Post by Rabbi Neil on Nov 29, 2019 18:59:07 GMT
This week, I saw online someone share a drawing of a Nazi soldier with his hands held high standing behind someone wearing a Make America Great Again cap, also with their hands held high. Both figures are staring terrified at a bayonet at the end of a gun that is very close to their nose. The caption to the picture read, “We Beat ‘Em Before, We’ll Beat ‘Em Again.” In the subsequent discussion, I was struck by how many people said that the swastika and the MAGA hat were essentially identical. They said that the MAGA hat was responsible for inspiring the slaughter of people in places of worship and for cruelty towards a specific ethnic group of people at the border. When I said that the Nazi soldier was actively involved in genocide, whereas the MAGA hat wearer was not, I was told that there were also people who worked for the Nazi regime who did not do such things, and yet they were still Nazis. I was told that I was like Neville Chamberlain (which I think may have been a dig at being liberal and British!) not understanding the terrible threat facing me. It really worried me. Was I being a woolly liberal totally misunderstanding the reality of the world with my head buried in books? Was my search for nuance in a society whose dialogue has descended into mud-slinging just an expression of my removal from reality?
The discussion kept circling around the core question of “Is a Make America Great Again cap the same as a swastika or a white KKK hood?” The people I was arguing with absolutely felt that it was. They said it was an incitement to violence. I profoundly disagree. Is the person who wears a MAGA hat likely to be racist? Yes, I do believe that they are likely to be. Does that mean that they want violence against people of a different ethnic group to them? That actually depends on what violence means. If putting babies in camps is violence, which I think it is, then yes. If it means sending people coming into the country back to their homes, even if they risk death, which I also think is a form of violence, then yes. If it means proudly spilling actual blood of those who oppose them, if it means engaging in physical acts of violence against the person in front of them, as the Nazis and the KKK did openly, then the answer is no. The Nazi has no problem directly killing someone whom they believe is inferior – indeed, they believe such an act is a good thing for humanity. The MAGA cap wearer would very, very rarely do such a thing – they just don’t want people who are different to them to be near to them. That may be disgusting, but it’s not murderous. So, while the MAGA cap is a symbol of the current manifestation of white nationalism, and I acknowledge that it’s disturbingly easy to go from white nationalism and state-sanctioned violence against immigrants to unstated tolerance of violence against non-whites or even now-Jews. There’s no doubt about that. What we are seeing happen in this country shares a lot of parallels to what happened in Nazi Germany, but it is not the same. We should be on our guard for sure and we should do everything in our power to end officially state-sanctioned violence. More than that, though, we have to end the violent rhetoric.
How do we do that? We do that by dialogue. We can only do that by dialogue. Not dialogue with the person who is the same as us, or virtually the same as us, but dialogue with those who are profoundly different to us. Take the case of Daryl Davis. Daryl Davis is an African-American blues musician who has a collection of 200 KKK robes in his house – one for every KKK member he convinced to leave the organization. How did he do that? He befriended them. He invited them to dinner. For thirty years, his philosophy has been to approach KKK members and ask how they could hate him if they don’t even know him? And, one by one, as they got to know him, they realized that they couldn’t hate him, so they left the KKK.
When I was a teenager, I didn’t know that I was a homophobe, but I was. I thought that I was super liberal. I still look back on the day with shame when I once used the quintessential homophobic line of “the Bible says Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.” It took my friendship with Student Rabbi Andreas Hinz, of blessed memory, before I could truly be purged of that subconscious bias which I had learned. It still genuinely shames me how intolerant I was without even realizing. But I learned better because of dialogue, because of the interaction with the person who had a totally different life experience to me.
