The Underside Must Be Understood

Last week, Deanna and I went to see the 9/11 memorial at Ground Zero. 

For those who haven’t seen it, it consists of two enormous square structures that contain the names of everyone who died during the attacks engraved in bronze – one in the place where the north tower stood, the other in the place where the south tower stood.  The memorial structures are also fountains, which empty down toward the center.

We looked specifically for the names of two people that we have some connection to through our personal and professional lives.

The attacks took place over 12 years ago.  That means that the children who are becoming bar and bat mitzvah now don’t remember them at all.

Sometimes, I fear, we have a tendency to minimize the dark underside that threatens us as human beings.  We are devastated when that dark underside comes to the surface and wreaks destruction, but then we settle into our routines.  And we grow complacent in the trappings of civilization that give us the illusion that the dark underside has somehow disappeared.

Judaism doesn’t ignore the underside.  It never did.  From our earliest Biblical tradition, violence, anger and lust (which can be dark or have dark implications) have been acknowledged.

And the acknowledgment has allowed us to find ways of living that are ultimately more beneficial to everyone. 

We could live our lives in a bubble of denial – where everything is beautiful and all intentions are good – but in the end, that’s not so helpful.  And it’s not the Jewish way.

Allow me to demonstrate.

The Torah begins with the creation of the world.  All animal creatures, including human beings, are told that they should eat plants in order to sustain themselves.

The assumption, it seems, was that there would be harmony among the animals and that human beings would exercise a sort of benevolent leadership.

But that’s not how it turned out.  Many animals were not happy as vegans and human beings were not entirely benevolent. 

And before long, as the Torah describes, מלאה הארץ חמס mal’ah ha’aretz hamas.  The world was filled with violence. 

So God destroyed much of the world through the flood and began again with the surviving human beings and animals.  Those who craved meat were allowed to eat meat but most importantly, rules were established to acknowledge and contain the underside, specifically, of human nature.

What were later called the 7 laws of Noah were established, prohibiting murder and wanton cruelty to animals, for example.

And with God’s covenant with Abraham, a specific family was chosen to bring inspiration and blessing to the rest of the world.

Now let’s fast forward to the passages of the Torah that we’ve been reading recently.

God tells the Israelites to build a mikdash, a mishkan, a sacred space where God’s presence could be felt.  Detailed plans are provided. 

And then the underside emerges.

The Israelites can’t wait for Moses, they feel abandoned by him and by God, they say to Aaron, make us a god אשר ילכו לפנינו asher yel’chu lefanenu, who will go before us.

Which Aaron does, by constructing the image of a calf.  The outcome is disastrous.  Moses is angry, enlists the Levites to massacre the offenders and God brings a plague.

Some say that the building of the mishkan, the portable sanctuary, has parallels with the story of creation.  6 main parts of the mishkan, 6 days of creation.

I think the most instructive parallel is that both stories incorporate the realization that you can’t ignore the underside.  That human beings are prone to anger, resentment, lust, jealousy and, perhaps the most animating and destructive of all – fear.

So when, following the devastation, the mishkan at last is built, it’s built with an understanding that sinfulness is part of our picture, that we need a place where we can work through the dynamics of sin, guilt and forgiveness.

Now I’d like to fast forward to the 21^st century.

God knows, we continue to realize, again and again, that the dark underside won’t go away.

Are we still shocked every time we read about violent outbursts on the political scene or even within families?

Are we still shocked when people cross boundaries in ways that are destabilizing for themselves, their families and their communities?

As the Torah demonstrates in the story of creation and the description of the building of the sanctuary that evokes creation, we shouldn’t be shocked.

We should just be prepared.

Better to acknowledge the underside than to pretend that it doesn’t exist.

Right now I am not going to address large-scale devastation like 9/11, which requires its own degree of honest acknowledgment and vigilance.

Rather, I want to share a few examples of how acknowledgment, rather than denial, can help us in the day-to-day issues that we face. 

When families act as though conflict can be swept under the rug, they are doing themselves a disservice.  The moment you put more than one person into a situation you’re going to have disagreement.  You’re going to have politics.  Aristotle famously said that politics is part of the human condition.

My mother, may she rest in peace, spoke to my sisters and me when we each got engaged.  She said, this is wonderful and I’m very happy for you.  But understand that when two families start to interact with each other, it’s likely to be complicated.  There will be different outlooks that need to be acknowledged, there may be competition.  She did say, as well, that we should do our best, under our respective circumstances, to represent our own family’s interests…

And of course that continues, within families and between families, as couples establish themselves.

So we can say, “family is beautiful.  We all get along.”  And often it is.  And often we do.  But it can be helpful if we admit that it is perfectly normal to have disagreement, even conflict.

Last week, we had a discussion about how families manage when a member of the family is getting close to the end of life.

And what we saw is that often, there is such a huge effort to deny the reality of our own mortality.  And that the effort to deny often presents families from having open conversations about what people’s wishes might be as life comes to a close.

This isn’t about denying evil, or violence, or anger.  This is about denying the basic reality that we all die.  But as difficult as it is, our ability to talk to our loved ones about this unavoidable reality, and how we want to approach it given our limited understanding, can help bring some meaning and direction to a difficult reality that we often wish to avoid.

Another example of where denial can be dangerous.  Teachers who work with teenagers should have an honest conversation with their supervisors and their peers about all the reactions that teenagers may engender in adults, including anger, attraction, and identification.

Teachers who are unaware of these possible reactions are highly at risk of crossing inappropriate boundaries. 

To clarify – in no way am I suggesting that we are all in ongoing danger of committing heinous villainous acts like those that have resulted in mass devastation.

I am suggesting, however, that to the extent that anger, resentment, lust and fear are part of the human condition, it’s better that we acknowledge it, name it, try to understand it and manage it appropriately.

The Torah teaches us that all efforts to deny our humanity are bound to fail.

Far better that we recognize that we all possess an underside that needs to be understood.

So that the sanctuaries that we build – in our families, in our communities – can be places of real mikdash, the holiness that comes from the presence and interaction of real human beings, underside and all.