humor about stuff that can be quite upsetting. And because for the rest of this piece (and a few more to come) I want to record some observations on my experiences. It’s therapeutic for me to write, and I’m glad for my friends to understand it all a little better. And if someone else can relate to this by seeing herself or himself in this saga—well, all the better.

(1)  Hearing loss is an “invisible disability.” That is to say, when you encounter such a person, they don’t necessarily look disabled. I don’t use the word “deaf” to describe myself, mostly because I’m not totally deaf; hearing aides make me functional. So I’ve got to explain to people—many times a day—that I’m hearing impaired.

Competitive suffering is always a bad idea (for individuals and for communities), so I won’t compare one disability with another. But when I’ve needed to advocate for myself and others, I’ve often thought, “If I came into this room in a wheelchair, you would bend over backwards to accommodate me. Why must accommodating someone who’s hard of hearing be so difficult?”

That’s the nature of the invisible disability. People can’t be expected to respond or adapt to it until it’s explained to them. And everyone needs to be trained to be far more sensitive to that which is hidden. Other common invisible disabilities include: people with acute anxiety, or living with constant pain, or who have an eating disorder, or depression, or countless other disabilities that are not readily apparent, but make navigating daily life so challenging. 

More than that, you need to remind people—even loved ones—that they have to adapt, because that which is invisible is so easy to forget.

(2)  Hearing aids suck. I should be a bit more grateful; after all, I really couldn’t function without my hearing aids. But here’s the thing that it took me a while to learn, and even longer to explain to family and friends: hearing aids are just aids, that’s all.

Here’s what I mean. As a long-time wearer of eyeglasses (since first grade; I’m hardcore), you realize that glasses or contact lenses give you back 20/20 vision. But for reasons that I still can’t quite articulate, hearing aids are just aids; they don’t give you “20/20 hearing,” so to speak. Batteries die, they get clogged with wax, and even when they’re fully operational… they’re only satisfactory, not great. 

(The fact that they’re a fortune, and insurance companies for some godforsaken reason don’t cover them, is a different rant.)

(3) So you learn to adapt.  When I walk with someone, I make them stand on my right side, since that ear hears better. When I enter a room for a lecture or meeting, I try to sit strategically—close to the speaker, or in a place where I can favor my right ear.

But it gets more difficult. As I’ve felt my hearing degenerate, I’ve compensated in other ways. Take the phone (please). I haven’t held a phone to my ear in years. I put on the speaker, and try my best to hear it. If it’s a really important call, I get into the car, turn on the Bluetooth, and crank the volume. Just ask the neighbors—they’ll tell you how effective this technique is.

A few years ago, I got an adaptor that sends my phone via Bluetooth straight to the hearing aides. This was pretty good at first. (I told my mother-in-law Paula, “Your voice right now is going directly into my head. Which is, of course, every mother-in-law’s fantasy.”)  But that adaptor no longer suffices, because I haven’t just lost volume, but also accuracy. So it doesn’t matter that the volume is turned up to 11; it has become harder to differentiate words.

(4) I used to say “I don’t fake it.” When I was new to all of this, I insisted that I never pretended to hear something that I didn’t. I’d patiently ask people to repeat themselves; I’d explain that I don’t hear well.

All I can say is, those days passed a while ago. I fake it all the time. I’m neither proud nor ashamed of that; it’s simply a survival technique. After all, how many times can you ask people—a waiter, a salesperson, a classmate—to repeat themselves? Eventually, you move on; this isn’t a new game show, “How Long Can You Stand It?”

And so, in more and more conversations I satisfy myself with “getting the gist of it.”  Which can probably suffice at a cocktail party or backyard barbecue. It’s less satisfactory at a parent-teacher conference. And it’s really a problem, say, when you’re a rabbi and you’re visiting someone in a hospital bed.

Faking it carries its own risks, of course. When you’re following 40% of what someone is telling you in a crowded, noisy room, you put on a serious, sober expression, and hope that the other person didn’t just say, “My sister had triplets.” You smile, and hope they didn’t say, “My uncle had a stroke.” 

(5)  Music is heartache. Those who know me know that music is one of the primary pleasures in life. I have a perpetual soundtrack in my head at any given moment. Music stores (there’s a thing that used to exist that you can tell your grandchildren about) have always been my favorite hangouts.

