Rabbi Joseph Dweck
Rabbi Dwek in Conversation with Ollie Anisfeld: Forgiveness in the Age of Cancel Culture
Rabbi Dwek in Conversation with Ollie Anisfeld - Forgiveness in the Age of Cancel Culture
- Hello everyone, to viewers around the world for Lockdown University. Thank you so much for making the time to join us today. I’m Ollie Anisfeld, media producer, run, J-TV, which is an online Jewish channel, and I’m thrilled to be joined again by Rabbi Joseph Dweck, who’s appeared on Lockdown University, I think a number of times now. He’s the senior rabbi of the S&P Sephardi Community of the United Kingdom. And today we thought it’d be really interesting in light of the fact that Yom Kippur’s coming up to talk about the issue of cancel culture. Now, for those of you who aren’t familiar with the term, where have you been? Because it’s certainly something that we hear a lot nowadays. And the idea of cancel culture, it’s the observation that we’re seeing a rise in public figures, artists, stars, even historical figures or historical artefacts that are being removed from public life, or there are calls for them to be removed from public life and culture, sometimes for big crimes, sometimes for small crimes, sometimes even for just having certain opinions that some were deemed to be unacceptable. And I wanted to discuss these all from an ethical viewpoint, as I say, in light of Yom Kippur, which one of the central themes is that of forgiveness, and thought it’d be so fascinating to explore with Rabbi Dweck the nature of forgiveness and how we should look at the issue of forgiveness with regard to this issue.
And I want to talk about all these issues, but the first thing I want to start with is something that’s very topical and something that Rabbi Dweck just mentioned, which is the story with regard to Russell Brand. Now, there have been allegations, and I’m not going to comment on their validity because there needs to be an investigation at this point, but the thing that struck me when I was formulating questions about cancel culture with Rabbi Dweck was that, I dunno if people have seen this, and maybe it might just be a small echo chamber online, but that he has had a tonne of support online, people that are following him on his YouTube channel, but also there are some TV presenters, there have been some significant public figures, including Elon Musk, the richest man in the world. And one of the common themes that I’m hearing is people saying, this is a coordinated attack. And you’re seeing all these kind of conspiracy theories. And Russell Brand does certainly dabble in conspiracy theory in his videos. So perhaps it’s no surprise, but there’s a lot of it, and I find it quite a alarming. And they basically seem to be saying, a lot of these people, and you can easily find it, if you look online, they’re saying, “No, no, no, we are not jumping on this bandwagon this time, "this cancel culture bandwagon.” And they won’t even look at the allegations. They won’t even hear them. They’ve already made up their minds. And it made me wonder, Rabbi Dweck, my first question is, do you think we’re starting to see maybe a backlash to cancel culture perhaps in the extreme?
