We have to learn how to see other people as people. That should be simple, but apparently it’s not so simple.
There is an excellent Israeli TV series that aired a few years ago It is called Shtissel and it is about a family in Jerusalem that is Ultra-Orthodox/Haredi/“Black hat."
The main character is the patriarch of the family, Shulem. He’s recently widowed.
Shulem doesn’t talk so much about his feelings but he is hurting. He misses his wife terribly. At one point he tells his adult son Akiva, who lives with him, that his wife, Akiva’s mother, used to get up a little earlier than him, walk into the kitchen, take the butter out of the fridge and put it on the table so that it would start to soften. Just a nice, kind thing she did for him every day that he remembers.
Several days later (same episode), Shulem has a day that is difficult for many reasons. He goes home, sits down at the table, cuts a slice of bread, takes butter out of the fridge, puts the knife in the butter. The butter of course is hard; the knife doesn’t move. And he starts to cry.
The show is unusual for Israeli television. Why? Because it presents ultra-Orthodox Jews as people. Who fall in love and sometimes out of love and are sometimes happy and sometimes sad, who mourn loved ones, rely on small kindnesses, who have conflicts and yearnings. Who want what’s best for the people they love and sometimes find that the people they love frustrate them deeply. You know - people.
Often Israelis, American Jews too for that matter, speak about, read about, ultra-Orthodox Jews in the context of “those people” who look different, act different, sometimes say and do things that are intolerant. While this show presented the ultra-Orthodox community’s unique customs and behaviors, the reason why the show was so successful is that primarily it presented the ways in which they are just like everybody else.
Amazon had a series that ran for a few seasons called Transparent. The main character is trans. Born with male sex characteristics, the character lives much of his life male, but has always felt female, and takes the steps necessary so that her body and her sense of herself are consistent with one another.
The show was very successful. Yes, it showed some of the unique struggles that many trans people go through. But it was successful because it showed all of the people - regardless of their gender identities and sexual orientations - as people. Who fall in and out of love, who have conflicts and yearnings. Who mourn loved ones that have died, who are sometimes happy and sometimes sad. Who want what’s best for the people they love and sometimes find that they people they love frustrate them deeply.
When we get to know people as people, we can’t as easily say “those people” because they have names. And faces. And hearts. And souls.
As important as it is for television to show us people as people, it’s not a substitute for getting to know actual people in real life, in real time.
If you got to know Rabbi Isaac Borzikowsky, descendant of the Gerer Rebbe, who served as mashgiach here at Temple Israel for years (he's still doing well, thank God) - who was, by any definition, what we would call Hareidi/“black hat”- if you experienced his genuine, funny, caring personality, if you stood in the chapel Shabbat afternoon when we had 5 women and 4 men and he would walk in and happily make the 10th even though that’s not how it works in his community in Brooklyn, it became much harder to talk about “those people.”
If you would get to know the two children of two different friends of mine who are trans, who are living life’s challenges and working hard and entering into romantic relationships and loving and laughing and crying like we all do, it would become harder to talk about “those people.”
And the same is true for people of ethnic and racial backgrounds that are different from our own. And the same is true for people who have different religious beliefs than we do. And the same is true for people who have different ideological and political perspectives than we do.
I am disturbed by the toxic comments that are being made about “those people,” whoever those people are. Comments that are made in this town, comments that are made at rallies, comments that come out of the House, the Senate and the White House. They are disturbing whether they are made by whites or blacks, Jews or people of other faiths, Democrats or Republicans. They are disturbing whether they are made about women or trans people or people of color or Christians or Jews or Muslims.
The toxic comments are often made to make the listener afraid of “those people.”
Those people are terrible people, we are told. They want to harm us. They want to harm our children.
Whoever they are, we are told - they will take over our communities, our schools, our libraries, even our restrooms.
Nothing undermines fear-mongering as much as knowledge. You know actual people and you are less likely to be afraid, less likely to characterize them as “those people.”
Someone may want to tell us how dangerous the ultra-Orthodox are, but we know people. Someone may want to tell us how dangerous people from certain countries are, but we know people. Someone may want to tell us how dangerous LGBT people are, but we know people. They have faces and names and hearts and souls.
This morning we read a mysterious story, perhaps one of the most troubling stories in the Bible, about how a man was told by God to offer his son as a sacrifice.
This story, the story of the binding of Isaac by Abraham, is what I would call an exegetical Rorschach test - everyone sees what they see. The story has been read as a criticism of Abraham, it’s been read as a praise of Abraham, it’s been read as Christian/Jewish/Muslim polemic over who is God’s favorite.
I’m going to tell you something that I see in this story.
