There is a certain genre of email that has been hitting my in-box repeatedly over the last year or so. Here’s an example, an email I received in late August:
Hi Rabbi,
I hope you've been well since we last met a few weeks ago.
I've been thinking lots about Charlottesville this week, and the resurgence of white supremacist ideology. Rather than become increasingly dispirited, I want to be able to focus my energy on doing something positive/action-oriented. I was wondering if you/6th & I/anyone you know are doing any organizing in response to recent events. What can I do to make a difference?
Thank you so much in advance,
“Emily”
The secret is that I often don’t know how to respond. These days, with racists marching proudly in our streets, it feels like ugliness is everywhere. A car, which used to be a tool of transport, is now a tool of murder. Domestic terrorists shooting Indian immigrants in Kansas, police caught on tape planting evidence in Baltimore. Airline personnel that physically drag people off planes. One teenager goading another until he kills himself. Anti-semitism from people we know to be enemies and people who are supposed to be our allies. We are mired in it.
For too many of us, this ugliness is not political, it’s personal. Our lives are marked with interactions that leave us with a heavy heart (at best, more often just furious). Whether it’s the daily indignities of city life, like the person on the metro yelling into their phone. Or the friend who betrays you without an ounce of remorse. Or the job that you thought was yours, only to learn from social media that it was offered to someone else. A certain kind of interpersonal nastiness is a resident unwanted guest in many of our lives. And then we too become nasty--because “they” deserve it, no?
One response, from a recent article in The New York Times:
For decades, Wunsiedel, a German town near the Czech border, has struggled with a parade of unwanted visitors. It was the original burial place of one of Adolf Hitler’s deputies, a man named Rudolf Hess. And every year, to residents’ chagrin, neo-Nazis marched to his grave site. The town had staged counter demonstrations to dissuade these pilgrims. In 2011 it had exhumed Hess’s body and even removed his grave stone. But undeterred, the neo-Nazis returned. So in 2014, the town tried a different tactic: humorous subversion.
The campaign, called the Right Against the Right — turned the march into Germany’s “most involuntary walkathon.” For every meter the neo-Nazis marched, local residents and businesses pledged to donate 10 euros...to a program that helps people leave right-wing extremist groups....
They turned the march into a mock sporting event. Someone stenciled onto the street “start,” a halfway mark and a finish line, as if it were a race. Colorful signs with silly slogans festooned the route. “If only the Führer knew!” read one. “Mein Mampf!” (my munch) read another that hung over a table of bananas. A sign at the end of the route thanked the marchers for their contribution to the anti-Nazi cause — €10,000....And someone showered the marchers with rainbow confetti at the finish line.
The approach has spread to several other German towns and one in Sweden.
Responding to ugliness with humor and a successful fundraising strategy to boot. Counter-protesters who pretend they’re hard-of-hearing, so when a racist march passes by, chanting their monstrous chants, the protesters yell, “what? White flour?” And throw flour their way. Or “white flower?” and hand out flowers to the marchers passing by. Or artists in Berlin who turn graffiti of Swastikas into beautiful murals and works of art.
It should go without saying, but at this early juncture of this sermon, I want to be crystal clear about two important points. First of all, Nazism and white supremacy is not funny; it’s serious and dangerous and if left entirely unattended may only get worse. Second, it’s probably not a good idea to make light of white supremacists who march armed with assault rifles, as so many did in Charlottesville. In that instance, I might think twice before I don a wedding dress and a clown nose and yell “wife power!” as these militia members march by.
But a rabbi can dream, right?
When I was pregnant with our second child, I wanted to name her Hadar. This is one of those Hebrew words that’s difficult to translate. Some say it means “beauty,” but that’s not entirely true because we’re not speaking here of physical or even temporal beauty. “Majesty” or “splendor” are closer to the truth, although it’s splendor and majesty connected not with a flesh-and-blood ruler but instead with God’s presence. “Kol Adonai b’hadar,” we sing on Friday nights at Kabbalat Shabbat services. The voice of Gd is Hadar. It isn’t a superficial beauty of the body but instead about a more profound beauty, of honor and spirit, that can increase as we strive to be more godly in our actions.
