Kol Nidrei – 2009
Angry outbursts seem to be a
national pastime. I don’t follow professional tennis, but I have certainly
heard about Serena Williams and her recent verbal attack on the line-judge. I
wanted to hear it for myself, so I found it on Youtube, but I really could not
get the full flavor because every other word was bleeped out. I have even less
familiarity with rappers and hip-hop artists, but last week I came to know the
name Kanye West. I didn’t know about his misbehavior until I saw his so-called
apology on the Jay Leno Show. I think his first transgression was a publicity
stunt, and his apology was a bonus he added on top of it.
Some might say that these
celebrity hijinx are meaningless and just another form of entertainment. I
cannot agree. I think they are a reflection of our societal temper and it boils
over into every realm.
Consider the disgraceful
lack of respect shown toward the President of the United States when he gave a
speech directly to the students of our schools. All over the county we heard
people demanding the right not to hear the speech. They said they wanted to
protect their children from socialist indoctrination; they did not want their
children to hear from the president that they should work hard in school, set
educational goals, and take responsibility for their learning. Juxtapose that
message with what they learned from their parents and school administrators
about disrespect for our leaders and lack of tolerance for those whose thinking
is not exactly like your own.
Until two weeks ago, had you ever heard of Addison Graves
Wilson, Sr? The name would more likely ring a bell if I told you he is also
known as Congressman Joe Wilson, best known as the author of a two-word
fusilage aimed at President Obama. His behavior was appalling; yet, by virtue
of his rudeness this politician has gained not only infamy but also fame. He
has actually increased his fundraising coffers because of this insult to the
leader of our country, the Commander in Chief of the most powerful nation in
the world. What a sad commentary on our society.
Several years ago I preached about the lack of civility in
our society, but perhaps the message did not spread beyond the walls of this
synagogue, because the problem has only become worse. It has increased to a
level I consider a threat to the fabric of our society.
In many synagogues a verse inscribed above the bima reads “Da
Lifne Me Atah Omed – Know Before Whom You Stand.” This does not apply only in
the synagogue or only when we are engaged in prayer. We say “Kvodo maley olam –
God’s glory fills the universe.” We are always in God’s presence and that
should influence the way we behave and the words we speak.
Do you know why Hasidim dress in black caftans and fur hats? I
know many of us think it anachronistic and foreign, but the explanation behind
it teaches a lesson we could well learn. The landed aristocracy of Poland
dressed that way in the 17th century, and Hasidim say it is
imperative that we remember that we are all aristocracy, children of the King
of Kings.
We are not only in the presence of the King, but we are all
children of the King. The message is clear: “Children, behavior yourselves.”
A crucial aspect of our civility problem seems to be anger
management. An article in the LA Times put it this way: “So maybe it's not
swine flu, but the nation seems to have come down with a serious case of
impulse control disorder.” “impulse control disorder” is an excellent
description or what we suffer.
Pirke Avot, the Ethics of the Sages, teaches “Al t’hi noach
lichos – be not easy to anger,” and contrast that with the rage in our society.
There is a time and place for righteous indignation, and that is certainly in
keeping with our prophetic tradition, but it must be used judiciously and saved
for lofty moral causes. I believe the irrational reaction to the President’s
speech about the importance of education was largely an issue of anger; an
infuriated reaction to the reality that the wrong candidate, in some people’s eyes,
was elected president last November.
Anger management is a matter of discipline, and discipline is
exactly what Jewish law teaches. The laws of Kashrut insist that you cannot eat
whatever you want; you must exercise discipline. Shabbat demands that certain
activities are permitted and others prohibited. You do not do whatever you want
whenever you feel like it. You must exercise discipline. The laws of “Shmirat
HaLashon,” guarding your tongue, teach us that what we say matters. There are
words that hurt and words that heal and silence is often the best course of
action. Judaism demands that we control what goes into our mouths, but it puts
even greater emphasis on what comes out.
“Be not easy to anger” is effortless to say, but how do we
achieve that control? Rabbi Joseph Telushkin, in his book Code of Jewish
Ethics, provides several strategies. He recommends that we adopt the line
“Be not easy to anger” as a mantra and use it as a way to calm ourselves. When
you feel yourself about to lose it, repeat the words over and over again. He
suggests that we say it Hebrew “Al t’hee noach lichos, Al t’hee noach lichos,”
even if you don’t know Hebrew, because that endows the statement with the
feeling of sanctity and reminds us that this is a Jewish value.
Perhaps we can work at controlling our anger in short
segments. Determine which thirty minutes of the day are most likely to
challenge your patience, and then concentrate on not losing your temper in just
that time slot. Rabbi Telushkin provides the following example familiar to many
of us. We arrive home from work to find our young children screaming and crying
and our frazzled spouse yelling back at them. Here is his prescription. “We
should enter the house calmly, speak kind words to our harried spouse, then pick
up the first child, hold him and hug him…and sing gently to him. Then do the
same with the next child until, with your patience, you have turned the
half-hour that used to get you angry all the time into the half hour when the
house returns to quietude.”
Many of us don’t come home to a house full of screaming kids,
but we all have circumstances in our lives that we know are likely to provoke
our annoyance. Choosing to exercise special control, keeping our cool, and
applying it to the triggers of our anger could go a long way toward reducing
tension and reintroducing civility in our lives. If only we could teach this
tactic to some celebrities.
