Warning: This is not a Torah post. This is not a Life-in-the-Rabbinate or Life-in-the-Kollel post. This is an O Canada post. Skip to another one if you don’t want to hear a rant about something that may not seem like a big deal to you.
Also, while reading this, Americans should keep in mind that the planned US Healthcare plan will require orchestration between state and federal bureaucracies, as well as the IRS... I wish you lots of luck.
So there we were, innocently approaching the Canadian border back on August 18, our passports and papers in hand, complete with a letter from our beit midrash attorney explaining our immigration status. We looked at this as a momentary nuisance, 90 minutes in a squat brick office building watching our children’s behavior deteriorate while a clerk stamped and coded and printed out the documents that would render me eligible to work in Canada and would, 90 days later, qualify us for our the much-balleyhooed OHIP (Ontario Health Insurance Phiasco).
Screechy, Hitchcockian violins should have been playing in the background, to warn the audience of the six-month nightmare that awaited.
The clerk incorrectly entered me as a Minister of Religion, instead of a Religious Worker. This affected my ability to work; I should not have been able to get a Social Insurance Number on that entry visa, although, somehow, the SIN office didn’t realize it and granted me one anyway. Go figure.
Also, it meant I would not qualify for OHIP, Ontario’s provincial health insurance plan.
So, after several false starts, we got our papers together and went to the Federal Immigration office to have our visa changed. This was November 26. After some confusion, they granted us the new status, taking back our old permit and giving us our new, Religious Worker papers. They stipulated that our 90-day wait for OHIP would be counted retroactive to our original, August 18 entry. The new working papers noted that they were a substitute due to administrative error, and that despite the November 26 date on our new working papers, we had entered the country on August 18. My wife’s work permit, and all of my kids’ permits, listed August 18 as their official date and needed no replacing. All good, right?
After a few false starts, we went to the Provincial OHIP office to formally file – and they insisted that the 90-day count would not begin with August 18, but would instead begin with November26, because my working papers listed that as the official date of entry. So we don’t qualify for OHIP until February twenty-something.
Contacted our beit midrash attorney, who insisted that they should accept the papers, since they listed the August 18 date as well. Went back to OHIP this morning. Got nowhere. They wanted to see the original working papers – which don’t exist, because the government takes back the old when they grant the new. Offered them a xerox, but copies are not accepted.
They did offer us one option: Write an appeal to the OHIP General Manager. Want to guess the turnaround time on that? About four weeks – or the time when we’ll get OHIP anyway, even with the late date.
I understand that policy requires that they work with the official date on the work visa – but when the visa itself states that the right date is months earlier, the clerk should be flexible. In this case, neither the clerk nor the manager, for all of their politeness, listened to a word of reason.
Thank Gd and thank YU/TMZ, the Beit Midrash is generously retaining a supplemental insurance package for us until we get OHIP, however long that takes. It’s pay out of pocket, and it’s costing the Beit Midrash funds unnecessarily, but it’s the best we can do for now. But I worry about what happens to people who lack that kind of employer, or who lack the means to pay out of pocket.
I fancy myself a liberal on many issues, and I want to see universal healthcare; it’s a sane policy, not to mention a moral one. But it must be done right, which includes working with people intelligently and not obeying blind protocol. IT also includes agencies that work with each other – as opposed to Federal Immigration promising the 90 days will start retroactively, and Provincial OHIP demanding a document that Federal chose to destroy.
Otherwise, the very people you want most to help – the indigent, the homeless, the people without a safety net or support system, the ones who have no recourse when government dronesmanship takes over – will suffer most.
Friday, January 8, 2010
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Ten Signs of an ex-Shul Rabbi
[This week's Toronto Torah is here!]
Almost five months in, I'm finding some benefits in retirement. I still miss some aspects of the shul rabbinate, but I am finding time to work on WebShas, I am able to drive carpool in the mornings, and I'm able to devote serious time to creating shiurim that are deeper as well as broader than ever before.
