What’s the right way to hold
this [fork]? Is there even a right way? Americans are, or were, taught an additional
step to make them slow down when eating, but the original method is to hold it
like this, tines curving down, index finger pressing on the stem, and poke into
your food while, holding your knife in the right hand in similar fashion, you slice,
not saw, through your bite, and then lift it on your fork to your mouth – and
then chew with your mouth closed!
Such is how one with “good manners”
eats. For many, the idea of “manners” in
this sense can feel dated, antiquated – I really need more than one fork? I really need a water glass and a wine glass
(think of the “wrong glass, sir” scene in The Blues Brothers to imagine
that one)?
Yet, as insignificant as it may seem,
holding a fork in that way is “the best” way to manipulate such a tool. Taking the time to learn, know and apply all
the knowledge of fork-use is not only efficient, but is, or can be, a little
gift you bestow, by acting your best even about small things, too.
Once, when walking with my rabbi,
Rabbi Schimmel, to synagogue, he stopped and sighed a little and, apropos of
nothing said, “you know, Germany was such a wonderful place before the Nazis.” He had grown up there, in Frankfurt am Main,
and left around 1935. Yekkes,
German Jews, take the prize for being concerned with “manners,” or as we would
say in Hebrew, derech eretz.
Derech eretz, “the way of the land,” like
“manners” in English is inclusive of things like holding your fork, but also of
so much more – which is why we discuss it now.
Part of why it is such an important feature related to German Jewry is
the emphasis placed on it by Rabbi Sampson Raphael Hirsch, one of its great
leaders in the 19th century.
He wrote:
“Derech eretz includes everything that flows from
the human need to perfect one’s destiny and life, together with society,
through the medium of the earth’s bounty. Hence, the term is used in reference
to earning a living, establishing civic
order, and to the paths of discipline, manners and refinement that social life
require, as well as to everything that touches upon the development of
humankind and civility.”
As we will attempt to see,
understanding derech eretz is vitally critical to each of us not just
surviving during this time in our country, but perhaps even saving it and
ourselves.
Even derech eretz when taken
in the “prim and proper” sense teaches us something. Rabbi Schimmel talked about how going to
synagogue in Germany meant wearing a “cylinder,” a top hat. Or how when Eastern European Jews came to
shul with their tzitzit “indecorously” sticking out would be told to tuck them
in, or how, when I became his intern, my choice not to wear a robe (as he did) for
funerals disappointed some congregants.
All these may seem funny and
anachronistic and out of date, but consider – was it trivial to the grieving
family who felt their loved one was honored when “the rabbi” wore vestments even
into the cemetery, regardless of whether it was dusty or muddy or rainy? Or to express through how one dresses the
importance we feel about some event? Or even as a reason to remember that showing
off, even in a religious context, isn’t as pious as having a quiet dignity that
doesn’t draw attention to itself?
As much as all those examples
demonstrate how the “small” features of derech eretz can make a
difference in our lives, the next few will cement for us how, at a time in our
country when all too many around us, when even “us,” are sorely lacking in derech
eretz, that we need it.
Rabbi Schimmel also taught me how, as
a baker’s son, he learned the smile on a customer’s face when you gave them something
they were sure to delight in was worth more than however many marks they might
pay you.
Or, how about their maid, a young
German woman, his father, Elias, instructed my rabbi and his six siblings, “you
are not to refer to her as ‘that girl’ and never as “the shikseh.” She has a name and you will use it.”
Or the story I’ve shared of how one night
Elias found a Nazi party member passed out drunk on their front steps and
brought him a blanket and pillow, only for the man, when he came to the next
morning, to curse about a “Jew-boy” ever doing something as considerate as that.
…I can’t comprehend how stories of
true derech eretz true menschlichkeit, seem for so many in
America today, as antiquated and out of date as the top hat one. How did we come to live in a country as
coarse as ours now? Driven to our
current low state by, of all things, politics.
All us Americans – so carefully
informed and following politics so closely.
