We’ve just come off of a far-too-long immersion in the echo chambers of the Internet. We’ve hidden in our Liberal or Conservative cocoons, reading our news sources, looking at our favorite satire site, being gullible enough to fall for our fake news sites, and listening to our friends extoll the virtues of our views. We’ve also poopooed or discounted their news sources, found their satire sites not funny, wondered how they could have such fake news written, and gotten to the point of defriending those that disagreed with our view. We probably believe that these chambers are the fault of, and started with, Facebook.
A recent discussion with a FB friend reminded me that’s not the case, as we delved into one of the oldest echo chamber battles of the Internet: the legitimacy battle between Reform Judaism and Orthodox Judaism (which were once referred to as RCO battles, including Conservative as trying to straddle the middle — and hence the term Progressive is used as a catchall for RC). For those unfamiliar with these battles, you could likely find something in the legitimacy battles between Protestantism and Catholicism — which was permitted to call themselves “Christianity”. Of course, we all know how well that turned out, and how accepting different Christian groups are of other flavors of Christian groups.
But the RCO battles are classic echo chambers, and mirror quite heavily the divide we see politically today. Many (but not all) Orthodox groups exist in an insular news vacuum: they tend to read only Orthodox-approved media, move in Orthodox circles, and have little exposure with the theology and current approaches of the more progressive movements. Note that I did not say they don’t have exposure to Progressive Jews. They’ve met a few in their lives, and have read about them in their publications, and have extrapolated from there what they believe the entire Progressive movements to be.
Is it better on the Progressive side? Do Reform Jews, with their supposed pluralism, accept the Orthodoxy? Some do. Others are in the Progressive echo chambers that portray Orthodoxy as rigid, insular, and unchanging. Their image of Orthodoxy comes not from participating in their communities, but from portrayals in movies and the occasional Chabadnik they met while in college who forced them to wrap tefillin.
Each side extrapolates from a small number of instances what they believe the whole to be. They don’t realize that there is a range of practice and belief within both, as well as a range of acceptance (spoken or silent) of official doctrine. Doesn’t this sound like politics? Haven’t you heard “All liberals are…” or “All conservatives are…”? Further, there is belief that each side aligns 100% with particular political views. I’ve seen Orthodox write that all Reform Jews are Liberals or Marxist or Socialist, and I’ve seen Reform Jews who believe that all Orthodox Jews are of a political Conservative bent. Of course, this is utter nonsense — there is a range of political views of both, and the official organs (movements, synagogues) are carefully non-political to retain their IRS status.
Why am I reminding you of this now? Simple. For over 15 years, I maintained a mailing list that attempted to eliminate the echo chamber — that operated under the supposition that we could talk to each other with respect. We could accept that the different movements had studied and come up with their own path to the divine. Even if we might believe the movement as a whole was on the wrong path, we did not discount the individual. We believed that if we operated in a way that respected the individual, what they had to say, and their right to say it, we might be able to understand our differences. This required the ground rules be applied to both sides. It was hard work, but we did it. We were able to discover that although we still had significant doctrinal differences, there was a lot that was the same. We all rested and worshipped on Shabbat. We lit Chanukah candles. We came together and told our story on Passover. We worked to make the world a better place, as we saw it. We maintained that respectful dialogue.
As we close down our precincts, and the noise from our various echo chambers die down, I urge you: remember this example. Treat those with whom you’ve disagreed with respect. Understand that we were seeing different paths to the same goal: a stronger America. Understand where we agree (which is probably in more areas than you think). Realize that the person you might think is trash due to their political views is the loved child of someone, the parent to someone else, a sibling, and possibly someone’s partner. They work and love and cry and try to make sense of this crazy world, just like you do. They try to do what they believe is right and moral.
Let’s figure out how to heal.
