Thanksgiving Reflection - Delivered at Brookline Interfaith Clergy Association Thanksgiving Service, 2016

Even several weeks after a particularly harsh and divisive presidential campaign, I know that people are still on edge. Trump supporters are celebrating their victory, but many feel hurt by the reaction of many Clinton supporters, many of whom seem to paint supporters of the president elect with the broad brush of racism and bigotry. Many Clinton supporters, in addition to their deep disappointment serious apprehensions about the future, feel that they don’t recognize their country and cannot believe that even here, in Brookline, there are voters who supported the other side. And those Trump voters, not surprisingly, often feel misunderstood and even unwilling to acknowledge their support. How, one might ask, can we find something we’re grateful for, something to sustain us in such a situation? What is a blessing we can identify in this new reality?

Here’s my response: At work at Center Communities of Brookline  last week, I had a series of conversations with colleagues and residents who voted differently than I did. If you know me already, you probably know how I voted. If you don’t know me, I’m willing to tell you face to face, but it’s really not relevant in this context. What’s relevant is this: these were difficult conversations, full of the pitfalls of our contemporary political scene: we get news from different sources, so not surprisingly we have diametrically opposed views of the candidates and of the events that have followed the election. 

With one colleague, the conversation was especially challenging. One of us, the Trump supporter, feels threatened by the intensity of the negative feelings expressed by Clinton supporters, especially in attributions of bigotry.  The other one of us, the Clinton supporter, couldn’t understand how someone so devoted to our shared community and shared values of racial and gender justice could overlook the various factors that seemed to disqualify Trump for the office of president. The Trump supporter couldn’t understand how someone so devoted to security and economic fairness could simply overlook the various factors that seemed to disqualify Clinton for that office. 

But as we talked, we also began to listen, to pay attention to the words and, even more important, the feelings the other was communicating. We began to understand a bit more, to see the election, and perhaps even the world, through the eyes of the other. Not that she convinced me or that I convinced her, but we were talking, listening, relating, and connecting.

In Pirkei Avot, the Ethics of the Fathers that forms part of the Mishnah, a compendium of Rabbinic traditions codified around 200 of the Common Era, Rabbi Hananiah ben T’radyon is quoted as saying

אבל שנים שיושבין ויש ביניהם דברי תורה שכינה שרויה ביניהם.

 that “when two persons meet and exchange words of Torah, the Shekhinah--the presence of God--hovers over them.” In this conversation, difficult as it was, I felt the presence of Shekhinah between me and my colleague, and for that blessing I am supremely grateful. May we all find the capacity to listen to one another, to argue strenuously for what we believe in, and to work tirelessly for justice. And most of all, may we discover how to make it possible for the Shekhinah to dwell among us, even amid passionate disagreements.

Poetry and the Blessings of Misunderstanding

Published on Hebrew College's "70 Faces of Torah Blog" on November 2, 2016

There are utterances — their meaning
Is obscure or negligible, 
But to attend to them
Without agitation is impossible.

                - Mikhail Lermontov, 1840

As we come to the close of a bitter election season, in which the use and misuse of language has loomed so large, this week’s Torah portion, Noach, gives us an opportunity to ponder both the importance and the challenges of linguistic diversity.

Parts of this campaign have effectively channeled the fear and resentments of a large portion of the electorate through what gets characterized as “plain speech,” unadulterated by “political correctness.” Whether a given instance of so-called “plain speech” is meaningful or meaningless, factually correct or plain wrong, it can foster an extreme emotional response. Such speech also fosters divisiveness, across regional, ethnic, gender, religious, and class differences, among others—in a way that makes it difficult for people with different views or positions to communicate with one another.

From this perspective, it might be tempting to suggest that we have reached a Tower of Babel moment— we can’t even talk with one another anymore, so we lament the loss of the unity and clear communication that we had until… well, when? Isn’t linguistic diversity (even if we’re all speaking the same language) simply a fact of life?

This question lurks behind the story of the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11:1-9), in which God confounds the generation after the Flood by confusing their language and scattering them across the earth. Traditional commentators see this loss of linguistic and geographic unity as a punishment for some sort of rebellion, though the text never specifies any hostile motive—only a desire to make a name (shem, most likely a monument, as in “yad vashem” from Isaiah 56:5) and to avoid dispersal.

