THE BALD AND THE BEAUTIFUL or BURNING TEMPLES AND BATHING BEAUTIES

There are some reservations these days about whether we should be observing Tishah B’av or not. Israel is reborn and Jerusalem is more beautiful than ever—what’s with all this mourning?

In fact, there are many good reasons to continue these mourning traditions, including a day to reflect on how the errors of the Jewish people brought about this destruction. But among those good reasons is one which is rarely mentioned and that is a day to celebrate the resilience of the Jewish people. Our temple was destroyed, the city in which God presumably resided was left a smoldering ruin, and many of us were exiled or taken captive to another land. This should have been the end of us, but for some reason, it wasn’t. We redefined Jewish worship, made our spiritual lives independent of a single city, latched onto Torah study with a vengeance, and emerged 20 centuries later a sovereign nation once again. That’s pretty cool. And there is a message in there for all people.

One of those people may not be anyone who ever studied about Judaism, but one who carries the spirit of Judaism in her heart. Her name is Kayla Martell. She was recently crowned Miss Delaware. Kayla is unique because she is bald. She suffers from a rare disease known as alopecia areata, an autoimmune hair loss condition for which there is no known cure. She is healthy in all other respects, but given her hair condition, entering a beauty contest would not be the first thing on most women’s minds. Not Kayla. She has entered many beauty contests. She wore a wig for the Miss Delaware pageant, but is as comfortable without the wig. She is also the founder of Caps for YAPS (YAPS standing for Youth Alopecia Patients), an organization which has now collected more than 2,000 caps and scarves for young patients afflicted with this disease.

In discovering more about Kayla, I began to wonder what is it in the human spirit that allows us to face loss and failure, and in spite of it all, persevere and thrive. She could so easily have crawled into a corner and hide, yet she competes for the crown to rest on that bald head of hers. And what is it with the Jewish people—homeless for two thousand years, exiled from one place to another, blamed and persecuted for a crime they never committed, yet stronger and more self-confident than ever before?

I’ll tell you the secret behind Kayla and the Jewish people—it is the power and energy of God. And so each morning, we thank God for oter Yisra’el betifarah, crowning Israel with beauty. The Jewish people are beauty queens, our beauty, as is Kayla’s, is in an indomitable spirit that will forever strive for life in spite of all the challenges we face.

SINAT HIMAM AND TALKING POLITICS

Right now, the Jewish people are in a certain time of year known as bein hametzarim, “Between the Straits” or “in the narrows.” It is a three week period that began with the minor fast of Shivah Asar b’Tammuz, commemorating the breaching of the walls of Jerusalem by the Babylonians in 586 BCE, and ends with the major fast of Tishah B’av, commemorating the destruction of the two Temples, the first by the Babylonians and the second, later by the Romans. The Gemara in Yoma 9b states that the Temple was destroyed because of sinat hinam, senseless hatred. I often think of that phrase as redundant because so much hatred is senseless. Hatred moves us to say and do stupid things. And when an entire population crescendos in the number of stupid statements uttered or acts committed, some revered structure, a Temple is bound to be burnt to the ground.

Sinat hinam is never more prevalent than when people talk politics. It is as if politics were a license for one or more parties to become uncivil, if not downright brutal. The shame is that argument is healthy and essential to a democracy, but when people are either intimidated to speak freely or humiliated for having spoken, debate fails to do what it is intended to do—clarify our thinking on issues that matter to us most. So, in the interest of identifying sinat hinam among us and thereby rooting it out of our own political exchanges, I offer the following three tips—

1.   Remain calm and relatively objective. The idea in debate is to create light, not heat. Shouting, name calling, or profanities, prevents the issue at hand from being fully examined. Engaging in such crude tactics will dash the opportunity to further understand the point being debated. This leads to the second issue which is…

2.   Address the issue without attacking your debating partner. You need not tell the other person that his or her views are personally offensive or hurtful, because your debating partner is not what is being discussed. Moreover, you should never humiliate your debating partner by questioning his or her intelligence, or knowledge, or sincerity. These attacks are all irrelevant to the matter at hand. So stick to the issue. And finally…

3.   Remember that your fellow debater is not the enemy to be vanquished but a person whose view point you ought to, in the very least acknowledge. Be civil, polite, and respectful. Avoid sarcasm. Thank God you’ve got someone who will talk to you about so potentially divisive a topic as politics. But should you choose to point your verbal gun at your debating partner, you will bring the debate to a close summarily. Debate isn’t about killing each other; it’s about gaining clarity of thought. That requires civility throughout.

We should not fear political discussions. I wish we had them more often. Sadly, there are so many people who just don’t get it. Sinat hinam is of no use in any community unless, of course, you intend to destroy that community.