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November 5, 2023

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The Problem with the Story of Sodom and Gomorrah – Vayera 5784

I have a problem with the story of Sodom and Gomorrah.

It is a story that is set up to be about Justice and righteousness. Those are the words that are used repeatedly over the course of the narrative.

Let’s review the story in broad outlines, so we know what we are talking about. God sees the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah and that they are evil, and decides to completely annihilate them. But first, God consults with Abraham. God reveals the plan. Abraham then argues on behalf of the cities. There may be innocent people there. In the end, not even ten can be found, and the cities are destroyed.

When we look at a story in the Torah, we have got to accept the way that the story is told, and the facts that the Torah presents, as being very deliberate. It is trying to tell us something, and so we have got to be true to the text when we approach and try to analyze it.

What are the starting assumptions?

First. Abraham has been singled out to instruct his children to “keep the way of the Lord by doing what is just and what is right—la’asot tzedakah umishpat.” (18:19) That is why God consults with Abraham.

Second. The cities are evil – so evil that God determines that the only course is to destroy them entirely, to literally turn them upside down. “The outrage of Sodom and Gomorrah is so great, and their sin is so grave.” (18:20) Justice demands that they be punished.

What is Abraham’s argument?

He argues that the presence of a few righteous individuals is sufficient to reverse the decree against a city that, in the eyes of God, is entirely wicked. Abraham starts with 50 innocent people. “Will You then wipe out the place and not forgive it for the sake of the fifty righteous individuals who are in it?” (18:24)

Throughout, in his description of the people living in Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham uses the langague of tzadik and rashah: Righteousness in opposition to wickedness. Abraham’s argument is that it is unjust to bring the same punishment upon the righteous as upon the wicked. Collective punishment is wrong.

God agrees to follow Abraham’s basic premise. Over the course of their discussion, Abraham drops the number down from fifty until he eventually settles at ten. Also, God uses three different terms to express God’s willingness to not destroy the cities: nasa’ti – I will lift [their iniquity]; lo e’eseh – I will not do it; lo ashḥit – I will not destroy.

The argument that Abraham is bringing to God is that mercy should overcoming justice.

Notice that God and Abraham are making inverse arguments. 

God says: I’ll wipe out everyone because of the preponderance of evil people – This is justice taking precedence over mercy.

Abraham says: You should save everyone because of the minority of good people – This is mercy taking precedence over justice.

I would argue that there are some major gaps in their arguments. 

One. There is no call for repentance.  Just like with Noah, it does not even occur to Abraham to walk down the mountain to Sodom and Gomorrah to speak with the people themselves.

This is a successful tactic, after all. Think of Jonah, the most successful prophet in the Bible. God sends him to the people of Nineveh, who are also described as completely evil, all the way down to the livestock. Jonah’s mission, which he tries to avoid at all possible costs, is to call upon them to change their ways, to repent, so that they earn their own salvation.

And it works! Perfectly, to Jonah’s dismay.

Does Abraham have such a low opinion of the residents of Sodom and Gomorrah as to think that they are irredeemable?

Should he not have given them an opportunity to save themselves?

Here is my second problem with this story. Abraham is only partially concerned with justice. Justice is the premise that people get what they deserve.

Consider that if Abraham succeeds, two whole cities filled almost entirely with wicked people are going to get away with it. What then of their future victims? Will Abraham bear any responsibility? That does not sound like justice to me. With too much mercy, wickedness thrives. If we forgive too readily, we allow evil to spread.

How does the story end? Abraham goes to bed that night feeling good about himself. He is confident that the has saved the people of Sodom and Gomorrah by bargaining God down: the presence of just ten righteous people will save the cities. Mercy wins over justice.

When he wakes up and walks to the overlook from which he can gaze down upon the plain, he is surprised to see a smoking ruin. There were not even ten righteous people.

Meanwhile, God has taken it upon Godself to save the few innocent people: Lot, his wife, and two daughters. 

