Stereotypes
are funny, aren’t they? They don’t come
out of a vacuum. There’s always some
element of truth in them. Or sometimes, distorted
truth. As in the kind that takes an
image based on an historical reality, absent the knowledge of the historical
context that created that image. This is
the case with a number of prevalent stereotypes concerning us Jews. And this is why we wear some stereotypes with
pride when we discuss them amongst ourselves.
But chafe at them when they are invoked by others.
I’ll give you an example. There
is a stereotype that Jewish women are no pushovers. To me, that is a point of pride. To the extent that it’s true – and I think it
largely is – it says that there’s something healthy in the Jewish
version of the War of the Sexes. But one
time, a non-Jew who was only a superficial acquaintance of mine, e-mailed me a
joke. It went like this:
The Jewish boy came running home from
school, excited that he had a part in the school play. His mother asked him what part he had. He told his mother excitedly that he was
playing the Jewish husband and father.
His mother promptly phoned the boy’s teacher to upbraid her for not
giving her son a speaking part.
Now obviously, if there’s a stereotype of strong women, there’s a corollary
of men who do not need to be controlling.
Stated this way, that’s a positive stereotype. But when it becomes distorted into the terms ‘Jewish
women are strong at the expense of Jewish men’ then it becomes a negative
stereotype. And it is one thing for Jews
to poke fun at one another, another thing entirely for an ‘outsider’ to
interject himself into the conversation.
All of this was going through my mind when the man sent me the
aforementioned joke. After thinking
about it briefly, I dismissed it. And
decided I would never, ever, share with this man the secret to Jewish wealth
accumulation…
Another stereotype is of Jews as an
argumentative lot. As with the aforementioned,
there’s truth to this one also. Recently
a Jewish friend here on the Coast related to me an encounter he’d had with a
Christian man. Whilst the two didn’t
agree on much, my friend said: He was
so polite. He didn’t yell at me…like you
do! Now, I knew that my friend,
in saying that, was not so much criticising as issuing a rhetorical
challenge. So I rose to it. Of course he was polite, I said. He’s not Jewish! And we shared a good laugh…
Yes, the Jewish Way is to not shy away
from an argument. When we think we’ve
got a case, we tend to press it. With
vigour. We Jews are also famous for
being ‘in your face,’ for not worrying overly about politeness. We’re so…so New York! Or perhaps, New York is just so, so Jewish.
My distinguished colleague, Rabbi Lord
Jonathan Sacks asserts: Argument is
the lifeblood of Judaism. He points
out that, in Jewish circles, argument is a tool for getting closer to the
truth. Judaism is not a religion of
submission, in the way that our two daughter faiths are. The Jewish Way has always been to learn via
spirited conversation. And one method of
that conversation is to advocate a position opposite that or our partner to the
conversation. It’s as if Jewish life is
an eternal debating club. Which makes
sense. Jews made up about a third of the
student body of Miami Beach Senior High School when I attended. But we completely dominated the debating
club. The football team – or Gridiron
as the Aussies call it – was ‘goyisch.’
A large portion of our sacred
literature comes to us in the form of a debate, recorded for all time. Mishnah and Gemarah, the two elements that
make up the basic text of the Talmud, document long-running debates on myriad
subjects. And then, on a page of Talmud,
are various commentaries that provide insight into various points and
counterpoints to construct a sort of ongoing intergenerational debate growing
out of the basic text. When Jews study
the Talmud, they study it in pairs or small groups, and the study sessions take
the form of…you guessed it, the form of debating sessions.
But what about the ‘debate’ in this
week’s Torah portion, Korach? Korach
argued that Moses and Aaron were, in exercising their leadership roles, placing
themselves above the community. He
reminded them, that the entire people was a nation of priests and kings. So what right did those to have to lead the people? Korach spoke out so forcefully that he built
a following of Datan, Amiran, On, and 250 others who, the Torah tells us, were
leaders in their respective tribes and families. They were not some ‘street rabble.’
From the Torah, we know that this was
not a ‘debate’; it did not fit into the parameters of allowed discourse. Korach himself, frames his argument against
Moses’ leadership clearly. Egypt had
been a land of Milk and Honey. And Moses
had brought the Israelites all this way just so that they should die in the
wilderness. Both statements are so
patently false, that there’s simply no fuel for debate in them. They are bold lies whose only purpose is to stifle
debate.
Korach’s rebellion was about one thing
only. You – Moses – are in
power. I want to be in
power. I’ll say whatever I need to, to
grab that power.
I have recently begun distributing
weekly thoughts based on the teachings of the Chafets Chayim, Rabbi Israel Meir
Kagan. He is the Jewish authority
on the laws of shemirat lashon, ‘guarding the tongue.’ If you have been reading my weekly offerings,
then you know I believe that ‘evilspeak’ is the number one problem besetting
the Jewish people today. Many of the
other issues in the Jewish world, stem from our not controlling what we say or write. And from our not keeping our communications
within permitted, and constructive, parameters.
The Chafets Chayim taught these laws with a clarity and erudition that
had not been known before or since. And
yet, as far back as the Written Torah we have clarity on the results of
evilspeak.
Many of us have heard of the famous
debate between Hillel and Shammai, and between the following generations of
each of the two sages’ respective disciples. The disagreement was deep, but it was לשם שמיים (leshem shamayim) – for the sake of
heaven. This means that the dispute
itself, was for the sake of getting further clarity on what Hashem expects of
us. Disputes that are simply for the aggrandizement
of one party over another, are not for the sake of heaven. They are a waste of time and energy. They consume our attention and our resources
and only damage our community. Everybody
knows of disputes not for the sake of heaven, and how they have hurt
people. This week’s Torah reading,
concerning the rebellion of Korach, teaches us the dangers of such disputes. We are well-advised to heed the lesson. We are deeply blessed when we do. Shabbat shalom.
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