Well, first of all, it’s a pleasure to be back at Lockdown University, pleasure to be speaking with you, Ollie. And yeah, this is quite an important issue. Look, I probably would be more interested in your answer to that question than my answer to that question, because you’re asking me, you know, do I see that happening? Do I see that there’s a change in kind of, you know, the approach to how people are relating to, you know, somebody potentially being cancelled. I think that in general there are, you know, a pendulum swings in society, especially when it hits an extreme point, right, it’s already ready to come back into the other direction. That may very well be happening. I don’t know. I mean, in all honesty, I’ve only just begun to hear about the Russell Brand situation and what’s going on with him. And I haven’t seen all of this stuff that you’re mentioning. Not to say that, I mean, I’m sure that that’s happening. So I don’t know whether there is a real shift. I think there’s a deeper problem, which we may get into if you want, but I think that the whole question of cancel culture in general, I mean, one, you know, might ask why have we not heard about this concept until, you know, relatively recently in our generation, you know, in a very recent, you know, last 10 years or so. It’s not like, you know, we saw that kind of thing, or we kind of coined the phrase. Did that mean that people were not being shunned by society? Well, not necessarily. But for some reason there’s a much greater susceptibility to it today. And, you know, I mean, if you want, we can kind of get into talking about that, but, you know, I don’t want to to veer off away from where you want to go-
Yeah, well that was, that certainly was what I wanted to get into once we just touched on the Russell Brand thing, and we’ll do that shortly, I guess all I would say in terms of my observation is that it may well be limited to his supporters and online community, but, you know, people like Elon Musk, other significant figures, it might be partly a reaction and a-
Maybe-
Just a pushing back of cancel culture. I think it’s also perhaps part of a separate issue, which is that people are just questioning mainstream media, full stop, to perhaps to an absurd extent. And I think there are all kinds of reasons at play in that. I’ve a new book recently. I dunno if you’ve come across the author Dan Ariely, he’s is Israeli American, and he’s just come out with a book called, “Misbelief: "What Makes Rational People Believe Irrational Things.” And I think that’s definitely part of it as well. I’m finding more and more people I see just coming to decisions and conspiracy theories without even the slightest bit of effort to inquire. So I think it’s tied into all those issues. And maybe we can, that might be a subject for another time, but okay, let’s focus on the issue of cancel culture, which still I think is very prevalent today, despite there being some kind of backlash. And I was just saying to you before we started this interview, that I think in some ways it’s one, other than like capital punishment, it is one of the worst and most severe punishments. I think the Talmud, Pirkei Avot it says, you know, “Of all the crowns "the crown of a good name is the greatest. And, you know, losing that, people talk about what’s the most valuable thing? They say, "Well, it’s got to be health.” Well, I think, well, if you are unhealthy and you have a good name, you can still interact in this world. But if you have lost your good name, you are cut off and isolated. So we’re talking about teshuvah this week and forgiveness, Do you think that cancel culture is fundamentally un-Jewish or are there times when a person behaves so gravely that they should be forever cancelled?
So I think there’s nuance in this. I think that cancel culture as you say, which, I mean, maybe it’s good to kind of give some definition to what we mean by that, yeah. Because, I mean, there’s certainly ancient ideas of excommunication in Torah, right. There’s no question about that, where it’s certainly a severe punishment, but, you know, there were great rabbis even that were put into excommunication, which essentially meant that you, you know, you weren’t able to sit within six feet of them not to be able to have regular dialogue with them and so on. But it’s important to realise that those kinds of things, if they happened, when they happened, happened by the decision of a recognised authority that was essentially entrusted with governing society. So this was not just, you know, a free-for-all, where every individual decided what it is, what they wanted to decide and pass judgement on an individual. So that’s the first thing that I would say. And I think on the back of that, when we talk about cancel culture, we are very much talking about a generation of social media, because everyone has their broadcast tool, right. Everybody has, you know, if you’ve got a phone, you’ve got a broadcast tool. And especially when you’ve got some kind of inflammatory information, you know, you have situations and where information would go, what we call go viral, right, where things, you know, get just consumed. And that has to do with our psychology. We love sensational ideas and situations. We are definitely, you know, people that are interested in knowing what’s going on with other human beings when they fail or when they might have, you know, problems going on. We would be, you know, remiss if we did not acknowledge that that’s something that is fundamental to the nature of humanity. That goes back to the dawn of humanity. But what we have is a situation where the nature of human beings is plugged into this, you know, social media culture, or not just culture, but genuine circumstance, and where information is so unregulated. And I think another part of it is that it can be anonymous as well, right.
So information can be shot out anonymously and broadly by anyone. And that just loses all structure and regulation. So that’s a huge change, right. That’s a major difference. I think that in previous generations, you know, it may very well have been the media that controlled these kinds of things. And we used to have such a thing called the media. We have that today, but it’s not what it used to be. It used to be that you had networks that controlled the flow of information. If they wanted to cancel somebody, they did. And that happened. But here, it’s much freer, much more open and much more of a potential danger as far as that’s concerned. I think that as far as the mechanics are concerned, I really think it’s important to be able to recognise that. As far as the Jewish part of it, like you say, we are in the time, just before Yom Kippur, we are in what we call the Aseret Yemai Teshuvah, these 10 days of literally return, right, that’s what teshuvah literally means. I mean, roughly translated as repentance.