But the nature of hearing loss is that you lose certain frequencies more than others. So music sounds weird, unfamiliar. Here’s a case in point: I know the repertoire of the Grateful Dead backwards and forwards. So imagine how disorienting it can be to have a song come on the radio that I’ve heard a thousand times—and not be able to recognize it or make out the lyrics. This has started to happen more and more often, and it’s very disorienting and more than a little heartbreaking. (And spare me your snide comments, like “See? There is a bright side!” I’m trying to make a point, but there’s always someone who wants to rag on Jerry and the Dead…)

So I share these notes with you, because maybe it will help you with your own load. If you’ve experienced some of these challenges, know that I’ve been there too. If you’ve got someone in your life who struggles, maybe this can give you a bit more understanding.

As for me, the time has come to do something about it, because it’s really grown to be quite intolerable.  More on that in the days ahead.

"Disability" Redux

[I wrote this piece about disabilities about seven years ago, when I was learning how to confront my hearing loss. Since then my hearing as deteriorated, and it impacts every class I teach and every interaction I have. As you may imagine, it’s terribly frustrating. I felt like returning to this essay, to see how I still feel about the sentiments I wrote in 2012. And I’ll have more to say about this subject in the weeks ahead, so it seems like a timely revisit.

Instead of just reposting the piece, I’ve added some contemporary glosses by a noted scholar. (Not the same ‘noted scholar’ who commented on Woody Allen’s legendary Hasidic tales, but perhaps descended from him.)]

Disability

The angel wrenched Jacob’s hip at its socket…
The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping on his hip…
Jacob arrived  שָׁלֵם [whole] at the city of Shechem.
(Genesis 32:26, 32; 33:18)

All of us are damaged in some way; it’s a fundamental part of being human. Also human is the way in which we confront our brokenness; the gracefulness with which accept our imperfections.

[GLOSS: When I originally wrote this, some of my readers objected to the word ‘brokenness’ as being harsh and implying a value-judgment. There’s a stream of thought among disabled communities that one should “embrace” her or his disability. But “brokenness” is precisely what I mean. When I consider what has become of my hearing, “broken” and in need of “fixing” is exactly how I feel about it.]

My personal disability is rather awkward because it plays itself out so publicly in my life – in the classroom, in meetings (in Buber’s sense of the word), in our sanctuary, and even across a hospital bed. I started losing my hearing a few years ago, at exactly the same age when my father began to lose his. It began to impact my effectiveness in my work. I would get frustrated, angry at myself. I even had a moment of “bottoming out”, to use the language of addiction and recovery, when I sat in the front row for a lecture of which I heard practically nothing. It rocked me deeply.

[GLOSS: What I thought was “bottoming out” was just the beginning. It’s become commonplace for me to attend a crowded party and not be able to hear a thing, or stubbornly go to concerts and strain to recognize songs that I know really well.]

For a short while I felt sorry for myself. Then I started visiting audiologists and figuring out how I was going to move forward. Hearing aids help, although to my chagrin and frustration they have remained “aids” and have never given me 100% of the hearing I’ve desired. This was particularly frustrating, because of all our cherished senses, hearing is especially precious to me. You who know me know that for me listening to music is one of life’s deepest pleasures. The diminishment of that pleasure is a serious heartbreak. 

[GLOSS: That observation was important. I still can’t really explain why contact lenses give me 20/20 vision, but hearing aids don’t deliver “20/20 hearing”, so to speak. Family and friends of hearing-impaired people need to understand that.

All of us have fears that awaken us in the middle of the night, when the day’s distractions have dissolved away. Lately mine is the prospect of what my hearing loss will be like when I’m 50, or 60, or beyond. Will I move from “hearing-impaired” to full-fledged deafness? Will I be able to function at my job? Those are real fears I carry in my soul, with some degree of anguish.

But these days those fears don’t slow me down. Quite to the contrary. I’ve become more and more comfortable with saying to students in my classroom, “This is what I’m working to overcome. This is my disability. What’s yours?”

[GLOSS: Some days I feel the early optimism of this piece fading. But I have never been shy about announcing that I’m hearing impaired. It’s become quite standard for me to open a class or launch a speech with a disclaimer about my disability. Not in a self-pitying way… just to clue people in.]

