Tag: unity

Thinking the best of others

Imagine teenagers, hanging out and sharing the usual in-group slang, but they’re saying “Lashon hara? Lamed hay! Tell it to me anyway!” This sarcastic chant was new to me, when Miriam Anzovin, the famous Jewish Talmud influencer, mentioned it on Instagram, along with her thoughts on a page of Talmud about lashon hara. Lashon hara, literally “bad speech or language,” refers to gossip, speech that is hurtful. We’ve all experienced it: at summer camp, synagogue, school, work or online. It’s real. It’s painful.

I’m not any kind of expert on this, or even especially good at avoiding harmful speech. The rabbis suggest that there are three bad things that most people can’t avoid daily: sinful thoughts, lack of intention while praying, and lashon hara. In the last week, I’ve thought of this too often.

First, I had the honour of being consulted by two different elders in my Jewish community. In one case, I had to gently lead the conversation away from this kind of talk, by suggesting that it wasn’t my place to comment on something. When it continued, I paused and said that, since Oct. 7, 2023, I had decided to work on achdut (unity) and avoided these kinds of conversations. I try to focus on good things instead. Later, the person I had chatted with apologized. For many of us, we don’t even see how often we’re veering down that road towards negative comments about others.

The second time, I had to tell a person who was “talking trash” that it was lashon hara and I wouldn’t do that. I couldn’t believe it when this came out of my mouth. The person was probably 30 years my senior. I wondered, a second later, when had I become this brash or disrespectful? Well, I guess it happens when the elder in question is also treading on thin ice.

This all came up again when I studied Bava Batra 164b. This page of Talmud looks at what makes a document or contract legal, and how we behave to one another when dealing with these documents. Judah HaNasi picks up a document, finds it doesn’t have a date on it, and announces it isn’t valid, it can be discarded. His son, Rabbi Shimon, stops him, saying, “Wait! Perhaps it’s a tied document!” In some regions, people folded a document, then signed and dated it on the outside. It’s a legal document, but with dates or signatures in different places. Why create a “tied” document? It was just a different custom. 

When Judah HaNasi disapproves of the tied document custom, his son says, “I didn’t write it! Rabbi Yehuda Chayatta wrote it!” Judah HaNasi then chastises his son for his “malicious speech,” or lashon hara. He tells his son not to blame someone else for making this document or, as Miriam Anzovin says it, Rabbi Shimon rushes to throw Rabbi Yehuda Chayatta “under a bus.”

Then, a scene change: Rabbi Shimon is reading psalms to his father. The book he is using (handwritten, of course, since this was before the printing press existed) is remarkable; the writing straight and neat. Judah HaNasi comments on it. Again, Rabbi Shimon rushes to say, “I didn’t write it, Rabbi Yehuda Chayatta did!” His father responds again by asking him not to do lashon hara. 

In this second instance, you’d think, what just happened? Why would the dad say this? Rabbi Shimon is complimenting this amazing scribe. However, Rav Dimi teaches that one shouldn’t go out of their way to praise someone, as that too can attract negative attention. 

This point seems strange until it happens in real life. Imagine a teacher points out that a student has done a marvelous job on an assignment, and this results in other kids making fun of the student later, at recess. Drawing too much positive or negative attention to another person can cause problems, according to the rabbis.

I thought about these issues when I encountered another relevant educational incident. A professor creates an assignment for their students and suspects them of using ChatGPT (Open AI) to do the work. The professor thinks they are all cheating and, straight away, files paperwork to have the issue adjudicated by department heads and deans. All these students are now in big trouble. 

Since the professor suspects cheating, his colleagues evaluate the work. They run all the students’ work through another AI program to “check” it. This app accuses students of cheating – but it’s sometimes wrong. The AI checking program reportedly has at least a 4% failure rate.

This seems like another complicated case of lashon hara. Is it possible that some students cheated? Yes, it is. At the same time, why did this professor immediately think the worst? Slander against students and student mistakes are both real, but neither is helpful in a learning environment. Most students don’t want to waste their time or tuition money, so they don’t cheat. We can’t always identify malicious intention correctly.

We all complain about others. It’s common to point fingers when something isn’t going our way. There’s always enough blame to go around. Yet, perhaps by drawing attention to others, malicious or complimentary, we also draw attention away from ourselves. The lesson about lashon hara is that getting along with others, being a part of a community, is fraught with pitfalls. We fail ourselves, and others, by saying unkind, unnecessary things. At the same time, we fail others by complimenting them in ways that draw “the evil eye,” or negative attention.