I lost the battle with my husband for my daughter’s name (he thought “Ma’ayan” would be easier to pronounce) but not, I hope, for the way that she and her siblings act in the world. Which is to say--with a hefty dose of Hadar. The response to disrespect and disregard in our personal lives is not to up the ante with even more hatred or anger. The response is, whenever humanly possible, to mark life with hadar, in the political arena or in the home. Whether that means practicing safe use of a red clown nose at a protest or dancing in the streets at Simchat Torah, as we will do in just a few weeks, proud and loud about being Jewish, cultivating a life of hadar means refusing to fight hate with hate but instead educating, celebrating, strategizing, turning toward rather than against. Toward acts of tzedek, of justice, of rachamim, of compassion, of chesed, of lovingkindness.
I think. And then some days I think it’s naive at best, actively harmful at worst to believe that if we just responded with a little more majestic beauty the world would right itself. Many of those who sow hatred are playing on a different field that we are; no amount of compassion or Hadar is going to make a difference. They are lost or broken, or feel like they’ve been treated so unfairly that it justifies their actions.
To that statement, two comments: first, for the most part, I refuse to believe that this irrational hatred characterizes most of “them” (whoever the “them” is in your life). When we surprise unkind people with kindness, we can change behavior.
More to the point, however, it’s not about whether your acts of hadar change them. It’s about whether their acts of ugliness change you. On Rosh Hashanah, we have the opportunity to decide how we want to move forward into the new year. Do you want to be driven by hate and fear? Or by righteousness and integrity? Do you want to spend your time fighting against or fighting for, on defense or offense?
Defense is much easier, because we can do it from our armchairs. We can be indignant anywhere! A life of hadar has to be created--and it’s tough work, and our days are already quite filled. Sometimes the ugliness of it all wears us down. To say nothing of the fact that there’s short-term thrill we may get from being just as horrible to someone else as they are to us. We showed them. But like most things in life, the more difficult action is the better one.
The single greatest excuse that I hear for why people do not seek to make change in their lives is posed as a question. “How do I actually make a difference?” as if until you figure out how to change the entire world, you are absolved of doing anything. In those moments, I return often to a story told by Anne Lamott in her book Bird By Bird:
Thirty years ago my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report on birds written that he'd had three months to write. It was due the next day. We were out at our family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen table close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books on birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my father sat down beside him, put his arm around my brother's shoulder, and said, 'Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.’
The parts are greater than the sum. When we feel mired in loss and ugliness and desperation, and don’t know what to do? Step by step, small actions. Bird by bird.
The ancient rabbis also had trouble defining the word “hadar,” by the way. There’s an especially curious verse in Leviticus (23:40), in which we read about the lulav, three of the four species that we shake on Sukkot, a holiday that begins in just 15 days. The rabbis knew that the fourth species was an etrog, a citrus fruit that looks a lot like a lemon. But the Torah doesn’t refer to the etrog by name and instead calls it “pri etz hadar,” the fruit of the “hadar” tree.
The rabbis then try to understand why the etrog tree is Hadar.
Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi says: Do not read the verse as it is written, hadar, meaning [only] majestic beauty, but rather read it hadir, meaning the sheep pen….Just as in a pen, there are both large and small sheep together, so too, on an etrog tree, when the small ones come into being, the large ones still exist on the tree, which is not the case with other fruit trees.
The word “hadar” describes the etrog tree because that tree grows fruit both large and small; all are necessary. In this room, are people who are going to make tremendous change in the world: write the op-ed that will convince members of Congress to govern in the interests of the people, take over Metro to make sure there are enough trains so people don’t lose themselves to rush-hour ugliness. Those are the big actions, the “large etrogs.” But for the rest of us, we’re going to take it day by day, many small actions, etrog by etrog.
And it’s going to be a slog. The more we practice Hadar, the more we’ll screw up. Ann Patchett writes.