But that fundamental idea is that the Jewish bit is the fact that we have built into Judaism the highest ideal, which is the opportunity to repair, to return to integrity, to be able to recognise with regret and remorse that mistakes were made and that opportunities are given for a person to be able to rectify their actions. Now, to be truthful, I will say that, you know, my teacher Rabbi Ovadia Yosef Yitzhak, he said to somebody, you know, somebody had come to him and said, “I did teshuvah.” And he said, well, there are laws to teshuvah, right. There’s to teshuvah. which means that there are, one could want to do that, but there are ways to do it. And there are definitely nuances with regards to it. But the fundamental idea of teshuvah, it’s beautiful, you know, the hakhamim say that teshuvah was created before even the world was created. Because if we’re going to create a world of, you know, fallible human beings, there needs to always be this possibility in where we can address our failures and to be able to do better and be better. And cancel culture just completely shuts down any opportunity for people to be even given an opportunity to address their actions and to be able to rehabilitate or rectify and to return to better integrity.
But are there ever times from a Jewish perspective where someone has basically blown their opportunity to repent, to return, to regain their integrity?
It’s the rarest of things. You know, Rambam lists 24 different situations in which either proper repentance, right, and proper remorse is either extremely difficult because of the circumstances or that it’s so severe that it really requires hurdles, right, in order to be able to get there. But even with those the Rambam ends it all saying, and still there is nothing that shuts the doorway from teshuvah, right. So that’s really important. I also think that it’s important to recognise that there are some kinds of transgressions and even crimes that people can commit that until we do know that they are repentant and willing to rehabilitate, we may have to hold them away from society until we know that they’re on a path, right. So that has a whole question with regards to incarceration and jail and, you know, prison, putting people away, and what should prison be, right. Shouldn’t prison be, should prison be a rehabilitative experience or simply a, you know, a timeout, a penalty experience? Certainly the Jewish view would be that it should be rehabilitative as much as possible.
Wow! Interesting. And one of the things that’s challenging to navigate is getting the balance right between accountability, especially for public figures, and also potential harm caused by public humiliation. Do you have any wisdom on how we can better navigate that balance?
Well, look, I think it’s a really difficult one because as I was saying, who is to try this individual? Who is to sit in judgement for this individual? So like you said, you know, Russell Brand, there needs to be an investigation. So the authority should investigate. What should be the way that we deal with it? What I believe should be, we should hold our judgement until we hear substantive results of an investigation. Should there be an investigation? Yes, there should be an investigation, right, there should be a reckoning of sorts and a responsibility of society. But when we put that responsibility into every single individual, and that they are free to judge as not just as they see fit, but as the whim might feel, right, what’s really drawing, what people are really drawing on in those situations is a fight-flight kind of response, right. There’s a sense of danger, there’s a need for protection, and the first thing that you do is just, you know, shut down, draw the blinds, shut the doors, bolt the doors, and keep the people away. And, you know, I was reading, you know, very briefly about the Russell Brand situation and just, you know, everyone has just absolutely pulled away from any association. And the reason why people tend to do that is not because they’re judging that person, they’re just protecting themselves, right. We don’t want to have to be infected with that person.
