- Home
- About
- Datebook: Events Calendar
- Women's Philanthropy
- Subscribe to e-newsletter
- Young Adults
- Contribute
- Where Your Money Goes
- Professional Groups
- Community Resources
- Volunteer
- Local Jewish News
- Search
Jewish Community News
News: February 2007
Rabbi’s Column
By Rabbi Leslie Alexander
I don't know about you, but I am almost afraid to open the newspaper in the morning or even to look at any of the Jewish publications so regularly delivered to my home. You may think that the reason that I dread this so much is because it seems that on any issue, from war to family to nature, the news is bad…. all the time. Yes, I admit, the world state of affairs would be a good reason just to cover up eyes and ears and say, as kids do, “la, la, la.. I'm not listening.” But, for me, that is not the main problem. My issue is the lack of civility in discourse between people. I am not referring to a naïve but grand idea that warring countries could just “get along”. My immediate concern is smaller, more local.
In the past year I have noticed that it is almost impossible to go to
a gathering of friends and acquaintances, whether that be a Shabbat dinner,
a Bar Mitzvah celebration or a study group, without someone confidently
and flippantly spewing forth political venom of some kind and expecting
everyone with whom they sit to agree with them.
It is not just that the left does this or just the right, it is everybody.
Granted, in the Silicon Valley, where many of us have tended to hold more
liberal political views, the table assumptions lean toward those that
reflect that skew. But for me, it is not even the specific politics asserted
that presents the problem. It is the overwhelming perspective that whatever
our point of view is, everybody MUST agree with us, and if they don't,
they are idiots or worse, evil.
I am terrified by the perspective in current society that demonizes those
who hold different views than we do. The pervasiveness of this misguided
perspective is eating into the fiber of our society with a malignancy
that makes it impossible for us to listen to others, hear what they say
and learn from them, even if we do not agree with them.
This may be the leaning of our society right now, but this trend is completely
contrary to what Judaism, based in the Talmud and traditional writings
expects of us.
My favorite text on this issue is found both in the Mishnah and in a Baraita
(an elucidation of the text) in the Talmud, Yevamot 14b. It states:
Even though Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel disagreed in [significant] matters,
Beit Shammai did not avoid marrying women from Beit Hillel, nor Beit Hillel
from Beit Shammai, which teaches you that they treated each other with
affection and friendship.
The positions of the House (school) of Hillel were generally the accepted
legal and human views in Talmudic society. The House of Shammai nearly
always had a significantly different view. Yet, despite serious divisions
on crucial issues including marriage and divorce, business and inter-cultural
relations, the human interactions between them was more than congenial,
it was trusting. They entrusted each other with their most precious possession,
their children and their happiness.
I understand that that's the way it used to be in American politics. Knock
down, drag out ideological arguments would occur in the Congress and then
everybody would go out and have a drink after the votes were taken. No
longer, apparently.
As Jews, we need to fight the new societal norm.
As Jews, we also understand the tradition of argument. We love to discuss
passionately and that is fine. Loud speaking and gesticulating is part
of the cultural norm but, while we argue, we eat and we laugh. And when
we leave, we hug and plan to do it all again soon.
News
Information