Walking the Walk
“Rabbi Akiva had twelve thousand pairs of students [across ancient Israel], and they all died in one period of time, because they did not treat each other with respect.” Talmud, Yevamot, 62B
Perhaps the central paradox of the Talmud’s stark assertion, is that those who died were the students of the man who famously preached an ancient form of flower power as the fundamental principle of Judaism: “Rabbi Akiva taught that `love your fellow as yourself’ is a cardinal principle in the Torah”. Would not one suppose that his disciples would embody the essence of mutual respect and affection? How could they fail so badly at incorporating the core premise of their master about what underlies all religious striving? What were they thinking?
Perhaps the problem is too much thinking vis a vis a paralysis of doing. As the early 16th century Dutch philosopher Erasmus of Rottterdam once noted, “If you keep thinking about what you want to do or what you hope will happen, you don’t do it, and it won’t happen.” We do not know what actions precipitated the catastrophe that caused the demise of 24,000 people. It is also unclear why the suffering suddenly ceased on Lag Ba’Omer, to be celebrated next Wednesday night and Thursday. But in the gap between Rabbi Akiva’s imperative to love others, and the inability of virtually everyone he mentored to inherit this basic wisdom, lies a chasm that surely invites us to reflect on the disparity between words and results, between the talk and the walk.
One of the tragedies of the cheapened social and political discourse of recent years is not only that we are often lied to, but that we are practically inured to these falsehoods, as though our expectations are that deliberate hyperbole and mendacity are now just a part of ordinary life, perfectly summarized in Noel Coward’s caustic humour in the 1941 play Blithe Spirit: “It is discouraging how many people are shocked by honesty and how few by deceit.”
To put this another way, what is remarkable is how few people do not cheat. We live in what author David Callahan terms `the cheating culture.’ Athletes taking banned substances; politicians not only lying but denying that they lied even when it is matter of public record; best-selling writers making up their supposedly `true’ stories; media putting out items that are not fact checked or substantiated – the list goes on and on in equal parts dismay and stupor. Even South Korea’s stem cell genius Hwang Woo Suk confessed he faked his data.
As Steven Levitt, the co-author of Freakonomics points out, teachers cheat, as do venerable Sumo wrestlers in Japan. The Talmud’s distress might register a few yawns of sympathy today – “hmm, yes…lack of respect…well, you know how it is.”
All you need is love, sang the boys from Liverpool, and who knows but that they may be right. Still the crux of the matter would be what do we mean by love? Silly question on the surface, but not for Jewish law, which is far less interested in an emotional outpouring (love as a display of feeling) and more concerned with how you treat the other. It’s all very nice to say “I love you,” but do you sacrifice your own interests to your beloved at a time of mutual tension? Are their needs prior to your needs?
Erich Fromm, who was Freud’s student and an important figure in 20th century thought, saw loving as something that required knowledge and effort. His exploration of the topic would have made him an interesting dinner table interlocutor for Lennon and McCartney: “Is love a pleasant sensation, which to experience is a matter of chance, something one "falls into" if one is lucky?...Most people see the problem of love primarily as that of being loved, rather than that of loving, of one's capacity to love.” [See Fromm’s The Art of Loving].
For Fromm, as for Judaism, words like respect and love are empty slogans if they are not actually exemplified by selflessness, empathy and regard for the being and inclinations of the other. It is impossible to determine what ran through the minds of the disciples as they listened to Rabbi Akiva expound about love and respect. Were they daydreaming during the lecture, or just confident that they knew how to manifest respect, and that the real problem was that their neighbour wasn’t as clear? Or did Rabbi Akiva himself fail to model the requisite virtue, as disturbing as that might seem, and by osmosis, this lack of respect was internalized by his disciples silently and with finality, a plague unsuspected until it was too late?
We are all skilled at talking the talk, but “the world is changed by your example, not by your opinion,” muses the Portuguese novelist Paulo Coelho. God knows we have enough contradiction between religious teachings and actions in the twentieth century alone, between preaching on self-discipline and regard for the vulnerable, and yet a scorched earth legacy of clerical sexual abuse and destruction; between the peace train and the violent religious fanatic; between love advocated and hostility displayed.
Did the plague of Rabbi Akiva’s era end because there were no more students left to die? Or was it because some positive steps were taken to alter the way they reacted to one another, and the message of love and respect for our brothers and sisters began to take hold? And when does the plague of our own hypocrisy and indifference stop? This Lag Baomer, we can all think about walking the walk which, as always, begins with those who are closest to us, and then radiates outwards. “Repairing the world” and “mutual respect” are not memes or the stuff of fridge magnets; they are raw survival techniques we must practice if we are to ensure the future.