Experience and empathy

Last month I wrote about fostering “prosocial behavior” in children, and described three theories of how it develops. 

I said that, according to one theory,  the ability to perceive and react to another’s distress—empathy—is hard-wired in humans. Researchers believe this because it can be observed in children as young as one year, too young to have been taught it.

Other research, however, suggests that very young children are not too young to be taught. They may be too young to be taught in words, but not too young too learn.

This research posits that a newborn’s concern for his or her own needs—for example, the crying of a hungry baby—provides the basis for learning to care for the needs of others. Its conclusion is that the way parents and caregivers respond, or whether they respond, to an infant’s cries teaches the infant whether or not individual needs and feelings matter to others.

If parents and caregivers respond when a baby cries, the child learns that they care about his or her needs, and begins to develop a capacity to perceive and respond to the needs of others. If parents and caregivers don’t respond, the child learns that his or her needs aren’t important, and extrapolates from it that no one’s needs and feelings are important.

In real life, few parents respond to an infant’s needs 100 percent of the time, and few ignore an infant’s needs 100 percent of the time. If this research is correct, it suggest that deliberately withholding care—“letting the baby cry it out”—may be teaching the infant to ignore feelings, both his or her own, and those of everyone else.

That idea seems to reflect an industrial approach to child-rearing, where everything is regulated and scheduled. Indeed, we associate this style most strongly with 19th-century Britain and Germany, during the industrial revolution.

Israeli kibbutzim had an extreme take on industrial child-rearing. It used to be the case that all children on a kibbutz lived together in a “children’s house” under the supervision of a few adults whose assigned job it was. Children would spend only a few hours a day with their parents, never at mealtimes or overnight.

Research on this communal child-rearing draws mixed conclusions. Although the attention of a trained metapelet (nanny) during the day was largely beneficial, the absence of responsive care at night,  when “night guards” were fewer and less trained, seems to have been harmful. However, specific effects on empathy seem not to have been studied.

No kibbutz today has communal sleeping for children.

Do we need persecution?

A column last month by Paul Brandeis Raushenbush had a startling title: “Thank You Westboro Baptist Church.”

It was startling because Raushenbush is an outspoken liberal. Westboro Baptist is the extremely conservative church that, among other things, pickets military funerals. Its leader, Fred Phelps, stated that the Newtown killings were Divine retribution for gay rights.

Westboro has also picketed Jewish institutions, including Hebrew Union College and Brandeis University. Raushenbush, although an American Baptist minister, is of Jewish ancestry, the great-grandson of Justice Louis D. Brandeis (and of the famed “social gospel” preacher Walter Raushenbush).

So why is Raushenbush grateful to Westboro Baptist? One reason is that Westboro makes explicit what other groups, trying to seem less extreme, only imply: “This small church of no more than 40 people has created a vivid example of the logical conclusion of self-described ‘Bible-believing Christians’—they just haven't started stoning adulterers or seafood lovers. When Mike Huckabee and Bryan Fischer blame the Newtown shooting on banning school prayer, they place themselves along the continuum with Westboro Baptist Church.”

Another is that Westboro has achieved something that seemed impossible: unifying the country. “It has taken a crazy band of anti-gay zealots to bring us all together, and in this age of deep political, religious and social division, we can all thank them for that.”

This line of thought comes perilously close to the claim that the Jewish people has survived, not in spite of discrimination and persecution, but because of discrimination and persecution. In other words, that exclusion and bad treatment by non-Jews drive us together.

I really hope that being the subjects of persecution is not the only thing that binds us together. I’d like to think that other things, such as the love of Torah and the teachings of the Prophets, are more important to our collective psyche.

Sociologists have studied the forces that bring and hold groups together. Shared experiences and rituals are among the most important. These include secular activities. Think, for example, of Japanese auto companies where all employees sing the company song together at the start of each day.They include behaviors that we don’t always think of as rituals, such as wearing the team colors on game days.

You could say that it’s our worship rituals that have held the Jewish people together, and there is some truth to that. The need to pray in a minyan of ten adults keeps us from becoming hermits or other kinds of extreme individualists, and when we share rituals, we become stronger as a group.