Here's an interesting find: I've come to believe that, in some sense, I will always be a shul rabbi. Many aspects of the rabbinate have just stuck with me. All of the following have happened to me in my months since leaving the shul rabbinate; I think of them as Ten Signs that you are an ex-Shul Rabbi:
10. You feel bad about stepping out to talk to someone during the rabbi's dvar torah between minchah and maariv [but at least you step out...];
9. You naturally assume that people want your advice on matters public and personal;
8. Months before Purim, you start thinking about what costume to wear (see here and here);
7. The sight of Thursday on the calendar strikes unspeakable terror into your heart;
6. You shush the people around you when the rabbi starts his derashah;
5. You unconsciously refer to the president of the shul in which you daven as My president;
4. You blurt "Kaddish!" at the end of Aleinu before you can restrain yourself;
3. You feel a natural obligation to send Mishloach Manot to everyone in the shul;
2. You instinctively look around to make sure that everyone has a seat and food at shul dinners;
1. You walk into your kitchen, see a pot of eggs boiling on the stove, and automatically ask, "Who died?" [Community rabbi/rebbetzins often prepare the seudat havraah - post-funeral meal - of bread and eggs for mourners.]
If you scored more than 7 out of 10, you, too, were once a shul rabbi, whether in this life or another...
Almost five months in, I'm finding some benefits in retirement. I still miss some aspects of the shul rabbinate, but I am finding time to work on WebShas, I am able to drive carpool in the mornings, and I'm able to devote serious time to creating shiurim that are deeper as well as broader than ever before.
Here's an interesting find: I've come to believe that, in some sense, I will always be a shul rabbi. Many aspects of the rabbinate have just stuck with me. All of the following have happened to me in my months since leaving the shul rabbinate; I think of them as Ten Signs that you are an ex-Shul Rabbi:
10. You feel bad about stepping out to talk to someone during the rabbi's dvar torah between minchah and maariv [but at least you step out...];
9. You naturally assume that people want your advice on matters public and personal;
8. Months before Purim, you start thinking about what costume to wear (see here and here);
7. The sight of Thursday on the calendar strikes unspeakable terror into your heart;
6. You shush the people around you when the rabbi starts his derashah;
5. You unconsciously refer to the president of the shul in which you daven as My president;
4. You blurt "Kaddish!" at the end of Aleinu before you can restrain yourself;
3. You feel a natural obligation to send Mishloach Manot to everyone in the shul;
2. You instinctively look around to make sure that everyone has a seat and food at shul dinners;
1. You walk into your kitchen, see a pot of eggs boiling on the stove, and automatically ask, "Who died?" [Community rabbi/rebbetzins often prepare the seudat havraah - post-funeral meal - of bread and eggs for mourners.]
If you scored more than 7 out of 10, you, too, were once a shul rabbi, whether in this life or another...
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Tzibburology 101
I expect to start teaching a new class next Wednesday night, a 7-part series I call "Tzibburology." We'll be looking at the intersection of Halachah and Social Science: Breakaway minyanim; Social eating, seudot mitzvah and sumptuary laws; Maris Ayin (concern for the appearance of impropriety) and more.
The first class, Gd-willing, will be on the issue of Breakaway Minyanim: Halachic issues, How they are good and/or bad for a community, and What a community can do about them.
Of course, from a halachic perspective there is a great deal of literature on the topic, dating back many centuries. Some relevant in-favor issues include the positive value of building a shul, and the need for kavvanah in prayer as well as for a comfortable social network. On the other hand, there is a concern about multiplying institutions which then detract from each other (קפסקת לחיותאי), as well as an element of avoiding schism (לא תתגודדו), and of pursuing prayer in large communal gatherings (ברב עם).
The sociology standpoint is equally fascinating, I am finding. I've been doing some research into Dunbar's Number and the idea that social networks can only grow to a certain size (Malcolm Gladwell famously developed this theme in The Tipping Point), and therefore the possibility that shuls truly should remain at a capped size, in order to preserve unity and religious growth. I'm also looking into ways communities can mitigate the disaffectedness that comes with growth, to enable shuls to serve larger populations.