The coda to the story is strange: “Thus it was that, when God destroyed the cities of the Plain and annihilated the cities where Lot dwelt, vayizkor Elohim et Avraham—God rememberd Abraham and removed Lot from the midst of the upheaval.” (19:29)

What does it mean in this text to say that God remembered Abraham? This result does not resemble anything that they have discussed. It is, however, the solution that is the perfect execution of justice. The wicked are punished and the innocent are saved.

Maybe that is what Abraham should have demanded from God in the first place. Save the innocent. Bring them out, and then do what You are going to do.

As a model for justice, mercy, the question of collective punishment or collective redemption, this story is overly simplistic. It lacks nuance.

In this particular framework, the Torah depicts people as either wholly righteous or wholly wicked, and this is just not how people are. People are not so black and white.

This is not a story about repentance and reconciliation. It sees people’s character, their morale stature, as static, something that cannot change. Either the presence of the wicked dooms the fate of everyone, or the presence of innocents releases everyone from punishment. There is no nuance here.

These problems strike me as bearing certain similarities to what Israel faces right now.

An evil, unjustifiable act was perpetrated against innocent people by Hamas. I do not think that repentance and eventual reconciliation is a reasonable goal for the estimated 40,000 members of that organization who are hiding underground, often under schools, mosques, and hospitals. But what of the fate of the 2.3 million Palestinians living in Gaza? Many of us have tried to specify that this is a war between Israel and Hamas. Noa Tishby, the Israeli actress who has emerged as a strong voice explaining Israel and fighting against antisemitism and anti-Zionism, describes herself as “pro-Palestinian” and “anti-Hamas.” I identify with that.

But this is messy. How many dead and injured men, women, and children, destroyed homes, and uprooted lives are justified in the mission to eliminate Hamas and rescue the 240 hostages who have been held now for four weeks?

How does one balance justice and mercy in a situation like this? Should one lean towards collective punishment or collective redemption? Can those who commit atrocities be allowed to go free because of the cost to civilians? Is there a way to thread that needle? I do not pretend that there are any easy or obvious moral answers here.

I would just like to point out that the outcome of Abraham and God’s argument over the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah does not resolve the dilemma either, even when it paints people in moral black and white.

My prayer is that those in Israel who are responsible for waging this war are truly aware of these moral dilemmas and are putting them at the forefront of the very difficult decisions that they are forced to make. I wish there was more nuance in the discussions taking place around the country and around the world to recognize how difficult this situation is.

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September 19, 2023

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Sarah’s Howl – Rosh Hashanah II 5784

How did the ram’s horn get its name?

Because you can hear it from shofar away.

Now that we have firmly established the linguistic origin of the word shofar, where does this tradition of hearing the shofar on Rosh Hashanah come from? What might that origin teach us about the meaning and purpose of the shofar?

The Maftir Torah reading, from our second Torah scroll, is identified as the source of the obligation.

In the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall observe a sacred occasion: you shall not work at your occupations. A Day of Blasting it shall be for you.

Numbers 29:1

This is the Torah’s name for today: Yom Teruah, “A Day of Blasting.” Other than a few typical sacrifices, blasting the shofar is the only specific action that the Torah commands.

Nowhere is our holiday called Rosh Hashanah. It is never acknowledged as the new year, nor is it claimed to have anything to do with creation. Teshuvah is never mentioned.

It would seem that Rosh Hashanah’s significance, in the Torah, is in respect to Yom Kippur. We sound the shofar as an announcement of the upcoming Day of Atonement. In contrast, Yom Kippur does have great significance and lots of detail in the Torah. 

The deeper meaning of our holiday is revealed through our rabbinic traditions. It is Rosh Hashanah: the new year. It celebrates creation and the enthronement of God as king. It is the Day of Judgment, the first step in what will eventually result in our souls being purified on Yom Kippur. It is the day when we eat apples dipped in honey and make our challahs round.

Through multiple layers of significance, the shofar remains the most iconic element of Rosh Hashanah, the most unique and special ritual of the holiday.