But the biggest objection to this reading is the fact that Genesis 10:5 reports that “[f]rom these [descendents of Japheth] the maritime nations branched out by their lands—each with its language—their clans and their nations.” Migration and linguistic diversity here appear to be uncontroversial facts of human life, so it seems unlikely that they would become punishments a mere chapter later. To understand what is at play here, it’s worth noting that the Hebrew text of the story is unusually rich in verbal play: the similarity of sounds—for instance of nivleh (let’s confuse) and bavel (Babylon); and word repetition—safah (language) and kol ha-aretz (all the earth) each appear five times. This word play is explicitly poetic, carrying an emotional resonance beyond the words’ plain meaning.

The story also carries verbal and thematic echoes of the story of Creation and the expulsion from Eden. When God says, “Let us go down there and confound their speech…” (hava nerda, in 11:7), the phrase echoes another instance of surprisingly plural divine language in Genesis 1:26—“let us make a person in our likeness and image”—as well as God’s “going down” into Eden to confront Adam and Eve after they realize their nakedness in Genesis 3:8. These verbal echoes—God’s use of the first-person plural (to whom is God speaking?) and God’s descent to both confront and confound—connect the story of the Tower of Babel to the blessing of creation and the trauma of expulsion, carrying an emotional resonance beyond the plain meaning of the text.

That resonance is what Lermontov identifies as the surplus content of otherwise obscure utterances, which Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas (in citing Lermontov’s poem) characterizes as poetic language, “language of pure transcendence without correlative.” For Levinas, poetry transforms words into signs without any objective meaning, undoing any simple correlation between a word and what it is supposed to mean. “No novel, no poem… has thus perhaps done anything else [but] undo the structure of language. Without this, the world would know only the meanings which inspire official records or the minutes of…board meetings…” Poetic language may at times be difficult to understand, but its meaning is ultimately far greater than what we can fully express in our usual, every-day language. In Genesis, such poetic resonance in the narrative contrasts with the apparent uniformity of the language used by the Tower Builders themselves: “All the earth had the same language and the same words.” This sameness suggests not only that everyone spoke the same language, but that everyone was in agreement about the meaning of words. In the Garden of Eden, the absence of death also meant the absence of growth and development; here, the absence of misunderstanding, which allows for the construction of towers, means the absence of poetry, of the struggle to understand another person that lends meaning to our existence.

In this reading, the confounding of languages is not a punishment, but a corrective; and what prompts this corrective is not the building of the tower, but the triumph of linguistic uniformity in the face of diversity. Although diversity is necessary and even desirable, the challenges it poses are real—and can lead to conflict. One midrash imagines the murderous rage that will result from that loss of mutual understanding: “Thus one said to his colleague, ‘Bring me water,’ whereupon he would give him earth, at which he struck him and split his skull.” Such violence, however, results not so much from the initial misunderstanding as from the failure of the interlocutors to strive for understanding across the linguistic divide. They decided, or at least one of them did, to forgo communication in favor of violence.

For Levinas, poetic speech carries an ethical dimension: our fundamental responsibility to go beyond ourself towards the Other and to recognize the irreducible diversity of individuals. In this ethical imperative, we see the contrast with demagogic speech. The demagogue not only denies this responsibility to the Other; their language also imagines and longs for a pre-Babel world devoid of diversity with its challenges and blessings.

Diversity, like poetry, can be difficult—but it is far superior to the alternatives: a fantasy of “plain speech,” or a uniformity enforced by violence.

Got Questions? Well, So Do I!!

This post was printed in the 100 Centre Street Journal in January, 2016

Now that the Hanukkah menorahs have returned to their boxes in the cellar and we’ve recovered from our Gregorian New Year’s celebration, it’s time to look back at some of the questions that arose from the holiday season.  I hope that my responses will not only interest you but also spur you to come up with additional questions about Judaism or interfaith topics--if you pass them along to Dodie or bring them to me directly, I’ll be happy to consider responding in print.  I should also say that if you see something in the answers I’ve provided here that you disagree with, please let me know and I’ll be happy to discuss it.  Finally, I’ve included a question for you at the end of the article, so I hope you’ll have the patience to read the whole thing!

So to the Hanukkah questions, courtesy of Dodie Catlett:

1. What is the significance of Hanukkah gelt, and when/why did it change from coins to chocolate?

As with many Jewish customs, Hanukkah gelt has its roots both in Jewish history and in the encounter of Jews with the primarily Christian cultures of Europe and North America.  To start with Jewish history and religious practice, it’s important to remember that Hanukkah commemorates the victory of the Maccabees over the Greek empire.  When the Maccabees (Hasmoneans) reestablished sovereignty over Jerusalem, they struck coins reflecting that sovereignty.  Further on in history, the rabbis of the Talmud decreed that when a person had to choose between purchasing kiddush wine and oil for the Hanukkah lamps (in the days before wax candles), he should buy oil in order to publicize the miracle of the oil in the temple that should have lasted one day but instead lasted eight. For that reason, the tradition arose of giving gifts of money to the poor at Hanukkah time to pay for oil. 