Another approach is to measure the magnitude of what bothers
us, or in current parlance, “Don’t sweat the small stuff.” Rabbi Israel
Salanter, the founder of the Musar movement, the great master of Jewish ethical
teachings, compared our behavior to that of an infant. Picture a child playing
with a brightly colored block. Someone takes it away and the child becomes enraged.
Rabbi Salanter observed that too often supposedly mature adults behave like
little children. They perceive trivia as being of great importance and react
with rage. Rabbi Salanter noted that when a person is engaged in a major
transaction where he stands to profit greatly, he manages to ignore irritating
trivia. We need to apply that same control in other spheres of our lives. Most
of us manage to control ourselves in public, only to lose it in the privacy of
our home. How paradoxical it is that we can control ourselves with casual
acquaintances but not when we interact with those we love the most.
Sadly, it is all too often those closest to us who suffer the
brunt of our incivility. Taking out our anger on our children, or spouse or
elderly parents may begin with rudeness and verbal abuse, but that can too
often be a stepping-stone to more damaging acts. For many years, there was a
myth that the Jewish community was immune to these problems. "Such things
don't happen among Jews!" But in fact the Jewish community is not at all
immune. The assimilation of Jews in America has occurred on every level. One
expert in the field said “Ignorance is not bliss. Ignorance and denial can lead
to tragedy."
Elder abuse has become so much more common in the Jewish community.
Our pace of life, financial stress in the current economic downturn, and the
pressure of being in the sandwich generation, raising children and caring for
parents at the same time, causes tremendous tension – and tension leads to
anger and the result is too often incivility and worse.
Battered wives are no longer uncommon within the Jewish
community. Women’s shelters are being created by Jewish family agencies all
over the country. Surely, spousal abuse is incivility in the extreme.
The stories in the book of Genesis remind us that hurting our
own family members is not a new phenomenon. The very first instance of homicide
in the Torah is the well-known story of fratricide. When God becomes aware of
Cain’s fury at his brother Abel, He says to him, “Sin crouches at the door, its
urge is toward you, yet you can be its master.” Apparently Cain could not be
its master, and that story is an eternal warning to all who cannot or will not
control their anger.
It is also in Genesis that
we find what I believe is the most important and basic teaching in the entire
Torah, the foundation stone of almost all ethical teachings: “B’tzelem Elohim
nivra et he-adam,” that humanity is created in the image of God. If I face my
worst enemy, and recognize that he too is created in God’s image, then there
are certain words I cannot hurl at him. If I truly recognize that my fellow man
is created in God’s image and therefore of infinite worth, discrimination is
unthinkable; disrespect for a human being is contempt for God. If people truly
recognized their fellow citizens as created in the God’s image, we would not
hear the kind of invective that so often pollutes our radio and television
networks, that is found too commonly in our so-called civilization.
For Jews, the Torah is our covenant document and its preamble
is the Book of Genesis. The message of the first chapter, that humanity was
created in God’s image, is the premise from which so much of Jewish belief and
practice flows. The issue of civility, the decency with which we must treat our
neighbors is a corollary of this axiom. The image of God should not be
disrespected, and that is exactly what we do when we act hatefully or when we
act disrespectfully to our elected officials.
There
is a strong Jewish tradition to always end a message on a positive note.
Whenever a Haftarah ends with a strong admonition, the rabbis added another
verse, even from a different prophet, just so the message would end in a
hopeful way. In keeping with that tradition, I want to share a story of
exceptional civility, from a time in which tensions could not have been higher:
the days of the Holocaust.
The
incident occurred in Munich in Nazi Germany. A Jewish woman, Sussie, had been
riding a city bus home from work when SS storm troopers suddenly stopped the
coach and began examining the identification papers of the passengers. Most
were annoyed, but a few were terrified. Jews were being told to leave the bus
and get into a truck around the corner. Sussie watched from her seat in the
rear as the soldiers systematically worked their way down the aisle. She began
to tremble, tears streaming down her face. When the man next to her noticed
that she was crying, he politely asked her why.
"I
don't have the papers you have. I am a Jew. They're going to take me."
The
man exploded with disgust. He began to curse and scream at her. "You
stupid cow," he roared. "I can't stand being near you!" The S5
men asked what all the yelling was about.
"Damn
her," the man shouted angrily. "My wife has forgotten her papers
again! I'm so fed up. She always does this!"
The
soldiers laughed and moved on.
Sussie
never saw the man again. She never even knew his name.
Clearly,
that man risked his life for a woman he had never before met. Could any example
of civility be more worthy of merit?
In these last few weeks and months, it appears that the level
of incivility in our society has escalated at an alarming rate. We Jews are
supposed to be “A light unto the nations.” An “Ohr LaGoyim.” As we face this
New Year, let us try to take that responsibility upon ourselves in a serious
way. Let us try to set an example of civility in all our interactions. As we
face our neighbors, may we see in them the Image of God, and demonstrate the
appropriate respect in word and deed. May our lives thus be a source of honor
to God and to the Jewish people, and may God’s blessings be upon us and upon
all created in God’s image. AMEN