Jewish ethics is based around a core principle – that of teshuvah. It is usually translated as repentance but comes from the root meaning “to return.” That idea of return is usually taken to mean a return to God and God-like ethics, but I take it more as a return to our natural non-hateful state of being, before we learned intolerance. Many would see those two things as being the same, which I could totally understand, and wouldn’t object to as a theological position. Teshuvah is really difficult because it involves honestly questioning ourselves, and we’re usually really bad at doing that. That’s why we keep coming back on Yom Kippur to engage in teshuvah, because it’s really hard for us to see the things in ourselves that need changing. More often than not, that needs an external shock. We need to be confronted with another way of being and be convinced that it’s a better way of being for ourselves and for everyone else. Teshuvah is, therefore, most effective in dialogue, especially in dialogue with those who lead lives different to our own. Sometimes, that confrontation can be dramatic, which is why our tradition has the concept of tochahah, rebuke. Hocheach tochiach et amitecha, says Leviticus 19 – surely rebuke your neighbor. That doesn’t mean have a go at them at every opportunity, but it does mean correct them, guide them, show them the better way, even sternly if need be. That verse immediately precedes the central verse in Torah, ve’ahavta l’re’acha et kamocha – love your neighbor as yourself (Lev. 19:18). What if your neighbor is on the divergent end of the political spectrum to you? What if you find what they say repulsive, even dangerous? Then hocheach tochiach et amitecha – correct them. Guide them. But talk to them. Only then can you learn to love them.
That means that we need dialogue, and for dialogue we need nuance. Nuance is dreadfully inconvenient because it’s so much easier to make rash generalizations against those who hold differing views to our own. It’s so much easier to call all MAGA hat-wearers Nazis than to actually engage in the difficult and uncomfortable task of talking to them. There is an internet law known as Godwin’s Law that states that the longer an online discussion continues, the greater the chance that one person refers to another as Hitler or as Nazis. A subsequent offshoot of that law of the internet is that as soon as a person refers to another as a Nazi, they lose the argument. Godwin himself doesn’t agree with that offshoot, by the way. He says that there might be occasion to genuinely compare some contemporary politicians to Hitler or their policies to Nazis. He openly says, for example, that the camps at the southern border of this country are “concentration camps.” I agree with him. But does that mean that all Donald Trump voters are Nazis? Or that anyone who wears as MAGA hat is a Nazi? No, of course not. In 2014, French Philosopher François de Smet called his book “Reductio ad Hitlerium.” The original phrase upon which that is based, for those who don’t know, is reductio ad absurdum, which is when a person critiques an opposing view by taking it to its most absurd conclusion. De Smet’s title suggests that we have now entered a point where dialogue has broken down to absurdity. One of the greatest difficulties I am increasingly finding with current left-wing voters is how quickly they break Godwin’s Law. Sometimes, they even start a discussion by breaking it! There can never be dialogue, there can never be growth, society can never learn, when the other person is described as a “Nazi,” or as a “baby-killer,” or as any of the terms thrown around by each side in contemporary American political dialogue.
Are there parallels between the current administration and with Nazi Germany? Yes, there unquestionably are. Does that mean that the current administration a Nazi administration? No, it does not. Does it mean that anyone who votes for Trump or anyone who wears a MAGA hat is a Nazi? No, absolutely not, and I think it is not only deeply offensive to say so, but totally counter to the liberal cause. Using such terms ends any possibility of dialogue. It’s the same as that terrible phrase “basket of deplorables” that was used during the last general election campaign. You can never convince someone of their need for teshuvah if you call them a Nazi or if you call them deplorable. In fact, you make it more difficult for them to hear your tochacha, your rebuke. I have friends online who are disturbingly right-wing, but we genuinely disagree and sometimes even learn from each other. I learn about my liberal assumptions and they about their conservative ones. It’s uncomfortable, it’s painful, and it’s extremely tempting to just block them, never talk to them again, and live in my own bubble of self-righteousness, but to do so means I limit the chances of making the world a better place by showing the people with whom I profoundly disagree why I believe that they are mistaken. If we label everyone who opposes us in the most disgusting terms, then dialogue is dead and the only way forward is violence to the other.
