Gratitude

GRATITUDE 

On November 4th, I was asked to give a talk at the International Cultural Center in Montgomery Village, MD on the topic of "The Importance of Gratitude in Judaism."  In preparing for the talk, I quickly realized just how important gratitude is to all systems of faith -- and, for that matter, to any worthwhile secular world view.  

Because it is now Thanksgiving Weekend, I felt that this would be the appropriate time to share the talk.  Happy Thanksgiving from the Empathic Rationalist.  

  

Gratitude.   What a holy word that is.  In Judaism, we have one set of words that rein above all others, and of course I’m referring to the names for God.  But when it comes to mere words, gratitude would be on the very top tier.  It has to be – for the moral value of gratitude forms much of the basis of both Jewish culture and the Jewish religion.

Simply by referring to someone as a Jew in no way clarifies whether we are talking about him as a member of the Jewish people or, alternatively, as a practitioner of the Jewish faith.  And that is because the word “Jewish” refers to both a folk and a faith.  On the one hand, we are talking about a nation, a people, a culture, a heritage; and on the other, a body of theological teachings, practices and principles.  Some Jews identify themselves deeply with the Jewish people, yet have no use for the religion.  Others are just the opposite – they may believe deeply in the Jewish God and practice the religious rituals, yet not care a whit for Jewish peoplehood.  And of course, there still others of us who associate ourselves with both Jewish peoplehood and the religion.  Notably, though, all three sets of Jews are tied together by certain values, and it is these values that form the glue for the folk and the faith.  Gratitude is among the very top values on that list.  Lose that value, and you can truly call yourself a lapsed Jew.

Historically, there are few communities more closely knit than Jewish ones, and the same can be said for the Jewish family.  Just look at me – I still live 600 feet from my parents’ house.  They call that old school.  I call it gratitude.   The famous Jewish passion for education is largely fueled by the gratitude to all who have taught us – schoolteachers as well as parents – and the desire to ensure that their work has not been in vain.   The Jewish emphasis on taking care of our own kind, which hastened our rise to economic success in the United States, is surely a function, in part, of the desire for self-preservation.  But it is also an expression of gratitude for a group of families who cared for one another during centuries on end, while they were being booted from country after country -- ghettoized here, forcibly converted there.  And it is the same value that has helped to caused Jews to assimilate themselves in melting-pot nations like the United States.  Wherever we find a benefactor, Jew or gentile, we seek to express our gratitude, which entails love, respect, and to some degree, emulation.

Jews are universalistic largely because we are grateful to those from every nation who have made this world as rich and varied as it is.  We realize we have enjoyed the fruits of all of the world’s great cultures, and that makes us wish to support them.  But gratitude is a double edged sword when it comes to Jewish universality.  For we are also grateful to the soldiers, farmers and other pioneers who during one of our people’s darkest eras, risked their lives to build a Jewish State against seemingly insurmountable odds.   Candidly, such gratitude is one of the reasons why Jews will continue to fight so hard to maintain a Jewish State in the land of Israel, even as the idea of “Zionism” has come to be attacked in much of Europe as well as Asia.

So yes, the value of gratitude is at the heart of what makes Jews tick as a people.  But if anything, this value is even more integral to the Jewish religion.  If I were to summarize my greatest impulse as a religious Jew, I would say that it is our job to honor God.   And why is it so important to honor God?  Because our sense of gratitude requires nothing less.

When life is spent grateful for who and what we have, and when the world is experienced as a wonderland of meaning, it is then that gratitude boils over like a pot of water.   As I’ve said, we feel the need to repay all of our benefactors, but this is especially applicable to the one we name God.  And this is why the religious Jew sees God as not only the Ultimate Benefactor, but also as the Ultimate Beloved.    

When gratitude is taken most seriously, God can become an almost insatiable need – a need for the One to whom we are able to express our thanks for life itself.  Religious Jews can wrestle with how best to envision that beloved, relate to that beloved, or honor that beloved.  We can ruminate about the meaning of ultimacy, and what makes one conception of God more “ultimate” than another.  We can even contemplate whether some ways of talking about the Ultimate Beloved are helpful or harmful to our ability to honor God.  But as for the existence of that God or the central value of expressing thankfulness to God … that we have trouble questioning.  We feel such a profound sense of appreciation for this world, for life as a whole, and for the unity that we find in life, that we viscerally must express thanks.  That, above all else, is what makes the Jewish impulse to pray so powerful.