[When I write,] For me it’s like this: I make up a novel in my head….This is the happiest time in the arc of my writing process….I’m figuring things out, and all the while the book makes a breeze around my head like an oversized butterfly whose wings were cut from the rose window in Notre Dame. This book I have not yet written one word of is a thing of indescribable beauty…[it] is the single perfect joy in my life….
When I can’t think of another stall...I reach up and pluck the butterfly from the air….and there, with my own hand, I kill it. It’s not that I want to kill it, but it’s the only way I can get something…[O]nly a few of us are going to be willing to break our own hearts by trading in the living beauty of imagination for the stark disappointment of words...
An idea can be perfect, but only in our minds. Real life is more like “running over the butterfly with an SUV,” another Patchett turn of phrase. Hadar is an ideal; the reality is more stilted and filled with disappointment. But someone who only keeps the story in their head, and does not write it down, is not a writer. And someone who keeps their ideas set on a idealized world, without taking the risks, making a few mistakes, and accepting imperfection; someone who puts their ego before their community and doesn’t step into the fray; better a broken butterfly than no real butterfly at all. Take the same energy that you’ve been using to criticize your family, colleagues, allies and put it toward doing the work yourself. Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Bird by bird.
When we actualize Hadar in this world, we take something that could be ugly--that is ugly--and, like the swastikas in Berlin, in ways humble and quiet, small and large, we transform it into something beautiful. We take the hard material of a difficult world and do something life-affirming with it. It won’t match up with the ideal--it never does--but we’re creating something new and beautiful and holy nonetheless. When you acknowledge that you’re going to do your best even though you know it won’t be ideal, that’s crafting a world of Hadar. When you turn that swastika into a flower, it’s a certain kind of bravery and beauty and strength--that’s Hadar.
One more email, this one from early September
:
Dear Rabbi--Hi!
I am the Turkish woman you met at services on Friday night, [who has been to Sixth & I a few times over the last months and wants to do my part to improve relationships between the Muslim and Jewish communities.] I will try to do as much as I can but as I mentioned I am only one person and officially 'nobody'. What I mean is that I don't belong to any mosque or ngo seriously. I don't have titles nor official training in religion or interfaith relations etc. I came back to Sixth&I to show that there are people...open to communication. So I am not sure what I can offer you more than that and I don't want to disappoint you but I would definitely like to meet with [the other rabbis on staff] and see what [they] think. I will show up at random events at Sixth&I until then :) No worries about the scheduling [because of the holiday], I completely understand.
Have a nice Sunday and holiday season!
G
This is Hadar. Stepping into a place that might not feel comfortable, even if you’re a “nobody.” Because you’re not. Thinking you can’t make a difference is wrong, maybe lazy, maybe dangerous. You’re somebody, and you can make a difference in this world.
While I still believe that the moral arc bends toward justice, this past year has given me--personally and as an American--too many examples of base cruelty triumphing over goodness. Most surprising is that it still feels like a sucker punch every single time. I’m not inured to it. It’s a little bit embarrassing, given that it’s a type of privilege to be surprised at life’s unfairness.
I’m going to own that privilege--the work of hadar is not perfect--because I believe more than anything that meeting ugliness with ugliness would be the worst result of all. We are a community of faith. Our goal in this world is to build an olam chesed--a world of lovingkindness. When we encounter hatred, our job is not to turn the other cheek, but instead to stand and face the wind, to respond in strength but not in viciousness. It’s incredibly difficult, but it’s also perhaps the most important thing we’ll ever do.
When the next hate-filled march comes, which it will, we’ll be there. Maybe some of us in clown suits. Between now and then, though, let’s focus our energy on hadar. Invite friends new and old to a Shabbat dinner. Get to know someone different than you. Get involved in a cause that is close to your heart. Create a majestic world. Etrog by etrog. Bird by bird. Broken butterfly by broken butterfly.
It’s going to be a beautiful 5778, everyone. Because we’re going to create it.
Shana tova.
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