Rooting for our side to win and your side to lose ignominiously. No doubt that’s why House Resolution 5363,
which became Public Law #116-91 just before the pandemic must frustrate you all
so much.
You know, the one called, “Fostering
Undergraduate Talent by Unlocking Resources for Education Act or the FUTURE Act,”
permanently authorizing funding for minority-serving institutions of higher
education?
How annoying that
such a dastardly piece of legislation passed in the House with almost 400 votes
and passed by unanimous consent in the Senate.
What were they all thinking to come together on something terrible like
that?
Are we even aware
of such things? And if we are, do they
temper our views? Certainly, there are
issues of grave concern over which loyal and patriotic American differ mightily
– but does that mean we need to hate each other because of it? Use insults?
Cast aspersions? Is it worth all
that? And even if the other side is
doing it to you, does it make your side better to return fire?
Isn’t doing so at
least as bad as dressing slovenly to a wedding? Don’t let yourself be manipulated
that way! Whatever TV channel you’re
watching, I suppose unless it’s CSPAN or you watch Canadian news or something, isn’t
your network at least a little motivated to keep you glued to screen? Is truth, is thoughtfulness, served by such a
motive?
I truly worry for
our country on this point. I worry about
this more than any other one thing. As
important as many of the issues we confront as Americans today mean to me, demonizing
each other is not going to help achieve success in supporting them. Is that naïve? Probably.
Is the person who posts provocative stuff on Facebook any less naïve thinking
someone somewhere is saying, “your all caps post has shown me the error of my
ways?”
There is a famous
saying about “derech eretz, derech eretz kadma la-Torah,” “Derech
eretz precedes the Torah.” How can
it be that manners, civility, being a mensch, come before the Torah? The rabbis explain it with a midrash about Adam
and Eve’s expulsion from the Garden of Eden: “God drove them out, and stationed east of Eden cherubim and
the fiery ever-turning sword, to guard the way to the tree of life.” (Gen.
3:24) – The midrash is that “way” derech eretz, comes before “tree of
life” which is the Torah.
God gifted
humankind civility, thoughtfulness, consideration towards others at the very
start. Torah wasn’t revealed to Moses
for centuries after that.
Just as Jeremiah
tells us: “For when I brought your ancestors out of the land of Egypt, I did not merely command them about burnt offerings and sacrifices, but I commanded them: Obey Me, and I
will be your God, and you will be My people. You must walk in all the ways
וַהֲלַכְתֶּ֗ם בְּכָל־הַדֶּ֙רֶךְ֙ I have commanded you, so that it may go well with you.”
If our own tradition teaches us that as important as our prayers
and rituals are, at least as important, and maybe more so, is acting properly
towards each other – how can you think that your identity as an American, as a
Republican, as a Democrat, is ennobled through nasty, debasing words and
deeds?
My friends, I feel obliged to say all this to you. To do what I can to correct a plague that I
hope you will join me in fighting – that of belittling and demonizing others in
this country, by treating them respectfully instead.
If Elias Schimmel, a Jew in the 1930s, could offer a blanket
to a drunk Nazi, and feel he’d done the right thing even after being disparaged
by the very man he helped, can we not bring ourselves to see those who oppose
us as generously? Even if you feel the
people on the other side are as bad as Nazis, recall that if you want to put it
that way, then both the “Nazis” and the “Bolsheviks” all voted for that FUTURE
Act we were talking about. Sometimes
both sides aren’t that bad.
We Jews brought Torah into the world. We Jews are meant to be a light to the
nations. But according to the midrash,
all human beings deserve the inheritance given to Adam and Eve which is derech
eretz – proper, good, holy treatment by others. And it is a tribute, an honor, a glory we
bestow on our departed loved ones to live in such a way as does their spirits
proud. Let us make our success at
spreading this universal value part of how we fulfill our particular, our Jewish,
purpose in the new year that has just begun.
G’mar Chatimah Tovah!
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