But what does it mean? Maimonides acknowledges that the Torah provides no explicit reason for the shofar, but suggests that there is a hint as to its purpose. The sound announces:

You who sleep, bestir yourselves from your sleep, and you who slumber, emerge from your slumber. Examine your actions, return, and remember your Creator. Those who forget the truth in the vanities of time and waste all their years with vanity and emptiness, which is not effective and does not save, look inside yourselves. Improve your ways and your actions, let each one of you abandon their evil path and their thoughts that are not good!

Maimonides, Laws of Repentance 3:4

For Rambam, the shofar is a moral alarm clock, meant to awaken us to what is really going on with our lives. Most of us devote most of our energies to tasks that are unimportant in the grand scheme of things. If we are paying the right kind of attention, the shofar blast shatters our complacency, and reorients us to what truly matters. In other words, the sound of the shofar is an important step in the process of teshuvah, repentance.

While Maimonides offers us a psychological explanation, the Talmud offers something more theological, imagining a conversation between God and the Jewish people. God says:

Sound a blast before Me with a shofar from a ram, so that I will remember for you the binding of Isaac, son of Abraham, and I will consider it as if you had bound yourselves before Me.

Babylonian Talmud, Rosh Hashanah 16a

The Torah reading from this morning, the Binding of Isaac, ends with Abraham offering up a ram as a burnt offering in place of his son Isaac. This story was chosen for today as a testament to Abraham’s total and complete faith in God, as well as Isaac’s willingness to go along with the Divine command.

Sounding the shofar is our way of symbolically participating in that act. It is a way of offering up our faith to God, putting our lives in God’s hands, so to speak, so that God considers us with mercy on the Day of Judgment.

Of course, the story itself never claims to have taken place on Rosh Hashanah, nor does the Torah ever make a connection between the Binding of Isaac and our holiday.

Maimonides’ explanation characterizes the sound of the shofar as a call to us to perform teshuvah. The Talmud says that it is a reminder to God to remember the Binding of Isaac and have mercy upon us.

A midrash provides a third explanation for the origin and the meaning of the shofar that digs even deeper. It suggests a deeply emotional origin for our beloved ritual.

This midrash picks up on the juxtaposition of the story of the Akeidah with the death of Sarah in the subsequent chapter. It addresses Sarah’s absence in the story. Did she know what Abraham was doing with her son? Did she ever find out afterward? Did she wake up the morning they left to pack them a lunch and see them off? “Bye honey, be back in time for dinner.” The Torah is silent.

This midrash brings in Samael, an evil angel who serves as God’s adversary. Samael expects Abraham to chicken out at the last minute, revealing the weakness of his faith. But Abraham’s commitment to God is so strong that an angel has to call out his name, not once, but twice to get his attention and stop him from slaughtering Isaac.

His plan frustrated, Samael sets out for revenge. Hastily, he rushes to Sarah with a message:

“Sarah, Have you not heard what has happened?”

“No.”

“Your old man (Yes, he calls Abraham ‘old man.’) took your son Isaac to sacrifice as a burnt offering. The boy was crying and howling that he would not be able to be saved.”

[Then Sarah] began to cry and howl. She cried three cries, corresponding to the three tekiot. Three howls corresponding to the three yevavot.[Then] her soul departed, and she died.

Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer 32:8

A few words of explanation.

The three tekiot and three yevavot refer to the required number of blasts that one is required to hear on Rosh Hashanah. A tekiah is an uninterrupted note. A Yevavais a broken note, what we call teruah. The Rabbis translated Yom Teruah, a “Day of Blasting” into Aramaic as Yom Yabava.

This remarkable midrash provides a very different origin story for our shofar.  Instead of representing the willingness of a father to sacrifice his son, it expresses the grief and utter loss of control of a mother who discovers she has just lost her child. As Aviva Zornberg explains, the word for howl, yelalah, is

a wordless sound made by women particularly at moments of birth or death, at extreme moments when all normal patterns and understandings of the world break down.

“Cries and Whispers: The Death of Sarah” in Beginning Anew: A Woman’s Companion to the High Holidays, p. 185.