More recently, in Europe and in North America (I’m not as familiar with Hanukkah customs in other parts of the world), the practice arose of giving money to tradesmen and students at Hanukkah time as a kind of year-end tip.  I assume that this practice was at least in part in imitation of the year-end tips that non-Jews would offer in honor of Christmas and the New Year.  Equally recent was the custom of spinning the dreidel, which was a basic kind of gambling game that would require money to become interesting.  The practice of gift giving at Hanukkah is rather fraught for many Jews, since there’s a sense that Hanukkah has gained prominence (and commercial attention) only by its proximity to Christmas.  It’s important to remember, however, that gift-giving at Christmas time is also a fairly recent phenomenon and can be equally fraught for many Christians concerned with commercialization and a lack of spiritual significance. 

The rise of chocolate gelt (as opposed to real coins) seems to have its origin in the shift from Hanukkah as an opportunity to give tips to our tradesman (although many of us still tip our mail carriers and newspaper delivery people at the New Year) to a holiday for children.  Jonathan Sarna of Brandeis University was quoted by NPR as suggesting that chocolate in the form of coins was a way of preserving the cultural memory of earlier practices.  What’s important to remember is that Hanukkah traditions, like all Jewish practices, will continue to evolve as Jews strive to find an ongoing balance between similarity and distinctiveness in relation to the larger culture.

2. I’ve seen menorahs with seven lights and with nine lights; why the difference?

A “menorah,” strictly speaking, is a lamp stand.  According to the Torah, the menorah in the Temple had seven lamps (again, this is in the time before wax candles) and is described in several places, including Exodus 25:31-40.  

These days, when people say “menorah” or, more specifically, a “Hanukkah menorah,” they are referring to a “hanukkiyah,” the nine-branched lampstand that we use only for Hanukkah.  Generally, these hanukkiyot (to use the Hebrew plural) include eight candle holders (or oil lamps, for people who prefer period instruments) on one level, plus another at a different level (lower or higher) for the “shamash” (“beadle”), which we use to light the other lights.

3. Why was the color blue chosen for Jewish holiday merchandise and gift wrap?

This question is particularly interesting because it points to several aspects of the Jewish experience, including the widespread acceptance of Hanukkah as a legitimate alternative to Christmas in this country and the rise of Zionism and the state of Israel as a gloss on the Hanukkah story of self-determination and cultural distinctiveness.

To begin with the latter factor, it’s important to note that the colors of the Israeli flag are blue and white, in part to echo the traditional colors of the Jewish prayer shawl.  The blue is called t’khelet, which is described in the Torah and has been traced to pigment derived from mollusks. These colors, which the Zionist movement adopted at its inception in the late 19th century, were described in “Judah’s Colors,” an 1864 poem in German by Ludwig August Frankl: “Blue and white are the colours of Judah; white is the radiance of the priesthood, and blue, the splendors of the firmament.” (see Ronald L. Eisenberg, Jewish Traditions: A JPS Guide, 2004, p. 577 and Amanda Green, “Why Are Blue and White the Hanukkah Colors?,” Mental Floss on-line).

Since the explanation about Hanukkah in this country has focused not only on issues of religious freedom and self-determination but also Jewish sovereignty in the Land of Israel, Jews readily associate the holiday with the establishment of the State of Israel and thus the colors of the state, namely blue and white.  These colors have the added advantage of being clearly distinct from green and red, which in this country are the currently accepted colors for Christmas (I understand there is a history there, as well, but I am ignorant of it). In both cases, marketers have cemented the use of these colors as an easy visual shorthand for both retailers and consumers to recognize products for one or the other holiday.  

As a curious aside, I learned in my internet searches that in the first half of the 20th century, most Hanukkah candles (and electric Hanukkah lights) were manufactured in an orange color, so that before the current vogue for blue and white, the color of Hanukkah was indeed orange.  If any of you has any memories of the shift from orange to blue and white (or, indeed, memories of other colors associated with Hanukkah), I would love to hear about them!

With blessings for a happy and healthy New Gregorian Year!

Rabbi Jim