Do you think it’s wrong to do that before-
I think that that’s less of a moral, I think that on a certain level, it’s less of a moral question, right. I mean, there is certainly a moral issue with regards to it. Is it right or wrong to do that? But there’s another layer of it, right, it’s a question of what does one do in order to be able to preserve oneself? And is there such a thing as guilt by association? Well, there is, there’s definitely, the Torah definitely recognises that there’s that kind of concept, you know. And I mean, we could look at various ones, right, certainly Korah, you know, there’s the story of Korah where God, you know, says to Moses over and over again, “Tell the people, get away from Korah” because he’s not okay right now, and whoever is with him and engage with him really needs to be concerned about their proximity to him. So there may be an element of that. And that unfortunately, is the fallout of, you know, history or choices that a person has made. But it should always be pending. It should always be pending, A: the search into what actually went on into the investigation and pending the person’s opportunity to genuinely repair, rehabilitate, express remorse, and to rectify to whatever degree that is appropriate for that. And that should also be guided by society. Society does not give so much of an opportunity for people to be able to rectify and to make better on what it was that they have done.
And on that point, do you think that, ‘cause interesting you said that, you know, we shouldn’t judge until we know all the facts. But even when we do know the facts, still we have the issue of separating the act and the actor.
Right.
Because Russell Brand, let’s say in his case, you can never excuse poor behaviour, but it does add a layer, a depth when you consider if you learn about he had a very unstable upbringing, not exactly the best role models for parents. He was clearly a drug addict, swapped that for sex addiction. it’s complicated, people are complicated. And I wonder if, do you think as a society, we also could be better at making those kind of distinctions?
Look, I definitely think that we could be better at that, but we have to be, we also have to be practical and honest. So on the one hand, it may very well be, and indeed it is that, you know, Russell Brand had a difficult childhood and past that he did, and his struggles with his own vices and traumas, right, that he did. And that that’s not to be minimised. Those are serious, serious problems. And sometimes, you know, people that otherwise we, you know, that we otherwise find are quite, you know, intelligent and capable have these vices that they can’t get around because of these kinds of things. So look, I think that compassion is an important part of it. But the other side of that is there’s certainly a fear that if we simply accept, let’s use Russell Brand, because he’s, you know, in the public media at the time, accept him based on those points, are we also accepting the behaviour? And it’s very difficult in public society to make these subtle delineations of, “Well, you know…” It would almost be like every time Russell Brand goes on, we would need to have a disclaimer and wonder, “We understand Russell Brand’s traumas and all "that he’s been in, we don’t judge the man, "but we don’t accept the action.” And so because we are not set up, right, for that kind of sophisticated delineation and judgement , there is just a blanket withdrawal, you know, from that kind of thing.
And that I think is perhaps on the one hand, tragic for the person. It is, I really think it is. And I think that we still must have compassion, you know, around the person with regards to that. But it’s the collateral damage of the unfortunate reality of those kinds of situations. And sometimes we have to think what is going to affect the broader society and how are people going to react and deal with these kinds of things. So if we have kind of a nod to, in this case, sexual abuse, and we give a certain element of leeway to it, there’s a deep fear in society. Does that mean that, well, Russell Brand was given a pass. “Well, you’re not exactly Russell Brand. And then we get into these very difficult situations of how do we delineate. So, you know, there are things in which, not with people, but where, the hakhamim certainly in Torah, they made all kinds of decrees. And oftentimes we’ll hear the say, "Yeah, but I’m not going to do that.” The hakhamim will say, “Well, yeah, but we’re not differentiating "because if we’re speaking to a society sometimes, "right, societal, established guidelines, boundaries, "and so on, will not work perfectly for every individual "in that society, 'but ultimately will hold society together.” What I will say one extra thing with regards to what you said, I mean, there’s a beautiful piece in the Talmud in Masekhet Berachot where Rabbi Meir was really upset about some thugs in his neighbourhood. And he was praying that they should die and be gone. And his wife Berurya I heard him and she said, “How could you, what are you doing, Meir?” She said, “The passuk says, the verse says, ” , the sins should die from the land, “not the sinners. "And you should pray for them to repent and to do better.” And the story goes that he did, and they did. So there’s definitely this concept of, you know, being able to differentiate between the sin and the sinner.
