I watch a lot of TV. Surprising, I know. When do I find the time? I'm not always sure, to tell you the truth, but I'll tell you three magic words that make it possible: 'DVR' and 'On Demand.' One of my
favorite series right now is Boardwalk Empire on HBO. It's a show about bootlegging gangsters in the 1920's, primarily centering on one main character, Enoch 'Nucky' Thompson in Atlantic City (thus the 'boardwalk' from the title). In last week's episode, Nucky's wife - who knew he was a gangster, but never really saw him at his most vicious - finally sees him in a particularly vindictive and violent mood. In an effort to explain himself, Nucky says to her, "There is no walking away. I do it to them or they do it to me. That's how this works." What a chilling statement about life; whether you're talking about the 1920's mob world, the 2012 ad campaign wars, or the rapidly escalating conflict (again) in the Middle East.
Sometimes it seems as though this is the only way we know how to interact. Any tactic I resort to - any underhanded, morally-questionable ploy - is permitted because 'the other guy' would do the same thing. No one rises above,
no one tries to change the narrative or the dialogue, and everyone expects 'someone else' to make the first move. We'd like to think it's limited to terrorists, gangsters, and politicians (does it bother anyone else that the three of them go together so easily?), but what about cyber bullying or the way we let politics ruin our relationships? In fact, we've used this type of reasoning to justify our bad behavior for millennia, and this week's Torah reading provides a prime example.
We are introduced, in parashat Tol'dot, to Isaac's and Rebecca's two sons, Jacob and Esau. Just four verses after announcing the birth of these twins, the Torah already tells us that Isaac favored Esau and Rebecca favored Jacob; family tension and strife are born along with the two boys. The main story of our Torah portion is the blessing
given from father to son. Isaac wants to bestow it on Esau; Rebecca masterminds Jacob's interception of the blessing. And we see here the same mentality at work: 'I do it to them or they do it to me.' One parent acts irresponsibly, so the other one feels justified to respond in kind. And who wins? Isaac is distraught, as is Esau. Jacob is forced to flee for his life, and Rebecca loses her son. No one wins at all. Two wrongs never make a right, and in fact we're all worse off for having tried to make that faulty math add up.
We must all instead ask ourselves the very same question that Esau cries it to his father, painfully forlorn: "Have you but one blessing, Father? Bless me too, Father!" Could it possibly be true that there is only one blessing out there, that we're all fighting for some singular, ultimate prize? When we win elections, does that mean that the voice of the other is insignificant,
inconsequential? And when a terrorist drops a bomb on our brethren, does that mean that the women on children on his side of the border are just as guilty? No, these things are all wrong. There ARE many blessings and many truths in the world, and when we hide behind translucent justifications of our immoral actions, everyone loses. What is your 'one blessing'? Where do you restrict others access to their own truths and their own perspectives, and how can you instead work to reverse that trend? Let us learn from the tragedy of Esau, and seek to bring more blessing and compromise to the world. That's how this SHOULD work, and how we can begin to MAKE it work starting right now.
Photos in this blog post:
2. CC image courtesy of Miss Blackflag on Flickr.
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