A version of this sermon was delivered on Kol Nidre 5782 at Temple B'nai Torah - A Reform Congregation in Wantagh, NY.
Let
me tell you about my friend Martha. You
might not expect it, but one of my best friends is a somewhat lapsed-Catholic, high
school guidance counselor a good number of years older than I am. Manners prevent me from telling you exactly
how many years… We met for the first
time on my first day teaching at the day school in Atlanta. Martha is originally from Michigan and made
her way to Atlanta via some time in New York, including living in Huntington
well before I knew her.
On that first day of my first real job out of
college, into my classroom peeked a tall woman with a broad, warm smile asking
if I needed anything and introducing herself.
In my insecurity, I said no and quickly rattled off my credentials, for
which she still ribs me to this day.
After that inauspicious beginning, we soon became good friends, though
on paper you’d probably never imagine the two of us getting along so well. We are very different, but we do share, among
other things, Midwestern roots, a sense of humor and cultural references, and
now an almost 20-year friendship.
I want to talk about Martha tonight, not
because I need to apologize to her for something, or because I’m waiting for an
apology from her. Tonight, I want to
talk about a change I noticed in my good friend a number of months back. Now, Martha and I don’t get to see each other
that often, so we mostly talk on the phone, text, and interact online. About 18 months ago, I noticed this change
online, on her Facebook profile. During
the election in 2016 and in the first months of the former administration,
Martha was an avid poster of news articles, fact checks, and also opinions,
both her own and those of others with whom she agreed.
Martha had a regular group of Facebook friends
and acquaintances who would like, comment, and often get into Facebook arguments
with her and each other about these posts.
I’ll admit here, before the heavenly and earthly court, that I was
sometimes involved in these online spats.
How did it go? We all know… Martha
would post something, then, like clockwork, there’d be one comment pushing
back, often quite rudely, then often another.
Then, of course, the people who agreed with Martha would chime in and fight
back, often rudely, and back and forth it would go. The engagement with the post would drive it
higher on people’s news feeds, so more folks would see the posts that had more
disagreement and vitriol. But then, one
day, Martha’s Facebook presence started to be different. Suddenly, there were very few political
posts. Now it was mostly pictures of her
and her family and dogs and occasional positive statements. Supportive statements. Statements of hope. It didn’t happen after the 2020 election, it
happened well before.
I asked her recently if she noticed the change
and if she’d done it on purpose. She
said no. I asked her if she made an
active decision to change what she posted.
She answered me that she was just tired of getting into a fight all the
time. She made a choice to post things
that could really only be responded to with positivity. She made the choice and put in the effort to
spread that which might be able to gain consensus rather than that which would
divide. She opted for sweetness rather
than bitterness.
And while that’s easy to say and easy to declare
as an intention, apparently, it’s not so easy to do…
According to a study published this summer by
researchers at Cambridge and New York Universities,[1]
negative political posts are twice as likely as positive ones to get shared and
go viral. This is separate and apart
from the questionable algorithms that promote certain content over other. Reactions from users made clear, in a study
surveying millions of posts and reactions, that negative content leads to more
frequent and more polarized reactions and more frequent sharing of the
information. A negative post is more
likely to be shared and spread than a positive one. What does it mean for our social fabric that
we are more comfortable sharing the negative than the positive? What are we sharing about ourselves when we
do this?
Posts that demonize the other side are almost
5 times more likely to get engagement than posts that talk about policy effects
and almost 7 times more likely to get engagement than posts that use moral or
emotional language. Negative posts on
social media have disproportionately led to more negativity being spread than
positive posts have led to positivity.
That’s led to an imbalance of stimuli whose compounding effects we need
to correct.[2]
But seeking out that balance goes against our
instincts, which is part of why it’s so hard to overcome. As humans, our brains are wired to remember
negative stimuli in a different way than positive. According to Psychologist Rick Hanson, our
minds are like Velcro for the bad experiences and Teflon for the good
experiences.[3] Evolutionarily, we can understand why. If we forget how hot the fire is and how
dangerous it is and only remember its warmth and light, we’re going to keep
getting burned. It’s part of why we
remember pain and traumatic events so deeply.