Yeah. And I remember about maybe a year or two ago, there was a bit of a scandal on where a significant figure in the Jewish community behaved in London, and it was really not good at all. And there was a rabbi who was speaking to a community, had very close proximity to it. And I heard him speaking to a bunch of young students in his class, and someone asked him, you know, “Is this person that we all knew a bad person?” And he said, “Yes, he’s a bad person.” And I spoke to him, you know, a few weeks later, I said, “I was a bit surprised to hear you say that ”'cause isn’t there the principle of, you know, “judge the sin not the sinner, and we don’t know.” And he said to me, “You’re absolute right Ollie.” And I could also try and make, I wouldn’t say as , I could try and make a similar case for some of the worst thugs in human history. But right now, they don’t have, they were in shock and they needed clear moral leadership and distinctions, and they needed to just hear “bad, "this is not good.” And he said, “It’s not the,” he didn’t feel it was appropriate to go into “all the moral distinctions when they really needed some, "a bit of a morale boost and moral clarity.” But it sounds like, I don’t know if you’d entirely agree with his perspective on that, but it still sounds like you both seem to be saying there is some necessity to cancel culture to some extent, or to shunning some people, even though we know they are complicated and they’re layered and they are deep and they should still have private support. It sounds like you’re both saying that sometimes there is necessity in shunning people from public life for the greater good.
Yeah, I mean, I hear that. I don’t completely agree with that because it’s one thing to say that, you know, a person needs to be removed or not, you know, not engage with, it’s another person to make a concrete judgement on the person’s moral character, you know or morally. I don’t know that I would go that far. I think that there’s-
The way, I don’t think he was, I think he was just saying-
I understand.
Well, I mean, if a person says “He’s a bad person.” That’s a very succinct judgement , right. So I don’t know that I would say that. I may, you know, I might approach it a bit differently, but nonetheless, recognise, you know, the clear lines that need to be made. I want to reiterate though, all of these things, right, are happening, you know, what you referenced and many other situations historically are often done by leadership. Now we can agree or disagree with leadership, right. We can agree or disagree with the decisions that are made, but it’s done by leadership. There is, appropriately there is a kind of a thought about what is important and how is it that we’re going to hold society together. You know, in modern times, oftentimes that leadership is either voted in, hired, you know, I mean, there’s something about the populace that puts it into their hands. And I think that we should not underestimate, or kind of belittle the fact that society today is for the most part deconstructed, right. In other words, the structures that we were used to in society 25, 30 years ago, right, that were kind of in control more or less about how these things, and sometimes abused that control, and sometimes was not appropriate, has been devolved. It has be been, for all intents and purposes, deconstructed and handed into the grasp of every individual. And so you end up having a very, a great potential for mob mentality, right, 'cause all it takes, you know, we are social animals, we definitely catch on to what everybody else is doing. We have an elated experience of being, you know, endorsed for our thinking. And certainly when our thinking is the thinking of the masses, there’s almost, you know, an an elixir of drunkenness almost of being part of that and being accepted in that. And that takes over. So I think that that’s, you know, one of the major issues that we’re dealing with in society today, that we’ve lost regulation, we’ve lost structure, and we’ve lost, you know, the, kind of, the leadership. And I’ll say about that, I think that even leadership, right, in other words, even the leadership positions, I’ll say, you know, somewhat of a blanket statement, are not what they used to be. And I think that has a great deal to do with individualism. I recently actually wrote an article for the “JC” on individualism and religion, right, and what’s happening with regards to that. But there’s just a high pendulum swing towards individualism in the West. And I think that that’s affecting even the leadership today because the leadership is thinking less about service and more about how he or she can get ahead in leadership and-
Wow!
I think we are missing that a great deal. I think that, you know, service about asking the questions, not what’s, you know, “What do I need from me and what’s going to make me happy,” but “What can I do to serve "and how can I best live in society?” Is less a question asked or less, you know, those questions are less asked than the others. And that has a great deal to do with what we’re experiencing in cancel culture, I think.