Churches, of course, have been dealing with this issue for a long time, and have a lot of material out on the matter. Here are some of the articles and sites I've been perusing to prepare for the Social Science aspect of this shiur:
http://www.jstor.org/pss/3509778
http://www.jstor.org/pss/3711587
http://www.barna.org/barna-update/article/12-faithspirituality/289-how-faith-varies-by-church-size
http://www.churchmarketingsucks.com/archives/demographicsresearch/
http://churchrelevance.com/qa-top-reasons-for-church-attendance/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number
http://www.liv.ac.uk/evolpsyc/Hill_Dunbar_networks.pdf
http://www.nextreformation.com/wp-admin/general/tipping.htm
http://subversiveinfluence.com/2007/03/the-rule-of-150-the-mission-of-the-church/
http://www.socsci.uci.edu/~bgrofman/R35%20Grofman%20and%20Feld.%201988.Toward%20a%20sociometric%20theory%20of%20rep....pdf
http://www.nazarene.org/files/docs/ChurchSizePersonalResponsibility.pdf
I'm really looking forward to this.
The first class, Gd-willing, will be on the issue of Breakaway Minyanim: Halachic issues, How they are good and/or bad for a community, and What a community can do about them.
Of course, from a halachic perspective there is a great deal of literature on the topic, dating back many centuries. Some relevant in-favor issues include the positive value of building a shul, and the need for kavvanah in prayer as well as for a comfortable social network. On the other hand, there is a concern about multiplying institutions which then detract from each other (קפסקת לחיותאי), as well as an element of avoiding schism (לא תתגודדו), and of pursuing prayer in large communal gatherings (ברב עם).
The sociology standpoint is equally fascinating, I am finding. I've been doing some research into Dunbar's Number and the idea that social networks can only grow to a certain size (Malcolm Gladwell famously developed this theme in The Tipping Point), and therefore the possibility that shuls truly should remain at a capped size, in order to preserve unity and religious growth. I'm also looking into ways communities can mitigate the disaffectedness that comes with growth, to enable shuls to serve larger populations.
Churches, of course, have been dealing with this issue for a long time, and have a lot of material out on the matter. Here are some of the articles and sites I've been perusing to prepare for the Social Science aspect of this shiur:
http://www.jstor.org/pss/3509778
http://www.jstor.org/pss/3711587
http://www.barna.org/barna-update/article/12-faithspirituality/289-how-faith-varies-by-church-size
http://www.churchmarketingsucks.com/archives/demographicsresearch/
http://churchrelevance.com/qa-top-reasons-for-church-attendance/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number
http://www.liv.ac.uk/evolpsyc/Hill_Dunbar_networks.pdf
http://www.nextreformation.com/wp-admin/general/tipping.htm
http://subversiveinfluence.com/2007/03/the-rule-of-150-the-mission-of-the-church/
http://www.socsci.uci.edu/~bgrofman/R35%20Grofman%20and%20Feld.%201988.Toward%20a%20sociometric%20theory%20of%20rep....pdf
http://www.nazarene.org/files/docs/ChurchSizePersonalResponsibility.pdf
I'm really looking forward to this.
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Rabbi Yosef Albo vs. Gotcha!
Elsewhere we’ve discussed the world of Gotcha!, in which everyone is a critic and every public figure a target.
Inherent to the Gotcha! game is the assumption that the target is ignorant/incompetent/ill-intentioned, so that her opponent may take a shoot-from-the-hip potshot on the basis of superficial reads and thirdhand accounts and assume that his gut reaction is correct, not to mention the acceptable equivalent of a fully formed, rationally explored, articulately expressed thesis.
From the attacks on Rabbi Lookstein at the start of 2009 for his participation in the National Day of Prayer, to the attacks at the close of 2009 on Rabbi Riskin for his comments on Christianity, the chattering critics spent little time analyzing, let alone researching, and instead launched their salvos immediately. [Note: I am defending neither of them, only pointing out the unwise haste of people who leap to criticize.]