Our Torah directs us to love our God with all of our heart, with all of our soul and with all of our might.  (The V’havta – Deut. 6:5)  And indeed, if you attend one of our services, you would be treated to prayer after prayer after prayer expressing our thankfulness to God.   The Torah tells us to express our gratitude to God for the “good land” that the Divine has given us, a land of varied foods, plentiful minerals, and ever-flowing water.  (Deut. 8:10)  And the Jew is indeed admonished to be content with his or her lot, even as we work hard to rid the world of injustice or war.   As was taught in our Talmud, “Who is rich?  One who is satisfied with his lot.”   (P.A. 4-1)  And that is because, to a religious Jew, what we receive comes from God, and when we honor what the world has given us, we honor God. 

Of course, that directive goes both ways.  If we wish to honor God, we must treat one another with honor, care for the poor, and fight injustice and ignorance.  Just as Islam has its Prophets, we have our own.  And of all the points the Jewish Prophets make, none is more important than that a religious Jew should be known primarily through her acts to transform the world, and not her ceremonial rituals.  I would like to think this is a point on which cultural and religious Jews agree.

As is said in our Talmud, “One who learns from his companion a single chapter, a single law, a single verse, a single expression, or even a single letter, should accord him respect.”   (P.A. 6:3)  Now imagine how we should treat a lifelong friend, a sibling, or a parent.  And now, imagine how we should treat the One to whom we owe not merely our own lives, but the very existence of our world – indeed, the very existence of every world, known and unknown.

In a civilization overrun with consumerism, we come to see ourselves primarily in terms of our own individual rights and interests.  But in a civilization that takes Judaism seriously, either as a folk or a faith, we come to see ourselves primarily in terms of our duties.   And when it comes to those duties, there is none more fundamental than the duties of gratitude – except perhaps those of humility.  Together, these two values enable us to honor God and God’s world, including our fellow human beings.

Maybe, there will another opportunity for this group to honor humility as a value.  It is, in fact, the value of humility that has caused the rabbis to designate Moses the greatest Jew of all – for he is considered to have been the most humble.   I am not aware of whether the rabbis identify a single figure as the most “grateful.”  Candidly, all of the great figures of the Jewish faith are assumed to be people of gratitude – otherwise how can they be viewed as worshippers of God? 

Perhaps, then, when it comes to considering the most transformative leaders of our religion, gratitude is taken for granted.  But we all know that when it comes to our own secular society – as best illustrated by the young athletes and other entertainers who frequently grace our television sets – this is a quality in terribly short supply.  

So, how important is gratitude?  This much I can say: if you envision a hypothetical person as a blank slate and then pile up one positive characteristic after another, only to then strip him of his sense of gratitude, from a Jewish standpoint, what you would be left with is a scary prospect.  So many virtues flow from this characteristic.  Remove it, and you might find someone who is productive, or even useful, but you would not find a person who is pious, and you would not find a person who is a practicing Jew, even the narrowest, purely-cultural sense of that term.    

Twinning Weekend

TWINNING WEEKEND

            I bet that most of you didn’t know that this is the Fifth International Weekend of Twinning.  What, you ask, is the Fifth International Weekend of Twinning?  Go to the website of the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding, and you will read the following:        

“Organized annually by The Foundation for Ethnic Understanding (FFEU) in cooperation with the World Jewish Congress and the Islamic Society of North America, the Weekend of Twinning is an annual initiative based on synagogues, mosques and Muslim and Jewish student and young leadership groups forming partnerships and holding joint programs together with the goal of building ties of communication, reconciliation and cooperation between Muslims and Jews. …  We are excited that synagogues and mosques and Muslim and Jewish student, young leadership, and women's organizations in as many as 25 countries around the world are expected to take part in twinning events.”   

Last night, Haytham Younis, a Syrian-American, and I went to the University of Maryland and addressed a large contingent of Jewish and Muslim students about our experiences as co-founders of the Jewish-Islamic Dialogue Society of Washington (JIDS).  Tomorrow, JIDS will be bringing in scores of teenagers from synagogues and mosques all over the Washington DC area to help clean up a public park and engage in dialogue.   Similar events are happening all over the nation, and in much of the world.  But I can almost guarantee that the national media will avoid these stories like the plague.  Nobody will be throwing Molotov Cocktails, firing rockets, schtupping mistresses, ranting against people of color, or standing in the middle of a hurricane for no apparent reason.   So who cares, right? 

