Recently I heard from one of my friends about the challenge of dealing with a 15-year old who was using curse words at the rate of two a sentence. My friend, let’s call her Jenny, was very distressed about this, and wanted my help in figuring out how to get this behavior to stop.

This got me thinking. It was evident to me right away that if the same behavior came from her partner, she would have responded differently, and even more differently if this were a neighbor, a co-worker, a supervisor, or a staff person she supervises. What varies, I realized, is the nature of the relationship, not the effect of the behavior itself. In each type of relationship we have some belief about whether or not we have the “right” to expect a behavior change from the other person.

Jenny knows me well, including what to expect of me in terms of my parenting philosophy, so I knew she would be open to hearing my very radical views about parenting. So I shared with her my own memories, from very early on, of how I wanted to raise the children I thought I would have (before deciding at 17 that having children was not for me). I’ve been both blessed and cursed to have vivid and acute memories of what it was like to be a child in a world of adults. I thought then, and I still think now, that no one asks children if they want to be born or if they want to live with the very particular parents they have with their very particular preferences. The whole idea of children “owing” something to their parents never made sense to me. Not as a child, and not even as an adult. And yet I know that most parents have a sense of both responsibility and entitlement to influence their children’s behavior.

Passover approaches and a fearful angel descends upon the homes of the Children of Israel. But this is not the Angel of Death, sent to take the first born son from every household of ancient Egypt. And this time, no daubing of blood on our doorposts will tell this angel to “pass over” our homes. For this is the Angel of Ignorance and Denial. This is the angel that blinds us to our own ills, that curses us to become the very Pharaoh we say we despise.

In the days to come, as we have for thousands of years, we will sit down together and tell the story of our freedom from slavery. We will open our wine-stained and motzah-crumbed Haggadot, and from its pages we will relive (as if we ourselves were there) our founding mythology, our birth as a people liberated from oppression. It is a powerful and compelling tale that weaves its message through every part of our holy scriptures and prayerbook liturgies. We are told that a tyrant can be brought low, a people can be made free, the world can be changed.

Thanks to the media, we can share in a tragedy and empathize with the suffering of others. Almost instantly, we can follow events anywhere in the world: if the media are there to cover them. And the closer to home, the greater the impact of these events. My wife and I find ourselves in tears as we watch the TV news of a coach-load of Belgian children shattered in a road-tunnel accident on their journey home after a skiing holiday in Switzerland. A wave of solidarity sweeps over a deeply divided country (Belgium), quieting divisive quarrels. On our Swiss TV, we have a once-weekly little film at the end of the TV news, where a filmmaker looks at the events of the week. Last Friday’s film was on this tragic accident, and made the point that silence seems to be the best way of marking such tragedies: no words, just silence.

Photo by Galit Govezensky

Passover is here again in Israel, with its annual holiday preparations. There are long lines of overstuffed carts in the supermarket filled with cleaning supplies, boxes of matzah, wine, and all the traditional ingredients of Pessach meals for dozens of guests. In many households, there are last-minute efforts to get rid of all traces of hametz by cleaning cabinets and scrubbing floors. At the same time, Israeli families on vacation can be seen hiking and enjoying themselves among colorful fields of wildflowers.

For countless generations, we have been told that Pessach is the holiday commemorating our exodus out of Egypt and our freedom from oppression. Sadly, however, some Jews worldwide still continue to suffer and wait to be released. Among them are the controversial Falash Mura, believed to be the descendants of the Jewish population of Ethiopia known as Beta Israel. Currently, 8,700 Falash Mura live in Ethiopia, while many members of their community came to Israel years ago. Although in the past they were silent, in recent months, a number of protest gatherings have erupted in Israeli cities among this normally subdued minority group. They now raise their voices against the discrimination they confront in their daily lives and loudly protest their separation from their lost relatives.

Seriously, don’t you wonder if anything can be written about this topic that hasn’t already been said many times over? I did, too, until I encountered Nonviolent Communication while I was in graduate school pursuing a doctoral degree in sociology. I wasn’t studying good and evil, at least I didn’t think I was. I had no idea, at the time, that my interest in the relationship between reason and emotion was intertwined with the deepest and most perennial questions of human nature, hence with matters of good and evil which I had set aside for years.