This came to mind when I read the following disclaimer by Rabbi Yosef Albo, from his introduction to Part Two of his Sefer haIkkarim:
What should not escape the attention of this book’s reader is that the text includes many statements of hypothetical ideas rather than the truth itself. In other sections, the opposite idea may appear as an expression of the actual truth.
Alternatively, in one place an idea may be expressed with one meaning and in another place with a different meaning, as the Rambam did in many places in the Moreh haNevuchim…
Therefore, it would be appropriate for one who would examine a chapter from any author’s work not to leap to respond before he knows the styles employed in that work, and until he has surveyed the related material that appears in other parts of that work.
Sometimes a text will omit an introduction in one spot because it is independently understood or clarified elsewhere, or because the author wishes to conceal it, and the reader will think that this is an error of the author and will rush to respond and to think him a fool…
Therefore, one who examines a text should not leap to reply based upon his initial reaction, but he should think in his heart that the author is not an intellectual lightweight who fails to grasp the depths perceived by the reader and the thoughts the reader developed at his first read. It would be more appropriate to suspect one’s own wisdom and understanding, and to say that it is not possible for the author to err in an obvious matter. The reader should attribute the error to his own analysis, and extend the depth of his analysis until the author’s true intent becomes clear. Because of the great breadth of his analysis of deep matters, the author will sometimes give short shrift to clarification, and so analysis will be difficult for the reader.
I particularly like his point, “He should think in his heart that the author is not an intellectual lightweight who fails to grasp the depths perceived by the reader and the thoughts the reader developed at his first read. It would be more appropriate to suspect one’s own wisdom and understanding, and to say that it is not possible for the author to err in an obvious matter. ישיב אל לבו כי המחבר ההוא לא היה מקלי הדעת שלא השיג בעומק עיונו מה שיעלה על לב המעיין בתחלת הדעת, ויותר ראוי לכל אדם לחשוד שכלו והבנתו ולומר כי אי אפשר שיטעה המחבר ההוא בדבר נגלה הטעות.”
A little credit, a little care, a little benefit of the doubt and presumption of competence, would go a long way toward defusing pointless and baseless Gotcha!ism.
Monday, January 4, 2010
Like a Waving Flag
Ever since catching a piece of the song on the radio a couple of weeks ago, I’ve been taken with K’naan’s Like a Waving Flag. The lyrics, the music, K’naan’s own Somalian history grab me. I love the Balboaesque, רבים ביד מעטים defiance. Listening to the song, which is also the official anthem of the 2010 World Cup, it’s obvious that so much of it could be a history of the Jewish people.
But the other day I saw a homemade Youtube video set to the song, featuring pictures of victim children from around the world. Sudan, Tamil Tigers, Segregation-era US, Iran, and, of course, inevitably, Palestinian Arab children holding weapons, depicted not as victims of their parents’ militance but rather as victims of Israeli aggression. No pictures of Sderot's children, of course. And now I can’t hear the gentle iron of K’naan’s voice without thinking of those pictures and feeling outraged.
We've seen this before, of course; the world loves its youthful victims, embracing and even idolizing them for their suffering martyrdom. These children tug at our consciences, their pain is our pain, their faces the faces of our own youth, and helping them, or even contemplating helping them, makes us feel better about our own luxury. That their narrative can be so simply described – “Jews moved in, took their land and consigned them to poverty” – helps their cause, too; the world is hardly as sympathetic to Chechnyan children, for example, whose story seems so much more murky.
This is a professional martyrdom, a calculated decision to continue as victims in order to rally the world’s sympathy, and it drives me up the wall. The greatest sin of modern Israeli history is the decision of a nation to defend itself, and the Divine as well as international aid which made that effort a success.
