I do not love thee, Dr. Rice

When Dr. Condoleeza Rice withdrew from a speaking engagement at Rutgers University, after protests on campus, one of my friends posted on Facebook that he would never set foot on the campus or donate to Rutgers again.

My friend is more conservative politically than I am - much more - and his reaction was typical of political conservatives. 

Whether Dr. Rice should have carried through with the speech or not, the arguments my friend and others make are wrong.

The most-heard argument is that the protesters are "silencing" Dr. Rice or infringing her right of free speech under the First Amendment.

These are empty rhetoric (to be polite) and utter hooey (which is what I really think). First: Dr. Rice has not been in any way "silenced." She's not being held incommunicado. She can easily obtain all the media and public attention that she wants.

Second, her right to speak is not being abridged. Although Rutgers is a state university and subject to the First Amendment (unless you agree with Justice Clarence Thomas that the First Amendment does not apply to the states, only to the Federal government), it was Rutgers that invited her to speak and it was she who chose to withdraw after accepting the invitation.

The protesters did not abridge her right of free speech, because they are not the government. When they act as individuals, even organized individuals, they're not subject to the First Amendment.

In fact, if there is a First Amendment argument to be made, it's on behalf of the protesters. The law is clear that they had the right to express their opinion.

A better argument would be that the role of a university is to promote open and honest inquiry into important subjects. It would be more in keeping with the spirit of free inquiry to allow Dr. Rice to speak and also allow others to express differing opinions.

A counter-argument can be made that Dr. Rice, when she served in the Bush administration, was no model of honesty. I'm not sure that her speech would have furthered honest inquiry - but I don't know what she would have said.

The other consideration is that Dr. Rice wasn't just giving a lecture. She was to speak at Commencement and receive an honorary degree (and a large fee). To many of the protesters, her speaking on campus wasn't as objectionable as her being honored by the university.

To be clear, even an entity required by the First Amendment to respect free speech is not required to promote the speech of any specific individual.

Free speech is a recurring issue at colleges and universities, which are full of people eager to express themselves, some too immature to take a balanced view of issues. They sometimes also have - and I know this as an insider in college administration - leaders who are more intent on public recognition than on intellectual inquiry.

Some years ago, the College Republicans at Oberlin College (I'm an alumnus and was working in the administration there at the time) wanted to fire a 21-gun salute in honor of President Ronald Reagan. This was long enough ago that there may not have been any rules about firearms on campus. In any case, the college administration did not try to block it.

Other students did block it, by simply milling around in the plaza where the guns were to be fired. The local ACLU chapter responded by censuring the college, saying that the college had infringed the College Republicans' rights under the First Amendment.

It didn't appear to me that the college, as an institution, had done any such thing. Again, the First Amendment argument seemed to fall at least equally in the other direction: the students who were milling around in the plaza were exercising their right of free assembly.

Many state universities have developed policies that work well to maintain free speech. At one where I worked, anyone could speak on campus at any time, as long as it did not interfere with classes or any other functions of the university. So protests couldn't take place inside academic buildings during classes, and amplification was allowed at only one location, the portico of the university auditorium. 

The same issue comes up regularly in New York City, with protests outside the United Nations complex. Frequently there are both protesters and counter-protesters, on opposite side of the same issue. The city police assign a separate zone to each group and keep them apart, not to prevent either from speaking, but to keep them from hurting one another.

Perhaps the best example is a well-known incident in history. In 1939, the Daughters of the American Revolution denied the use of Constitution Hall, then the only major concert venue in Washington, D.C., for a recital that Marian Anderson, an African-American singer, was to give before an integrated audience. Partly through the intervention of Eleanor Roosevelt, Anderson sang instead in an open-air concert on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, to a live audience of 75,000 (far more than the capacity of Constitution Hall) and a radio audience in the millions.

I said that I don't know what Dr. Rice would have said at Rutgers. Although I don't respect or even trust her very much, I think it would be best if she were to give the speech somewhere else or, if that is not practical, publish it.

Teaching altruism

Teachers know that learning proceeds best when we comment on what a student does, not who the student is. For example, it is better to say, “I see that you studied hard for the math test” instead of “You’re really good at math.”

That’s partly in order not to create persistent negative expectations when the outcome isn’t ideal. It’s easy for a student to conclude, “I’m really lousy at math” (or “I’m really lousy at Hebrew”) instead of thinking, “This subject requires some extra effort.”

Another reason, however, is to avoid creating anxiety about repeating a success. In that situation, it is even more helpful to interpret the student’s work to him or her and not state a simple judgment.

