The Empire State Building Shootings - A Reflection

I tend to associate the Empire State Building with the mystique that is New York City.  It is a landmark and an icon that deserves credit for its design and for offering an amazing view of the city from its tower.  

Today, though, it joins the list of the places where those with guns and other lethal devices have turned their weapons on innocent people and caused terrible harm to others.  The wounds of Aurora, Colorado are for sure still fresh in our hearts and we will never forget the tragedies at schools such as Columbine and on college campuses and federal buildings, in a supermarket parking lot in Tucson, at the World Trade Center and Pentagon on 9/11, and the list, tragically, goes on and on here and abroad as in Norway and too many other places around the globe...

The big picture question that wells up within me today after the incident at 34th St. in New York is why aggressors target innocents whether it be in attacks such as the one in New York or anywhere else? Is there some other way for people who are angry against a certain group, against the world, against some other religious group or country, to get out their 'angries' without harming the life of innocents?  

In the Hollywood comedy flick "Analyze This", Billy Crystal's character tells Robert DeNiro's character to 'hit a pillow' instead of going after other people.

While this example seems trivial, it suggests a simple premise that, ideally, we could provide ways for people across the world to manage their anger by directing it in non-lethal directions.  Angry at 'The West' for its 'degeneracy'?  Help us demolish homes and structures in festering slums in order to make room for new housing and sanitation projects.  Angry at the government for its inability to 'turn the economy around'?  Here is a free membership to your local boxing gym where an instructor will train you until you get exhausted and stop or until you become a contender in the ring.  Angry at the inability of social change organizations to create real and lasting change?  Help us by coming in to tear up old and dusty mission statements and strategic plans that you can then drop into the shredder for recycling.  I now understand that the initial murder in this shooting spree was a former employee shooting a boss or supervisor who fired him a year ago.  Angry about being fired or downsized?  You will now be an athletics training partner with paralympians and special olympians who may never have had the same abilities or opportunities to work as you, and we'll see how you feel after trying to keep up with their skills and spirit.  The possibilities are endless.

All these strategies are, I believe, rational approaches to a human tendency toward violence and conflict.  The inherent problem with such strategies, then, is that the people who commit the violence against innocents are not necessarily rational and we cannot necessarily identify them in advance.

And so the approach must be an approach that is educational and preventive.  Perhaps we might envision "Get Your Anger Out" centers on college campuses and in workplaces.  We might imagine character curricula in schools that teach and model ways to express anger in productive and constructive ways.

And in this educational effort we might wish to teach a Jewish teaching that I return to often.  'How do we know a person? -- By one's anger, one's pocket, and one's cup."

Working in reverse order:  We know someone by their 'cup', literally their drinking cup, meaning their temperance, their ability to make decisions about setting limits and their ability to set up a healthy relationship with both the people and things of the world.  We know someone by their 'pocket', by the way they use and spend their money and resources.  

Finally, we know someone by their 'anger':  What angers the person and how does he-she express that anger?

I challenge all of us to find ways to allow anger to be expressed in a healthy and constructive way in our country.  

The lives of innocent people depend on our efforts.

Parshat Va'et'chanan: Being #1

Parshat Va’etchanan 5772/2012

Being #1

Rabbi Neil A. Tow©

In my love of both the Olympic message and Olympics competition, I have been watching as much coverage from London as I can.  If only the broadcast would come to the television without commercials!

To my pleasant surprise, there are a few commercials this year that share a positive and constructive message, despite the obvious, or not so obvious, sales pitch attached to them.  There is the message that we all have the potential to be ‘great’, to experience ‘greatness’ in our lives.  There is the message that we should set goals for ourselves to achieve our dreams, and that often the difference between winning and losing comes down to fractions of a second – or perhaps to minutiae for which we cannot necessarily predict or prepare.

It does also occur in the messages surrounding the Olympics that we recognize the extraordinary feats that the gold medal, #1 competitors achieve – that we recognize the hard work that each athlete puts in, the sacrifices they and their coaches and their families make to put them in position to be #1. 

It is this message that resonates and is in tune with the message of Shema Yisrael, the familiar prayer that comes from the holy words of this week’s Torah reading in parshat Vae’tchanan – the message that neither the world, nor God in fact, can be one, unified, whole until we create a world that makes the perception of that one-ness, unity, and wholeness visible, just as athletes, their families, and coaches are part of an effort to seek the often elusive #1 spot.

We do not control God and it is clear that we cannot control the world or the people in it such that we all might at once hear the unifying words of the prophet Zechariah saying, “Everyone will take upon themselves the recognition of God’s authority…”, familiar words from the Alenu prayer.  Also, God does not seem to want to impose strict control over us such that we lose our humanity.  Instead, we carry the Torah in our minds and in our back pocket as we search for guidance, much the same way as a traveler in an unfamiliar place turns to a guidebook to show the way through a place’s space and history.  The great Rashi teaches us that “Ado-nai Echad” is not descriptive but prescriptive – “God is One” is a hope, a vision of the future that will come to life only if the right pieces are placed at the foundation of our souls and our societies.

This lesson is also a foundation of the Olympic games themselves.  An athletic competition including representatives of 204 countries of the world is not a given, not something that would happen on its own much as we might hope for such an organic and natural event.  It takes an enormous investment of people power, time, energy, money, construction, planning, and significant obstacles of all kinds to put together.  When the flame passes from the host country to the next host at the end one wonders about the symbolism.  On the one hand the flame passes courteously from one host to the next, on the other hand the host country receives fire – fire that is hot and that can burn.

I would like to engage in a meditation with you, to develop a vision of a unified world, to inspire us to create it, and we will use the Olympics as the basis….Imagine that the population of the whole world walks through the gates and around the track at London’s Olympic stadium, million after million, billion after billion, every person fits into the stadium and everyone carries a torch and everyone gently puts his or her flame into the central cauldron, and everyone who is able contributes a few dollars into a tzedakah box whose base is on land and whose top touches the atmosphere as it fills up.  And then, as the games begin, we notice that every person is involved in one game or another, all pick up games, no medals, no one notices color of skin or gender, no one notices differences of dress, language, or culture.

How will we create a world that reflects the hopeful spirit of the Shema today, this Shabbat, through the end of this year 5772 – as we look 7 weeks ahead to Rosh Hashanah.  Let’s get a head start now so that by the time the fall holidays arrive, our best efforts will already be underway.