So where I've arrived is this: we are hardwired this way. We don't have to be carefully taught to hate. We have to be carefully taught not to. We have to learn to unlearn. We have to learn to apologizefor hate when we discover we've been behind it. After all, if the Exodus Ex-Gay Ministry which, baruch Hashem, closed their doors this week, can apologize for the merciless harm they inflicted on countless LGBTQ people, both directly and by propping up other people's hate, we can apologize for our missteps too.
Read moreB'chukotai: The Worth of a Life
Maybe the proper measure of our lives is - wait, maybe our lives don't need to be measured at all. Not against anyone or anything or any currency other than ourselves and our own potential. After all, remember what Rebbe Zushya of Hanipol said. "In the coming world they will not ask me: 'Why were you not Moses?' They will ask me: 'Why were you not Zushya?'”
Read moreSolstice 2012: The Most Wonderful Time of the Year
“When I was little I didn’t care about Christmas. Just about the presents. But then I began appreciating Jesus and would say, ‘Thank you Jesus for being born.’ And now I’ve let Jesus into my life.”
“Ah,” I said, my mind already racing with how to handle where this was obviously going.
“I hope you’ll think about letting Jesus into your life,” he concluded.
“Well,” I said, not wanting to completely dash his innocent hopes for my salvation, “we’ll give it thought. Thanks.” And I began dealing cards to my mother in hopes that our game of double solitaire would neatly sew up the situation. But he continued.
Read moreParashat Toldot: Brothers, Birthrights and Blessing
So here we were, like visiting nobility. A great party was thrown in honor of the return of the foreign relations from exile. Children, grandchildren, siblings, nephews, nieces, cousins – all here in abundance. And I loved it. I moved easily from family group to family group, learning names, memorizing relationships, asking for family stories. It was easy for me to experience this as hineh mah tov umah na’im, as good and pleasant. Because I didn’t know them. I knew no back-stories. I had no grudges and I was not charged with maintaining anyone else’s. In fact, it took days more to discover that there had been any.
Read moreKilling Your Darlings
Torah over and over presents versions of this, of the younger being justified in taking what should belong to the older. Why such anxiety? Were we, as newcomers to the Promised Land, as builders of a kingdom not on empty soil but on the turf of an older resident civilization, insecure about our position? Is Torah's message that the new supplanting the old is the order of things? In Greek mythology the younger gods defeat the older gods; children supplant their parents, suggesting that change happens in a generational way. The Torah version, invoking our innate sibling rivalry, is subtler and trickier. It involves the painful conflict of ideas that are more or less contemporaneous.