Giving compliments is still important. Just like giving corrections, it must be done with care. In retrospect, I’m embarrassed that I mentioned this to my elders, but I’m also embarrassed by their words. We want to accuse someone else of being “the problem.” In the end, sometimes we are the problem, and that’s hard. A common outcome is when there’s a problem and it’s nobody’s – or everybody’s – fault. Then, we all must bring solutions, show we care about one another, and make amends. We Jews live in community. Achdut, unity, is about more than politics. It’s about caring for one another. 

Joanne Seiff has written regularly for the Winnipeg Free Press and various Jewish publications. She is the author of three books, including 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 or at joanneseiff.blogspot.com.

Past, present & future

Jewish tradition says that all Jews were at Sinai. The people of Israel who fled Egypt received the Torah, but not just the travelers from the Exodus story were there. In the Jewish narrative, the handing down of the word was so definitive and essential that even Jews not yet in existence – up to the present day and on into forever – were said to have been present when Moses descended from the mountain. So profound was this moment that every Jew in all of eternity needed to be there to witness it.

Talk about togetherness! A people who humour portrays as intrinsically divided – “two Jews, three opinions”; the lone Jew rescued from the desert island who had built two synagogues (“The one I attend and the one I’d never set foot in”); “Everyone to the right of me is meshugenah, everyone to the left of me is a goy”; the jokes are endless – all in the same place at the same time, all united (well, except for the little golden calf incident).

It is tempting to imagine the Jewish people today as more divided than ever, at least in recent memory, especially in contrast with the aforementioned story of togetherness across all time and space. The various divisions in the local and global Jewish community are exacerbated by significant divisions in the body politic in Israel.

It may be true. Perspective on the forest is difficult when you are surrounded by trees. The present reality depends on the future. If the current political situation in Israel proves to be an aberration – if the proposed judicial reforms were to fail, say, and attempts to impose a more permanent intolerant conservative and religious imprint should falter – future Jews might look back on this moment as just one of Jewish history’s eras of communal discord. On the other hand, the future may cite this critical moment as a turning point.

There have been many turning points in Jewish history, of course. The Exodus was a pretty big one. Another big one was the declaration of the state of Israel, tangibly marked by the signing of the Declaration of Independence. And there have been many more turning points in between.

In an article recently, the chairman of the World Zionist Organization, Yaakov Hagoel, makes an interesting historical connection. Like the unity at Sinai, he argues that all Jews were present in Tel Aviv on that day in May 1948, each adding their name to that historic scroll.

“Beside the 37 actual signatures on it,” he writes, “there are millions more invisible signatures. Everyone has signed the Declaration. Each of us with his own special pen, values, stories and hopes. Over the years, we learned to unite around the Declaration, adding more and more signatures. Today, the Declaration is the basis of Israeli identity for all.”

The Declaration is indeed a model of compromise and inclusion. Notably, the inclusion of the “Rock of Israel,” which could be interpreted as God by the religious or literally as the rock, the land itself, for those of a less traditional bent.

Today, some enemies (and, frankly, some friends) depict Zionism as inherently a right-wing ideology. Of course, it is not. The belief that Jews have the right to national self-determination transcends politics. Zionism is not left, right, centre or limited to any other segment. It is a universal belief, inclusive of all who believe in the right of Jews to be “a free people in our own land.”

This is a pretty idea, easier in theory than in practice. Recently in this space, we lamented the large number of Israelis who say they are prepared to abandon the enterprise and leave Israel. We cannot judge people for the choices they make in their lives. Israel is not an easy place to live. Most, if not all, of us reading this right now do not live in Israel. We can, though, do everything in our power to advance an Israel and a Zionism that is inclusive … a Zionism that recognizes the diversity – as well as the unity, obscure though it may seem at times – among the Jewish people. We can commit what voice and power we have to advancing an Israel that not only encourages those already there to stay, but makes it a welcoming homeland for Jews everywhere, both in the present and in the future. Even, we might add, an Israel that is welcoming to Jews of the past – that is, respectful of the diversity they represented. The 37 diverse Jews who put pen to parchment 75 years ago represented the spectrum of Jewish ideas and visions at the time. The least we can do is attempt to do the same.