Wow. That’s, you know, that’s concerning. And you’re right, you know, we hear more and more the court of public opinion, trial by media, all these things, there is a, yeah, there clearly is a vacuum of leadership.
And there can’t be due process, right. How could you have, there’s no capacity for due process and careful, you know, pensive judgement in that situation.
Yeah. So what is the mark of genuine repentance and how it, from, certainly from your perspective and a Jewish perspective, and how can we as a society set clear standards in order to forgive, in order to clear someone’s reputational slate?
Yeah. Well, there’s something very much about the acknowledgement of the wrong, and we can detect that. So, you know, on Yom Kippur, to use Yom Kippur as an example, there is one major thing that we do on the day, aside from fasting, you know, if we are engaged in the service at all, every single one of the five prayers that we go through on Yom Kippur includes what we call Viddui. And the Viddui is simply a verbal articulation of transgression. And the value in that is, you know, we say at the opening, we say, you know, we’re not , we’re not a stiff neck people, even though we’re constantly defined as stiff neck people in the Bible. , say before you got , that we are all righteous and that we have not missed the mark, that we have , rather indeed we have missed the mark. And the Rambam writes, “ ,” that is the main aspect of the Viddui. To say those two words, “Indeed we missed the mark.” And the value of that is not to rationalise, not to give reasons, not to say, “Yeah, but,” not to paint a bullseye around an arrow that I already shot and missed. In order to say, “No, I really made it.” The key and the first major steps of teshuvah is to genuinely acknowledge and come to understand the wrong. So it’s not just about saying, “I’m sorry,” it’s about saying, “I’m sorry because… "This is what I did.” And part of teshuvah requires that, right. If one is genuinely doing teshuvah, speak out what did you do? And, you know, again, if we’re going to use the the current example, that would be part of the sign or part of the mark, that a person genuinely has come to a recognition and realisation that was really wrong, and this is why. Then there’s a question of behaviour, right, you know, what are you going to do in your life so that that behaviour doesn’t occur again?
And that includes removing oneself from stimuli, right, you know, what is the nature of your life? Is your life set up for rehabilitation? Or is your life set up for, you know, repeat offence? And that’s a major issue. So those two things are very serious. And, one additional thing is being able to kind of recognise, “I got into this situation ”'cause I was very much in my own mind. “I was stuck in my thinking in how I was relating "to the world.” And it’s extremely helpful to be able to broaden and look and say, “Well, how can I help the world?” “Where is something wrong? "How do I make it right?” And to reorient a person’s thought with regard, that’s really what tzedakah is by the way, right. tzedakah is not just giving money, the Rambam says tzedakah, which means you do tzedakah not just you give. And so tzedakah simply righteousness. And righteousness is doing right. It’s looking what’s wrong and making it right. So it’s those three things, right. It’s the ability to speak out and genuinely understand, “This is what I did.” It’s staying away from the stimuli and changing a person’s environment of life so that there is not repeat offence but rather a new way of living. And it is looking to see how it is that one can remove oneself or come out of one’s own thought and see really what’s going on in the world and how they can practise a life that is making things right rather than wrong. Those are major, right, those are major, major aspects. And that’s something that, you know, would be, I imagine, part of trial, part of, you know, rehabilitation and so on and so forth, if one was given an opportunity to do that.
That’s a beautiful answer. And it rings true. I’m pretty sure it’s the Talmud that said that before God created the world, or at the start, he also created the concept of repentance and teshuvah.
Yeah.
And I had a beautiful talk about this. It was saying that there’s something almost miraculous, it’s not natural in the way that repentance works and saying, sorry, and that, you know, we, just by acknowledging what you did, you’re not changing anything, the simple, plain acknowledgement is already taking you well on that path towards healing it. And it’s actually quite an amazing thing.
Yeah.
