PANDEMIC DIARY

THIS IS WHERE I DRAW THE LINE
May 24, 2021

I was riding in my car to and from chores when I turned on NPR. Whatever the segment, I had arrived mid-broadcast, mid-sentence. In a mere moment, I realized that the subject matter was a retelling of a difficult time from a difficult place. The person retelling the story conveyed a pall of dark memories in literal moments of time. And, without my having any context regarding who the is, where she is from, what happened and why, I was struck in my heart by the words to follow.

She retells that “he” asked her, “Does it hurt to die”.

Later, she noticed he would not keep away from his sister and was kissing and touching her to her mild annoyance. She recounts asking, “What are you doing?”.
”If I die I want to make sure I remember her”.

I teared up hearing the trauma through the eyes of a child’s experience. How fear to the uninitiated is all-encompassing. How experience to a young person is not particular, rather universal. They know one thing: what is happening to them in this moment. That becomes their world. Later their assumption. Then their burden.

I am thinking of all the moments in my life that I am still dealing with, and even sometimes still addressing. But, my world was still safe within its conclave of family. True, my mother was a sneaky, self-centered manipulative narcissist. But, she bathed us, cooked for us and ‘kvetched’ incessantly enough that we felt a non-threatening uniqueness of oddity. I still could ‘go out and play’. Nothing was ever falling from the sky and going ‘boom’. Noises did not infer impending doom or an urgency to run and hide in shelter.

There appears to be a world-wide fascination with authoritarians. We are witnessing a time when the odyssey of subverted corruption is surfacing and what lays beneath the surface of public political debates and partisanships has bubbled to the surface for all to see. There is no longer a model government. They are all…and have always been…corrupt. Those in government have always sought to serve themselves. When it came to their own political survival, policy was up for grabs. Integrity never seemed to matter except for the few. The concept of ‘servants of the people’ never took hold. The difference now is that what existed before, I believe rarely without exception, has become more entrenched, more institutionalized, more politically acceptable; more blatant and shameless; and, more popularly and commonly accepted than ever before. In other words, imminently threatening what remains as our democracy

I remember a pleasant happenstance that occurred to Adele and I. We were in Berlin on the day of their Marathon. We decided to become part of the crowd and position ourselves near a turn in the run where we could get a good long glance of the racers. Standing by us at the barriers was a gentleman with whom we started up a conversation. What’s relevant here is that we were staying in a portion of the city that was designated as East Berlin prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall. It has since become gentrified with young singles and couples with children and is really quite lovely. The gentleman went on to explain that his father, who is still alive, opines for the days before Berlin’s unification. He liked it under the old totalitarian regime.

We asked him what about authoritarianism his father liked? His answer was that like so many of his peers, they liked the certainty. They did not have to stand on line for jobs. They were given jobs. They did not have to worry about having a place to stay. They were given an apartment. They didn't possess much, nor could they go far, or did they have things to do and enjoy. Yet, he was satisfied. They didn't worry about capitalism. Decisions were made for them. Steady as she goes. Limit choices. Believe in the voices that tell you what is going on. No cares.

In now famous experiments from the 1960’s, Stanley Milgram, a Yale professor, questioned why people follow authoritarian figures. His first conclusion he called “The Power of Authority”. “Too often, orders from people with positional power can overrule individual judgment. Psychologist Stanley Milgram’s landmark study showed how people mindlessly obeyed an authority figure. They followed his commands to administer potentially fatal shocks to a person in the next room whenever he gave a wrong answer to a test question. Despite the victim’s cries of pain, pleas to stop, and complaints about his heart condition, the vast majority (82.5%) of research participants obeyed the experimenter. While hearing the screams from the person next door, these participants kept pushing the button to deliver severe shocks increasing to the level of 450 volts. Milgram (1974) concluded that most people will follow an authority figure’s commands because our culture reinforces us for obedience.” Later experiments conducted by psychologist Jerry Berger (2009) discovered that ‘testers’ could be easily persuaded to continue shocking to near fatal levels even after hearing subject (victims) cry out in agony. [All participants were actors and the pain performed).

Then there was “The Power of Limited Information”. “Without other reliable sources of information, they were forced to rely only on the claims of the authority figure. Is it any wonder that authoritarian leaders seek to cut people off from valid information? They censor and discredit the press as well as the academic and scientific communities so that people are left with only their authoritarian propaganda.”

Another critical stage in the development of authoritarian rule is “The Power of Avoiding Personal Responsibility”. In the obedience segment of the test, “the experimenter told participants that he alone was responsible for any adverse effects on the person subjected to shocks. The participants were just “following orders,” able to avoid personal responsibility because they were obeying the authority figure.” We see this occurring now in government, where legislators are falling in line with a dominant figure to mask their complicity and hide behind the idea that someone else is in charge.

A final reason is explained by the study of tyrannical regimes during WWII. Historian Timothy Snyder (2017) recognized how often authoritarian leaders prey upon our fears. They will discredit facts, deny credible news and abuse sources of information, finally drawing the public into false webs of conspiracy theories that produce a toxic mix of angst, polarization, scapegoating, and chronic cultural positions and anxieties that potentially undermine a civil, free society.