In fact, I find an enormous amount of strength coming forth from our tradition. Personal prayer has become far more intense since I’ve come to grips with my disability. The morning prayers, for instance, contain a remarkable passage that reflects on the body’s delicateness: “You have made the human body filled with tiny holes and orifices… If one of them were opened when it should be closed, or closed when it should be opened, we wouldn’t be able to stand before You for even a moment.” When I reflect that my hearing loss stems from the ossification of the miniscule bones in the inner ear, I share the wonder of the siddur’s poet. It’s a daily miracle how much works so well!

[GLOSS: Still true. And yet… I look at the birchot ha-shachar, the daily blessings of awe that are found early on in the Jewish siddur. We bless G-d for being pokeach ivrim, “the One who gives sight to people who are blind,” which of course is meant as a spiritual metaphor. Why doesn’t it say mashmiya chershim, “the One who causes deaf people to hear”? Especially since “to hear” – as in the Shema Yisrael – is such a crucial metaphor in the Jewish prayerbook? I’ll write more about this soon, but I’m curious if you have an insight about this.]

In the Torah, many of our ancestors carried some sort of brokenness. Isaac was blind; so too, perhaps, was Leah. Jacob’s leg was wrenched in his wrestling with the angel; perhaps he limped for the rest of his life. Most famously, Moses stood before G-d at the burning bush and said, in essence, “Why would you choose me to speak before Pharaoh?  After all, my lips…” The Torah is enigmatic about Moses’s shortcoming: Did he stutter?  Did he have a disabled palate? Or was he merely terrified of public speaking? It matters—but not as much as G-d’s response to him, which is, in essence, “I don’t make mistakes. I’ve called you to do a job, to speak truth to the power that is Pharaoh. And if you trust Me, then when the time comes we’ll find the words, together.”

[GLOSS: A partial list of disabled people from Jewish tradition (note the surprising absence of deaf characters):
Isaac – blind
Leah – “weak eyes”
Jacob – walked with a limp
Moses – speech impeded
Samson – blind
Ahiya the prophet – blind
Rabbi Yosef (Nedarim 41a) – blind
Rabbi Sheshet (Berachot 58a) – blind
Levi (Ta’anit 21a) – could not walk
The Maggid of Mezeritch – walked with a limp
R. Simcha Bunem of Peshischa – blind
… I know there’s so many more. How many can you add to this list?]

I have no delusions (trust me) of being a Jacob or Moses or Isaac or Leah. But I study their life-stories and try to learn their lessons. Isaac found the words to bless his children. Leah went on to find love and, if you believe the midrash, she also found her sister. Jacob, even with his limp, is still called shalem, “whole” – a poignant reminder that these finite bodies are mere containers for the infinity in our souls. And Moses, G-d’s servant and partner, spoke through damaged lips the words, “Let my people go.” He even found the strength and confidence to lead a people through the wilderness.

I imagine that each of them felt sorry for themselves when they first confronted their disabilities. Maybe their communities supported them in their struggles (maybe they didn’t). But eventually, each of them found a way back to Life; to saying: This is Who I Am. No longer will it hold me back, but I’ll offer myself, anew, in all my brokenness, to do what I was designed to do all along. In faith and tradition and the love of others, I will find my strength.

This is my brokenness. What’s yours?

[GLOSS: Corny ending, perhaps. But something cool has happened over the years: when I talk about my disability, I’ve found that students of all ages have opened up. Some have come to me and said, “I’ve been faking it for years; I’m going to make an appointment with an audiologist.” Even more gratifying are those whose hearing is fine, but who make the connections to their learning disability, or whatever. Here’s to each of us sharing our own vulnerabilities, so that “maybe more can come out of their hiding places” (to borrow a line from a Danny Siegel poem).

Are We Ever Allowed to Make Holocaust Comparisons?

Wherever you stand on today’s hysteria about Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s use of the phrases “concentration camps” and “Never Again” in regard to the mass detentions of immigrant children on the U.S. border probably has been predetermined by your politics.

That is to say, liberals will come to her defense, saying that we face a horrible moral situation and we need language that sparks people to action. Conservatives will decry her, saying her rhetoric cheapens the legacy of the Holocaust. Everyone will retreat to their previously drawn lines.