I wanted to shift track slightly with regard to the issue of cancel culture, because another issue that comes up, and I wonder if it’s something comes up in your Jewish studies and learning and culturally, is the question of whether we can separate the art and the artist in order to continue to benefit from the art? Let’s say when an artist is unrepentant, and or maybe has passed away, or we find out certain things, or there are calls for certain historical artefacts or statues to be removed. I mean, my own former school that I went to, Haberdashers, so it was called the Haberdashers’ Aske’s Boys’ School because it was founded by a man called Robert Aske, and they’d found out a few years ago that he had shares in the Royal African Company, which of course was a major player in the slave trade, and so they decided they just wanted to erase the name. And, of course, that provoked all kinds of reactions. But I wonder also maybe if this ever occurs in Jewish learning, you learn from certain people, certain philosophers, maybe non-Jewish philosophers, that you’ve always appreciated. Does Judaism have any light to shed on this issue?
Yeah, thankfully Judaism has light to shed on almost every issue. The question is, do we know the light? Well, there’s a very famous story, you know, almost everybody I think knows this story, and that that is with, again, with Rabbi Meir, right. It’s interesting that Rabi Meir keeps finding himself in this question, right, of the act and the, you know, the actor and the act. So his rabbi, who is called Elisha, was a major Talmid Chakham, a major scholar in Jewish law and philosophy, and he became a heretic. There’s a whole story as to how he became a heretic, which we won’t get into, but he did. And astonishingly, Rabbi Meir kept studying from him. He didn’t forget his Torah, he just kind of stopped believing in it, right, in the whole thing, but he had all the information. So Rabbi Meir kept studying with Elisha and his friends criticised him. They said, “How could you keep studying with this man, "after you know that the whole frame of everything "that he knows is gone, right?” In other words he no longer believes in anything. And his response was, “Well, I found a fruit, "and I peeled the peel of the fruit "and threw that away, and I’m eating the fruit.” Which essentially is saying, “I know how to differentiate between the man and him, and his views and the data that I extract from him. Now, of course, that’s a slippery slope because not everyone will have the capacity to be able to extract the data from the context in which the data is presented.
And that’s, again, it goes back to a question of societal determination. So for example, on the books, and I mean the law books, there’s a prohibition of studying anything that is idle worship oriented, right. Can’t read any of those books. And the Rambam writes a reason for it. He doesn’t just say that’s prohibited. He says, ‘The reason is, is that we do not, you know, "rely on each individual’s capacity to be able to recognise "the idle worship aspects as opposed to maybe "the valuable information one they extract from it.” So Sanhedrin, for example, had to learn all of it because they had to try people that were worshipping , you know, idols. But, you know, there’s a withholding of that. So the bottom line with regards to this is there will be situations in which we might, you know, need to, or allow ourselves to be able to study aspects of something without being susceptible to the context or the person that is speaking it. In general, it’s not a blanket statement. In other words, it’s not something that you can simply codify and say, listen to the information, not the person giving the information. Listen to the art, not the person making the art. Because that differentiation is not easy and is not the same in all situations. So it may be, you know, that people are going to study Heidegger, for example, you know, who was a Nazi in psychology or in existential philosophy, and are completely non-susceptible to his Nazi views, and to his anti-Semitic views. Because those aren’t manifest tremendously in what it is that he’s writing. And you know, it may, and even if they are, people don’t even recognise that that’s going on. But when a person is alive, when a person is, you know, speaking these kinds of things and putting them forth, does it leak through?
Do I know how to be able to tell the difference between what it’s tainting and what it isn’t tainting? There’s a whole bunch of nuance that is here. And I think that that’s a major point. Nuance Ollie. We have lost nuance because we are in a situation which we just want the answers, we just want to know what to do. We just want to make the decisions, and we do not pause in order to be able to deal with the genuine complexities that run in society and in our lives, in the way that we live. You know, it’s the first thing that’s written in Pirkei Avot, in the Ethics of the Fathers. The first thing that they say, , the men of the great assembly, the great scholars and prophets of Israel, they say “ .” “Pause and be deliberate in judgement .” Just be careful when you’re sitting to judge something. There is nuance, there are details. It has to be done, can be done hastily. So the word they use is , Like , in modern Hebrew is pause. Pause, go slow, right, before we condemn, wrap up the case and give the verdict.