It is pure emotion, uninhibited and unrestrained. When the Rabbis in the Talmud argue over what the broken short notes, the yevavot, are supposed to sound like, they compare them to the yelalah – the raw cry of motherly grief. There is no discernable message in the yelalah. No reminder for self reflection, no call for Teshuvah, and no appeal to Divine mercy. Just honest, unfiltered emotion.

We encounter another weeping mother in today’s Haftarah. Picture the scene in your mind’s eye.

A cry is heard in Ramah—wailing, bitter weeping—Rachel weeping for her children. She refuses to be comforted for her children, who are gone.

Jeremiah 31:15

While the passage continues with God’s words of comfort and promises to restore her children to their land, Rachel’s crying reverberates.  She refuses to be comforted. In this haunting scene, we are reminded that sometimes, before we can embark on a path of introspection and repentance, we need a moment to howl, to let out our rage and grief.

The howl of the shofar echoes the sorrow and despair in our world: mothers and fathers who have lost children to violence and suicide; families and communities devastated by earthquake, flood, and fire; humans suffering from poverty and oppression, addiction and depression; as well as many of us whose lives have not unfolded as we had hoped. 

If we allow it to penetrate us, the cry of the shofar can awaken the compassion and empathy necessary to truly evaluate our own lives and pray for Divine mercy, not only for ourselves, but for all who suffer. As we open our hearts to the shofar’s call for personal growth, let us also extend our hands. May the echoes of Sarah’s howl and Rachel’s bitter weeping, along withthe cries of all who grieve, inspire us to be agents of healing, kindness, and transformation in the year ahead.

May the pure sound of the shofar serve as a beacon of hope, reminding us that even in our moments of deepest sorrow, we can find the strength to move forward, to mend, and to repair our world.

Shanah Tovah, may we all have a sweet and meaningful new year filled with love, compassion, and positive change.

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October 10, 2019

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High Holidays

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Take a Seat on the Throne of Mercy – Yom Kippur 5780

Think about an argument that you have had with someone in the past year.  Some time when you really got angry.  Picture the scene.  What did the other person do and say?  What did you do and say?  Think back to what led up to the fight, and what happened after it was over.  Are you still angry about it?

Now I have a question: What color were the other person’s eyes?  Can you even picture their face, or is it a blur?

It is not only when we are in a fight that we don’t look at one another.  We tend to be pretty self-centered in most of our interactions.  As society becomes more fractured and people become more atomized, this is only getting worse.

Self-centeredness lends itself to being more judgmental of others.  We are less willing to see things from another person’s perspective.

And yet, that is exactly what we ask God to do for us.  We want God to take note of us, to see things from our perspective, and have mercy.

It is ironic, because the dominant depiction of God during the High Holidays is as a King.  Last week, for Rosh Hashanah, we celebrated creation.  God is a Creator King.  Today, on Yom Kippur, we stand in judgment before our creator.  God is a Judge King.  

What does every King need? A throne, of course.  The Hebrew word for throne is kisei. The image of God’s kisei appears frequently in our High Holiday prayers.

One of those thrones appears in the prayer, Unetaneh Tokef.  V’yikon b’chesed kis’ekha — “Your throne is established in love.”  V’teshev alav be’emet — “and You sit upon it in truth.  ‘Truth’ for you are judge and prosecutor, expert and witness…” The image is of God as a King and a Judge, reviewing the deeds of all of Creation, passing judgment on us on Rosh Hashanah and sealing it on Yom Kippur.  It is a terrifying image, suggesting that our actions in the past year seal our fate in the year to come.  There is no escaping the truth of our deeds.  The best we can do is avert the severity of the decree.  It is not particularly reassuring.

Fortunately, this is not the only kind of throne that we find in the Mahzor.  Another part of our Yom Kippur service is called Selichot.  We recite the words El Melekh yoshev al kisei rachamim.  “God, King, who sits on a throne of mercy.”  That is the image of God that we want.  “acting with unbounded grace, forgiving the sin of Your people, one by one, as each comes before You, generously forgiving sinners and pardoning transgressors, acting charitably with every living thing; do not repay them for their misdeeds.” The God of Selichot is the polar opposite of the God of Unetaneh Tokef: a God of mercy rather than a God of justice.