But dialogue must not die. It cannot die. For the good of humanity, we must keep it alive as an essential offshoot of the core Jewish values of tochaha and teshuvah. Being Jewish isn’t easy – it’s not meant to be. We’re meant to confront the difficult task of life which necessarily means confronting the difficult people in our society. It means showing them the error of their ways. It certainly seems that not everyone can be changed. Some people are so ingrained with hatred, bigotry, prejudice and violence that no tochacha could ever change them. But perhaps that’s not true. Perhaps that’s something we tell ourselves simply because we want to avoid difficult dialogue. After all, if 200 members of the KKK can be shown how wrong they were, maybe anyone can, with the right tochacha. Dialogue does not mean giving up our ethical position – in fact, it means the opposite. It means that we should be able to defend our ethical position. To do this, I find one more aspect from our tradition essential – the notion of tinok shenishpa. This idea, which translates to “stolen baby” was a way of explaining why people might stray away from the path of traditional Judaism. In essence, it means “they were born into thinking that way so it’s not their fault.” As patronizing as that was originally, I think it can be an extremely helpful tool in dialogue, when used appropriately. How could I expect that someone who has led a totally different life with totally differing upbringing and totally differing life experiences should think the way I do? To do so is pure arrogance. Their experience brought them to believe what they do and mine brought me to believe what I do. Now that we have been brought together, we have a duty to share not just our opinion but also what brought us to that opinion. That’s the Daryl Davis model. The members of the KKK whom he befriended believed that they hated him. He asked how they could hate him if they didn’t know him. Once they got to know him, they realized that they didn’t hate him. He didn’t tell them they were wrong, he didn’t call them Nazis or deplorables, he simply challenged what led them to believe what they did. He questioned what brought them to their intolerance. He engaged in dialogue. He changed them and made the world a better place.
This week, then, let us embrace dialogue, be challenged by dialogue, learn from dialogue and ultimately grow from dialogue. Let us not take the easy path of letting dialogue die, but let us guide those with whom we differ, even profoundly. Let us not assume that everyone has the same life experience as us but, instead, let us assume that they have something that they need to learn from us, sometimes even urgently. Let us learn that the only way to bring someone to our way of thinking is by helping them, by talking to them, not by fighting them or labeling them. Let us learn that conflict creates winners and bitter losers, and that only dialogue can bring people together. Let our tikkun olam, our repair of the world, start not with labeling and dismissal, but with disagreement and dialogue. And let us say, Amen.
The discussion kept circling around the core question of “Is a Make America Great Again cap the same as a swastika or a white KKK hood?” The people I was arguing with absolutely felt that it was. They said it was an incitement to violence. I profoundly disagree. Is the person who wears a MAGA hat likely to be racist? Yes, I do believe that they are likely to be. Does that mean that they want violence against people of a different ethnic group to them? That actually depends on what violence means. If putting babies in camps is violence, which I think it is, then yes. If it means sending people coming into the country back to their homes, even if they risk death, which I also think is a form of violence, then yes. If it means proudly spilling actual blood of those who oppose them, if it means engaging in physical acts of violence against the person in front of them, as the Nazis and the KKK did openly, then the answer is no. The Nazi has no problem directly killing someone whom they believe is inferior – indeed, they believe such an act is a good thing for humanity. The MAGA cap wearer would very, very rarely do such a thing – they just don’t want people who are different to them to be near to them. That may be disgusting, but it’s not murderous. So, while the MAGA cap is a symbol of the current manifestation of white nationalism, and I acknowledge that it’s disturbingly easy to go from white nationalism and state-sanctioned violence against immigrants to unstated tolerance of violence against non-whites or even now-Jews. There’s no doubt about that. What we are seeing happen in this country shares a lot of parallels to what happened in Nazi Germany, but it is not the same. We should be on our guard for sure and we should do everything in our power to end officially state-sanctioned violence. More than that, though, we have to end the violent rhetoric.