  Clearly, Fox News and MSNBC don’t care.  They are the real twins – both fighting from a similar playbook.  Call it a vitriol-only zone.   And don’t forget their motto:  “If you can’t mock it, you can’t report it.” 

            I’ll tell you who else doesn’t care: the wild children running Hamas.  And let’s also not forget the Israeli Government.   No, I’m not talking about the generals who are defending Israel against Hamas rockets.  They’re actually doing their jobs.  I’m talking about Netanyahu and his minions who have the chutzpah to proclaim that they support the “Two State Solution,” and yet continue to build more and more settlements in the West Bank.   What does that say about their concern for their Palestinian “Twins”?

            With all due respect to Alanis Morissette, “rain on your wedding day” is not ironic.  What is ironic is that the Holy Land is raining bombs during Twinning Weekend. 

I don’t doubt that reporting on the escalation of warfare in Israel and Palestine is important.  I want my fellow citizens to remember that region.  I want their spokespeople in Congress and the media to call on President Obama to engage himself once again on the topic of Middle East Peace.  I want them to remind the President that visiting Israel zero times during his first four years in office is unacceptable.  I want them to say that even if Israel and Palestine aren’t ready to sign a peace treaty tomorrow, there is a TON that can be done in the present to help make peace possible in the future.   

So yes, please, report on the war!  Talk about the savage Palestinians and the stiff-necked, macho Israelis.  Condescend to them all, the way we always do.   Pretend that we Americans would act in a “measured” fashion if we were constantly absorbing rocket fire from Canada or Mexico.  Please – say whatever the hell you want about Israelis and Palestinians.  Just make sure that you focus our attention on that region so that we can stop ignoring it.

But surely, Mr. and Ms. Newsperson, you can’t report exclusively on Israel and Palestine.  Surely, you’ll have some time left for other news.  I encourage you to devote some of that time to reporting about the so-called “fiscal cliff” and whether we’re on the verge of a deal to avoid jumping off the cliff.  And I encourage you to report on the efforts of the Republican establishment to figure out the lessons of the 2012 elections; that’s important stuff, because we do need two healthy, sane political parties.

Report on all of that.  But don’t forget to report as well about stories like the Weekend of Twinning.  Come to our events and interview the rabbis and the imams who are as fanatical about peace as the Hamas is about war.  Teach your audience on TV and the radio that America has legions of enlightened Muslims, and that the Muslim religion can be a source of tremendous inspiration for Jews and Christians alike.

And if you want to figure out how to make time for this story?   Here’s a hint.  Remember that wave of stories you were reporting about adulteress biographers, shirtless FBI agents, and Generals who care more about their johnsons than their wives?   Good.  You can continue to think about that stuff all you want – you can even fantasize about it, if that’s what turns you on.  Just please, stop reporting about it.  We have plenty of TV channels that are already focused on sex and petty crimes and other sorts of garbage.  We can’t afford to devote our national news coverage to that crap – not as long as they’re still fighting in the Middle East.

Queens of Denial; Kings of Polarization

QUEENS OF DENIAL; KINGS OF POLARIZATION

The election is over.  And the Democratic Party has won.   

I realize that the GOP talking points would explain things differently.  I realize that they are characterizing the election as a draw – the “people’s house” went to the GOP and the Presidency/Senate went to the Dems.  A tie, right?

Not exactly.  In the aggregate, more Americans voted to elect a Democrat to the House than a Republican.   The GOP kept their majority in the House only because they were willing and able to gerrymander so many districts in 2010. That will allow them to bottle up a lot of legislation during these next two (or more) years, but it does not allow them legitimately to claim that this week’s election was a draw.  They lost, and they lost big.

They now control only 45% of the Senate.  They lost the majority vote for President for the fifth time in six tries – and by a total of nearly three million votes.  And they lost in the all-important Electoral College by nearly 130 votes.  Given how polarized this country has become, those results can be called a thumping.  The GOP hasn’t thumped the Democrats that badly since the Berlin Wall fell.