I never liked the Medieval belief that human beings are innately evil, bad, or sinful, because I intuitively couldn’t fathom why and how nature would give rise to sinful creatures. I also didn’t ever find more satisfaction in the modern notions of “evil” such as the “selfish gene” evolutionary theory or the Freudian notions of an innate aggressive drive. Proponents of all such theories are hard-pressed to explain acts of true kindness, especially in the face of potential consequences, such as those who saved Jews during the Holocaust at risk to their own lives.

Like most people who balk at theories of sin, the only alternative I could come up with was to imagine human beings as being innately good. That, too, didn’t fit the reality I saw. As a Jew growing up in Israel, the Holocaust was simply too vivid a memory, presenting too much evidence to the contrary to dismiss. I was left with too many unanswered questions whichever way I looked at the issues.

When I first encountered Nonviolent Communication (NVC), I had no idea that a notion as simple and basic as human needs could finally address, at least to my satisfaction, the fundamental questions of human nature. Because of the name, I thought I was learning a communication process. I now know that placing human needs at the center of all theory is a simple act that radically questions our notions of human nature.

Like David Brooks, in his recent NYT article When the Good Do Bad, I am not comfortable with the notion of there being some specific evil people who stand apart from the rest of us who are fundamentally good, allowing us to feel pure.

Last week, I posted a very personal entry. I told about my inner process while it was still unfolding, not waiting for anything to settle so I could package it. Since the topic was vulnerability, my own path of it, I was at one and the same time being on my path and writing about it.

I got more views on this piece than just about any other previous post. I also got many comments, especially on my own blog (I am cross-posted on two other sites), and even a number of personal emails from friends and students. Overall, I was deeply nourished, by people near and far. In my state of confusion when I finished that piece, I didn’t have sufficient perspective to sense whether and how much of a contribution to others my writing on this topic would be. Now I know: it was, for many, a source of inspiration, or relief, a way to make more peace with their own humanity, or with mine, for that matter. I also received, pure and simple, expressions of love and affection, warmth, encouragement, and lots of tenderness.

I also found more to learn as I examined my responses to all that came. I got to notice what nourished me, what challenged me, what I could receive with grace, what was hard to digest, what I could let go of, and what I felt an urge to clear up.

I am human. All humans have a need to be seen for who they are. I, too, have that need. Considering how often I wasn’t seen, how often I was seen inaccurately, differently from how I see myself, I remain quite sensitive in this area.

In America, they called him Mike. He lived in midtown Manhattan. He used to have a long ponytail, he tells me, a neatly shaven beard and he dressed fashionably.

Here in Palestine, they call him Hisham.

He wears a neat black coat and thin wire-rim glasses. Hisham is in his fifties now and has wispy gray hair. He was born and raised in Ramallah, he tells me, but moved to America in his twenties.

I meet Hisham at the local coffee shop. It’s a crowded popular spot in the center of Ramallah. The ceilings are high and the air is thick with smoke.

The seasons are in transition. The spring is coming, but some days are still freezing. Sheets of icy, cold rain fall outside, flooding the streets. The old men who frequent the shop wear heavy coats and scarves wrapped around their heads. The low bubbling sound of the water pipe fills the room.

Hisham speaks English with an American accent and swears every other word. He misses America, he tells me. “Probably meeting me in this cafe,” he waves his hand around the room, “you wouldn’t think that I lived in America. I probably look really Palestinian, like I’ve never left this place. But I loved that country,” he says.

Last week, when graphic designers Ronny Edry and Michal Tamir decided to counter the war drums beating in Israel with a simple message of peace to the people of Iran, little did they know it would create a viral Facebook initiative which would help to inspire a massive anti-war rally in Tel Aviv.

Protesters hold a sign that reads "Israelis Against the War" at a large anti-war rally in Tel Aviv on March 24.

On Saturday night, this is precisely what happened, as Israelis flooded Habima Square in Tel Aviv to protest the elevated war rhetoric coming from their leaders and to stand squarely against the hypothetical bombing of Iran.

It’s not difficult to trace much of the momentum for Saturday night’s rally back to the married duo of Edry and Tamir, who last week created images of themselves with the superimposed message, “‘Iranians, we will never bomb your country. We ♥ You.’”

Their images inspired countless Israelis to post their own Facebook versions, which in turn inspired Iranians to do the same, creating a virtual, imagistic message of love cycling between the two peoples. That message also helped to inspire Israeli activists – many of whom were involved with this summer’s social justice protest movement (J14) – to organize the county’s first significant anti-war rally concerning Iran.

