December 14, 2024
Author(s): Rav Hazzan Aliza Berger,
Parashat Vayishlach
This Is No Time For Zealots
December 14, 2024 – 13 Kislev 5785
Temple Emanuel, Newton, MA
The volume of outrage in our world has hit a crescendo. All the time I hear questions like, “how can you bear to be around someone who voted like that?!” or “how can you stand working with people who are so anti-Zionist or who are so pro-Israel?” As if people who do not rage against those they disagree with are somehow condoning or supporting evil perspectives. Young people, already stressed by the pressures of their own lives, feel pressured to respond to hateful social media posts and/or to present content that will fight against what they see as evil lies. Everything is pitched as though the conversation is an existential battle between good and evil and each one of us is either fighting for good or conceding to forces of evil.
We saw this so sharply this week. When Luigi Mangione murdered Brian Thompson in broad daylight, the story on the street and on social media wasn’t about a horrific crime against humanity. People lionized Luigi, they asked him on dates, they offered to be his alibi, they fundraised for his legal costs, they even competed in dress-alike competitions. Why? Because they see him as someone willing to take decisive action against the evils of our world, never mind that he committed an atrocious crime and never mind that killing Brian Thompson does nothing to fix our broken health care system nor address the real pain of the American people.
There’s a word for this energy in our tradition: zealotry. Zealots are people who are inspired by passion, who take action without due process, and who force the world to align with their vision.
The most famous zealots in our tradition arose in a tumultuous time in our history. Way back in the first century, during the Second Temple Period, our ancestors were fighting to build a life in the shadow of the Roman Empire. At the time, the future of Judaism and Jewish community was precarious and there were different groups that had different ideas about what should happen. Some groups fought for justice and against elitism and classism that they felt were destroying society. Some believed that the Roman Empire was the way of the future. They promoted assimilation and Hellenization and worked to try to suppress Jewish revolt against the occupying power. While others raged against Roman rule, encouraging resistance to Roman culture and strict adherence to Jewish cultic rites.
According to the Talmud, the elders of the Jewish community wanted to mobilize their community thoughtfully. But the zealots didn’t have the patience for this. They felt an existential threat and believed it was their duty to force the Jewish community into action. They provoked and attacked the Romans, trying to incite violence. And when their guerilla tactics worked and the Romans laid siege to Jerusalem, the zealots burned the granaries and food stores in the city so our ancestors would be forced to fight for their lives.
When we tell this story, we focus on our survival. We focus on Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai’s improbable escape in a coffin. We focus on his heroic journey to Yavne and the way he preserved the Judaism that he and the other rabbis believed in. But that leaves out a critical piece of our history. Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai had to escape because of the zealots, because their radical ideology created a toxic culture of violence which threatened our very existence.
Today, more than ever, we need to remember the zealots. All too often, we feel that we are unique. That today, we are divided more than ever before. That today, we are caught up in an existential battle between good and evil, and that if we fail to act in time everything will be destroyed. But we are not special. It is not as though the divisions we experience today are any greater than the divisions of our ancestors. The only difference is that we have the perspective of history to guide us.
How do we operate in a world where we feel that we are under existential threat, when we feel so critically divided? More importantly, how do we avoid becoming zealots in the face of that intensity?
When Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai escaped, he immediately set to work preserving and codifying Jewish history and tradition. You could imagine that having narrowly escaped death, having watched the zealots attack their own people for the sake of furthering their agenda, he might have wanted to erase that ugly history from our communal knowledge. But Rabbi Yochanan, to his credit, understood that we are stronger when we can engage with different perspectives and when we recognize we don’t have a monopoly on truth. And so, he preserved a collection of disparate ideas and teachings which sometimes harmonize and sometimes directly contradict one another. The result is that, unlike secular legal works, our Talmud and Mishnah preserve a multiplicity of contradictory perspectives and rulings rather than one simple truth.
