I was sitting down this morning to write my week’s article on agreements and marriage, when my wife shouted they are holding hostages in a kosher grocery store in Paris! I ran into the room to see the unfolding of further horror in Europe. What is going on?! It seems as if the world is going crazy, fast. But the reality is, It has been that way from time immemorial. Years ago, when news travelled Model T style–it took a long long time for people in one part of the world to hear about terrible things happening in another. And even if we did finally hear about it many weeks or months later, it was probably someplace that most people never heard of and had no clue of where it was located. The impact, as well, was severely blunted. With bits of information, some true and most of it rumors and innuendo, it hardly had an impact. Even many years later, in the mid to late 30’s, we heard stories. Though we thought it was probably true, we were fooled into thinking that it was at least somewhat exaggerated (so we thought). It hasn’t been until the last few years that moments after something awful happens, we are watching it in live time. At this very moment, I am rushing back and forth between the TV in one room and the computer in another. Where this particular episode will end, we have no way of knowing right now. But one thing we can predict with almost certainty, no matter what happens, it will continue and get worse!
NEWS BREAK:
It ended a few minutes ago–by now, you all know the details. That is the way it happens. Terrible things generally happen suddenly, and are thrust onto our screens immediately. We are horrified as the revulsion continues, but a short time later, it is old news. However, the repercussions are exploding. Copy cats are amazed and busy at work trying to figure out how to make the impact and damage even greater. Until the Moshiach or end of life as we know it–whichever comes first.
At the root of all this is the fact that culture and copycatism are a built in and essential part of being a human being. It always has been that way, and as far as I know, it will continue to be that way. The following is a simple example. I have been teaching a unit on being exposed to violence and grappling with the question of whether exposure to violence in TV, movies and books breeds further violence. While this discussion has been going on for many years, it was clear to me when I was just out of adolescence that it has to be true. We are products of a culture. Cultures are radically different from one another. For example, how do people learn and what are the best ways to teach children? How is it that some schools routinely produce wonderful students, while many struggle with keeping students in class and fail to get even a reasonable minority to barely pass high school? To some the answer is racism–short and simple. Or maybe unions and seniority, and the rules that keeps terrible teachers there to continue their awful teaching. Perhaps it is standardized testing, or maybe even the fear and failure of schools to fail a failing student! Or one of hundreds of other possibilities. Whatever the answer, a very important part of it is culture. And while some cultures produce terrible, evil results, some work hard at making people better. Let us exert ourselves to spend our few years on this world, to leaving it a tiny bit better than it was when we arrived.
By Rabbi Dr. Mordechai Glick