I don’t want to be guilty of that, so before making one or two points, I want to come clean: I am generally on the political left, but I think it is possible and necessary to be critical of leaders with whom you are sympathetic. The antisemitic blindspot of the left is an outrage, and people who care about the climate change, racism, LGBTQ issues, economic justice, and reining in unfettered corporations had better wake up quickly before the Democratic party slides into full-blown Corbynism. Which would be a disaster for everyone.

So let’s try to back off of how we feel about the messenger, and soberly ask: Was AOC wrong to use those terms? I would make a few points:

First: Being specific in our language is very important, especially when it comes to the Shoah. “Concentration camps” are not the same as “death camps”—and during the Shoah there were both. To quote Deborah Dwork, a preeminent contemporary scholar of the Shoah:

Initially, the Nazis established concentration camps to incarcerated Communists, Socialists, asocials, or other who did not fit into the national community. Their primary purpose was to “teach” these Germans what they needed to know to return to society. Jews, by definition, could never belong to the national community… The many Jews among these political prisoners were therefore treated worse and assigned to the most difficult and dangerous labor details.[1]

These concentration camps were limitless in their brutality, and of course enormous numbers of Jews died there. But they are not identical with the death camps—Auschwitz, Treblinka, Sobibor, Majdanek, Belzec, Chelmno; each name seared into our consciousness—where the singular goal was to use all the technology available to annihilate enormous numbers of Jews as efficiently, and as brutally, as possible.

There have been concentration camps before and since the Shoah. Totalitarian regimes have “concentrated” groups of people into “camps” many times in our awful history. Auschwitz, however, is something different. (See the map below.)

Second:  Is the Shoah a singular event? I believe it is. That’s why I prefer the Hebrew shoah, “cataclysm”, to the English holocaust. This language preserves the Jewish ownership of our history, and it reminds us that while others were persecuted by the Nazis, the Jews were uniquely targeted. Furthermore, there’s something unsettling about the origins of the word holocaust, with its connections to biblical burnt-offerings. As if to say: there was something “sacrificial” about the murders, which of course there wasn’t.

Likewise for genocide, a word that needed to be coined because no linguistic precedent existed for the crimes that the Nazis committed against the Jews. “Genocide” is not a synonym for “murder,” even “mass murder,” and it should not be used as such. But still: There have been other genocides, some attempted and some fulfilled, in the past three-quarters of a century, and we need to identify them as such.

Third:  So, are we ever allowed to make comparisons to the Shoah? We’ve become so accustomed to calling our enemies “Nazis.” (I’ve done it.) Perhaps there is solace in knowing that the nastiest word we can come up with for the scummiest people is “Nazi”—isn’t it an acknowledgment of the evil of the Shoah if that’s the most extreme word we can think of?

But we should usually avoid using that language. Thoughtful people with diametrically different points of view from our own are not “worse than Hitler.”  But still…

Do we really believe that we should never make Shoah analogies? If so, what was the point of all that education, all those Holocaust Museums, all those Yom HaShoah commemorations? I thought the point was: Learn from history. Recognize the signs of creeping fascism in order to cut it off. Don’t let another human being be dehumanized to the point where they are treated like vermin.

I thought that’s what “Never again” meant: “Never again” to us—that’s why we needed Zionism; “Never again” to anyone—that’s why we needed a human rights movement.

Through our Shoah education, Jewish strength has become a Mitzvah (here in the sense of “commandment”). So, too, has Jewish empathy for others’ victimization.

We’ve properly used the Einsatzgruppen analogy when considering the annihilation of the Darfuris. We’ve correctly called the Rwandan devastation a “genocide.” When Arabic textbooks in Palestine and elsewhere show caricatures of hook-nosed Jews grubbing money and drinking blood, we say, We know where we’ve seen this before, and we call it out.

And I, for one, make the connection between those faces on the U.S. border—concentrated as they are into camps—and the faces of Jewish children in Germany during World War II.

So my take on AOC’s comments?    

The humanitarian disaster taking place on the U.S. border is a stain on our country. The Trump administration’s family separation policies diminish our moral authority everywhere. The failure of the other parts of the government to react is a disgrace, although we should appreciate the moral voices on both the right and the left that have spoken out.

If AOC had called it “Auschwitz,” she should be condemned. If she had called it “genocide,” it would be an abhorrent abuse of language. But she didn’t. She called it a “concentration camp” and she said “Never again.” I agree with her on both counts.

