What Happens Next?

I suspect that many of us followed various media coverages of the recent exchange on the National Mall involving Native Americans, Black Hebrew Israelites and a group of students from a Catholic high school in Kentucky.

A video initially released was interpreted by conventional news outlets and many on social media as showing the students acting disrespectfully toward a Native American man.  The video prompted strong criticism of the students, especially one who stood next to the Native American man and smiled at him for an extended period of time while he was drumming and chanting.

A longer video showed a controversy between the Black Hebrew Israelites and some members of the native American group that expanded to include the students.

Certain things were evident in the longer video.  The members of the Black Hebrew Israelites group criticized the way the Native Americans worship and gestured toward the students, saying to the Native Americans that there won’t be any food stamps coming to the reservations or the projects shutdowns because of the people wearing the "Make America Great" caps.

Some of the students made tomahawk chopping gestures in the presence of the Native American.  For awhile the students listened to one of the Black Hebrew Israelite preachers and booed when the preacher made a homophobic comment.

There’s been a great deal of analysis around the way people on social media use these kinds of videos to justify their own narratives before necessarily trying to understand the situation more precisely.

I am interested in what actually happened in front of the Lincoln Memorial that day.  Who said what?  Who did what?

However, I am more interested in what happens next.  How will all of the people present view the events and respond in similar situations moving forward? Focusing on the students who, by virtue of their age, will likely be part of the longterm future of our country, I am especially interested in what they will do next and what the people in their community - their peers, parents and teachers - will do next.

The Fallacy of "What Choice Do I Have?"

A guy is driving through a residential area and drives through a red light.  A police officer emerges from behind the corner and pulls the guy over.  Before giving the guy a ticket the officer asks him, “Didn’t you see the red light?”  The guy says, “I saw the red light, officer. I just didn’t see you.”

We behave differently when we think we are being watched than when we think we’re not being watched.  Often we are more likely to do the right thing when we think we’re being watched.  

But sometimes it goes the other way.  The people we are with discourage us from doing what we know to be right.  They make us feel like we can’t choose to act based on our principles.

When we’re in middle school, and peer pressure is persistent and sometimes nasty, we say, I may not have been so nice to so-and-so who didn’t deserve it, but “what choice did I have?”  It was middle school.

As we mature, we may still find ourselves influenced by peer pressure.  We may want to voice opposition to something we know to be wrong but we hold back.  We may say to ourselves, "Perhaps I should say or do something, but it would meet with the disapproval of my peers.  What choice do I have?"

I want us to think about the times we say, or feel, some version of “what choice do I have?”  How can I speak up at the Shabbat table when I see someone acting insensitively toward someone else?  How can I join a protest regarding a political issue I know to be problematic?  How can I say or do something that will have family, friends, peers wondering what’s wrong with me?

Learning From Our Elders

Jacob comes down to Egypt, sees his grandsons, and asks, מי אלה mee eileh - who are these people?

We spend so much time thinking about how older people should adjust to the needs of the younger generation - how they need to learn to communicate with younger people, to understand contemporary reality, to adjust to new realities.

Indeed Jacob needs to figure out מי אלה mee eileh - who are these people?  Who are Ephraim and Menasseh, this new generation? 

But I’m going to turn the tables.  I think it behooves Ephraim and Manessah - all the men and women of the younger generations - to figure out who Jacob is, who Rachel and Leah and Bilhah and Zilpah are.

In other words - rather than speak about how the older need to figure out the younger, I’m going to speak about why and how the younger need to figure out the older.

To turn to older generations and ask, mee eileh - who are these people?  

With an eye toward the patriarchs and matriarchs in the Torah, and with reference to contemporary matriarch and patriarchs, I want to suggest a few things that younger generations can learn from older generations.