This seems to be the case consistently for academic learning, but some new research suggests that it doesn’t apply for moral development. 

Research had already demonstrated that it can be difficult to transmit ethical values to children. For example, an Israeli study of 591 families found that parents who valued compassion and kindness did not necessarily inculcate those values in their children.

The new research suggests that, for moral values, it may sometimes be better to praise a child for being a certain type of person than for doing a certain type of thing. Although many parents and teachers believe it is better to say, “That was a thoughtful thing to do” than “You are a thoughtful person,” the research leads to the opposite conclusion.

In one study, children who donated some of their winnings in a game to others were randomly assigned to three  groups. Children in one group received praise for doing something helpful, while those in the second were told that they donated because they were helpful people. The third group was told neither.

Weeks later, eight-year-olds in the second group were found to be more altruistic than those in either the first group or the third. One lesson that has been drawn is that praising a child’s identity is more effective than praising the child’s behavior.

That conclusion might not apply to younger or older children. Neither praise for behavior nor praise for identity increased feelings of altruism in five-year-olds, and both increased feelings of altruism in ten-year-olds.

On the other hand, both kinds of praise increased the likelihood that children would donate again, in all three age groups.

Popular reports on this research, such as a widely-quoted New York Times op-ed by Adam Grant of the University of Pennsylvania, have somewhat misrepresented the research results. Based on that study, we could conclude only that praising identity over behavior is effective with eight-year-olds, not necessarily at other ages.

A different study found that young children (ages three through six) were more likely to help with a task when asked to “be a helper” rather than “to help.” Research also found that exhortation “not to be a cheater” was more effective than “not to cheat.”

Those two studies suggest that helping children to develop a favorable self-image has stronger effects on behavior than only teaching desirable behavior. It’s what I’d expect: once you see yourself as helpful or kind, making the helpful or kind choice is almost automatic.

Rabbi Geoffrey Mitelman compared these research studies to the Four Children in the Passover haggadah. Nowadays we object, rightly, to labeling children unnecessarily, but the research suggests that very judicious labeling (not calling a child a rasha, wicked one) might be beneficial. Rabbi Mitelman writes:

While we may still grapple with the Haggadah “labeling” children, the truth is, our behaviors create our identity, and our identity informs our behavior. After all, some of us relish being "the curious one" or "the provocative one," some of us are always just happy to be together with friends and family, and some of us need to be shown what we are missing. 

In the end, Passover reminds us that we are free, which means that we have the freedom to choose how we act. Yet those actions will ultimately define who we are.

So with all the questions this holiday encourages, perhaps the most important one is, “What kind of person do you want to be?”

BDS

It was news when the American Studies Association adopted a boycott of Israeli academic institutions. It was news when a major American religious denomination once again considered a divestment of companies that operate in Israel.

The reaction of the Jewish community in the United States wasn’t news. For the most part, our reaction was predictable.

There is no question in my mind about it: we should support Israel and oppose all of the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (“BDS”) proposals.

What we shouldn’t do is denounce all such talk as anti-Jewish. Many of us criticize Israel ourselves. 

We shouldn’t ignore it, either. The underlying goal of the BDS movement is to deny legitimacy to the State of Israel. Using criticisms that have some validity, it tried to influence people who mean well and whose concerns about the living conditions of Palestinians are genuine. 

The model appears to be the divestment movement against South Africa in the 1970s. The situations, however, are not equivalent or even parallel.

First: the government of Israel is elected by all the citizens of Israel, including Arab Muslims and Christians. (About one million Arabs are citizens of Israel.) Non-Jewish citizens of Israel can and do hold seats in the Knesset. South Africa had a white government in which black citizens had no role and few rights.

Second: South Africa enforced discrimination based on race and made it paramount in everything. There was even a government panel that could “change” a person’s race in official records. Israel supports a parallel Arab school system that has considerable autonomy, and protects the religious rights of non-Jews. 

This does not mean that we should be willfully oblivious to human-rights issues or to the hardships that residents of the Palestinian Authority and Gaza encounter.  Nor does it mean that Protestant denominations concerned about the conditions under which Arab Christians live should be willfully oblivious to the safety of Israelis.

For example, it is undeniable that security checkpoints can pose severe inconvenience. It should be obvious, however, that the inconvenience could be reduced if the risk of suicide attacks inside Israel were less.

Security checkpoints especially affect residents of the P.A. who work in Israel, so it should be equally obvious that any economic boycott of Israel would affect them along with Israelis.