Had the Jewish state remained a pitiful, besieged enclave, surviving at subsistence level, the world would have been most sympathetic, and aid for Israel would be as attractive a cause as tsunami relief was in 2004. But, instead, Israel is cast as the aggressor for its relative success in creating a strong and free society – you cannot be strong unless you are also guilty, apparently – and the Palestinian Arab child, consigned by his family to hunger to afford ammunition, is the poster child for a song about longing for freedom.
But the other day I saw a homemade Youtube video set to the song, featuring pictures of victim children from around the world. Sudan, Tamil Tigers, Segregation-era US, Iran, and, of course, inevitably, Palestinian Arab children holding weapons, depicted not as victims of their parents’ militance but rather as victims of Israeli aggression. No pictures of Sderot's children, of course. And now I can’t hear the gentle iron of K’naan’s voice without thinking of those pictures and feeling outraged.
We've seen this before, of course; the world loves its youthful victims, embracing and even idolizing them for their suffering martyrdom. These children tug at our consciences, their pain is our pain, their faces the faces of our own youth, and helping them, or even contemplating helping them, makes us feel better about our own luxury. That their narrative can be so simply described – “Jews moved in, took their land and consigned them to poverty” – helps their cause, too; the world is hardly as sympathetic to Chechnyan children, for example, whose story seems so much more murky.
This is a professional martyrdom, a calculated decision to continue as victims in order to rally the world’s sympathy, and it drives me up the wall. The greatest sin of modern Israeli history is the decision of a nation to defend itself, and the Divine as well as international aid which made that effort a success.
Had the Jewish state remained a pitiful, besieged enclave, surviving at subsistence level, the world would have been most sympathetic, and aid for Israel would be as attractive a cause as tsunami relief was in 2004. But, instead, Israel is cast as the aggressor for its relative success in creating a strong and free society – you cannot be strong unless you are also guilty, apparently – and the Palestinian Arab child, consigned by his family to hunger to afford ammunition, is the poster child for a song about longing for freedom.
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Kinder-Grind, Jewish style?
[Haveil Havalim is here!]
I am no expert on pedagogy; my kids are young enough that the Rebbetzin and I are still freeloading off of genetics and circumstance rather than earning our keep.
Still, I had to wonder a few weeks ago when the father down the table at a parent-child learning program [not a program of ours] shouted at his young son – I’d guess five years old – to properly and consistently identify and combine Hebrew letters and their vowels. The peremptory demands went on for about 40 minutes, “Do it!” “Read this!” “This time without mistakes!” and so on. The reading task itself didn’t appear overly taxing, and the child neither cried nor appeared particularly embarrassed, but the parent’s stentorian tone was just so harsh that I couldn’t see how this was a good educational method.
The father reminded me of soccer parents, gymnast parents and the like, putting their very young children through rigorous programs in the hopes of developing some germ of talent.
He also reminded me of Jewish parents’ attempts to start their kids very young, in programs exposing the kids to intensive Torah study, memorization and ritual. It’s an approach that Time Magazine once dubbed Kinder-Grind. A friend once described to me a program in which six-year olds memorize perakim of mishnayos. Another friend sends his child to a program in which the kids are given very little break time, spending long hours both during school and afterwards drilling in text, text and more text.
It feels like a desperate hunt for the next iluy, an anxious search for the Gadol in the family. The philosophy is really not that different from the approach that leads parents to choose preschool programs with an eye toward university admissions, or to try their toddlers on everything from violin to calculus in an attempt to identify the prodigy that must be lurking inside.
But, to me, inculcating Judaism should be different.
Torah is religion, not intellectual discipline. Yes, certainly, intellectual accomplishment in Torah study is part of Jewish excellence. But where the child who grows up resenting his math teacher will still be able to do math, and the child who grows up resenting his swim instructor can choose to walk away from swimming without penalty, a child who grows up resenting his parent or rebbe may know a lot of Torah and still walk away from Judaism as a whole, the best intentions of his mentors notwithstanding.