How do we do that? We do that by dialogue. We can only do that by dialogue. Not dialogue with the person who is the same as us, or virtually the same as us, but dialogue with those who are profoundly different to us. Take the case of Daryl Davis. Daryl Davis is an African-American blues musician who has a collection of 200 KKK robes in his house – one for every KKK member he convinced to leave the organization. How did he do that? He befriended them. He invited them to dinner. For thirty years, his philosophy has been to approach KKK members and ask how they could hate him if they don’t even know him? And, one by one, as they got to know him, they realized that they couldn’t hate him, so they left the KKK.
When I was a teenager, I didn’t know that I was a homophobe, but I was. I thought that I was super liberal. I still look back on the day with shame when I once used the quintessential homophobic line of “the Bible says Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.” It took my friendship with Student Rabbi Andreas Hinz, of blessed memory, before I could truly be purged of that subconscious bias which I had learned. It still genuinely shames me how intolerant I was without even realizing. But I learned better because of dialogue, because of the interaction with the person who had a totally different life experience to me.
Jewish ethics is based around a core principle – that of teshuvah. It is usually translated as repentance but comes from the root meaning “to return.” That idea of return is usually taken to mean a return to God and God-like ethics, but I take it more as a return to our natural non-hateful state of being, before we learned intolerance. Many would see those two things as being the same, which I could totally understand, and wouldn’t object to as a theological position. Teshuvah is really difficult because it involves honestly questioning ourselves, and we’re usually really bad at doing that. That’s why we keep coming back on Yom Kippur to engage in teshuvah, because it’s really hard for us to see the things in ourselves that need changing. More often than not, that needs an external shock. We need to be confronted with another way of being and be convinced that it’s a better way of being for ourselves and for everyone else. Teshuvah is, therefore, most effective in dialogue, especially in dialogue with those who lead lives different to our own. Sometimes, that confrontation can be dramatic, which is why our tradition has the concept of tochahah, rebuke. Hocheach tochiach et amitecha, says Leviticus 19 – surely rebuke your neighbor. That doesn’t mean have a go at them at every opportunity, but it does mean correct them, guide them, show them the better way, even sternly if need be. That verse immediately precedes the central verse in Torah, ve’ahavta l’re’acha et kamocha – love your neighbor as yourself (Lev. 19:18). What if your neighbor is on the divergent end of the political spectrum to you? What if you find what they say repulsive, even dangerous? Then hocheach tochiach et amitecha – correct them. Guide them. But talk to them. Only then can you learn to love them.
That means that we need dialogue, and for dialogue we need nuance. Nuance is dreadfully inconvenient because it’s so much easier to make rash generalizations against those who hold differing views to our own. It’s so much easier to call all MAGA hat-wearers Nazis than to actually engage in the difficult and uncomfortable task of talking to them. There is an internet law known as Godwin’s Law that states that the longer an online discussion continues, the greater the chance that one person refers to another as Hitler or as Nazis. A subsequent offshoot of that law of the internet is that as soon as a person refers to another as a Nazi, they lose the argument. Godwin himself doesn’t agree with that offshoot, by the way. He says that there might be occasion to genuinely compare some contemporary politicians to Hitler or their policies to Nazis. He openly says, for example, that the camps at the southern border of this country are “concentration camps.” I agree with him. But does that mean that all Donald Trump voters are Nazis? Or that anyone who wears as MAGA hat is a Nazi? No, of course not. In 2014, French Philosopher François de Smet called his book “Reductio ad Hitlerium.” The original phrase upon which that is based, for those who don’t know, is reductio ad absurdum, which is when a person critiques an opposing view by taking it to its most absurd conclusion. De Smet’s title suggests that we have now entered a point where dialogue has broken down to absurdity. One of the greatest difficulties I am increasingly finding with current left-wing voters is how quickly they break Godwin’s Law. Sometimes, they even start a discussion by breaking it! There can never be dialogue, there can never be growth, society can never learn, when the other person is described as a “Nazi,” or as a “baby-killer,” or as any of the terms thrown around by each side in contemporary American political dialogue.