We are at a critical vector in our history. Republicans seem to have been planning for this for decades. Their hateful, racist policies have been with us since Reconstruction and the ‘Southern Strategy’. I am thinking of ways to re-engage and start marches. But, what I absolutely am committed to is “to not tolerate fools”. They are not my friends. They are not who I wish to socialize with despite our past, despite what other good qualities they may possess. I am using my voice, not to apologize or compromise, but to repudiate.

THIS IS WHERE I DRAW THE LINE!

PANDEMIC DIARY

Part 1 : “THE PROMISE”

September 7, 2020

I have just completed reading, for the second time, the novel by Chaim Potok, “The Promise”. Originally published in 1969, it is the second of two novels following the lives of friends, Reuven and Danny, religious Jews growing up in an orthodox Brooklyn community. They are both the children of Jewish scholars. Danny, belonging to the more traditional, ultra-religious Hasidic household, chooses to become a psychologist, breaking with the strict fundamentalism of his Hasidic community and its laws. Reuven, a brilliant student of Talmud, chooses to study for the rabbinic, oddly electing a more traditional path given his more liberal, contemporary orthodox upbringing.

From the earliest of school ages, these sects of Jews study Talmud. The Talmud is the comprehensive written version of the Jewish oral law and the subsequent commentaries on it written in two parts ... The Mishnah is the original written version of the oral law and the Gemora is the record of the rabbinic analysis and discussions over the Mishnah, known as the Commentaries. Exegetic in nature, these annotations, historically written on the margins of the page on which the Mishnah or law appears [like a university student might do], attempt to elucidate or provide further dimension to the complexities and sometimes seeming contradictions of the law. Oftentimes, they merely produce further discussion in the form of debates around a single phrase or even a single word’s meaning. These “discussions” can be sufficiently animated as to cause rifts among the various sects.

A Page from Talmud showing the Mishnah [boxed in red], the oldest portion of Gemora below and the Commentaries encircling the center.

There is a beautiful segment in the book in which Reuven’s teacher, Rav Kalman, a great and revered Jewish scholar and Talmud expert, asks Reuven to help him understand a complex series of texts and commentaries on Jewish law. Reuven is asked because the segments of Mishna and their interpretations are from a newly published book written by Reuven’s father, Rabbi Malter. Rav Kalman is exhorting Reuven to explain to him his father’s method of arriving at his understandings of the law and subsequent commentaries.

Reuven obliges having assisted in the editing and proof-reading of his father’ book and himself becoming highly familiar with and proficient at the total body of research. At issue is Rav Kalman’s claim that the Mishnah is the word of God, and therefore cannot be changed. Reuven explains that the Mishnah was written about the 4th century, two centuries following the oral tradition. As well, the Greek philosophers who lived in the 2nd century BC are known to have highly influenced the writers of the original oral tradition. Passages were cited that effectively were literal translations from the Greek sources, including Aristotle and Plato. “The similarities between the Mishnah and these Greek sources are palpable…the Mishnah offers a reasonably accurate reflection of the Platonic or Aristotelian teaching, suggesting some kind of influence. [Greek Philosophy and the Mishnah: On the History of Love that Does Not Depend on a Thing. Gabriel Danzig]

In many instances the Mishnah passages are nearly literal translations from the Greek, originally transcribed in Aramaic then written in Hebrew where the letters are merely transliterated from the Greek. Of course this will cause confusion as to original meaning. But, let’s not distract ourselves with truth. Like many ‘originalists’ today, Rav Kalman would not be swayed. The Aramaic of our people is the true word.

“I will no longer mutilate and destroy myself in order to find a secret behind the ruins.”
Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

Rather, he instructed Reuven, “Do you know yourself? You must know yourself first.” This is the Conservative Rabbi telling his student that in order to receive his degree and final ordination as a Rabbi, he must demonstrate his adherence to ‘Yiddishkeit’ or the whole of the Jewish way of life. This not so veiled threat is a demand that Reuven, no matter his intelligence, his openness to deeper understanding of original texts, or regard for modernity, fully accept what is written and, worse than ignore, actually reject vociferously his new insights and their implications. He must become a ‘faithful’, an uncompromising disciple of what he knows not to be true.

So, why did I go to this length to relate a segment of this wonderful book? (And, if you are interested in reading this, please read “The Chosen” first.) This is an example, a meager, small-scale example of “cult of personality”. By dint of his credentials, by the impression of his knowledge, by the force of his arguments, and by the staunchness of his commitment, Rav Kalman has divided his community into those who affirm or, at least and cowardly, accede to his positions and are therefore disciples and true to the word of god; or, you are intellectual dilettantes who feels at any time can interpret the writing of ancient books and scribes to your liking and to fit into an altering modernity.

This is not so described in the book as I am now interpreting it, written those many years ago. Nonetheless, from the inception of religious thought, among the obedient of all faiths the world over, it is our differences that are the hallmark of our lives and not our shared experiences and commonalities; not our love of country and commitment to a way of life; not shared human rights and the dignity belonging to us all. Oh yes, Jewish and Christian (and all other) scriptures advance a ‘lip-service’-style unity of humankind message while really envisioning a world in their “fold” — ardent followers who live a committed life of conviction to their truth, their belief…and no other.

Part 2 : “THE PROMISE” - I sincerely hope to get that out for publication tomorrow.