Religious rituals, however, aren’t the whole story. All group activities within a community have a bonding effect. Rev. Connie Seifert, a Methodist minister in Corning, speaks evocatively of the church suppers of her childhood, which integrated children into the church community even before they were old enough to participate in Sunday services.

I’m inclined to think that all activities within the Jewish community strengthen us as a group, even those that have no religious content.

They have this effect, however, only to the extent that we participate in them. In a traditional community, religious services had a major role in binding us together; they still function that way, but because we are not all religious in the same ways, we also look to other events.

We don’t all have the same tastes in entertainment or education, either, so not every possible event will appeal equally to every community member. Nevertheless, participation in as many events as possible is good for the community and for our feeling of connectedness.

The program committee of our Jewish Center is experimenting this year with some programs that aren’t explicitly Jewish. Because Jewish life is central to our mission, our efforts in secular programming have been modest so far, but we think that they’re worthwhile.  We hope that participating in them helps everyone to feel more connected to one another.

One non-Jewish program that we didn’t schedule for this year was a hockey excursion. Instead, we’re hoping to set up a baseball program this summer. Go Pioneers!

Examples, not rewards

Some years ago I worked in a Hebrew school that had a program to reward students for various kinds of good behavior: giving tzedakah, arriving at school on time, helping the teacher during class, doing mitzvot outside of class. A student who did any of these things would receive a “Mitzvah Dollar” that could be spent in the school “Mitzvah Store” at the end of the year.

The only good result I saw from this was that it made it easy to teach the Hebrew word שמש (shamash, helper). The other effects—in particular, trying to get Mitzvah Bucks without putting in too much effort—were deleterious.

Research on “prosocial behavior” partly explains why the Mitzvah Bucks didn’t work as intended.

Scientists have three theories about how, or whether, children learn prosocial behavior. One theory is that the ability to perceive and react to another’s distress is hard-wired in humans. It can be observed in children as young as one year, too young to have been taught it.

This theory holds that the capacity is at least partially genetic. For example, identical twins react to a third person’s distress more like each other than do fraternal twins. They say, however, that this effect is small, a by-product of personality characteristics that experience also influences.

The second theory is that social behavior follows from motivation: it feels good to help other people. That’s hardly news, but brain research shows that giving to others activates the same parts of the brain as winning money for oneself.

The third is that good behavior derives from social cognition—the recognition that other people have needs and goals. 

The second and third theories are compatible: cognitive understanding accompanied by a motivational reward reinforces prosocial behavior. 

What is absent from these theories is any suggestion that external rewards encourage prosocial behavior. The research shows that financial rewards can undermine prosocial behavior. 

So what should parents and teachers do? The first step is to model both prosocial behavior and its roots. In particular, we can help children learn empathy by explaining how others feel. For example, we might say, “It hurts Tommy when you hit him,” or “Sally feels sad because she’s left out.”

We should also be sure to offer opportunities to do good that our children will see as voluntary. And we should teach our children to perceive themselves as kind, generous, and helpful.

We should also help children understand and manage their own emotions. Sometimes empathy becomes a barrier to helping, because a child feels the emotion too strongly to respond appropriately.

We shouldn’t offer material rewards. The expectation of a reward is at cross-purposes with altruism. 

Religious educators are sometimes unsure how to  handle the promise of Divine rewards, that is, in the hereafter. It appears that the promise of a reward in the afterlife isn’t very effective in religions that emphasize it. Mainstream Judaism emphasizes doing good for its own sake, not for a future reward.

Praying too loudly!

In October, Anat Hoffman was arrested for praying too loudly. The arrest took place in Jerusalem, at the Kotel—the Western Wall. She was taken to jail and held overnight.

Anat Hoffman is the leader of Nashot HaKotel, the Women of the Wall. This is a group of women in Israel who have pressed for years for equal religious rights for women at the Kotel.

By government policy, the area in front of the Kotel is administered as if it were an Orthodox synagogue. There are separate sections for men and women, with a high barrier separating them, just like a mechitzah in a traditional synagogue. Traditional Judaism forbids men from seeing (or hearing) women while they (the men) are at prayer.

It may be hard to imagine that women don’t have the right to pray as they wish, at least in the women’s section, but that’s the case. The Women of the Wall go to the Kotel every month on Rosh Hodesh and attempt to pray the full morning service, including the reading of Torah, with some women wearing tallitot. Once in a while it goes smoothly; often they are forced to move away from the Kotel, to a location called Robinson’s Arch; sometimes they are attacked violently.

