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It is perhaps telling that Tisha B’Av, the ninth of Av, falls in the dead heat of summer. Particularly in the Arizona desert, with its triple digit temperatures, the holiday’s warning of the harm of baseless hatred (read that as intolerance and disrespect) is particularly glaring.
At home, there is the heated debate over SB 1070 as the July 29 effective date looms.
And while the controversial legislation has shone a bright- as- summer- light on the hot button topic, provoking discussion on a raft of pressing issues from immigration reform to border security, it has simultaneously fleshed out the debate and flushed out the extremists. Lord knows, they are an echo of the old Judy Collins song, on both sides now, as similar in their rush to judgement as different in their points of view. But it is the eagerness to take sides, and, even worse, to cast aspersion, and, yes, hatred, that is most troubling. There has to be a middle ground that will inspire reasoned discussion born from even grudging mutual respect and the right of both sides to respectfully, even if vigorously, disagree. So timely, is the message from the sages on this, the 9th of Av.
Too, in Israel, not a slouch in the extremism department also, where the “who is a Jew” issue is heating up these days when we remember the fall of the temple at the hands of simmering hatreds. The brouhaha over proposed legislation to consolidate ever more power in the Orthodox rabbinate to oversee conversions is troubling, most understandably so among Judaism’s more progressive streams and within its Diaspora populations, especially the American Jewish community, where its impact will most roundly reverberate. Yet as the Israeli government sorts out the issue in the coming weeks, it also begs as much for civil discourse as it provokes religious imprecation.
It is too easy to lash out at those who disagree with us -- or even those we see as clearly mistaken or even wrong -- while meeting our responsibility to speak and to act on conviction.
Here, too, the sages provide some insights when they teach that the sinat chinam, baseless hatred, of which they warn, comes from disregard for each person’s “cheyn,” translated as grace or charm. That, they remind us, really means less the affability of personality or the rightness of position. Rather, they teach, it is the regard for each person’s place in the universe.
A thought to consider, this hot 9th of Av.
19 Jul, 2010 >
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