Let me give you a concrete example. In tractate Eruvin (13b), we are taught that there were two groups of scholars who vehemently disagreed with one another. Each claimed that their perspective was correct, that Jews should practice according to their understanding. At the end of three years, a Divine voice emerged and proclaimed “אֵלּוּ וָאֵלּוּ דִּבְרֵי אֱלֹהִים חַיִּים—both these and those are the words of the living God. However, the halakha is according to Beit Hillel.” Why do we rule according to Beit Hillel? The Gemarra goes on to explain that Beit Hillel operated from a place of humility. They were agreeable and even-keeled. When they taught, they didn’t just share their perspective, they would present all sides of an argument and would even present the opposing view first. For that reason, we hold according to their wisdom.
Ok, great. So we don’t want to be zealots, we want to embrace a multiplicity of perspectives and operate from a place of humility. How do we do this in practice?
I want to share two examples—one that’s super real for our world and one that probably feels a bit outside what we tend to experience.
This week on Hidden Brain, Shankar Vedantam did a whole episode on gift-giving. Why? Because there is this fascinating disconnect between our desire to give a great gift and our ability to actually deliver on that promise. Often, people buy for others what they would really like for themselves, failing to really grasp that other people are different and might have different preferences. Or, people want so much to surprise someone with a great gift that they ignore an articulated request in favor of giving something unexpected. The secret to being a great gift giver is the ability to really listen to what other people like and to give them what they want and not what we want them to have. This season, we can all try listening more deeply, giving others what they truly want, and letting go of our ideas of what they should have.
But this practice of avoiding zealotry is also important to practice outside of our normal circles. What would you do if you received a message on social media demanding that you repent for your sins as a Jew? That was the tweet that Jewish blogger, David Abitbol received under his Twitter handle Jewlicious in 2009[1]. The message was from Megan Phelps-Roper. Megan was born into the Westboro Baptist Church, her grandfather was a founder, and she was raised, along with her ten siblings, to believe she was God’s instrument in a battle against evil. After spending her childhood holding vitriolic signs, she had taken over the organization’s social media platforms and was looking up influential Jews online.
David did something wild. He replied to her. He wanted to know if she really believed what she was saying. And when he realized she did, he wanted to discuss that with her. They wrote back and forth over the course of months, with challenges and theological debates. And strangely, they developed a certain rapport. When she came to picket in his neighborhood, he brought her Halva from Jerusalem and she brought him some kosher chocolate. He posted a blog about it with a picture of them both smiling in front of hateful signs[2].
Over time, David’s insights began to chip away at the ideology she had been taught. He brought her biblical verses that contradicted the church’s teachings, asked questions that exposed bad logic. In 2012, Megan realized she couldn’t remain a member of the church and walked away from everyone and everything she had known.
She shared about her journey on the TED stage[3]: “I spent my first year away from home adrift with my younger sister, who had chosen to leave with me. We walked into an abyss, but we were shocked to find the light and a way forward in the same communities we’d targeted for so long. David, my “Jewlicious” friend from Twitter, invited us to spend time among a Jewish community in Los Angeles. We slept on couches in the home of a Hasidic rabbi and his wife and their four kids — the same rabbi that I’d protested three years earlier with a sign that said, “Your rabbi is a whore.” We spent long hours talking about theology and Judaism and life while we washed dishes in their kosher kitchen and chopped vegetables for dinner. They treated us like family. They held nothing against us, and again I was astonished.”
Megan was able to overcome the small-mindedness of her upbringing because a stranger on the internet didn’t write her off. Because someone took the time to ask her about her beliefs, because someone took the time to engage in thoughtful conversation, she now spends her time advocating for productive dialogue and understanding[4]. She’s even written a memoir titled Unfollow: A Journey from Hatred to Hope.
It’s tempting to believe our ideas are good and those that contradict us are evil. But when we refuse to engage with other viewpoints, when we deny the validity of any perspective other than our own, we become zealots. Instead, let’s join the school of Beit Hillel. Let’s give the benefit of the doubt and the ugly toe socks they’ve requested.
[1] Why Fred Phelps’ granddaughter left Westboro Baptist Church – Las Vegas Sun News
[2] NOLAGA: 1000s of Jewish Machers and I hang out with Westboro Baptist – Jewlicious
[3] Megan Phelps-Roper: I grew up in the Westboro Baptist Church. Here’s why I left | TED Talk
[4] Unfollow: A Journey from Hatred to Hope, leaving the Westboro Baptist Church – Megan Phelps-Roper – Google Books