They say, “As Women of the Wall, our central mission is to achieve the social and legal recognition of our right, as women, to wear prayer shawls, pray, and read from the Torah collectively and out loud at the Western Wall.”

An Israeli law—nominally secular law—enacted in 1981 however, prohibits “conducting a religious ceremony contrary to accepted practice” and “wearing unfit attire.” In fact, it prohibits conducting any religious services without permission from the local official of the Ministry of Religious Affairs. A provision forbidding “a religious ceremony not according to local custom, which may hurt the feelings of the worshipers toward the place” was added to the regulations especially to limit the worship by the Women of the Wall.

What got Anat Hoffman into trouble was, ostensibly, that her voice could be heard on the men’s side. In addition to not seeing women while at prayer, Orthodox men consider themselves prohibited from hearing women’s voices. In a traditional synagogue, if the voices from the women’s section or gallery become audible, men will shout “Kol isha! Voice of a woman!” until all is quiet. Other women have been arrested just for wearing tallitot.

There was no gender separation at the Kotel before 1948. I have seen photographs from the days in 1967 just after the reunification of Jerusalem when separate men’s and women’s sections at the Kotel didn’t exist. Today, however, it is divided, with  police authority behind the separation. The Kotel even has its own police force.

There is no easy solution when some Jews feel unable to pray as they choose if other Jews are allowed to pray as they choose, and there is only one Kotel. The Women of the Wall do not consider Robinson’s Arch an acceptable substitute: it was built during Herod’s expansion of the Temple around 20 B.C.E. and is not considered a sacred area, and because it is an active archaeological site, there are other restrictions on access to it.

The next Rosh Hodesh, for the month of Tevet, falls on December 14. The easiest way to keep up with activities of the Women of the Wall is to “like” their page (Women of the Wall Nashot HaKotel) on facebook.

The film and my grandmother

My grandmother held some beliefs that now strike us as slightly odd. One was that we Jews should go out of our way to respect Christian religious sensibilities.

For example, if she saw a home with laundry hanging outdoors on a Sunday, she would say, “I hope those aren’t Jewish people.” Because Sunday isn’t our Sabbath, we are certainly allowed to do laundry on Sunday. But she felt that conspicuously violating our neighbors’ Sabbath was wrong.

Most of us would no longer have that concern. I’ll admit, however, that I still feel uncomfortable about mowing my lawn on Sunday morning—but in a climate where it can easily rain for six consecutive days, I cut the grass whenever I can.

Most of us still try not to give deliberate and unnecessary offense.  That seems not to have been the case with the film Innocence of Muslims, the Arabic-dubbed trailer for which seems to have provoked riots in several countries and led to the assassination of Chris Stevens, the U.S. ambassador to Libya, and three of his staff.

Reports are still coming in about both the film and the assassination. The producer of the film, who called himself Sam Bacile, claimed to be an Israeli Jew and an American citizen, although the government of Israel denied any knowledge of him. The online magazine Tablet reports that the president of the production company was listed as Youssef Basseley, which sounds somewhat like Bacile. A man named Yousseff M. Basseley was convicted of bank fraud in Federal court in California in 2010.

Accounts of the film itself describe it as badly written and crudely produced. Actors say that they were duped about the nature of the film, and one actress states that her lines, originally not referring to Mohammed or Islam, were dubbed in post-production to change their references into religious ones. A posting at the On the Media blog confirms the dubbing, saying that it is obvious to both eye and ear.

There was more reason to doubt Bacile’s claim to be an Israeli Jew. In the U.S.. Bacile or Basile is usually an Arabic name, and postings on a YouTube account from which the film trailer was uploaded, associated with a Sam Bacile, are all in Arabic, not Hebrew or English. That account’s only “favorite” on YouTube is a video posted by a conservative Egyptian political party.

At this point it’s impossible to tell what the producer, whatever his name is, hoped to accomplish. I found it hard to believe that he thought such a bad film would have widespread influence in the United States, or that any Israeli would think that it would somehow help Israel. I didn’t reject the idea that the real purpose was to support radical Islamist parties in the Middle East.