And it should be obvious that denouncing critics of Israel as anti-Jewish is neither right nor productive. Here’s what Jerry Silverman (Jewish Federations of North America) and Rabbi Steve Gutow (Jewish Council for Public Affairs) suggest as our response to proponents of boycotts, divestment, or sanctions:

One principle that guides this work is that we should understand our audiences. And when we speak with others, we should do so with a respect for the sensitivities of that constituency so that our important messages are authentically heard. Whether on a campus, in a church or speaking with an LGBT group, we should always be clear that we stand as partners, sharing the goal of a future with peace and security — not one of conflict and BDS.

Experience and research demonstrate that what works best with these audiences—mostly made up of political and religious progressives — is not an all-good-vs.-all-bad characterization of Israelis and Palestinians. Instead, a more nuanced narrative is the one that is likely to defeat the one-sided and hostile stance of those seeking to delegitimize Israel.

This means honestly conveying the situation’s complexity, expressing empathy for suffering on both sides (without implying moral equivalency) and offering a constructive pathway to helping the parties move toward peace and reconciliation based on two states for two peoples.

Boring!

Most students would say that school—secular school or religious school—is boring.

That may be no surprise to anyone. School subjects just aren’t as interesting as, say, the Kardashians.

What is surprising is that students say that school is often more boring than it needs to be. In other words, that we make it boring.

Grant Wiggins, the co-originator of the Understanding By Design approach that we use in some classes, surveyed students about this and then asked classroom teachers to have students write essays about what makes school boring. Students cited the same common practices over and over.

The most boring practice, according to students, is one that doesn’t affect my school: the misuse of PowerPoint. Making PowerPoint presentations is too time-consuming to do for a single class session. It appeals more to teachers who will give the same class five times in one day and repeat it every year.

Students thought that PowerPoint was useful when a presentation needed to include non-verbal content such as visual images or film clips. They said it was boring when the teacher read the content of the slides and expected them to take notes.

Reading aloud from the textbook also got low marks. Alas, we tend to do that in Hebrew school, partly because we don’t assign reading as homework.

On the other hand, having students read the textbook on their own during class time didn’t rate much better. To students, that came across as a demand that they learn the subject on their own, that they teach themselves.

If a school uses textbooks at all, it is difficult to reconcile these three things: no assigned reading as homework, no reading aloud during class, and no reading on one’s own during class, either.

According to some of the essays that Wiggins collected, the real problem with reading in class is that there is often too much of it in a single stretch. 

One of the most striking points in the essays was that students want teachers to teach. That can mean various things, but the students had in mind (a) interacting with students, and (b) varying the methods during each class session.

The first of these is reminiscent of President James Garfield’s comment about Mark Hopkins, a nineteenth-century educator who was the president of Williams College for 36 years. Garfield defined a university as “Mark Hopkins on one end of a log and a student on the other. “

The oldest model we have for Jewish education is that of one of the ancient rabbis with students gathered around him—no PowerPoint. The students learned chiefly through discussion with their rabbi. While they would read earlier rabbinic texts, their study emphasized extracting the most possible meaning from short extracts. They had no state-mandated tests.

The rabbis of old did not vary their teaching methods much, if at all. But there is also historic Jewish guidance for that, from Maimonides in the Mishneh Torah. Maimonides says that if a teacher has taught the lesson and a student does not understand, the teacher must teach the lesson again. The Hebrew word he uses, however, can be read to mean that the teacher should teach the lesson differently the second time.

Time to end the war on Hanukkah

Since the day after Thanksgiving, television, even public television, has been all Christmas, all the time.

Nevertheless, I predict that it will not be long before James Dobson, Bill O’Reilly, and others start to complain about the so-called War on Christmas. In recent years they’ve been fixated on the practices of retail merchants: should store associates say “Happy Holidays” or “Merry Christmas”? 

One year I was interviewed by a reporter for local television news. The station was planning a feature about this War on Christmas and wanted me to be the representative of our small Jewish community. Would I be offended if a cashier said “Merry Christmas” to me?

I replied that I tried to accept the greeting in the spirit in which it was intended, but usually responded with “Happy New Year.” This was the only part of the interview that they used.

I did add that most people say what is comfortable and familiar, but also said that it’s not much of a problem in real life.

The reporter somehow concluded that I had no problem with Christmas trees, Christmas carols, Christmas concerts, or Christmas parties in public schools. I told her that public schools were a different question, because the school district is an arm of government and the Establishment Clause of the Constitution applies, and because school attendance is compulsory. She seemed startled again. News reporters for small-town stations are usually just out of college.

