3 Notes

The first note is that not only — no matter what you say — will you not make everyone happy, you’re guaranteed to make at least one person very unhappy.

The second note is that I know I am about to engage in some light hypocrisy, but to say what I want to say it’s unfortunately necessary. I hope you can forgive this transgression, and may this not be the thing that makes you, person, very unhappy.

The third note is that I do not announce my opinions publicly. I long ago learned that having a permanent, accountable paper trail of your well-intentioned, often-controversial thoughts is emotionally draining. It does not matter what I think, or what I think you should think (though this is really up to you), or what you think, or what you think I should think.

Notes out of the way, the thing I want to say is this. The only thing that makes me truly angry on the internet these days is (diaspora) Jews telling other (diaspora) Jews what they should think and how they should feel. I cannot abide this.

In the tradition in which I grew up, critical thinking was a fundamental component of Jewish education. My seventh grade (b’nai mitzvah year) Hebrew School class watched movies, including Indiana Jones and Star Wars, and analyzed and discussed the various representations of God therein. My bat mitzvah speech, about my boring (for a 12-year-old) Torah portion explaining the details of how one should sacrifice in the Temple, became about how what God really wants is for us to communicate with him (I am using this pronoun because that is what I think I used in my bat mitzvah speech — please don’t let this be the part you become very unhappy about, either) in the way that is most meaningful to us as individuals, even if that might not be through sacrifice at the Temple. It was a pretty good speech for a 12-year-old, if I do say so myself.

Now, twenty-plus years later, to see Jews telling — commanding — other Jews to ingest certain media, avoid certain others, think a certain thing, believe a certain story, is, to me, anti-Jewish*. It’s alienating. It lacks compassion, and lacks empathy.

As a universe of people with multitudes of experience, understanding, learning, and exposure, I suggest that we turn away from telling one another what to read, what to watch, how to feel and what to believe, what to think and what to say and what not to.

Instead, I am suggesting another way. Instead, I welcome you to ask me to question, I welcome you to ask me to critique, I welcome you to ask me to learn more, to understand, or to consider something in some new way. In response, in the spirit of a chavura, I invite you to question rather than accept, to critique rather than parrot, to learn rather than recite, to understand and consider rather than assume.

Your perspective is welcome, and so is mine.

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*To be painfully clear, by anti-Jewish I mean against the Jewish tradition, not anti-Semitic.