However, it was eventually reported that his real name is Nakoula Basseley Nakoula and that he is a Coptic Christian.

Whatever the intention was, some things are clear.

First: it’s wrong to kill anyone because of a film, novel, or painting that you consider blasphemous. That applies not only to our diplomats in Libya, who had nothing to do with the film, but also to the actual authors, producers, and artists. It’s wrong even in cultures that say it’s right.

Second: although the First Amendment guarantees our right to say and publish almost anything we want, there are times when restraint may be the most effective strategy. We don’t need to make public criticisms of those aspects of another religion that don’t affect us directly, and anything we do say needs to be 100% accurate.

Third: we should try not to confuse religious and political disagreements. The theological differences between Judaism and Islam are small compared to those between either of them and Christianity. The conflict between Israel and the neighboring Arab countries is political, not religious.

Other points are less clear. We generally wouldn’t object to a joke that made fun of Moses or Jeremiah (although it is hard to think of anything funny about Jeremiah). Christians might tolerate a joke about Jesus or the Virgin Mary, but many would consider it inappropriate for most settings. Many have protested works of art that they felt showed disrespect for Christianity, Jesus, or the Cross.

Muslims, however, would not tolerate anything that appeared to ridicule or defame Mohammed, even if it were clear that the intent was humor. Does this make it more objectionable to joke about Mohammed than about Moses?

A realistic answer seems to be yes. If my grandmother wouldn’t even hang laundry outdoors on Sunday, I think I should avoid deliberately causing serious offense. Remember that the objection is in the mind of the recipient. There are some jokes we might tell one another that we would consider anti-Jewish if others told them.

Does this mean that Islam is off-limits for criticism? The answer to that has to be no, the same as it is with respect to any other religion. For example, if a student in our religious school were to ask “Is Jesus the same as God?” his or her teacher, although avoiding disrespect for Christian belief, will reply that Jews believe otherwise.

There are certain questions that should be asked whenever we speak about other religions: Is what we are saying true? Are we saying it to express our own beliefs, or for some other purpose? Is there a genuine need to say it at all?

Right to pray?

Did my fifth-grade teacher, in public school, cross the line when she taught a lesson about the story of Palm Sunday?

My parents thought that she had. So did the parents of the two other Jewish students.  On the other hand, my parents didn’t object to the school’s having a Christmas tree, as long as we weren’t instructed in the Christmas story.
This happened when school-sponsored prayer and Bible reading were still permitted in public schools; the Supreme Court ruling that ended them was a year away.

The situation today is different. Many Jewish parents are pleased if a teacher asks them to teach the class about Hanukkah. (It is rare to be asked to teach a class about Passover, Rosh Hashanah, or any other Jewish holiday.) In general, we support multicultural education as long as it doesn’t become indoctrination.

Some states, in fact, require multicultural education and have set curricula for it. Where multicultural education is required, school children will be taught a certain amount about each of many cultures whether or not there is a child of that background in the class. Ideally, the presentation is accurate and neutral: it should be a form of social studies, not a form of religious education.

A different issue arose recently in Missouri, where the legislature has voted to place a “right to pray” measure on the November ballot. On the surface, this seems unnecessary, because the right to pray is already guaranteed.
The Missouri measure includes something else: in essence, the right not to learn. It would exempt children from having to learn anything that was contrary to their family’s religious belief. They could be excused from attending certain lessons and, presumably, from being tested on that material.

The issue, of course, is evolutionary biology, although it could extend to other subjects. A friend who teaches classical mythology at the college level has had problems with students who wrote Biblical rebuttals of the myths instead of answering the questions on her tests.

I have toyed with the idea of creating a religion that is opposed to division (in mathematics) and, therefore, to any mathematics that might require it. The reasoning goes like this:

1. The Bible says, “Be fruitful and multiply.”
2. Nowhere does the Bible command humans to divide.
3. God, however, divides (for example) the light from the darkness.
4. Therefore, division is reserved for God and humans aren’t allowed to do it.

Accordingly, children brought up in this religion should be excused from math classes beginning in the grade in which division is introduced, and should be allowed to graduate without knowing any math beyond multiplication.

Does this sound ridiculous? I hope so.  But I don’t see science education as indoctrination, nor does my classicist friend see mythology classes that way.