[In fact, I don't object to religious music in public schools, as long as (a) singing it isn't compulsory, and (b) it's not intended to be a religious observance. In the Jewish world today, I am out in left field on this. Also, I admit that children may perceive it as religiously motivated even if the school officials do not.]

So where did this War on Christmas idea originate? Not with Fox News, and not with Focus on the Family. 

The claim that there is a War on Christmas really originates with anti-Semitic, white nationalist groups. Max Blumenthal traces it to one Peter Brimelow, a former editor of Fortune magazine. The idea was briefly taken up by the National Review; when that magazine dropped it, Brimelow founded VDare.com, an anti-immigration web site named for the first European child born in America, Virginia Dare. According to Blumenthal, Jared Taylor, a white supremacist publisher, and Kevin MacDonald, an evolutionary psychology professor who has argued that Jews are genetically equipped to out-compete Gentiles, joined Brimelow there. The Southern Poverty Law Center describes VDare as a hate group.

So please understand why I’m suspicious of claims that it subjects Christianity to unfair discrimination if anyone at all says “Happy Holidays.” 

From the point of view of a Jewish educator (my training), these complaints about a War on Christmas constitute a War on Hanukkah, in various senses. First, it’s a claim that the United States is a Christian nation, maybe even a Christians-only nation. Since Jews have lived here since 1654, when New York was still New Amsterdam, and most Americans are proud of our country’s history of welcoming people of many faiths and ethnic backgrounds, this is a strange idea.

Second, it’s a claim that there is pervasive discrimination against Christianity and Christians in the United States. Given that Christianity is more successful here than in any other modern democracy, maybe even more successful than in some medieval monarchies where the king could force it on everyone at the point of a sword, such a claim is bizarre. If any religion is suffering from discrimination in the U.S., it’s not Christianity.

Finally, it attempts—through Focus on the Family’s boycott of merchants that use “happy holidays”—to punish those who acknowledge that some of their potential customers might celebrate a holiday other than Christmas, or no holiday. One year there were also objections to Best Buy’s advertising for Eid Al-Adha.

So let’s all give up the War on Hanukkah (and on other celebrations). Let individuals say whatever they like as a greeting, including saying nothing. Let retailers do whatever they think is best for business. And let’s all stop using a mendacious and unnecessary defense of religion to gain political advantage, build ratings, or raise money.

Vayera: Virtue & the occasional miss

Based on a drash given at Congregation Kol Ami, Elmira, NY, on October 18, 2013.

Parashat Vayera really contains too much good material for one drash. We find

• Abraham and Sarah's welcoming the m'lachim who announce that Sarah will bear a son. From this we learn the mitzvah of hachnasat orchim, welcoming guests. (Dare one ask whether, if Abraham and Sarah had been less hospitable, they would have received the joyous news?)
• The destruction of Sodom and Gemorrah, where Abraham pleads with God for the lives of the people if even as few as ten righteous persons can be found. This episode is sometimes cited to explain how Noah was righteous only "in his time"--instructed to build the ark and save his family plus exemplars of all the land animals, he complies, but apparently gives no thought to the lives of other humans or animals.
• A repetition of Abraham's passing Sarah off as his sister--to save his own skin at her expense (if God didn't intervene).
• The expulsion of Hagar and Ishmael, where Abraham once again pleads for the life of the boy (his son), and God tells him to do what Sarah wants. Strangely, the rabbis of old did not use this as a proof text to show that husbands should obey their wives, but we've had women rabbis only since 1972.
• The akedah, the binding of Isaac, where Abraham, who argued for the lives of the righteous in Sodom, unquestioningly sets about killing his other son, the one he loves more.

And that's not even everything.

Traditional commentators cited most of these passages as the sources for various mitzvot that we should learn. They drew a different lesson from the Gerar episode, where Abraham says that Sarah is his sister. It's patently discreditable, and unlike the others, contains nothing that we should emulate (not even blind obedience as in the akedah, a test that many of us today would say that Abraham failed).

For the episodes that don't reflect credit on Abraham, the traditional interpretation is to emphasize the truthfulness of the Torah: it shows us the bad as long with the good. While we are supposed to emulate the examples of the patriarchs, we're also supposed to use some judgment in choosing which ones to emulate.