I see two people who are actually living in the same place but I wonder how well they know each other. Isaac is Abraham’s son. He is prepared to offer Isaac to God as a sacrifice in order to demonstrate his obedience to God.
Considering the story I wonder, how often do we use one another in order to prove a point? In order to score a point?
The Torah tells us, twice, that Isaac and Abraham walked together. וילכו שניהם יחדו And I wonder, how together were they?
The Torah ultimately tells us that Abraham returned to his servants and they walked together to Beer Sheva.
And I wonder - why does the Torah tell us just that Abraham returned to the servants? Why not Abraham and Isaac?
I wonder - where is Isaac in all of this? And is Abraham, even now, fully prepared to see his son as he is, and not just as a vehicle for demonstrating his own righteousness?
When next we meet up with this family, Abraham will be trying to arrange for a proper wife for Isaac. Will he be able to see Isaac a little more fully? I encourage you to stay tuned and draw your own conclusions.
Once we meet one another, we have the opportunity to get beyond “those people.” As in- Those people are dangerous. Or - Those people are going to help me get where I need to go.
This takes effort, intention, vision. We need to be prepared to truly see another person. Meeting them is a first step, but much more is required. For goodness sake, we can live with people and hardly see them. How much more so people we don’t interact with at all!
Jewish tradition requires that we say blessings for all sorts of occasions - happy, sad, when we eat something, when we observe a mitzvah, a commandment - we recite a specific blessing.
There is a profound blessing that we’re supposed to recite when we see a large group of people gathered together.
It ends with reference to God as חכם הרזים hakham ha’razim.
Praised are you, God, the wise one who knows the secrets.
What our ancestors understood, is that when you see many people together, each one has secrets. Each one has a story. "Those people" standing in a group are actual people. Who laugh and cry and love and mourn. And God knows the secrets and the stories.
I want to conclude by looking at this blessing, not just as a description, but as an invitation.
The person standing next to you wherever you might be. In the supermarket. Or at back to school night. Or in the lunchroom. The person has his or her or their stories, secrets, aspirations and yearnings.
If you try to see the person as a person, you achieve some of God’s knowledge. You begin to see the way that God sees.
How great is that! Each time we get to know someone as a person, not as one of “those people,” we get closer to understanding each other the way that God understands us.
How great would that be? How different would the world be, If we could commit to seeing one another in this way, the way that God sees us?
Originally shared with the Temple Israel Community on October 27, 2018
There is an excellent Israeli TV series that aired a few years ago It is called Shtissel and it is about a family in Jerusalem that is Ultra-Orthodox/Haredi/“Black hat."
Shulem and Akiva Shtissel from the Israel TV Series "Shtissel"
The main character is the patriarch of the family, Shulem. He’s recently widowed.
Shulem doesn’t talk so much about his feelings but he is hurting. He misses his wife terribly. At one point he tells his adult son Akiva, who lives with him, that his wife, Akiva’s mother, used to get up a little earlier than him, walk into the kitchen, take the butter out of the fridge and put it on the table so that it would start to soften. Just a nice, kind thing she did for him every day that he remembers.
Several days later (same episode), Shulem has a day that is difficult for many reasons. He goes home, sits down at the table, cuts a slice of bread, takes butter out of the fridge, puts the knife in the butter. The butter of course is hard; the knife doesn’t move. And he starts to cry.
The show is unusual for Israeli television. Why? Because it presents ultra-Orthodox Jews as people. Who fall in love and sometimes out of love and are sometimes happy and sometimes sad, who mourn loved ones, rely on small kindnesses, who have conflicts and yearnings. Who want what’s best for the people they love and sometimes find that the people they love frustrate them deeply. You know - people.
Often Israelis, American Jews too for that matter, speak about, read about, ultra-Orthodox Jews in the context of “those people” who look different, act different, sometimes say and do things that are intolerant. While this show presented the ultra-Orthodox community’s unique customs and behaviors, the reason why the show was so successful is that primarily it presented the ways in which they are just like everybody else.
Amazon had a series that ran for a few seasons called Transparent. The main character is trans. Born with male sex characteristics, the character lives much of his life male, but has always felt female, and takes the steps necessary so that her body and her sense of herself are consistent with one another.
The show was very successful. Yes, it showed some of the unique struggles that many trans people go through. But it was successful because it showed all of the people - regardless of their gender identities and sexual orientations - as people. Who fall in and out of love, who have conflicts and yearnings. Who mourn loved ones that have died, who are sometimes happy and sometimes sad. Who want what’s best for the people they love and sometimes find that they people they love frustrate them deeply.
When we get to know people as people, we can’t as easily say “those people” because they have names. And faces. And hearts. And souls.
As important as it is for television to show us people as people, it’s not a substitute for getting to know actual people in real life, in real time.
