Pride Without Prejudice

Pride Without Prejudice

Rabbi Michael Feshbach

Temple Anshe Hesed, Erie    Pennsylvania

It’s a common misconception that "different” is necessarily a qualitative statement. A judgment. An evaluation .But it isn’t. “Different " is, to be sure, comparative. It is a description .It is not a prescription.

Or a proscription. “Different " means "different. “Not necessarily "better. “Not necessarily "worse.”

I was speaking with an interfaith couple the other day who said that they wanted to raise their children in 'both " religions. They said that if they made a choice between their faiths, they would not want their children to grow up thinking that one religion was "better” than another. Never mind that children are entitled to clear messages and a unified spiritual identity .If their children were one religion , that implied a negative evaluation about the other one .

Here we go again. This misconception -- that ''different " means either better or worse , that one path chosen means another path scorned , that we choose something good and true and that what we do not choose is therefore neither good nor true -- this misconception goes deeper than this one issue of religious identity .I believe it is a deeply held notion, and I believe it is a dangerous one. Dangerous for democracy .Dangerous for our society.

For if we truly believe that different is an evaluation, is a judgment, if we embrace the notion that all choices are either good or bad, and then what does that say about people who make different choices? Or who lead different kinds of lives? And. If you think that my "acceptance” of you depends on agreeing with everything you do, than the only person who is going to accept you in the end will be yourself.

Building identity for our children, or declaring who we are to ourselves, is a difficult thing to do.               It is so much easier if we use comparisons -- and evaluations. The short cut to building ourselves up comes from putting others down .Then it is clear who we are .We aren’t "them. "It’s easy to do it this way .And common .It just isn’t healthy. Or right.

Black pride doesn’t mean that all whites are wicked, that it’s "better” to be black. Gay pride shouldn’t mean that a gay man or woman wishes there were no heterosexuals in the world. And being proud of being Jewish doesn’t mean that being Christian or Muslim or Hindu is bad. Or even wrong. (Especially since Judaism teaches that there are many paths to the One God.)

A healthy identity depends on building ourselves up without putting others down. On a narrow ridge of pride -- without prejudice .On knowing who we are in our own terms, without needing to contrast ourselves with others.

Knowing who we are -- without comparing ourselves to others. This is not always that easy. I know it has been said that the only thing all Jews agree on is that Jesus is not the Messiah. But we can do better than that, as a self-definition. If we can’t, it is time we try.

 So let’s try an experiment .Think of three things about being Jewish that are powerful, positive ... and not predicated on our "not' being someone else. We may not come up with things about which all Jews would agree. But we will define ourselves -- for ourselves -- in a healthy and important way.

Here are my three.

1.       Judaism teaches that God is One, that there is wholeness, a Unity at the heart of the universe.

2.   If there is a Unity at the heart of the Universe, then all areas of life are potential paths to God. The wholeness of the world means there is holiness in the world .All of life is a blessing.

3.       Our tradition teaches that all human beings -- black and white, rich and poor, gay and straight, man and woman, Jew and gentile -- all human beings are made in the image of the Most High. There is a spark of divinity in the midst of diversity, infinite dignity in the soul of every human being.

Ink has been spilled, volumes written about each of the above. For today all I wanted to do was state them out loud .Three statements about my faith that I can hang my kippah on. That I believe in. And which do not depend on not being someone else.

And even if "different " is defined in contrast to others, one does not need to reject, to shunt, to degrade ... in order to accept , to choose, to embrace

Pride without prejudice. Defining ourselves without demeaning others. Our democracy depends on this. As does our own health.