The Jewish Daily Forward website, and other sources, are reporting upon this positive phenomenon of Israelis and Iranians reaching out to each other, via the Internet, to renounce war. Unfortunately, these do not include the decision makers in their respective governments. This article includes recent survey data showing 50% of Israelis “completely opposed to an attack on Iran, even if diplomatic efforts to stall the nuclear program failed” and 78% knowing “that even a successful attack would at best delay Iran’s acquisition of an A-Bomb by a few years.” The following is the heart of this Forward blog piece:

…. On Saturday night, two graphic designers, Israeli couple Ronny Edry and Michal Tamir uploaded photos of themselves superimposed with a logo saying, “Iranians, we will never bomb your country. We ♥ You” to the Facebook page of Pushpin Mehina, a small preparatory school for graphic design students. In no time, others were copying the meme and the Facebook page garnered a thousand “likes.”

Friend and prophet Rev. Jim Burklo shares his thoughts on a quite powerful border experience in his latest “musing.” I’m honored that he lets me share this with all of you on Tikkun Daily. Click here to visit his blog site, Musings.

DESCONOCIDO

A small wooden cross stands next to a cholla cactus in the desert of southern Arizona. Across it is written a word in Spanish: DESCONOCIDO. In English, it means “unknown”.

To get to it, I and seven students from the University of Southern California trekked from a dirt road through a mile and a half of rough country. Every one of us was scraped by spines of cacti or spikes of mesquite branches. We slipped on stones, slid on sand. All of us sipped regularly from our water bottles as the mid-day sun and the arid air wicked our bodies dry.

The cross marked the spot where bones of a human being were found by a member of the Green Valley Samaritans, a group of volunteers who put gallon jugs of water on trails where migrants cross into the United States from Mexico. The volunteer called the county coroner to retrieve the remains, which so far have not been identified.

Over the many months of writing this blog, I have alluded many times to having chosen vulnerability as a path of spiritual practice for myself, most recently when I wrote about the freedom of committing to a path. As I’ve been on this path for almost 16 years, I wasn’t expecting to be bumped back almost to the very beginning. This is precisely what happened to me over this past weekend as I was sorting out a painful reaction I had to something said about me.

In the past few weeks, I was exposed to quite a number of statements about me that took some effort to digest. I am grateful to years of practice that enabled me to go beyond old habitual ways of taking things personally. For the most part, I felt enormous tenderness toward the person who expressed these statements. Except for this one paragraph that kept spinning inside me. Every time I thought of it, I felt an inner cringe. I don’t like it when I am so preoccupied with something said about me; I feel less free, less open, less capable. I wanted to get relief, and I wanted to have more self-understanding why it was so hard to hear that under certain conditions of acute stress I was perceived as “unpleasant”. And so I brought it up in a conversation with my empathy buddy, fellow NVC trainer Francois Beausoleil.

First Chinese "Taikonaut" Spacewalk, September 2008. photobucket/emperoryu

In a recent appearance on The Daily Show, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Director of the Hayden Planetarium in New York City and researcher at the American Museum of Natural History, offered an impassioned defense of the American space program. He argued that American public policy after the 1960s “no longer advanced a space frontier” – and no longer reaped the innumerable unintended technological and scientific advancements of space travel research. Ideally, policy makers would recognize the intrinsic value of inspiring young Americans to pursue scientific educations, but Tyson adds that these fields “are the foundations of tomorrow’s economies, and without it America will be ill-equipped to compete internationally. If China wants to put a military base on the moon, we’re there in ten years.” -Neil deGrasse Tyson, The Daily Show (2/29/2012)

I have often wondered why it is that there is so much strife and conflict in so many of the communities and movements I know of. This has been especially challenging to grasp when the groups I am talking about are generally committed to a vision of a peaceful world and the individuals in them aspire to personal integrity and compassion in their relationships.

I am very well aware I am not the only one wondering about this, and many have had things to say about it already. Some think of it as inevitable, part of human nature. Some think of communities as going through pre-determined phases. I find my heart sinking at these thoughts, because of my own deep sense of human dignity, and because I have so much faith in our capacity to transcend any static notion of who we are or how things must unfold.