If you got to know Rabbi Isaac Borzikowsky, descendant of the Gerer Rebbe, who served as mashgiach here at Temple Israel for years (he's still doing well, thank God) - who was, by any definition, what we would call Hareidi/“black hat”- if you experienced his genuine, funny, caring personality, if you stood in the chapel Shabbat afternoon when we had 5 women and 4 men and he would walk in and happily make the 10th even though that’s not how it works in his community in Brooklyn, it became much harder to talk about “those people.”
If you would get to know the two children of two different friends of mine who are trans, who are living life’s challenges and working hard and entering into romantic relationships and loving and laughing and crying like we all do, it would become harder to talk about “those people.”
And the same is true for people of ethnic and racial backgrounds that are different from our own. And the same is true for people who have different religious beliefs than we do. And the same is true for people who have different ideological and political perspectives than we do.
I am disturbed by the toxic comments that are being made about “those people,” whoever those people are. Comments that are made in this town, comments that are made at rallies, comments that come out of the House, the Senate and the White House. They are disturbing whether they are made by whites or blacks, Jews or people of other faiths, Democrats or Republicans. They are disturbing whether they are made about women or trans people or people of color or Christians or Jews or Muslims.
The toxic comments are often made to make the listener afraid of “those people.”
Those people are terrible people, we are told. They want to harm us. They want to harm our children.
Whoever they are, we are told - they will take over our communities, our schools, our libraries, even our restrooms.
Nothing undermines fear-mongering as much as knowledge. You know actual people and you are less likely to be afraid, less likely to characterize them as “those people.”
Someone may want to tell us how dangerous the ultra-Orthodox are, but we know people. Someone may want to tell us how dangerous people from certain countries are, but we know people. Someone may want to tell us how dangerous LGBT people are, but we know people. They have faces and names and hearts and souls.
This morning we read a mysterious story, perhaps one of the most troubling stories in the Bible, about how a man was told by God to offer his son as a sacrifice.
This story, the story of the binding of Isaac by Abraham, is what I would call an exegetical Rorschach test - everyone sees what they see. The story has been read as a criticism of Abraham, it’s been read as a praise of Abraham, it’s been read as Christian/Jewish/Muslim polemic over who is God’s favorite.
I’m going to tell you something that I see in this story.
I see two people who are actually living in the same place but I wonder how well they know each other. Isaac is Abraham’s son. He is prepared to offer Isaac to God as a sacrifice in order to demonstrate his obedience to God.
Considering the story I wonder, how often do we use one another in order to prove a point? In order to score a point?
The Torah tells us, twice, that Isaac and Abraham walked together. וילכו שניהם יחדו And I wonder, how together were they?
The Torah ultimately tells us that Abraham returned to his servants and they walked together to Beer Sheva.
And I wonder - why does the Torah tell us just that Abraham returned to the servants? Why not Abraham and Isaac?
I wonder - where is Isaac in all of this? And is Abraham, even now, fully prepared to see his son as he is, and not just as a vehicle for demonstrating his own righteousness?
When next we meet up with this family, Abraham will be trying to arrange for a proper wife for Isaac. Will he be able to see Isaac a little more fully? I encourage you to stay tuned and draw your own conclusions.
Once we meet one another, we have the opportunity to get beyond “those people.” As in- Those people are dangerous. Or - Those people are going to help me get where I need to go.
This takes effort, intention, vision. We need to be prepared to truly see another person. Meeting them is a first step, but much more is required. For goodness sake, we can live with people and hardly see them. How much more so people we don’t interact with at all!
Jewish tradition requires that we say blessings for all sorts of occasions - happy, sad, when we eat something, when we observe a mitzvah, a commandment - we recite a specific blessing.
There is a profound blessing that we’re supposed to recite when we see a large group of people gathered together.
It ends with reference to God as חכם הרזים hakham ha’razim.
Praised are you, God, the wise one who knows the secrets.
What our ancestors understood, is that when you see many people together, each one has secrets. Each one has a story. "Those people" standing in a group are actual people. Who laugh and cry and love and mourn. And God knows the secrets and the stories.
I want to conclude by looking at this blessing, not just as a description, but as an invitation.
The person standing next to you wherever you might be. In the supermarket. Or at back to school night. Or in the lunchroom. The person has his or her or their stories, secrets, aspirations and yearnings.
If you try to see the person as a person, you achieve some of God’s knowledge. You begin to see the way that God sees.
How great is that! Each time we get to know someone as a person, not as one of “those people,” we get closer to understanding each other the way that God understands us.
How great would that be? How different would the world be, If we could commit to seeing one another in this way, the way that God sees us?
Originally shared with the Temple Israel Community on October 27, 2018
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