Drashot for Shbbat Vayiggash

Adam Lanza, who killed 27 people last week

Australia has it Right

A drash for Friday, 21 December  

Now that I’ve been here in Australia for just over half a year, there are many things about this wonderful land that I understand and appreciate.  There are still, however, things that mystify me completely.  I’ll give you an example.  In America, as here, many cars have electric windows.  Typically, the driver’s window has a feature called ‘One Touch.’  It means that, when lowering the window, one need only touch the switch briefly, and it will automatically lower all the way down.  It’s a safety feature to prevent the driver from being distracted over the period of several seconds that it takes to completely lower the window.  But in America, ‘One Touch’ only works when lowering the window.  To have ‘One Touch’ available for raising the window would, in contrast be a safety hazard.  An electric window raising all the way automatically might accidentally close on somebody’s fingers.  So when raising the driver’s window on my American cars, I had to hold the switch all the way up.  It made sense.

                In the Australian-specification car I drive here, the ‘One Touch’ feature affects raising the window, but not lowering it.  Can someone explain that to me?  It makes no sense to this American – no sense whatsoever!

                That said, there are facets of Australian society that make good sense.  Facets that make me wish that we had such good sense in America.  One is the way that you cope with the societal problem of mental illness.

                In Australia, there is less stigma attached to those who suffer from mental illness than in America.  Because of this greater acceptance, those who suffer from such disorders are far more likely to seek help.  And the help that they need, in its entire spectrum of forms up to, and including residential care, is readily available:  both in the public system and the private.

                Over the months that I’ve been here, I’ve observed that we have a number of members in this congregation who have mental illnesses.  And while they don’t advertise them freely, there also is not the same element of shame and unwillingness to talk about it, that I observed in America.  So here you have car windows that drive me crazy – no pun intended! – but a mental health treatment system that makes me envious.  Not a bad trade-off, actually!

                A week ago today, a 20-year-old man named Adam Lanza went on a shooting rampage in a small town of Connecticut.  First he killed his mother with one of her own guns.  Then he drove to a nearby primary school, where he killed six adult faculty and staff, and 20 young children.  America – and the world – are trying to understand why a young man suffering, by all accounts with some deep mental illness, had access to guns.  To me as an American, my question is somewhat different.  Why did a young man suffering, by all accounts with some deep mental illness, not have access to the treatment he needed?

                Not all the facts about Adam Lanza or his mother, Nancy are known.  But it is known, and widely so, that Adam had manifested symptoms of serious mental illness since years before his recent rampage and demise.  There is also some talk, perhaps ultimately to be confirmed, that Nancy was trying to obtain a court order to get Adam committed against his will to residential treatment for his illness.  If so, she was on a fool’s errand, because in Connecticut of all states in the USA, this is next-to-impossible to achieve.

                The American aversion to providing residential treatment, and giving helpers the means to get the severely ill the treatment they need, stems in large part from a terrible situation that existed in the past.  Decades ago, there was widespread institutionalisation of the mentally ill in most US states.  Most states have, since then shuttered their facilities.  They also turned off mechanisms by which those who might be a danger to themselves and others, could be committed against their will.  This process, this societal sea-change, did not just happen in a vacuum.  After the 1960’s it became widely recognised that many state-run mental institutions were merely warehousing the ill rather than working positively to treat them.  In some institutions there was even abuse of patients.  Obviously these conditions cried out for reforms.  But in my country, the solution was by-and-large not reform.  It was turning the mentally ill loose on the streets without the kinds of help they needed.

                So now, instead of warehousing the mentally ill in hospitals, in America we warehouse them in homeless shelters and in encampments in city parks and under highway bridges.  It is considered impolite to say that many – perhaps a preponderance – of the long-term homeless suffer from mental illness.  It is easier – and makes better press – to attribute homelessness to dire economic times in one of the world’s richest countries.  But the truth is that most homelessness in America has nothing to do with economics.  Having been involved in social services for the mentally ill before I came here, I can state this with some authority.

                This is the real shortcoming of my country in this affair.  Why do we stigmatise the mentally ill so much?  Why do we make few resources available?  And why do we make it nearly impossible to protect those who pose a danger to themselves and others by taking custodianship of their treatment?