It pains me to have to start this first blog post after the election with that sort of partisan message.  I would much rather show some compassion for the side that lost – this is, after all, the Empathic Rationalist.   But folks, this isn’t a normal situation we’re dealing with.  A good bit of our nation is living in denial when it comes to what it means to be an American.  They look at the progressive wing of the Democratic Party and they see traitors who are destroying the fabric of this nation and trying to turn it into just another piece of Euro-trash.    They see the Democratic Party as the vehicle for this evil development, and no Democrat is said to personify this more than Barack Obama.  He may not look European, the argument continues, but he is a European socialist if ever there were one.    Accordingly, they believe, they must fight Obama, the Democrats, and all the “liberals” as long and as hard as it takes in order to return this country to the “traditional Americans” who listen to conservative talk radio and watch Fox News.  

Don’t believe me?   Just think about what happened yesterday, when the Speaker of the House suggested that an election took place, Obama won, and so Obamacare will survive.  Not so fast – by the end of the day, he already had to walk that back, and add that “our goal has been, and will remain, full repeal.”   This is the guy who is considered to be one of the compromisers.  I can only imagine what the hard-liners are saying behind closed doors – you know, in the rooms where they are still talking about all the un-American people who are now voting as Americans  (see, e.g., the “47 percent” ).

Clearly, the GOP deserves some time to digest the bitter pill that they swallowed this week.  They might publicly call it a draw, but they know they lost.  And despite what the polls were saying before the election, their leaders seem to be legitimately shocked by the results.  In their Fox News- created delusion, it wasn’t supposed to go down this way.  Romney was supposed to ride in on the white horse and rid the White House of all the socialists.  And this would unleash an economy that would be the envy of the entire world – or at least those parts of the world not pathologically obsessed with economic redistribution.  

It’s going to take some time for the GOP to acknowledge that their dream didn’t come true.  And that they are stuck with the Democrats largely in charge of Washington.  And that this is a Democratic Party that is finally willing to play brinksmanship and, if necessary, to ride off of that “fiscal cliff.”   

If the GOP remains in denial, then yes, we’ll see some pretty extreme budget-cutting measures.  And if the GOP wants to treat Barack Obama as the President of the United States and meet him more than halfway – since, after all, he did just win the election by an electoral-college landslide – then yes, we’ll see some Democratic concessions to Republican interests.   Either way, though, America will survive.  And hopefully, the only thing that won’t survive is the extent to which the GOP has demonized its rivals these past few years.

We need two viable Parties, folks.  We need a progressive Party, and we need a conservative Party.  We need them to work together a lot, and we need them to respect each other.  I support anything and everything that can make that happen as soon as possible, even if it means exposing in the short run the extremists who are the real evil-doers here.  Believe it or not, I'm actually looking forward to seeing some Republican ideas get implemented.  But the GOP must be the ones to extend their hands first.  Such is the price of living in a Democracy and recognizing that you are truly in the minority.

This Year's Real October Surprise

THIS YEAR’S REAL OCTOBER SURPRISE    

              

            So, what is this year’s true October surprise?  I’ll address four possibilities.  

            First, let’s look at the obvious choice: Superstorm Sandy.  Many people are claiming that this was the October surprise that will catapult President Obama to re-election.  If you can believe Nate Silver, Obama’s lead in the polls has now solidified to the point where Romney’s chances have slipped to 16%.  To what else can we attribute this development but the desire to rally around the President at the time of a national disaster?  Just imagine an election taking place a week after 9/11.  W would have won in an absolute landslide.

Personally, though, I refuse as a matter of principle to refer to Sandy as an October surprise.  Sure, Sandy is a devastating storm.   But folks, we are now living in a world in which, to all but the flat-earthers and those who profit from the status quo, climate change is real.   How, then, can anyone call a devastating storm a surprise?  Superstorm Sandy is the new normal. 

            When Al Gore started talking about climate change, laypeople were largely being asked to take his word for it.  Gore could point to legions of renowned scientists who were supporting his conclusion, not to mention the results of continuing ice-melting in the polar regions of the globe.  But those of us who live in the continental USA hadn’t yet seen enough dramatic evidence to prove his point.  So we either chose on faith to believe him, if we were a Democrat, or to mock him, if we were a Republican.  Such is the state of our polarized body politic. 

