I heard once about an executive who explained in an interview: we debate a lot behind the scenes, but when we present our opinion or policy, it is a united front. We expect all employees to avoid saying or writing anything that would contradict this in public, they continued. Further, it\u2019s spelled out in the work contract what you can and cannot say, and employees must stand behind the policy decisions of the organization.<\/p>\n
If you find this kind of approach unsettling, you wouldn\u2019t be alone. Yet, it\u2019s not an uncommon requirement of employees. I wondered, after hearing this, how much money employees have to earn to make it worthwhile to give up their opinions or their right to free speech. Also, what happens if, during the debate behind the scenes, a younger or less powerful employee has a viewpoint that is starkly different than the party line? How does that go? Must an employee then give up her income or change jobs in order to have freedom of expression on those topics? If mainstream, moderate opinions and moderate disagreements are swept under the rug, what else isn\u2019t allowed?<\/p>\n
After hearing of this model, which shuts down dissent or situations that might conflict with the policy, I felt nervous. I ended up joking around. This felt like the Mafia. Disagree with the boss? What happens if nobody likes what you have to say? You too could end up in the river wearing some concrete overshoes!<\/p>\n
These issues around employment and freedom of expression loom large in democracies and rightly so. If we look back to Judaism\u2019s most foundational texts, written and oral Torah, we see that, consistently, Judaism values hearing all the opinions. Minority voices or rejected outcasts also have their views included and written down. We\u2019re still reading and hearing about rabbis and even outsiders to the community who expressed minority opinions 2,000 years ago that didn\u2019t go forward. In other words, their views did not become \u201cpolicy.\u201d<\/p>\n
For instance, in the Talmud, we learn about Hillel versus Shammai, but mostly Hillel, who is more lenient. The rabbis and, therefore, Jewish law, tend to follow Hillel\u2019s lead. That said, nobody got rid of Shammai\u2019s point of view. He didn\u2019t get fired from the rabbis\u2019 club for having an unpopular opinion.<\/p>\n
I recently had a couple of informational interviews. Well, they were really just Zoom chats, which came about because a friend reposted something from a small advocacy group on Instagram. Beware of social media if you are a novice like me. I prodded my friend with an off-the-cuff comment, saying, \u201cSo, don\u2019t you think this is just a PR scam?!\u201d Oops \u2026 I wasn\u2019t just writing my online friend.<\/p>\n
To my surprise, both the chief executive officer and the education and programming lead of the group got in touch with me. They wanted to tell me all about their efforts to make positive change \u2013 it wasn\u2019t a publicity stunt. They explained what they hoped to achieve. I was pretty embarrassed by my post. By the end of the first chat, I was impressed with the information they had offered me and how they had engaged. They welcomed all opinions. They asked me if I wanted to contribute in an open and friendly way.<\/p>\n
Our second meeting resulted in them recruiting me to serve on a volunteer advisory panel because of what they saw as my expertise. I agreed willingly because our exchange had been such a positive experience.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a meme offered this time of year, that, while how we behave between Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah matters, it\u2019s how we behave the rest of the year that counts.<\/p>\n
Choosing to be open to differing opinions and innovation keeps us learning and growing. It also aligns us with the model of the rabbis, who discussed and debated and recorded it all in plain view, with minority views counting, too. Also, admitting one\u2019s mistakes \u2013 wow, how embarrassing was I on social media? \u2013 helps us grow and become better people.<\/p>\n
The least Jewish model, I think, is the example with which I led off this article, where everyone is allowed to debate, in theory, but all opinions aside from the official party line are discarded or silenced. We\u2019re speaking here of relatively mainstream opinions, not radical ones. Want the kicker? From what I understood, this is a model used by some nonprofit Jewish organizations.<\/p>\n
The smaller advocacy group isn\u2019t a Jewish organization, but one of their employees is. Part of our chat involved a bit of Canadian Jewish geography regarding their Winnipeg relatives. Also, they suggested that I perhaps write up a Jewish topic for their group one day. They were open and excited about diverse voices.<\/p>\n
Work life and individual identity can sometimes be entirely separate things. Yet, in others\u2019 lives, Jewish identity, values and models and careers go hand in hand. I want to address my Jewish identity through making the world a better place, including at work. Watching these two different models emerge on my radar recently reminded me that, in fact, non-Jewish organizations can model Jewish ways of questioning and validating ideas, while some Jewish groups choose not to do so.<\/p>\n
In a perfect world, we\u2019d all do meaningful, life-changing work. In real life, we know that compromises and the bottom line matter. Sometimes, work isn\u2019t that place of deep meaning or free expression, and we can\u2019t always say everything we think in the workplace, either. However, perhaps there\u2019s a way to avoid stifling creativity \u2013 having multiple voices valued in the workplace, while still communicating the basic mission of the organization. Perhaps we can all learn and grow better this way, making educated debate matter, just as the rabbis did 2,000 years ago.<\/p>\n
Joanne Seiff<\/strong> has written regularly for CBC Manitoba and various Jewish publications. She is the author of three books, including <\/em>From the Outside In: Jewish Post Columns 2015-2016, a collection of essays available for digital download or as a paperback from Amazon. Check her out on Instagram @yrnspinner<\/a> or at joanneseiff.blogspot.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I heard once about an executive who explained in an interview: we debate a lot behind the scenes, but when we present our opinion or policy, it is a united front. We expect all employees to avoid saying or writing anything that would contradict this in public, they continued. Further, it\u2019s spelled out in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[20852,2873,218,8302,9647],"class_list":["post-39715","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-op-ed","tag-debate","tag-free-speech","tag-judaism","tag-lifestyle","tag-work"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39715","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39715"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39715\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}