                In America, there is a very powerful tradition of an armed and autonomous citizenry.  It is a difficult thing to explain here in Australia where you have largely accepted that a citizen is not entitled to possess a firearm.  America is a much more violent country – that cannot be denied.  But the existence of an armed criminal element – especially an armed criminal gang element – here in Australia attests to the reality that outlawing firearms only eliminates legal firearms…not the illegal ones.

                My crazy, violent home country is often difficult for those outside to understand.  Of this there is no question.  But in America right now, as here, the debate engendered by last week’s terrible event is probably not the most helpful one.  The Obama Administration will try to outlaw at least certain classes of guns for private ownership.  They will probably try to make it more difficult, through red tape, to purchase any firearms.  They will try to achieve this in the legislature.  But if they find a sufficient number of lawmakers unwilling to do their bidding, as will likely be the case, they will surely turn to other means.  And if they do, perhaps it will be for the better of America.  Or perhaps it will not, because the debate that I think should be happening will have been largely ignored.  But that’s public policy for you, and not just in America.  The really difficult questions often – usually – get sidestepped.  And that’s not good for America.  And not good for other countries either.  Such as Australia.  But there are things that you get right here.  And for that, I’m proud to be here with you.  Shabbat shalom.

 Joseph’s Gift to Us

A Drash for Saturday, 22 December

    

This week’s Torah reading, the reading we have just read, is from Parashat Vayiggash.  It is the climax of the saga of Joseph and his brothers.  In it, Joseph confronts his brothers who sold him into slavery so many years back.  After a time of toying with his brothers wanting to inflict a little suffering on them, he relents.  In this week’s reading, he identifies himself to his brothers.  Then he forgives them.  Lest they think themselves unworthy of this pardon, he tells them explicitly. “Don’t flog yourselves over having sold me.  It was G-d Himself who sent me here, to keep the entire family alive.”

                So Joseph not only forgives his brothers, he asks them not to think of themselves as guilty.  I don’t know about you, but I think that’s pretty big of him.  I’ve forgiven people for offences against me, but never with such aplomb!  Believe me:  I wanted them to at least feel guilty!

                Nobody in this room has suffered to anything like the degree of suffering experienced by Joseph.  I say this, not to minimise the pain that anybody hearing me, may have felt at any time in life.  No, my point is only that, if Joseph can forgive the offences against him, then we can certainly forgive any wrongs done to us by anybody close to us.  The message of the redemption of Joseph’s brothers, is that we can offer similar redemption.  Or receive it.  Because if Joseph’s brothers’ transgression is forgivable, anything done to you, or which you have done to someone else, is also forgivable.

                So Joseph missed out on the thrill of revenge, and instead tasted the sweetness of reconciliation.  It serves as a model of how to repair all the strained relationships we may be carrying around as excess baggage, weighing us down as we try to live our lives.

Reconciliation brings redemption.  Joseph could have chosen to hold a grudge against his brothers.  Most likely, that grudge would have consumed him for the rest of his life.  But Joseph chose reconciliation.  And he thus chose redemption – and happiness.  Joseph, freed from hatred for his brothers, went on to find happiness in his life.  In that, his greatest gift was not to his brothers – it was to himself.

As I did last week, let me close again by challenging everyone listening, or reading this, to take the heart the lesson of Joseph.  It isn’t an easy lesson.  It isn’t easy to forgive those whom you believe had wronged you.  But it is far easier than carrying a grudge for the rest of your life.  And it results in a far happier rest of your life.  The example of how Joseph achieved this, is his gift to us.

Our annual recounting of the saga of Joseph and his brothers comes to an end with this week’s reading.  But this important narrative – perhaps the most important narrative in the Torah – can and should stick with us all year long.  When we feel consumed by the resentment, even the hatred that we feel towards those who have wronged us, let’s remember Joseph and how he redeemed his relationship with his brothers.  Let’s remember Joseph and how he redeemed the rest of his own life.  Let’s remember Joseph and let his example influence the way we approach our own conflicts.  Shabbat shalom!