[1] Deborah Dwork & Robert Jan van Pelt, Holocaust: A History, 2002, p.356.

From the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org

A Story on an Airplane (for Shavuot)

I was on a flight from Boston to Newark.  I was wearing a kippah—I mention that because it’s germane to this story. Sometimes I wear a baseball cap when I travel, but this time, for some reason, I left it behind.

The plane was full and I was stuck in the middle seat of the emergency row (I hate the middle seat, but I love the emergency row). I figured during the short hop to Jersey I could keep my head down in the Gabriel Allon thriller I’d bought in the airport, and before I would know it, we’d have arrived.

The plane took off uneventfully, and I was at the point in the novel where the Israeli superspy was called out of retirement to save the world again when there was a tap on my shoulder. Looking up, I saw the flight attendant, a tall, delicate woman in her young thirties. Why was she noodging me?

“Excuse me,” she said. “Are you learned, or merely observant?”

Huh? What kind of question is that?

“Are you learned, or merely observant?”

I mumbled something about not being sure I was either, but trying to be both. (There’s a Hasidic story about Rebbe Naftali Tzvi Horowitz of Ropshitz, who was once approached by a cop who asked, “Who do you work for and what are you doing here?” The rebbe, taken aback by the hidden spiritual implications of the question, asked the man if he would agree to follow him around asking that question all day—as a reminder! I wasn’t so glib, so I simply responded:) “What are you really trying to ask me?”

She said she had a question about Judaism. She asked, “Is it true that if I’m Jewish, I have to quit my job with the airline?”

Now, I’m in the middle seat, and we’re all flying cattle class anyway, so this truly bizarre question is taking place over the lap of at least one other passenger in very close quarters. I told her that as far as I knew, there was nothing in the Torah or Talmud that prohibited one from being a flight attendant for American Airlines. She thanked me and continued up the aisle.

For the next few minutes, I found it difficult to care about whether or not Gabriel Allon would set aside his paintbrushes to command the Mossad, so I got up and went to the galley at the front of the cabin, where she was alone. I asked her to explain a little more.

“My fiancé is Jewish,” she said, “and I’m not. I’m studying for conversion with a Chabad rabbi in Los Angeles. He told me that not only must a Jew keep kosher, but it is prohibited for a Jew to serve non-kosher food to another Jew, even inadvertently. So he said if I became Jewish, I’d have to quit my job, because part of my duties includes serving food to passengers.” She was obviously emotionally torn up about this prospect.

I’m not judgmental about others’ Jewish choices, but this woman really needed someone to talk to. So I listened. She said, “You know, this process has been so hard. My fiancé isn’t Orthodox, but we wanted to do this with a Chabad rabbi because… you know… we wanted to do it right.” (My bowels twisted and I bit my lip, but said nothing.)

But it became clear that this teacher was abusing his student. She said, “A few weeks back, my fiancé and I decided to make a real Shabbat evening experience, the whole thing—services, dinner, just being together and not doing any work. We went to the local Conservative synagogue—it was closest—and we just had the most incredible time, singing the prayers and joining in with a Jewish community. I couldn’t wait to tell my rabbi. When I saw him a few days later, I told him all about it and how wonderful it was. He said to me, ‘You went to a Conservative synagogue? I just added four more months onto your studies.’”

Her eyes welled up, and my heart broke a little for her. I said, “I want you to know, there are many kinds of rabbis and many ways of being Jewish.” She nodded, thanked me for listening, and we had to return to our seats.

But I couldn’t stop thinking about her, and about this L.A. rabbi who was beating her up emotionally. I felt awful, because she’s supposed to be falling in love with Judaism and everything Jewish, yet here she is, guilt-ridden and hurt and filled with ambivalence. And I thought about that question, “Are you learned or merely observant?”, and how she asked me simply because I was wearing a kippah this time.

The flight ended, she was making the connection to LA and home, and of course we’d never see each other again. So I figured I would make a final gesture. As we started that disembarking ritual—“…bye now, b’bye, good-bye, bye now…”—I slipped my business card into her hand. “Listen,” I said, “I know a couple of really good rabbis in L.A.”

I don’t know what became of her, or if she became a Jew, and what kind of spiritual life she might have discovered for herself. But I hope she found her way Home.

