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.
We spend a lot of energy analyzing public moments that are captured on video and not enough energy analyzing, and trying to impact, what happens when they are over.
So to address that, I’d like to turn to an example of how a public moment can lead to careful, ongoing, systematic communal follow-up.
Let’s go back to one of the greatest public moments in our tradition, the revelation of the God of Israel to the children of Israel at Sinai. The Israelites prepare for that moment, and though Moses plays a starring role, all are present. It is loud and dramatic. Depending on how you interpret the framing, the story asserts either that God told the people the d’varim, the words, directly, or that Moses conveyed God’s words.
Elsewhere in the Torah there is reference to what happened on the mountain. When the Israelites are told to build the mishkan, the portable sanctuary, they are told to do so כאשר הוריתם בהר ka’asher hor’eitem Bahar, as you were shown on the mountain.
During the blessing Moses gives the people at the end of his life, he describes God as coming from Sinai - מסיני בא MiSinai bah.
So Sinai lives on as the reminder of God’s protective intrusion into the nation of Israel and as the place where the nation was shown important matters that would guide them, first as they built a sanctuary, and ultimately as they built a society.
And we know that Sinai lives on well beyond the time of the Bible. How that happens can be the topic of multiple dissertations; it can’t easily be summarized.
But I do want to focus on one passage from the Talmud which reflects on how difficult it is to interpret the Torah, given the sheer volume and complexity of it all, and then offers illuminating advice:
If you wonder, how can I study Torah when it contains so many different opinions? Here’s what you should do: Make your ear like a hopper and listen to the words of those who forbid and the words of those who permit, the words of those who say something is pure and the words of those who say something is impure. (summary of Hagiga 3b)
What does a hopper due? A hopper sifts grain and separates the wheat from the chaff; it discerns what is worth keeping and ultimately planting and what should be discarded.
Torah lives through us because we make our ears like hoppers. In each generation we listen, discern and determine what we elevate and what we discard.
All of that happens long after the public moment is over. What actually happened at Sinai? A fascinating question which we’ve explored as a synagogue and will continue to explore.
The more significant question, as far as I’m concerned, is, what happens next?
Every single day, as we navigate our lives, how do we make our ears like hoppers to sort things out in the context of how we interpret Torah?
What might it look like if all of those connected with the confrontation at the National Mall recently would make their ears into hoppers so that they could consider what was said in those moments and, more broadly, so they could consider the range of statements and views that they are bombarded with all the time?
What might it look like if the Native Americans, the Black Hebrew Israelites and the students from Kentucky would all go home and reflect carefully on what they said and what others said? And then honestly examine their own assumptions, including their prejudices?
In our own comunity, a group of lay leaders envisioned a day of learning and social action that brought roughly 60 teens together in our Youth House this past Monday. It was Tu Bishvat and MLK day. The event, funded by UJA-Federation and facilitated by the ADL, was sponsored by SHAI (Sephardic Hebrew Alliance, Inc.), Temple Beth El of Great Neck,Temple Israel of Great Neck and the First Baptist Church of Great Neck. Before packing food for the needy, the students watched a brief clip of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech and broke up into smaller groups to talk about issues of identity.
The students shared a variety of personal experiences with each other and while I won’t reveal any of them (and I only peaked in for brief parts of the conversation), I will say that it was powerful to hear them speak about how issues including race and religion have impacted their identities and their lives.
Much about the gathering was valuable, but for now I will simply offer a comment and a question.
Comment: Given the widespread penchant for excessive focus on brief videos that purport to tell a larger story, it was heartening to see a group of students devoting extended time to conversation and social action not easily reducible to brief videos or soundbytes.
Question (which I know the planners have been asking as well): What happens next?
How many of the students that didn’t know each other before will see each other again? How will they process the things they learned about one another?
How will their parents, their teachers, their peers, all of us, help guide them so that their ears will be like hoppers, taking in all sorts of stories, experiences, opinions and sifting them using the resources that their hearts, souls, faith traditions and communities provide?
After the revelation, after the confrontation, after the collaboration, we're not done.
And we need to ask ourselves, what happens next?
Let’s take our cue from the way our ancestors continued to Torah for generations after the Sinai moment.
Let’s teach one another how to turn their ears into hoppers. First to listen. Then to sort. And then, most important of all, to plant seeds of deeper understanding. Not just on Tu Bishvat, not just on MLK Day, but every day of the year.
Originally delivered at Temple Israel of Great Neck on January 26, 2019
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.