Are there parallels between the current administration and with Nazi Germany? Yes, there unquestionably are. Does that mean that the current administration a Nazi administration? No, it does not. Does it mean that anyone who votes for Trump or anyone who wears a MAGA hat is a Nazi? No, absolutely not, and I think it is not only deeply offensive to say so, but totally counter to the liberal cause. Using such terms ends any possibility of dialogue. It’s the same as that terrible phrase “basket of deplorables” that was used during the last general election campaign. You can never convince someone of their need for teshuvah if you call them a Nazi or if you call them deplorable. In fact, you make it more difficult for them to hear your tochacha, your rebuke. I have friends online who are disturbingly right-wing, but we genuinely disagree and sometimes even learn from each other. I learn about my liberal assumptions and they about their conservative ones. It’s uncomfortable, it’s painful, and it’s extremely tempting to just block them, never talk to them again, and live in my own bubble of self-righteousness, but to do so means I limit the chances of making the world a better place by showing the people with whom I profoundly disagree why I believe that they are mistaken. If we label everyone who opposes us in the most disgusting terms, then dialogue is dead and the only way forward is violence to the other.
But dialogue must not die. It cannot die. For the good of humanity, we must keep it alive as an essential offshoot of the core Jewish values of tochaha and teshuvah. Being Jewish isn’t easy – it’s not meant to be. We’re meant to confront the difficult task of life which necessarily means confronting the difficult people in our society. It means showing them the error of their ways. It certainly seems that not everyone can be changed. Some people are so ingrained with hatred, bigotry, prejudice and violence that no tochacha could ever change them. But perhaps that’s not true. Perhaps that’s something we tell ourselves simply because we want to avoid difficult dialogue. After all, if 200 members of the KKK can be shown how wrong they were, maybe anyone can, with the right tochacha. Dialogue does not mean giving up our ethical position – in fact, it means the opposite. It means that we should be able to defend our ethical position. To do this, I find one more aspect from our tradition essential – the notion of tinok shenishpa. This idea, which translates to “stolen baby” was a way of explaining why people might stray away from the path of traditional Judaism. In essence, it means “they were born into thinking that way so it’s not their fault.” As patronizing as that was originally, I think it can be an extremely helpful tool in dialogue, when used appropriately. How could I expect that someone who has led a totally different life with totally differing upbringing and totally differing life experiences should think the way I do? To do so is pure arrogance. Their experience brought them to believe what they do and mine brought me to believe what I do. Now that we have been brought together, we have a duty to share not just our opinion but also what brought us to that opinion. That’s the Daryl Davis model. The members of the KKK whom he befriended believed that they hated him. He asked how they could hate him if they didn’t know him. Once they got to know him, they realized that they didn’t hate him. He didn’t tell them they were wrong, he didn’t call them Nazis or deplorables, he simply challenged what led them to believe what they did. He questioned what brought them to their intolerance. He engaged in dialogue. He changed them and made the world a better place.
This week, then, let us embrace dialogue, be challenged by dialogue, learn from dialogue and ultimately grow from dialogue. Let us not take the easy path of letting dialogue die, but let us guide those with whom we differ, even profoundly. Let us not assume that everyone has the same life experience as us but, instead, let us assume that they have something that they need to learn from us, sometimes even urgently. Let us learn that the only way to bring someone to our way of thinking is by helping them, by talking to them, not by fighting them or labeling them. Let us learn that conflict creates winners and bitter losers, and that only dialogue can bring people together. Let our tikkun olam, our repair of the world, start not with labeling and dismissal, but with disagreement and dialogue. And let us say, Amen.