And I think of Ruth the Moabite, who thousands of years ago clung to her mother-in-law Naomi and said, “Wherever you go, I will go; wherever you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your G-d, my G-d.” I wonder sometimes, if Ruth were navigating our Jewish world today, whether or not she would ever make it inside the gates. Thank G-d she did, and we celebrate her legacy, and those who made a journey like hers, this week. She, too, made it Home.

The Book of Ruth is read on Shavuot, which begins on Saturday night, June 8.

Marking Yom HaShoah in 2019

This is the text of the letter I sent out to the Babson College community today,
on the eve of Yom HaShoah:

Thursday is Yom HaShoah, the annual day in the Jewish calendar that commemorates the annihilation of European Jewry during World War II. Seventy-four years after the liberation of Auschwitz and the defeat of the Nazis, it is a time for sober reflection about what the legacy of the Holocaust means to us who are now three and four generations removed from it.

In truth, all Jews today carry within them the legacy of the SHOAH (the Jewish term for the events called “the Holocaust”), although each carries it in a different way. Many Jews have branches on their family trees that simply break off. Others grew up with memories passed down from grandparents and great-grandparents about survival in the most miraculous, or most horrific, of circumstances. Others simply know the stories, and have a vague sense of responsibility because of the legacy of this painful history. It is part of us, forever.

Yom HaShoah seems especially resonant this year. Surveys of Americans tell us dispiriting news. Two-thirds of millenials (and 41% of all Americans) do not know what Auschwitz was; 22% of them never heard of the Holocaust (or aren’t sure if they have). The remaining survivors of the death camps are elderly today; in a few years, there will be no living eyewitnesses to the crimes of the Nazis and their enablers.

And the emerging trends of hate, violence, and white supremacy are on our minds this year. The murderous attack at the Chabad synagogue of Poway, California last week - six months after the massacre of Jews on a Shabbat morning in Pittsburgh - in the name of white nationalism conjures up great horror among us on this Yom HaShoah.

This week, the ADL released its annual study of antisemitism in America. In 2018, it recorded 1,879 antisemitic incidents in the United States, including the bloodiest in American history (the assault in Pittsburgh). This number is the third-highest annual number that the ADL has ever recorded. This is why many Jews, young and old, are asking questions we've never asked in our lifetimes:  How safe are we here, really? 

What is there to say or do? I think the answer from Jewish tradition is twofold. There is a famous saying by the great sage Hillel from over 2,000 years ago (it would be a cliché if it weren’t so perfectly accurate):  “If I am not for myself, who will be for me? But if I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?”

“If I am not for myself”— this is why Jews take the legacy of the Shoah so personally. Jewish survival, and its transmission to the next generation, is an absolute obligation for us; the Shoah makes that message only more profound. This is part of what the State of Israel means to us: There is a refuge; a safe place (recalling that the whole world, including America, turned its backs on many victims of the Nazis); and, not insignificantly, a Jewish army to defend itself. The Shoah isn’t the reason Israel exists (its roots extend far earlier than the War), but it does explain the passion with which its supporters will defend it.

In other words, this response to the Shoah is: AM YISRAEL CHAI: The Jewish People lives. And every Jew has a responsibility to make it so. 

“But if I am only for myself”— That “but” is crucial. The Shoah didn’t start with death camps; it began with the increasing dehumanization of Jews, and propaganda that gradually eroded rights and liberties to the point where we were turned into something less-than-fully-human. Denial of rights leads to oppression. And that leads to neighbors abandoning and attacking neighbors; which led to genocide. It was systematic, it was thoughtfully planned, and it was almost successful.

This idea, too, seems particularly profound in 2019. The massacres of Muslims at prayer in Christchurch, New Zealand remain a fresh wound. As does the assault on Christians in Sri Lanka. And the burning of three black churches in Louisiana last month. Just to cite the three most notorious, and most recent, examples of the current rise of hateful violence. 

In other words, the other commanding voice of the Shoah is to stand up against the dehumanization of anyone, anywhere. To say to every tyrant: “Not on our watch.” To know and understand our neighbors - and to defend and protect them.

That is what is at stake in the memory of the Shoah. That is what we mean when we say “Never Again.”

