There are so many ways to hate one another these days:
If I hold my hand up like this most of you will understand the message. (holding right hand raised above my head)
But, how about this? (crossing hands, the right with four fingers, the left with three)
Or, this? (fingers divided on right hand)
Or, even this? (an OK symbol)
These latter three are part of the new Anti-Defamation League list of hate symbols. Ironically, the number they added last week was Thirty-Six, double eighteen, double chai, the Jewish number meaning life.
An article in the Buffalo News on Monday described an alarming discovery a family made when looking at their pictures from a vacation taken at Universal Studios in Orlando. When taking a picture with Felonius Gru, a character from “Despicable Me,” they noticed something unusual. The costumed character’s hand was placed on their 6-year-old daughter’s shoulder with outstretched fingers in the form of, you guessed it, an upside down “OK,” a symbol of white power, the three fingers forming a double, the circle meaning power.
Just last week, on Erev Rosh Hashanah, my colleague Rabbi Jonathan Freirich found a paper lying on the ground outside of TBZ. On it there was a picture of a person with a big nose and typical Anti-semetic tropes listed on it. Thankfully, he sent it right over to Susan DeMari and allowed law enforcement to take proper action. But, you can imagine how upsetting the receipt of such a document right before one of our most important holidays would be.
This type of occurrence seems to be happening more and more regularly these days.
This is what the president of the ADL, Jonathan Greenblatt had to say this past June:
“Now I know we live in a world of perpetual outrage. Its hard to keep the headlines straight when your phone is buzzing nonstop with updates to your newsfeed. But here’s a snapshot of what has happened over the past half a year: Attempted arson attacks against Chabad houses in the suburbs of Boston. An unexploded Molotov cocktail thrown at a shul in Chicago. Kids taunting their Jewish classmates with “heil Hitlers” and drawing swastikas on lockers not in just one school or one state – but in schools across the country. Cemeteries desecrated. Synagogues vandalized. Museums violated. And almost daily reports of a Jewish man or woman being verbally harassed or physically attacked in Brooklyn.
He continued, “Now, in my position, I deal with these statistics and the stories behind them every single day. But make no mistake –I know that this is not normal. This is something we have not seen for decades. For generations.”
When did hate become so normalized? When did it become OK (hold up hand in OK symbol)?
First, the Jewish answer.
Long before trolling and the dark web, the rabbis of the Talmud debated the exact same question.
Their answer boils down what they see as a basic flaw in the human condition, the Yetzer Harah, the evil Impulse. While called evil, it actually has some redeeming qualities as well, things like our sexuality and creativity that make it hard to get rid of it from the world.
In the Talmudic tractate Yoma, a section pertaining to Yom Kippur, we learn the story of a group of rabbis who tried to do just that. They fasted for three days and three nights demanding the Yetzer Hara surrender to them. Which it did, emerging from the Holy of Holies in the form of a fiery lion.
They immediately imprisoned the lion, as they decided upon its fate.
“You realize,” one of the rabbis said to the group, “that if we kill it, the world goes down.”
For three days, the lion awaited its judgment, during which time not a single egg was hatched in all of the land of Israel. Seeing all procreation stopped dead in its tracks they had no other choice but to let the lion go.
Subsequently, according to the rabbis the Yetzer Harasits on each of our shoulders, side by side with its opposite counterpart, the Yetzer HaTov, the good impulse, each one trying to convince us that their arguments have merit. Like the angel and devil on the shoulders of Donald Duck in an old Mickey Mouse cartoon, each side voices its own opinion. It is up to us to make a decision.
The scientific answer takes this concept a step further:
Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt (yes his name is actually hate) creates a similar dichotomy as the rabbis do in his book The Righteous Mind. Only instead of impulses, he has animals.
On one side, the large specter of a chimpanzee, an animal he calls the most selfish in the animal kingdom (even if you think a chimp is behaving in an altruistic way, you would be wrong. They are always selfish, one hundred percent of the time).
On the other, a bee, one of the most utilitarian, often sacrificing itself for the good of the hive.
But, unlike in the rabbinic version, the sides he presents are not equal. The chimp is immense, influencing up to ninety percent of our actions, leaving the tiny bee, the remaining ten percent. He calls this version of the human being Homo Duplex.