I'm very familiar with the passages of gemara that talk about starting kids young. And maybe I’m entirely off-base; as I said, the kid didn’t seem to be suffering. Still, and despite my pedagogic ignorance, I'd rather see kids grow up happy and well-adjusted and physically fit, and needing to work extra-hard in 5th-8th grade to pack in the knowledge, than see kids grow up stuffed with both knowledge and resentment.
I am no expert on pedagogy; my kids are young enough that the Rebbetzin and I are still freeloading off of genetics and circumstance rather than earning our keep.
Still, I had to wonder a few weeks ago when the father down the table at a parent-child learning program [not a program of ours] shouted at his young son – I’d guess five years old – to properly and consistently identify and combine Hebrew letters and their vowels. The peremptory demands went on for about 40 minutes, “Do it!” “Read this!” “This time without mistakes!” and so on. The reading task itself didn’t appear overly taxing, and the child neither cried nor appeared particularly embarrassed, but the parent’s stentorian tone was just so harsh that I couldn’t see how this was a good educational method.
The father reminded me of soccer parents, gymnast parents and the like, putting their very young children through rigorous programs in the hopes of developing some germ of talent.
He also reminded me of Jewish parents’ attempts to start their kids very young, in programs exposing the kids to intensive Torah study, memorization and ritual. It’s an approach that Time Magazine once dubbed Kinder-Grind. A friend once described to me a program in which six-year olds memorize perakim of mishnayos. Another friend sends his child to a program in which the kids are given very little break time, spending long hours both during school and afterwards drilling in text, text and more text.
It feels like a desperate hunt for the next iluy, an anxious search for the Gadol in the family. The philosophy is really not that different from the approach that leads parents to choose preschool programs with an eye toward university admissions, or to try their toddlers on everything from violin to calculus in an attempt to identify the prodigy that must be lurking inside.
But, to me, inculcating Judaism should be different.
Torah is religion, not intellectual discipline. Yes, certainly, intellectual accomplishment in Torah study is part of Jewish excellence. But where the child who grows up resenting his math teacher will still be able to do math, and the child who grows up resenting his swim instructor can choose to walk away from swimming without penalty, a child who grows up resenting his parent or rebbe may know a lot of Torah and still walk away from Judaism as a whole, the best intentions of his mentors notwithstanding.
I'm very familiar with the passages of gemara that talk about starting kids young. And maybe I’m entirely off-base; as I said, the kid didn’t seem to be suffering. Still, and despite my pedagogic ignorance, I'd rather see kids grow up happy and well-adjusted and physically fit, and needing to work extra-hard in 5th-8th grade to pack in the knowledge, than see kids grow up stuffed with both knowledge and resentment.
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Mazal tov! Mazal tov!
[This week's Toronto Torah is here!]
Last night we celebrated my brother-in-law’s engagement. (To a Toronto girl, no less! I have now passed the first test of Toronto citizenship: I have mishpachah here on both sides of my family.)
And another simchah: This evening we’ll celebrate my bechor’s first siyyum, Gd-willing; we’ve finished learning Mishnayot Masechet Berachot together.
These s’machot have put me in mind to contemplate Vicarious Joy – the happiness we feel when someone else is happy.
I see two kinds of vicarious emotion:
1. I feel the same joy/sadness/revulsion/anger you feel, because I can imagine how I would feel if that happened to me;
2. I feel the same joy/sadness/revulsion/anger you feel, because you feel it.
The first, I think, is the easier one to feel; it’s natural to imagine ourselves experiencing what others experience, even if we have no direct connection to them. I heard a radio report this morning about Michelle Lang, a 34-year old reporter for the Calgary Herald, engaged to be married this summer and killed yesterday in Afghanistan, and my gut reaction was to imagine myself in that situation.
The latter is more challenging, I believe, because it requires of us that we adopt others’ emotional state. Logically, it means that I would be happy just becausehe was happy, or sad just because he was sad, even if I didn’t know why he was happy or sad, even if his emotional reaction to a situation is foreign to me.