Our goal, through the season of repentance, is to elevate the Divine King from the Throne of Judgment to the Throne of Mercy.  It is why, for example, we add an extra l’eilah to the Kaddish.  L’eilah l’eilah: Higher and higher.  Rise up, O Lord, to Your Throne of Mercy.

This tension between justice and mercy, din and rachamim; law and righteousness, mishpat and tzedek, is found throughout Jewish tradition.  

It is in the commentaries and midrash and even in the Bible itself.  It is reflected in two most commonly appearing Divine names.  Yud Hei Vav Hei is the unpronounceable name that we read as Adonai or, “The Lord.”  The other name is Elohim, which we translate simply as “God.”

Jewish tradition understands these two names as reflections of the two aspects of the Divine persona.  These attributes oppose and balance one another.  Adonai is mercy and Elohim is Judgment.

Throughout the creation story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, the Divine is repeatedly referred to by both names, together: Adonai Elohim—”The Lord, God.”  This is atypical.  Usually, the Torah uses one or the other name.  It must mean something important.  A midrash offers a parable (Genesis Rabbah 12:15).

There once was a human king who had some drinking cups.   The king said to himself, “if I put hot water in them, they will shatter, and if I put cold water in them, they will crack.  What to do?  What to do?”

So what did the king do? He mixed the hot water with the cold water and then filled up the glasses so that they would not break.  (This is not rocket science, folks.)

So too did the Blessed Holy One say: “If I create the world only with the attribute of compassion alone, I will tolerate everything and the sins will proliferate uncontrollably.  But if I create the world only with the attribute of justice alone, how would it be able to stand?”

“So,” the Lord God concludes, “I will create it with both judgment and compassion.”

So far, this is a pretty straightforward midrash.  There are several rabbinic texts that say something similar.  But the two concluding words are unique:  V’halevai ya’amod.  “Would that it stands.”

This ending is delightfully ambiguous.  God says, “I’ll give this a shot.  I hope it works.”

The resulting world, our world, is a confusing mess.  Fate is unpredictable, and may or may not reflect a fair consequence of our actions.

This tension is on display in full force in the Book of Jonah, which we will read this afternoon.  The book opens with God’s command to deliver a prophecy against the residents of the wicked city of Nineveh. Without any explanation whatsoever, Jonah runs the opposite direction, booking passage on a ship.  When the inevitable storm appears, Jonah is asleep in the cargo hold.  The other sailors are doing everything possible to survive.  They each pray to their own gods.  They throw overboard anything that is not nailed down.

Nothing works.  When the captain finds Jonah asleep, he is incredulous.  “How can you be sleeping at a time like this!  Get up and cry out to your god!  Ulai—Maybe the god will give us a thought and we will not perish!”

Jonah ignores the captain in silence.  It’s like he wants to go down with the ship.  So they cast lots to identify the person on whose account the storm has come.  Of course, the lots indicate Jonah.

“What did you do?” the sailors cry.

Again, Jonah is silent.  

“What can we do to calm the sea?” they ask.

Finally Jonah speaks, “Throw me overboard and the sea will calm down, for I am the cause.”

The sailors are heartbroken.  They do not want to perform such a terrible action.  But the storm is raging stronger by the minute, and they have no alternative.  Before they do it, they offer a prayer to Jonah’s God.  “Please, Lord, do not let us perish on account of this man’s life.  Do not hold us guilty of killing an innocent person…!” Then they toss the prophet, and the storm ceases.  In appreciation, the sailors offer sacrifices and make vows to God.  

What is up with Jonah?  Why does he run?  The text offers no explanation.  You would think that he might try to argue with God.  Perhaps he could pray when the captain approaches him.  What is going on in this guy’s head? The man has a death wish.  He is on a one-way journey of self-destruction.  If not for the piety of the sailors, he would have brought them down with him.

