Dear Friends,
The first college-level Judaic Studies class I took as an undergraduate was a course entitled “Women in the Bible.” It was taught by Dr. Carol Meyers and it opened the door to my love of Jewish learning.
During the first session Dr. Meyers explained the material we would be covering over the course of the semester and then began to explain the Documentary Hypothesis. The Documentary Hypothesis, also known as Wellhausen Theory, suggests that the Bible was not given to Moses as a complete document, but rather developed and evolved over time. More than that, the theory suggests there were different authors who penned different parts of the text and then, at a later date, someone referred to as “The Redactor” wove the various disparate strands of text into a more-or-less unified whole. That theory, Dr. Meyers pointed out, explains some of the internal inconsistencies within the text of the Bible. And that theory, she said, is the foundation for Biblical Criticism and a move away from taking the words of the Bible as the literal word of God.
I was fascinated and an entirely new world of learning opened up to me during that first session. That class is, in fact, part of the reason I ultimately ended up applying to Rabbinic School.
But not everyone in the class was fascinated. Not everyone present that day found comfort in the notion that our sacred text is a tapestry of thoughts and ideas inherited from the past. The student sitting directly behind me was so shaken by what Dr. Meyers said that, about two thirds of the way through that class, she burst into tears and ran out crying. She never returned.
For her, the very idea of something that didn’t fit with her world-view was threatening. For her, it wasn’t just a different perspective or viewpoint, it was a personal attack. And she couldn’t handle it.
I think about her whenever one of our students has the Torah portions that deal with leprosy. The portions go into uncomfortable detail on the disease. Moreover, year after year, our ancestors’ way of “dealing” with someone suspected of having leprosy, sending them out of the camp for a period of time, is offensive to our young people. “How,” they wonder, “could our community have withdrawn social support at the very moment when people need it the most?”
And I think about her whenever one of our students has a Torah portion whose misogyny, homophobia or tribalism permeates the text they are supposed to teach.
Year after year, I think of her when I see our students struggle with narratives they find unpleasant.
And not a year goes by when, after struggling with the difficult material in their portions, our students draw powerful lessons and insights they can share in their Divrei Torah — their speeches.
And that’s the point. It is okay to hear, see and learn things that make us uncomfortable. Rather than such things being a personal threat to our wellbeing, they are opportunities to refine our perspectives and clarify our values.
Years ago, I was having a hard week. Carol Paster came into my study and, without a word, handed me a piece of paper. On it was this story:
A child discovered the cocoon of a Monarch Butterfly. Intrigued by the transformation that takes place when a caterpillar turns into a butterfly, he brought the cocoon in and watched it for several days. After a few days, he watched eagerly as the emerging butterfly began to push and struggle to free itself from the cocoon. Out of good intentions and a desire to rescue the caterpillar from its difficult struggle, the child took a pair of scissors and carefully cut the cocoon so as to free the emerging butterfly. What he discovered, to his horror, was that what emerged was a bloated butterfly with stunted wings, completely useless and unable to fly. You see, the struggle of emerging from the cocoon is part of the process in becoming a butterfly. The energy put into breaking free of the cocoon is part of a necessary step that forces fluid into the wings, stretching them to their full size. By removing that obstacle for the butterfly, the little boy doomed the butterfly to a life with stunted wings – never to fly. Allowing our children to struggle with the difficult and sometimes painful parts of growing up, rather than rescuing them, is often the best way they can grow and gain the strength needed to enjoy happy, productive, contributing lives. -Author unknown
When the State of Florida passes a bill to, as one news outlet put it, “shield people from feeling ‘discomfort’ over historic actions by their race, nationality or gender,” they are like that child.
And when a Tennessee School Board bans the book Maus, (ridiculously) claiming they are doing so because of a few bad words and a picture of a nude person, they too are like that child.
But that is where the similarities end, because they aren’t just impacting a butterfly. They are stunting the intellectual and moral fabric of this country. They are attempting to impose their limited worldview on us all. That is never good for a society and it never bodes well for our Jewish community.
Struggling with ideas that are uncomfortable isn’t pleasant but it is through those struggles that real learning and change emerge.
We cannot eradicate racism until we understand the ways racism has permeated this society from the beginning.
We cannot fight antisemitism without educating the next generation about the dangers of political ideologies rooted in fear and resentment.
We cannot fight for the rights and protections of members of the LGBTQ+ community without understanding the historic iniquities they have faced.
And we cannot have a fully egalitarian society without coming to terms with the sexism and the misogyny that is at the center of attempts to limit women’s access to healthcare and keep them from making choices about their bodies.
But efforts are underway in this country to do just that. And, unlike that child who sought to help the emerging butterfly, their motivation is not benign. And it is happening before our eyes.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Daniel Cohen
Dvar Acher– Another Point
The banning of the book Maus on the eve of International Holocaust Remembrance Day was no accident. Our community knows only too well that limiting discourse and banning books is often a first step toward even darker things. In this powerful OpEd, Jordana Horn offers some perspective on the broader implications of this emerging trend as well as some suggested steps we can all take.
You can read it HERE