The Torah (Shemot 4:14, as explained in Shabbat 139a) describes Aharon meeting his brother Moshe and feeling great happiness for him, after Gd selects him to lead the Jews out of Egypt. It says, “וראך ושמח בלבו,” “He will see you and be glad in his heart.” And the gemara says Aharon is rewarded with the honor of wearing the Kohen Gadol’s special breastplate upon his heart.
Rashi takes this gemara as saying that Aharon felt joy that Moshe had been selected, and he views the gemara’s praise of Aharon as praise that he was happy rather than jealous. But the Torah’s sentence itself – “He will see you and be glad in his heart” – suggests that Aharon’s joy comes before he actually knows anything about Moshe’s appointment. This read is cemented by Shemot 4:27-28, in which it is explicit that Aharon does not know: Gd tells Aharon to go meet Moshe, he meets Moshe, and then Moshe tells him about the appointment.
This suggests that Aharon’s joy is simply triggered by seeing that Moshe is happy. He sees that Moshe is glad, and therefore he is glad, even without knowing why. It’s pure. [I know there is one weakness in this: Moshe resisted being selected! אף על פי כן. His resistance was not sadness; it was humility.]
This also puts me in mind of another point: Our natural expectation that others will be happy when we are happy, and sad when we are sad. We expect it, I think, and we are disappointed when it is not forthcoming, and it makes us doubt our relationships. Interesting, but seder starts in a minute, so I’ll have to return to this thought.
Last night we celebrated my brother-in-law’s engagement. (To a Toronto girl, no less! I have now passed the first test of Toronto citizenship: I have mishpachah here on both sides of my family.)
And another simchah: This evening we’ll celebrate my bechor’s first siyyum, Gd-willing; we’ve finished learning Mishnayot Masechet Berachot together.
These s’machot have put me in mind to contemplate Vicarious Joy – the happiness we feel when someone else is happy.
I see two kinds of vicarious emotion:
1. I feel the same joy/sadness/revulsion/anger you feel, because I can imagine how I would feel if that happened to me;
2. I feel the same joy/sadness/revulsion/anger you feel, because you feel it.
The first, I think, is the easier one to feel; it’s natural to imagine ourselves experiencing what others experience, even if we have no direct connection to them. I heard a radio report this morning about Michelle Lang, a 34-year old reporter for the Calgary Herald, engaged to be married this summer and killed yesterday in Afghanistan, and my gut reaction was to imagine myself in that situation.
The latter is more challenging, I believe, because it requires of us that we adopt others’ emotional state. Logically, it means that I would be happy just becausehe was happy, or sad just because he was sad, even if I didn’t know why he was happy or sad, even if his emotional reaction to a situation is foreign to me.
The Torah (Shemot 4:14, as explained in Shabbat 139a) describes Aharon meeting his brother Moshe and feeling great happiness for him, after Gd selects him to lead the Jews out of Egypt. It says, “וראך ושמח בלבו,” “He will see you and be glad in his heart.” And the gemara says Aharon is rewarded with the honor of wearing the Kohen Gadol’s special breastplate upon his heart.
Rashi takes this gemara as saying that Aharon felt joy that Moshe had been selected, and he views the gemara’s praise of Aharon as praise that he was happy rather than jealous. But the Torah’s sentence itself – “He will see you and be glad in his heart” – suggests that Aharon’s joy comes before he actually knows anything about Moshe’s appointment. This read is cemented by Shemot 4:27-28, in which it is explicit that Aharon does not know: Gd tells Aharon to go meet Moshe, he meets Moshe, and then Moshe tells him about the appointment.
This suggests that Aharon’s joy is simply triggered by seeing that Moshe is happy. He sees that Moshe is glad, and therefore he is glad, even without knowing why. It’s pure. [I know there is one weakness in this: Moshe resisted being selected! אף על פי כן. His resistance was not sadness; it was humility.]
This also puts me in mind of another point: Our natural expectation that others will be happy when we are happy, and sad when we are sad. We expect it, I think, and we are disappointed when it is not forthcoming, and it makes us doubt our relationships. Interesting, but seder starts in a minute, so I’ll have to return to this thought.
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