God will not let Jonah off so easy.  Instead of letting him drown, God sends a big fish to swallow Jonah alive and deposit him on dry land after three days.  God orders Jonah, once again, to deliver a prophecy of destruction to Nineveh.  Realizing that there is no escape, Jonah performs his task.  He walks through the streets declaring, Od arba’im yom v’Ninveh neh’pachet—”Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overturned!”

Compelled by these five inspiring words, the entire city—from the King to the people to the livestock—puts on sackcloth and fasts in repentance.  God backs down from the evil that had been planned for them.

Jonah’s reaction is exactly the opposite.  The forgiveness of the Ninevites “was exceedingly evil to Jonah, and he was angry.”

Now, finally, at the beginning of chapter four, Jonah reveals his motivations in what the text describes as a prayer to God.  It does not sound much like a prayer, though.  “This is exactly what I said would happen.  That’s why I ran away so quickly.  I knew that You are a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in kindness, repenting of evil.  Now, Lord, please take my life, for I would rather die than live.”

Jonah still harbors his death wish.  Why is he so upset? In this book, God is governed exclusively by the attribute of mercy.  Jonah knows it well.  He is certain that when the Ninevites hear his prophecy of doom and destruction, they will repent.

God, who is always ready to forgive a sinner, will then have to forgive the Ninevites.  Jonah’s prophecy of devastation will never come about and he will be made to look the fool. He would rather die than be embarrassed.

If God is driven solely by mercy in this story, then Jonah is governed by strict judgment.  The world he wants to live in is a world in which the wicked are always punished. He is willing to suffer to make this happen.  Jonah would rather die than act to prevent the deaths of others he deems not worthy. He wants to invoke the God of justice, but this is not a story about the God of Justice.  In this book, it is a merciful God who saves the sailors, prevents Jonah from drowning, and forgives the Ninevites, along with their animals.

Jonah is closed off to the possibility of change.  He is closed off to considering the internal feelings, thoughts, and experiences of anyone but himself.  He will not allow himself to consider it.  Justice prevents it.

Contrast him with the ship’s captain.  The captain says Ulai—”Maybe.”  What a beautiful, hopeful word.  The captain does not know why the storm has risen.  His world, and that of the Ninevites, is one in which is mercy is possible.  He does not know if Jonah’s prayer will work.  But he is hopeful.  Ulai.  “Maybe the god will give us a thought and we will not perish,” he offers wistfully.

The captain’s ulai sounds like God’s Halevai ya’amod from the midrash of the cups.  “Would that the world stands.”  We live in a world in which justice and mercy are both present.  Harsh, unrelenting punishment, competing with forgiveness and second chances.

I have suggested before that whenever we talk about God, we are actually talking about ourselves.  The midot, God’s qualities. are what we imagine to be the best possible attributes that a human being can achieve, but better.

So when we ask God to ascend from the throne of judgment to the throne of mercy, and when we read how Jonah is unable to prevent God from acting with compassion, we are talking to ourselves. It is we who are overly judgmental, and who suppress compassion for others in our relationships and interactions.  We are the ones who need to rise to the throne of mercy.

But it is so hard.  Every day, we have to deal with people who drive us crazy.

That person who lives under the same roof, who leaves their socks out on the floor of the living room, or the family member who yells at them for it.  The child who screams at a parent to change the radio station in the car, or the parent who insists on listening to the news.  (This is all hypothetical, of course.)

At school: the disruptive student who takes up 50% of the teacher’s time.

At work: the coworker who stubbornly refuses to see that my solution to the problem at hand is clearly the best one.  The employee who arrives late and goes home early while I work hard at my desk.

In the news: the politician who is clearly driven by the pure quest for power and ego-fulfillment, and the blind, naive supporters.  Why can’t they see the facts, which are so clear and straightforward?

My knee-jerk response is always to judge others.  Like Jonah, I do not take time to consider the experiences and emotions that another person might be feeling.  Instead, I judge that person only according to the impact of their actions on me, personally.

One of my favorite lessons in Pirkei Avot is taught by Rabbi Yehoshua ben Perachya.

Hevei dan et kol ha-adam l’khaf z’khut. “Judge every person to the scale of merit.”