We spend a lot of energy analyzing public moments that are captured on video and not enough energy analyzing, and trying to impact, what happens when they are over.
So to address that, I’d like to turn to an example of how a public moment can lead to careful, ongoing, systematic communal follow-up.
Let’s go back to one of the greatest public moments in our tradition, the revelation of the God of Israel to the children of Israel at Sinai. The Israelites prepare for that moment, and though Moses plays a starring role, all are present. It is loud and dramatic. Depending on how you interpret the framing, the story asserts either that God told the people the d’varim, the words, directly, or that Moses conveyed God’s words.
Elsewhere in the Torah there is reference to what happened on the mountain. When the Israelites are told to build the mishkan, the portable sanctuary, they are told to do so כאשר הוריתם בהר ka’asher hor’eitem Bahar, as you were shown on the mountain.
During the blessing Moses gives the people at the end of his life, he describes God as coming from Sinai - מסיני בא MiSinai bah.
So Sinai lives on as the reminder of God’s protective intrusion into the nation of Israel and as the place where the nation was shown important matters that would guide them, first as they built a sanctuary, and ultimately as they built a society.
And we know that Sinai lives on well beyond the time of the Bible. How that happens can be the topic of multiple dissertations; it can’t easily be summarized.
But I do want to focus on one passage from the Talmud which reflects on how difficult it is to interpret the Torah, given the sheer volume and complexity of it all, and then offers illuminating advice:
If you wonder, how can I study Torah when it contains so many different opinions? Here’s what you should do: Make your ear like a hopper and listen to the words of those who forbid and the words of those who permit, the words of those who say something is pure and the words of those who say something is impure. (summary of Hagiga 3b)
What does a hopper due? A hopper sifts grain and separates the wheat from the chaff; it discerns what is worth keeping and ultimately planting and what should be discarded.
Torah lives through us because we make our ears like hoppers. In each generation we listen, discern and determine what we elevate and what we discard.
All of that happens long after the public moment is over. What actually happened at Sinai? A fascinating question which we’ve explored as a synagogue and will continue to explore.
The more significant question, as far as I’m concerned, is, what happens next?
Every single day, as we navigate our lives, how do we make our ears like hoppers to sort things out in the context of how we interpret Torah?
What might it look like if all of those connected with the confrontation at the National Mall recently would make their ears into hoppers so that they could consider what was said in those moments and, more broadly, so they could consider the range of statements and views that they are bombarded with all the time?
What might it look like if the Native Americans, the Black Hebrew Israelites and the students from Kentucky would all go home and reflect carefully on what they said and what others said? And then honestly examine their own assumptions, including their prejudices?
In our own comunity, a group of lay leaders envisioned a day of learning and social action that brought roughly 60 teens together in our Youth House this past Monday. It was Tu Bishvat and MLK day. The event, funded by UJA-Federation and facilitated by the ADL, was sponsored by SHAI (Sephardic Hebrew Alliance, Inc.), Temple Beth El of Great Neck,Temple Israel of Great Neck and the First Baptist Church of Great Neck. Before packing food for the needy, the students watched a brief clip of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech and broke up into smaller groups to talk about issues of identity.
The students shared a variety of personal experiences with each other and while I won’t reveal any of them (and I only peaked in for brief parts of the conversation), I will say that it was powerful to hear them speak about how issues including race and religion have impacted their identities and their lives.
Much about the gathering was valuable, but for now I will simply offer a comment and a question.
Comment: Given the widespread penchant for excessive focus on brief videos that purport to tell a larger story, it was heartening to see a group of students devoting extended time to conversation and social action not easily reducible to brief videos or soundbytes.
Question (which I know the planners have been asking as well): What happens next?
How many of the students that didn’t know each other before will see each other again? How will they process the things they learned about one another?
How will their parents, their teachers, their peers, all of us, help guide them so that their ears will be like hoppers, taking in all sorts of stories, experiences, opinions and sifting them using the resources that their hearts, souls, faith traditions and communities provide?
After the revelation, after the confrontation, after the collaboration, we're not done.
And we need to ask ourselves, what happens next?
Let’s take our cue from the way our ancestors continued to Torah for generations after the Sinai moment.
Let’s teach one another how to turn their ears into hoppers. First to listen. Then to sort. And then, most important of all, to plant seeds of deeper understanding. Not just on Tu Bishvat, not just on MLK Day, but every day of the year.
Originally delivered at Temple Israel of Great Neck on January 26, 2019
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