Some others invoke centuries or millennia of practices of domination which have been passed from generation to generation through our education, through wars, through our governance and economic systems, and through the stories we tell ourselves about what it means to be human and how things should be. In this view, each of us is brought into this world and becomes part of these dynamics regardless of what, if anything, is our essential human nature. Tragic as this view is, I find it more palatable, more consistent with my own heart longings, because it leaves room for the possibility both that as individuals we can overcome our personal habits, and that as a species we might learn collectively how to create new systems, structures, and practices that will support us in interdependently engaging with others to create a world that works for all of us and the rest of the natural world.

Prof. Lipstadt

On March 6th, the renowned Holocaust historian Deborah E. Lipstadt lectured at Manhattan’s famed Temple Emanu-El. She spoke with obvious erudition and considerable charm on a difficult subject: “On America, The Holocaust, And Playing the Blame Game.” I had blogged here on a related topic last fall, “How FDR Was Influenced by Anti-Semitism.”

Prof. Lipstadt readily stipulates that the US administration should have done more to let in Jewish refugees, especially during the 1930s, but she warns against judging Franklin D. Roosevelt and the American Jewish community of that time too harshly from the moral standpoint and knowledge of events that we came to have in the post-war years; she characterizes such an imposition of present standards on past eras as a fallacy called “presentism.” She also criticized those in the pro-FDR “defensive school”–including Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., William vanden Heuvel and Lucy Dawidowicz–who indignantly countered that the US did all it could to save Jews during the ’30s and ’40s.

I personally know the latter not to be true, given my parents’ narrow escape from the Nazis–no thanks to Roosevelt’s Department of State–as I wrote about in a Meretz USA blog post in 2009:

“If we could read the secret history of our enemies we should find in each man’s life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.” — Longfellow

Recently I received an email from someone I will call Julie in which she expressed her profound reservations about two of the seventeen core commitments that form the basis of the Consciousness Transformation Community and which to me describe the foundation of a consciousness of nonviolence. Here is the text of these two:

Assumption of Innocence: even when others’ actions or words make no sense to me or frighten me, I want to assume a need-based human intention behind them. If I find myself attributing ulterior motives or analyzing others’ actions, I want to seek support to ground myself in the clarity that every human action is an attempt to meet needs no different from my own.

Resolving Conflicts: even when I have many obstacles to connecting with someone, I want to make myself available to work out issues between us with support from others. If I find myself giving up on someone, I want to seek support to remember the magic of dialogue and entrust myself to the process of healing and reconciliation to restore connection.

Julie’s struggle stems from her experience of having been in an abusive relationship for years that she barely managed to leave. Her deep concern is that for her and others in similar situations focusing on the “Assumption of Innocence,” which directs attention to the needs behind the other person’s actions, can interfere with having sufficient clarity to leave. As she says: “It may seem that all you need to do is connect to your own needs and you would leave, however, it is a complicated dynamic … and sadly enough your own needs are not important enough to consider that option. Being able to see his needs behind his actions is one of the factors that kept me in that relationship.” Instead, the turning point for her was coming to an understanding that he was trying to control her, which provided her sufficient clarity to leave. She is, accordingly, left with a big worry about the safety of people in abusive relationships were they to take on practicing the commitments.

Julie’s concerns are some of the most delicate challenges to a nonviolent approach to life. In the painful intimacy of a relationship, what exactly would a nonviolent response be? Is it possible to love someone, have compassionate understanding for their choices, see their human beauty despite their harmful actions, and still make a clear choice to leave? How can we incorporate into this framework compassionate understanding of the extraordinary suffering of people like Julie which leaves them unable to stand up for their needs? When someone like Julie is potentially at risk for loss of life, as is the case in many such relationships (a risk which, when physical violence is present, often increases upon leaving), who can even begin to offer suggestions about what she could do?

Photo Courtesy of Brendan Cohen

This last weekend, John Yoo was attending a conference at Stanford University sponsored by the Stanford Federalist Society. John Yoo, as you may remember, is the former Bush-era lawyer who wrote the memorandum justifying the use of torture.

As some students with Stanford Says No to War and I were wondering what we might do to speak out against the acceptance of Mr. Yoo into civilized society and academic circles, we were mindful that Stanford has begun to prohibit protests and have signs posted saying, “Protests Prohibited.” So it occurred to us that perhaps we should have a “Support John Yoo” event rather than a protest. Consequently, Darth Vader agreed to make an appearance in support of Mr. Yoo. What he didn’t expect was the enthusiastic welcome he would receive as dozens of people lined up to have their picture taken with him. Mr. Vader delivered the following message on behalf of Mr. Yoo:

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

These are dire times when our nation, The Empire, is under threat from many enemies both foreign and domestic. Our economy has been weakened by social parasites; international terrorists are attempting to attack us and weaken our mastery of land, sea, air and space; the Occupiers are attempting to take over important public and private space and buildings. We must remain ever vigilant and that is why we urge you to support John Yoo. Make no mistake, the critics of John Yoo are nothing less than enemies of The Empire.

When radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh called Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke a “slut” and a “prostitute” who ought to post sex videos on-line, he not only revealed his own crass, crude ignorance, but he committed acts of verbal abuse. His comments were a kind of violence against women.

Violence is a violation. It is a hurtful demonstration of a basic lack of respect. Those of us who are concerned about intimate violence, violence in personal relationships, tell our sisters and brothers to walk away from a partner the moment they call you out of your name. Verbal abuse is often prelude to physical abuse. If a person will call you a “slut”, s/he will hit you, and if a person will hit you, s/he will kill you. Such relationships are not only toxic, they are tragic.

In his book “Violence”, philosopher Slavoj ZiZek describes subjective and objective violence. Subjective violence is “violence performed by a clearly identifiable agent” (1). Objective violence is that which is symbolic and systemic. Symbolic violence is the violence embedded in language, and systemic violence– a.k.a. structural violence – is the various violations of human dignity that are embedded in our political-economy.

According to Zizek, subjective violence “is experienced as such against the background of the ‘normal’ peaceful state of things. However, objective violence is precisely the violence inherent in this ‘normal’ peaceful state of things” (2). Rush Limbaugh’s comments calling Sandra Fluke a “slut” and a “prostitute” were “irrational explosions of subjective violence” that become all too rational when they are seen to spring from the ground of objective symbolic violence that allows it.

Ulysses S. Grant

The Jewish holiday of Purim began last night, concluding at sundown tonight (Thurs., March 8). Published last week in the NY Jewish Week, the following article (excerpted below) is written by Jonathan D. Sarna, a distinguished professor of American Jewish history at Brandeis University and the author of “When General Grant Expelled the Jews,” just published by Schocken/Nextbook:

Purim serves as an appropriate moment to recall a man known for a time as “America’s Haman.” …
On Dec. 17, 1862, … Gen. Ulysses S. Grant issued the most Haman-like order in American history: “The Jews, as a class violating every regulation of trade established by the Treasury Department and also department orders, are hereby expelled from the department within twenty-four hours from the receipt of this order.” Known as General Orders No. 11, the document blamed “Jews, as a class” for the widespread smuggling and cotton speculation that affected the area under Grant’s command. It required them to leave a vast war zone stretching from northern Mississippi to Cairo, Ill., and from the Mississippi River to the Tennessee River.
…. Cesar Kaskel, a staunch union supporter, as well as all the other known Jews in the city, were handed papers ordering them “to leave the city of Paducah, Kentucky, within twenty-four hours.” ….
Kaskel decided to appeal to Abraham Lincoln in person. Paul Revere-like, he sped down to Washington, spreading news of General Orders No. 11 wherever he went. With help from a friendly congressman, he obtained an immediate interview with the president, who turned out to have no knowledge whatsoever of the order, for it had not reached Washington. …

David Grossman is one of the greatest Israeli novelists and his sensitivity to the nuances of daily life in Israel is exquisite. For those who don’t understand how far Israeli racism toward Arabs has led that country away from traditional values, just read his latest article (translated by Sol Salbe of the Middle East News Service) and contrast it with the Torah perspective articlated in Deuteronomy Chapter 21 sentences 1-9:

Omar Abu Jariban, a resident of the Gaza Strip, staying illegally in Israel, stole a car and was seriously injured while driving it. He was released from the Sheba Medical Centre while his treatment was still ongoing and handed over to the custody of the Rehovot Police station. The police were unable to identify him. He himself was bewildered and confused. The Rehovot Police officers decided to get rid of him. According to Chaim Levinson’s account, they loaded him onto a police van at night accompanied by three policemen. He was still attached to a catheter, was wearing an adult nappy and a hospital gown. Two days later he was found dead by the roadside.

Panelists discussed tactics for opposing human rights groups on campus, particularly those that promote the use of Boycott, Divestment, or Sanctions (BDS) to pressure Israel to be accountable to international law. Last year, Firestone issued controversial guidelines barring Hillel groups from partnering with organizations that support any facet of the BDS movement or that lack an outright Zionist stance.