It’s meant to be a defense mechanism for the future. Too often, though, we know, it becomes a
source of its own pain in the present.
So, if opting toward and remembering the
positive goes against our instincts, and if the negative gets the stronger
reaction and amplification, what are we supposed to do? We could, and maybe should, give up social
media. Unfortunately, it is now enmeshed
in our communication so deeply that until something else comes along, we can’t. So what instead? Well, to answer that, I want us to look to
the heavens, but not in the way you might suspect… Rather than looking up from our low places
and calling out to God as the Psalmist encourages, tonight I want us to look up
and take our cue from the birds!
Did you know that all species of songbirds
originated in Australia? And Australia,
as you may know, is a land riddled with carbohydrates. Due to nutrient deficiencies, plants in
Australia “struggle to convert…sugars into leaves, seeds, and other
tissues. They end up with excess [sugar],
which they…give away. Flowers overflow
with nectar. Eucalyptus trees exude a
sweet substance called mannah from their bark.”[4] This excess sugar is responsible for the size
of the birds in Australia, and for the emergence of and prevalence of
songbirds, which comprise about half the known species of birds and which are
known to have originated in Australia.
How does Australia’s sugary terrain take
credit for the prevalence of songbirds?
Well, it has to do with how birds’ taste receptors work. Most mammals, like humans, taste sugar thanks
to two genes that each build one half of the sweet receptor that sends the
message to our brains that we’re eating something sweet. Some mammals, however, mostly those that eat
meat only, have evolved to have one faulty gene of the pair, blocking the
receptor from being activated. According
to research led by Maude Baldwin of the Max Plank Institute for Ornithology, this
is probably what happened to the small dinosaurs, who we now understand were
most likely the ancestors of the bird species we have today.
So, the dinosaurs millions of years ago
couldn’t taste sweetness, and neither could their evolutionary descendants, the
birds. What happened? Well, a shift happened, a mutation. At some point, in order to survive, in order
to live, the birds began to detect sweetness.
The research shows that what happened was not a mutation on the faulty
gene to make it work, but rather a mutation in a different gene. The birds’ savory receptor, their umami and
bitterness receptor, changed. One half
of the two genes that make up the savory tastebuds of birds shifted from being
able to taste the savory to being able to taste the sweet. In order to survive, in order not just to
survive, but to thrive and to take flight into the sky and spread across the
planet, the birds had to trade out bitterness for sweetness.
It goes against our animal instincts to
prioritize the positive in and around our lives, to prioritize the
sweetness. It goes against our evolution
to try to downplay the negative. And at
the same time, it is clear that our spiritual instincts, and our spiritual
evolution demand that we do!
Our Torah and our tradition make clear that
humanity’s most base instincts ought not always be the driving force in our decision
making. We are given dominion over the
animals in Genesis in part because humans, made in the Divine Image, have the
ability to discern, to differentiate good from bad, separate and apart from our
survival needs and instincts. No story
makes this clearer than Cain and Abel.
When Cain kills his brother and God chastises him for it eternally, the Torah
is telling us that we are, unfortunately, at our core, prone to violence when
we don’t get our way. The rest of the
Torah, seemingly, is about helping us to move away from those animalistic
urges, moving away from those instinctual habits that tell us that survival is
the only prerogative. The Torah urges us
to change our receptors. Our belief in
God, our traditions, and our communal responsibilities demand we do as well.
We share the kiddush cup around the table at
Shabbat, making sure everyone tastes of the sweetness and joy, which the wine
symbolizes, from the same cup! We shower
our b’nai mitzvah with candy. At the
Passover seder, we make a sweet paste out of the mortar, and we never taste the
maror without a little charoset. The
matzo changes before our eyes from the bread of affliction to symbolizing the sweet-smelling
paschal sacrifice. Our Jewish lives call
out to us to taste sweetness!