We're Doing the 10 Plagues All Wrong—Part Two

The Maggid section of the Haggadah—the lengthiest part of the seder, the section which retells the story of the Exodus—culminates with the description of the so-called “Ten Plagues.” As I wrote earlier, the idea of the “plagues” is misunderstood, and that has led to a lot of misguided creativity around this part of the seder.

None of that is to say that there aren’t powerful and important lessons regarding the ritual here. In some ways, this is one of the most provocative sections of the entire seder.

When we reach this passage, every community that I’ve encountered has a similar sort of ritual. Upon reciting the name of each  “plague,” a drop of wine is removed from each of our cups. (Many also remove drops of wine before the 10 Plagues: 3 drops at the verse from Joel 3:3  “...Blood [דָם] and fire [אֵשׁ] and pillars of smoke [וְתִימֲרוֹת עָשַׁן]”; and 3 times at the acronym for the Plagues [דצ"ך עד"ש באח"ב], for a total of 16 drops.)

There are variations about how this removal takes place. Many people use their fingers, taking out wine from their glass drop by drop. Perhaps this custom alludes to the יד חזקה / yad chazakah / the “mighty hand” with which G-d redeemed the Israelites (see Exodus 6:1, 13:9; and especially Deuteronomy 26:8, which the Haggadah is citing, as well as Deut. 34:12, the last verse of the Torah).  Other people tip their glasses, spilling drops one at a time. Some use a utensil to remove the drops.

But the most important thing is to be clear about what this ritual means.

A kiddush cup full of wine is a symbol of joy and celebration. To reduce the wine in our glass symbolizes reducing our joy.

Why do we do this? The 15th Century commentator Don Yitzhak Abarbanel said that our joy is not complete as we recall the suffering of the Egyptians as we made our way to freedom. He quotes Proverbs 24:17:  “When your enemy falls, do not rejoice...”

That is a breathtaking statement.  Recall that when we read “Egyptians” in the text, what we’re saying is:  Nazis. Inquisitors. Hamas. Baby-killers, as the midrash makes clear. The most bloodthirsty oppressors that have slimed their way onto the stage of human history. 

And yet, when we consider the victories that gave us our freedom, we recognize that our enemies suffered, too.

It recalls as astounding passage from the Talmud that tells how the angels wished to rejoice at the moment of the Splitting of the Sea, but G-d silenced them:

שאין הקדוש ברוך הוא שמח במפלתן של רשעים. דאמר ר' שמואל בר נחמן אמר ר' יונתן... באותה שעה בקשו מלאכי השרת לומר שירה לפני הקב"ה אמר להן הקב"ה מעשה ידי טובעין בים ואתם אומרים שירה לפני.

The Holy and Blessed One does not rejoice at the fall of the wicked.
Thus Rabbi Shmuel bar Nachman said in the name of Rabbi Yochanan:... At that  moment [when the Egyptians were drowning in the Sea,] the ministering angels intended to sing before the Holy and Blessed One.
The Holy One said, “The work of My hands is drowning in the sea, and you would sing before me?!”

This is an astonishing idea. Our tradition is demanding that, at the moment of deliverance from suffering, we set aside any sort of triumphalism. Instead, we are called upon to recognize the very human-ness of our enemy.

To be sure, these passages do not apologize for our victory. We don’t regret that we were brought out of Egypt, just as we don’t regret the integrity and passion and ferociousness with which we’ve fought any just war in history. Evil must be vanquished, sometimes only through greater force.  

What the tradition does assert is that we can’t allow ourselves to dehumanize our enemies. They, too, are fathers and mothers, sons and daughters. They suffered when their water turned to blood, their fields were devoured by locusts, and their firstborn lay dead in their beds. They suffered when we fought back in the ghettos and the trenches, and when they and their children died on the battlefields. 

Enemies are real, but perhaps recognizing each other’s inherent humanity is a cautious step towards a world with... well, a bit fewer enemies. 

Can we live up to this standard that our tradition sets? I’m not saying I can, not yet. The desire for justice... which sometimes is indistinguishable from the desire for vengeance against those who have hurt us... is just too strong. But that’s what makes this spiritual challenge so compelling—our highest values are what we should reach for, not what we already comfortably accept.  

This is the ritual of the drops at the Ten Plagues.  It’s radical and challenging, and it deserves a moment of meditation and reflection before we tip our cups.