We can also draw a slightly different lesson from this parashah. While Abraham's virtue is a pervasive thread in this parashah and in others, I would say that the lesson from the not-so-virtuous episodes is to show us that, since even an exemplar of heroic virtue wasn't perfect, we shouldn't be too hard on ourselves when we aren't, as long as we keep trying to do better. This is in the same line as seeing Yom Kippur as predominantly forward-looking: what are we going to do now, regardless of what we did before?

I used to work for a shul in Los Angeles that considered advertising on cable television, right among the car dealers offering financing for customers with bad credit, the hucksters selling supplements of dubious safety and efficacy, and the dentists offering cheap extractions. I wondered what exactly the synagogue would advertise: two days of Rosh Hashanah for the price of one?

The plan wasn't pursued, but only because the congregation's service area was split between two cable companies, and it was too expensive to advertise on both.

My neighborhood in Los Angeles, however, had a church that advertised on cable TV, with a wonderful ad. The pastor looked into the camera and said (as best I can remember)

Our church is for people just like you.
None of us is perfect, but we all try to help one another lead better lives.
Come and meet us this Sunday.

Can any Jewish congregation in America say that? If I found one, I would move there and join it.

As far as I can see, we all feel pressure to pretend that our lives are already perfect, to keep up appearances. From my years as a synagogue administrator, I know that, while some members who experience financial reverses will seek to adjust their contributions, most drop their memberships and disappear. If we're having personal difficulties or one of our children is, we try to keep others thinking that everything is just dandy.

This also affects how we welcome strangers, or mostly don't welcome strangers. I have felt fully welcomed in many congregations outside the United States, even in Canada, but rarely when I visit another synagogue in the U.S. I'm not sure what is going on--maybe it's just clannishness, or we choose ushers who are exceptionally shy.

But what I often see, especially when the stranger is a new resident and therefore a prospective member, is that instead of asking what our congregation could do for the stranger, we think about what the stranger could do for us. Would s/he join and pay dues? How much? Will the person attend services and help to make a minyan? Is s/he likely to be an enthusiastic volunteer?

Why don't we think more about how the congregation could help the newcomer? I'm not thinking merely of tangible forms of help, but also of spiritual sustenance, of becoming part of a community and developing relationships. Really, it's no wonder that Jews stay away in droves.

Don't tell me how religious you are

The nature of my job and the location of my office seem to encourage people in the local Jewish community to share all their complaints about the synagogue--I mean ritual--with me. And because the synagogue was formed by the relatively recent merger of Reform and formerly Conservative congregations, everyone has something to complain about.

Sharing complaints with me is futile if they actually want anything to change. I'm not even a dues-paying member of the congregation, so I have less influence than anyone else. And if they want commiseration and support, the prospects still aren't good. I'm one of the tiny number of religious centrists in the community; I can do Reform or Conservative (or Reconstructionist) and my preference is smack dab in the middle.

The current crop of complaints comes mostly from the right, the "Conservadox" end of the Conservative spectrum. The most heated issue is whether it was OK for members from the Reform-leaning faction of the congregation to do a work of gemilut hasadim on the second day of Rosh Hashanah, taking into account that the people in that faction have never celebrated the second day and don't intend to begin. From their point of view, it wasn't a yom tov at all--just Friday.

Then there's the issue of what time Neilah should end on Yom Kippur. And that there was no musaf in the morning services (musaf isn't in the machzor we use, On Wings of Awe).

I don't like it when people tell me that they are "religious"--as if I and others are not--and object to [whatever]. 

This week I thought of a response, but not in time to use it effectively. I should have replied by asking, "Is your sukkah up yet?"

You see, not even one of these "religious" people builds a sukkah at home. 

I have to confess that my sukkah wasn't complete in time for sunset on erev Sukkot. I had three consecutive board meetings on Tuesday, which would have been the best day to build it. On Wednesday I found that some of the components were too far out of square to use and had to buy hardware; then I stopped work for Hebrew school. But at least I had the frame up, with only the shade cloth for the side walls and the shchach left to put up.

So don't tell me how religious you are if you don't build a sukkah. 

No, you don't have to build a sukkah. But if you don't, maybe you shouldn't portray yourself as the guardian of traditional Judaism. What you mean is that you've chosen to base your Jewish identity on being finicky about one or two points that are no more central to others' understanding of Judaism than the sukkah is to yours.

While you're at it, don't position yourself as the defender of "true Conservative Judaism" and then tell me that you're cooking shrimp on the barbecue. You don't have to keep kosher. You can be a good Reform Jew without it. And so forth.