Pirkei Avot 1:6

Imagine scales of justice, with one side representing guilt, and the other side representing or innocence.  We are encouraged to do everything possible to load up the side of innocence. 

I am really good at this, an expert, really… for myself.  I find all sorts of ways to justify my behavior, to excuse my mistakes.  I am so good at defending myself against the critiques of my family members, friends, and coworkers.

When it comes to other people… not so good.  Giving other people the benefit of the doubt does not come easily.

Consider every confrontation with another person that you have ever had.  Estimate the percent of time that you were the side in the right.  What would the percentage be?  50/50?  I don’t think so.

Human beings are naturally biased.  We have a strong tendency to be merciful with ourselves and judgmental of others.  This is called “illusory superiority.”  It is when a person tends to overestimate his or her own qualities and abilities compared to others.

80% of all drivers think they are above average.  Look around the room.  80% of us think that we are better than half of you.  

I know what you are probably thinking, because I am thinking the same thing: “but in my case, I actually am better than average.”  Sure you are.

Mashing up the Pirkei Avot teaching with the Torah’s commandment to “love your neighbor as yourself,” the Baal Shem Tov, the 18th century founder of Hasidism, adds

Since you always find excuses for your own misdeeds, makes excuses also for your fellow.

Is that doable?  The next time someone cuts me off on the freeway without indicating their turning signal, can I make an excuse for them?  Let’s try.

  • Maybe there is a woman about to give birth in the backseat.
  • Maybe there is a toddler having a temper tantrum.
  • Maybe the driver did signal, and I just didn’t see it.
  • Maybe the driver has been on the road for three hours and really needs to find a bathroom.

Imagine the story that would explain the behavior to be perfectly reasonable, even preferable perhaps—given the circumstances.

This is easy when it comes to people we don’t know and whom we do not have to face directly.  It’s easy to make up a creative story that probably isn’t true about someone I have never met before.  What about people we do know?

I recently heard an interview of Alan Alda on the podcast, Hidden Brain.  He wrote a book called If I Understood You, Would I Have This Look on My Face? in which he draws upon his work helping engineers and scientists to become better communicators.  Effective communication all comes down to “empathy and learning to recognize what the other person is thinking.”

In the interview, Alda quips, “I’ve noticed that the more empathy I have, the less annoying other people are.”

He suggests a simple practice that can help us develop greater empathy, improve communication, and improve our relationships.  While  interacting with someone, try to name the emotion that this person is feeling.  Psychotherapists are trained to do this in clinical settings, but there is no reason why the rest of us cannot employ this practice in our everyday interactions.

Alda suggests that we don’t even need to name the emotion.  Just taking note of the color of a person’s eyes can help us become more loving in our relationships.  

I am far less likely to get mad at somebody if I have a sense of what they are feeling and thinking, or if I have taken a moment to look deeply into their eyes.  This can be an effective way to elevate ourselves from the throne of judgment to the throne of mercy.  It is a way of conveying to myself, and to the other person:  “I see you, and I am listening to you.”

Alda writes that

Real conversation can’t happen if listening is just my waiting for you to finish talking…  Unless I’m responding with my whole self—unless, in fact, I’m willing to be changed by you—I’m probably not really listening.  But if I do listen—openly, naively, and innocently—there’s a chance, possibly the only chance, that a true dialogue and real communication will take place between us.”

Alan Alda.  If I Understood You, Would I Have This Look on My Face? (New York: 2017). pp. 10-11.

What a profound statement!  In how many of my conversations can I truly say that I was willing to be changed by the other person?

That is what it means to sit on the throne of mercy.  In our prayers, this is the essence of what we ask for from God.  Take note of us.  Look at our lives.  See how much we struggle.  Look at the good things we have done.  Look at how hard we have tried to repair our mistakes, to improve?  See us.  And forgive us.

I do not know whether there is a God who is listening to all of these prayers, but I do know that I ought to be listening.  Am I able to get up from the Throne of Judgment, and take a seat on the Throne of Mercy?