Similarly, I don’t see a grave threat if our children are required to learn a bit about other religions. I would object if they were required to practice any part of another religion or if a school requirement interfered with their practice of Judaism.

Good for the Jews?

In May, Congregation Kol Ami was the starting point for an “Abraham Path” walk, organized by the Southern Tier Interfaith Coalition. About 50 people of all ages and various faiths walked from CKA to The Park Church and back, and then carpooled to the Islamic Center in Big Flats for a meal and a presentation.

An Abraham Path walk recognizes Abraham and Sarah as the common spiritual ancestors of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The original idea is for groups of people to walk parts of the actual route that Abraham and Sarah would have taken from Ur, to Haran, and then to the Land of Israel. Think of Bruce Feiler’s book Walking the Bible, but with interfaith groups. The route passes through remote areas of several countries and is becoming an important source of tourism in those areas.

An alternative, for those who can’t travel to the Middle East or walk for weeks on end, is to walk a local route that includes a synagogue, a church, and a mosque. Even that is difficult here: there are plenty of churches within walking distance of either the synagogue or the mosque, but CKA and the Islamic Center are seven miles apart, with no safe walking route between them.

A confirmation class from the Caton Methodist Church arrived early with Rev. Beth Bouwens for a tour of CKA. In addition to pointing out the artifacts in the large sanctuary that would be found in any synagogue, I explained how the stained-glass windows depict the Jewish holidays in calendar sequence, plus Shabbat. Then I took out a sefer Torah, explained how one is written and how the reading is done, and invited everyone to take a close look.

As we were finishing, a group from the Islamic Association of the Finger Lakes arrived with Imam Zaman Marwat and I repeated the lesson for them. How often has a group of Muslims been invited to the bimah of a synagogue to examine the Torah scroll, here or anywhere?

As we talked, both on the bimah and during the walk, I was struck by the similarities between Jewish and Muslim practices.

To begin, we both have holy books written in a language that most of us have to learn in school (A majority of the world’s Muslims live in countries in which Arabic is not the vernacular.) Furthermore, both the Torah and the Koran were originally written in forms of Hebrew and Arabic that even native speakers of the modern forms of those languages can’t necessarily read easily. We’re both supposed to pray together several times a day—three for Jews, five for Muslims—but not all of us do so. And we both have traditions of chanting our sacred texts according to fixed melodies that aren’t indicated in the texts themselves.

We have special dietary rules that no one else follows. Furthermore, the rules of kashrut and of halal are very similar. At Mt. Holyoke College, there’s a dining hall in which all the food is both kosher and halal.

The similarities should not completely surprise us. Both rabbinic Judaism (the modern, not Biblical, form) and Islam originated in the Middle East and in about the same period. Our rabbis completed the writing of the Talmud only shortly before the composition of the Koran.

Through much of history, Jews and Muslims got along better than either did with Christians. In the Middle Ages, Jews living in Muslim countries had it better than those living in Christian countries.

A few days after our Abraham Path walk, Kansas enacted a law intended to preclude the use of Muslim religious law—sharia—in that state, not that anyone has attempted to impose it. Unlike an Oklahoma law that has already been set aside by a Federal court, the Kansas law does not specifically bar sharia. Instead, it bans the use of any law not originating in the United States. As a result, it is possible that it will meet Constitutional tests and be allowed to stand.

This should concern us because it would also preclude the use of Jewish rabbinic law. Although communities like ours convene a bet din, a rabbinic court, only to formalize conversions to Judaism, Orthodox communities also use a bet din to resolve disputes between their own members.

In New York, the decision of a bet din can, if necessary, be enforced in a civil court. That’s possible because a bet din constitutes a form of binding arbitration: it will only hear a case if both parties consent and if both promise to abide by the decision. That apparently won’t be possible in Kansas. How many Orthodox Jews are there in Kansas? More than you might think, because most of the Jewish community of Kansas City lives in the Kansas suburbs, not in Missouri. There’s a thriving Orthodox community in Overland Park.

Numbers, however, aren’t the point. We tend to ask about anything, “Is it good for the Jews?” Although the Kansas legislators expressed no fear that there would ever be an attempt to impose halachah—Jewish law—on the populace, civil laws intended to prevent the use of religious law even by adherents willing to abide by it are not good for Jews.