What are ways that we can choose to go against
our instincts and make the choice to taste sweetness? This is a part of the role of community, to
share with others in their times of joy.
Yes, we are always supposed to be here for each other in times of need,
in times of sickness, in times of sadness, after a death, God forbid. But we are also meant to share in our
communal joy. That's the role of
blessing: to recognize the sweetness and joy in our lives and offer gratitude. By blessing moments of sweetness and goodness,
we recognize where it all comes from: God as the Creator of All, Sovereign of
the Universe. In saying blessings, we
mark the moments and declare that the sweet, and the good are worthy of praise
and thanksgiving. Judaism understands
what it means to emphasize sweetness.
In the Torah reading we will hear tomorrow
morning, from the book of Deuteronomy, God sets before the people, before us,
options. God, through Moses, says: “רְאֵ֨ה נָתַ֤תִּי לְפָנֶ֙יךָ֙ הַיּ֔וֹם אֶת־הַֽחַיִּ֖ים
וְאֶת־הַטּ֑וֹב וְאֶת־הַמָּ֖וֶת וְאֶת־הָרָֽע׃ See, I set before you this day life and
goodness, death and evil.”[5] As Rashi explains: “the one is dependent upon
the other: if you do good, behold, there is life for you, and if you do evil,
behold, there is death for you.”[6]
A little later in the reading, we hear an
almost repeat of this: הַחַיִּ֤ים וְהַמָּ֙וֶת֙ נָתַ֣תִּי
לְפָנֶ֔יךָ הַבְּרָכָ֖ה וְהַקְּלָלָ֑ה I have put before you life and death,
blessing and curse.”[7] Life, goodness, and blessing are all grouped
together, almost as if to be interchangeable.
Likewise, death, evil, and curse are grouped together. Both are before us. Both are laid out and we are granted the
autonomy by God to make a choice. God’s
desire is clear. Choose life. Choose goodness. Choose blessing. Choose sweetness.
Tonight, through the enchanting melody of the
Kol Nidre, intoned so beautifully by Cantor Timman, we make a pledge that from
this Yom Kippur to the next, God shouldn’t hold us to the promises and vows we
make to God. We say that we know we are
going to miss the mark, even though we don’t intend to. Tonight, let us also pledge, knowing that it
will be hard and knowing that we will miss the mark, that we will opt for
sweetness rather than bitterness.
Tonight, let us pledge that however we can and whenever we can in the
year ahead, we will work to change our bitterness receptors to sweetness
receptors, so that, like the birds in the sky, we may not only live, but
thrive. Let us opt to taste the
sweetness because, like Australia, there’s so much sweetness to be had!
In this year ahead, after a year of being so
separate from one another, so distanced and removed, let us commit to sharing
in each other's joys. Let us choose
goodness and blessing and choose to spread more good news than bad, more
positive encouragement than negative feedback!
There is a tradition that when we break our fast tomorrow after the three stars appear in the sky, that the first bite of food should be something sweet. Either an apple with some honey, a piece of sweet challah, or the like. In my family, the first bite is always my mother’s rugelach. No, she won’t give you the recipe. Yes, they’re very good. The hunger pangs haven’t yet started for those of us fasting. Tomorrow, after we make our way through this day of emptying ourselves physically, spiritually, emotionally, may that first bite of sweetness trigger our receptors. May that first bite of sweetness inspire us to a year of sweetness. A year of joy. A year of going against our instincts and opting for goodness, blessing, and life.
And may our commitment to ourselves and to
each other lead 5782 to truly be a good year, a sweet year for us, our
families, our nation, the Jewish people, and the world.
Shanah Tovah, u’metukah.
[1]
https://www.pnas.org/content/118/26/e2024292118
[2]
Ibid.
[3]
Kessler, David. Finding Meaning. Scribner 2019. P 198
[4]
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/07/origin-of-birdsong-sugar/619387/
[5]
Deut. 31:15
[6]
Rashi on Deut 31:15
[7]
Deut: 31:19
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