            “An Inconvenient Truth” came out in 2006, one year after Hurricane Katrina.   Katrina could easily have been brushed off at the time as an anomaly – the result of an unusually windy storm and a city ill-prepared for a deluge.  But after Gore’s movie came out, sane Americans began to ask questions.   Was Katrina a fluke?  Is there really something going on here that will matter to more than just polar bears, fish, and “third world” nations?   

            Well folks, I don’t think the jury is out any longer.  Here in DC, since the beginning of 2010, we’ve had one bizarre weather event after another.  First, there was the freakishly powerful snowfall now referred to as “Snowmaggeden.”   Then there was a significant earthquake that rocked a city that NEVER gets earthquakes.  This was followed by an entire year with virtually no cold weather – it felt more like Miami than the Mid-Atlantic.  Then, residents of the city all got to learn a new word – thanks to the crazy “derecho” thunderstorm that left us all without power for days.  And now, we’ve experienced just a little bit of the deadly superstorm known as Sandy.

            Toto, maybe we’re back in Kansas, because this sure as hell isn’t DC anymore.   

            To call Superstorm Sandy a “surprise” is to deny that we live in the 21^st century.  Storms are only going to get fiercer and more frequent.  Don’t take Al Gore’s word for it or, God forbid, listen to scientists.  Just consult your own eyes and ears.  Climate change is upon is, and it is here to stay.  The more we ignore it, the sooner it will get worse.  I realize that neither Presidential candidate had the stones to talk about climate change during this election season.  Strike that – Romney mentioned it only to criticize Obama for paying attention to it earlier in his Presidency, and Obama chose radio silence as a response to Mitt’s charges.  That, apparently, was all the attention the issue deserved.  And so … families bury their loved ones, suffer through homelessness, or rot for days in freezing buildings, and much of America still looks at these events as “natural” disasters.  

            As a follower of the philosophy of Spinoza, I should have no trouble calling the results of climate change “natural” disasters; after all, from the perspective of Spinozism, human beings are simply part of Nature … or God.  But we should at least man-up and take credit for deadly storms, earthquakes, droughts, fires, and the like.  Climate change is ours; we broke it, we own it.  Let’s stop calling its results “acts of God” unless we’re going to show the same courtesy to the Holocaust.  Frankly, my friends, when all is said and done, what we’re doing to the environment will cause more deaths than Hitler – or so the scientists say.  Personally, I think it’s time we start believing them.

            Second, let’s move inland from the mid-Atlantic coast and out to the great state of Ohio.  I want to take a look at a political ad that has blown up in Mitt Romney’s face, and may have cost him his last chance to win in the one place he could least afford to lose.

            By all accounts, Ohio is the most critical battleground state in this election.  Obama looks at it as his firewall, and Romney as his opportunity to break through the difficult electoral math.  So, desperate for a chance to win his way into the hearts of Buckeyes, Mitt approved the following advertisement to be aired during the last week before the election:  “Who will do more for the auto industry? Not Barack Obama. Fact checkers confirm that his attacks on Mitt Romney are false.  The truth?  Mitt Romney has a plan to help the auto industry. He is supported by Lee Iacocca and the Detroit News. Obama took GM and Chrysler into bankruptcy and sold Chrysler to Italians who are going to build Jeeps in China. Mitt Romney will fight for every American job.”

            Surprise!  It’s not true.  Here was Chrysler’s response to this ad:  “Jeep has no intention of shifting production of its Jeep models out of North America to China. It’s simply reviewing the opportunities to return Jeep output to China for the world’s largest auto market. U.S. Jeep assembly lines will continue to stay in operation.”  And here’s the response from a GM spokesperson: "We've clearly entered some parallel universe during these last few days. No amount of campaign politics at its cynical worst will diminish our record of creating jobs in the U.S. and repatriating profits back to this country."

            The real problem here is that the Romney campaign doesn’t have any real facts to back up its attacks.  But seriously, how can this be a surprise?  Mitt has been on all sides of all issues this campaign.  He’s clearly not running a “we have to level with the American public” campaign like Mondale ran.  Nor is he running like Reagan, and trying to present the American public with a consistent, compelling vision of governance.  He’s just winging it – telling every audience what he thinks they want to hear, and paying no attention to the obvious inconsistencies, whether they involve inconsistencies with what he himself has said or inconsistencies with the facts.