Certainly not a fair fight. But the bee inside of us has a big advantage over its chimp counterpart, we actively seek it. We crave it. Haidt quotes the famous French sociologist Emile Durkheim who wrote about something he called “the hive switch,” or “collective effervescence,” where the individual melds in with the collective.
As Durkheim writes, “the very act of congregating is an exceptionally powerful stimulant. Once the individuals are gathered together, a sort of electricity is generated from their closeness and quickly launches them to an extraordinary height of exaltation.”
Sounds wonderful, right? It is exactly what we hope to achieve in places like this. But, like the Yetzer Harah, it can also be used against us. Not only do religions and sports teams take advantage of this, but so do dictators.
If you have ever experienced the thrill of a Bills or Sabers victory, or the agony of one of our many defeats, you know how tempting this particular impulse can be.
Let’s take this for example (holding up a Philadelphia Eagles Cap). This might not mean anything right now, but when I wear it in Orchard Park on October 27thwhen the Bills play the Eagles it certainly will.
This tendency to pick sides pertains to much more than our sports teams, but our nationality, ethnicity, religion, and even, synagogue affiliation.
While some of this can just be playful banter, it can easily verge into the destructive. Hate’s tentacles are long, none of us are immune.
So, now that we know where hate comes from, at least in part, what can we do to stop it from entering into our lives and the lives of our community?
On Yom Kippur, we are given clear guidelines on how to keep hate at bay.
First, we apologize for anything and everything we have done wrong, whether intentional or not. So much of our behavior is based on suppositions and assumptions. Simple gestures and words can mean so much. We offend even without realizing it at all. The tradition in Judaism is to go up to anyone we encounter and simply say, “if I have ever done anything wrong, please forgive me.”
Secondly, if at all possible, we forgive. Not for grave offences, but for the smaller, daily variety. We forgive not only one another, but ourselves as well.
And, third, we remember that we are a we, not just an I. We exist as a part of a group, not just as individuals.
As Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg tweeted in an August: “Our liturgy is written in the first person plural – not I, we – because all of our fates are tied up together, it’s not about ME ME ME – my personal individual spirituality, but US – who we have been individually, as part of the collective, and as a collective.”
Over the course of our service there is a sound you have been hearing that you may not have realized what it was, two Hebrew letters, often at the end of a word, Nun and Vav that form the sound “Nu,” meaning we.
Let me clue you in on a few places that you might have heard it:
Ashamnu, “We sinned,” Hashivenu, “We returned, Aleinu, “We are responsible.”
Each of us is made betzelem elohim, “in the image of God.” Each of us deserves one another’s love and respect.
Later today, we will read the famous line, “V’ahavtah L’Re’icha Kamocha,” “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Re’ichais not just your direct neighbor, someone you know well. They are the person who is different than you. The stranger in your midst, the one you may not share political views or cultural patterns, the one who you have always been taught to hate. In order for society to work the way it is supposed to, we must go beyond our boundaries, to love the person who is different than ourselves.
As the sign in the back of our building announces, “We need not think alike to love alike.”
The dueling impulses inside of our heads, the Yetzer HaRaand the Yetzer HaTov, the Chimp and the Bee, will try to pull us into different sides, telling us that the people on the other side of the fence are wrong. We must not allow that type of thinking to take root here in this room. Hate has no home here.
As our synagogue president Bruce Corris often says, “we are a welcoming community, but hate is not welcome here.”
So, what is the solution for the many hate symbols swirling around our society today?
We make OK, OK again (holding up OK sign).
And we make our own collection of signs and symbols.
We turn this (Spiderman shooting a web)
Into this, meaning “I love you.” (American Sign Language for love)
Or this, meaning “I really love you.” (one additional finger up.)
Or, how about this? “I hear you.” (hands to ear)
And, “I understand.” (hands crossed over chest)
There are so many ways to express hate in this world, but, I have to believe, so many, many more to express love.
May we all be written and sealed in the Book of Life. An easy and meaningful fast to all of us.
Last Updated on 11/03/2019 by Marc Slonim