            So is that bizarre ad an October surprise?  Not to anyone who has paid attention.

My third contestant for “October surprise” is one that nobody is talking about – just how friggen bad the Lakers have played since they put together a super team of Kobe Bryant, Steve Nash, Dwight Howard and Pau Gazol, four potential Hall of Famers.  Most people were predicting this team to go to the finals this year.  And many were predicting them to win the title.  And yet, in their 11 pre-season and regular season tilts this year, they have won precisely the same number of games as Mitt Romney has won Presidential elections.

Is that an October surprise?  No.  It’s an October shock!   Nobody saw this coming.   Nobody predicted just how lethargic and non-athletic these guys would look.  Apparently, rehabbing from injuries and/or simply growing old will do that to a man.

Does this have anything to do with the Presidential election, however? Well, no.  But I couldn’t resist including it in my list.  It does happen to be the most surprising development of the month of October.  And if you’re a Los Angeles Laker season ticket holder, it might also be the most painful.

That leads me to the fourth and final contestant for “October Surprise.”  It also happens to be the real McCoy.   I’m referring to what Rush Limbaugh has referred to as Chris Christie’s “man love” for Barack Obama.

Go to this link http://www.mediaite.com/online/limbaugh-slams-chris-christie-as-obamas-greek-column-in-thralls-of-man-love-for-president/ and marvel for yourself at the horse’s ass that is Rush Limbaugh.  I used to think he was a menace.  Now, I’m beginning to question his membership in our species.

Folks, what New Jersey’s Republican Governor Chris Christie did this week in going out of his way to praise the President’s handling of Superstorm Sandy is simply an example of (a) a Governor who is actually trying to do his job for his constituents, rather than playing politics, and (b) a man who is expressing gratitude to a benefactor.  Both of these points are worthy of note.

The former is the epitome of what makes a politician a true statesman.  Believe me, now that I’m in my 28^th year of government service, I’ve seen so many high-level officials place doing their job beneath advancing their own careers.  Here, finally, we have found an example of a Governor who said, screw that; I’m here to serve the people of New Jersey and not my own political future.  Bravo, sir.

As for Christie’s apparent need to express gratitude where gratitude was due, this is the epitome of what makes a politician worthy of the term “religious.”  There are few values more important to a person’s religiosity than that of gratitude.  It is what ensures that we honor our parents, our teachers, our spouse, our truest friends, and our God.   Perhaps Christie’s expressions of appreciation to a President who acted above and beyond the call of duty to help Christie’s own state was nothing more than a guy who was raised to always respond to those who have helped us with love.  Call it religiosity, call it class, call it whatever you want.  Once we start devaluing gratitude, we can kiss our civil society goodbye.  It’s that important.  And Chris Christie showed us what it looks like.

Was the extent of Christie’s embrace of Obama’s Sandy response a surprise?  Yeah, it was to me.  I wouldn’t have expected him to use words like “outstanding” in reference to a man he has been trying to defeat for many months.  Might the extent of Christie’s praise for Obama have an impact on the election?  Again, the answer is yes.  This could be one of the last things people will consider when they head into the voting booths.

My friends, this election was supposed to be close, but Obama has had a clear advantage in the electoral college since the outset.  Romney had no margin for error.  And thanks to Chris Christie, that margin might now be gone.   It’s no wonder that the guy on Fox and Friends asked Christie, a day after the storm, if Mitt Romney might be coming to the Garden State to accompany Christie and survey the damage due to Sandy.

Here was Christie’s response:  “I have no idea, nor am I the least bit concerned or interested.  I’ve got a job to do here in New Jersey that’s much bigger than presidential politics and I could care less about any of that stuff.  I have a job to do.  I’ve got 2.4 million people out of power, I’ve got devastation on the shore, I’ve got floods in the northern part of my state.  If you think right now I give a damn about presidential politics then you don’t know me.”

            Yes, I’m surprised by that response.  Even more to the point, I’m impressed – but not so much because I think it has helped to re-elect Barack Obama (who I think deserves to lose this election, though less so than Romney deserves to lose).  I’m impressed because it shows that there is still a statesman in America who is actually capable of putting principle before politics.  

            Chris Christie – your unexpected show of humanity is this year’s October surprise.