But it still says pause in judgement , but then judge, right. You know, it’s still, calls us to-
Yes, we’re not, I’m not suggesting for a minute, yeah, that we should withhold judgement . I’m saying let it be responsible judgement . And I think that in English, it’s great 'cause we have words for everything in English. There’s a difference between using judgement and being judgmental. Being judgmental means that I’m looking to see the negative. That’s the way we use the word, right, I’m looking to see the negatives, I’m trying to find the vulnerabilities and exploit them.
Yeah.
Right. I’m not saying that we should suspend judgement at all. We need judgement . It’s very important. It’s a major faculty, we have to have it, right, in order to be able to have any kind of clarity and delineation. But it has to be responsible and it has to be careful.
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. People don’t always expect from religious leaders to be shouting about nuance. They might expect, you know, moral clarity, clear dividing lines, black and white. And that certainly isn’t Torah, if you read it with a, you know, Torah, Torah is, talks about messy moral dynamics the whole time.
Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, Torah is a, you know, it lives in nuance. Lives in nuance. Yeah.
And rabbi sometimes cancel culture is just plainly intolerance of certain viewpoints, which I would say are legitimate. One thing that springs to mind, and again, you know, I recognise that there are legitimate viewpoints, an array of legitimate viewpoints on the trans issue. But someone like J.K. Rowling who has had a huge amount of backlash and people saying they, you know, burn her books, won’t read our stuff anymore. How do we navigate this issue of tolerance, of differing views, which I fear is becoming more and more of a problem today?
Yeah. It is becoming more and more of a problem. You know, again, it goes back, it seems to me that it goes back to the fight, flight, primal aspects of our species, right. It’s the protective, danger, you know, genuinely, you know, either, either fight the person and destroy them or get out of there, right, or get them away, right. Or sometimes you do both, right. Sometimes you do both. And that is very much what we’re seeing in society today. Because, you know, if a person wants to stand up for a value or insist on a kind of a moral point, and there’s someone of influence that disagrees with that moral point or that value, there is no room in the current field, right, for careful discussion and genuine exchange of viewpoints. I’m not sure that it ever was. I don’t think that that’s new. And I think that’s an important point to make, right. Human beings have not changed for thousands of years. I mean, I always make the point that when I study Talmud, on the one hand I recognise that it’s a, you know, the frame of it is 2,000 years old, but on the other hand, I mean, I’m reading discussions and events and situations in people’s lives that are literally happening in front of my eyes on a regular basis. Human beings don’t change. What changes is when you embed human beings in to strange circumstances, or new and different circumstances, human nature is going to manifest, you know, in terms of those circumstances. So the fact that J.K. Rowling has a Twitter account, right, and hundreds of thousands of followers, what she says is going to be influential.
And that makes anybody who disagrees or is trying to protect a value that they want to fight for: fight, flight, right, they’re going to go into protective limbic system, fight, flight mode, and they will attack and shun, because that’s the easiest thing to do in that situation. 'cause they don’t have time to be able to kind of, you know, actually engage in the discussion. I think that it’s important for us though, you know, I think around that one of the best aspects of advice that I’ve heard and that I tend to give people is, and I encourage this because, and it’s not easy 'cause it takes a lot of time and responsibility. If you believe something deeply and you hold a moral value or a value of any sort for that matter, highly, to the point that you want to fight for it and advocate for it, know the opposite side as good or better than the opposite side knows it. Because if you don’t you will not be on good footing to genuinely promote the value that you wish to fight for and influence. A: because you won’t understand your own as well as you think you do, right. It’s understanding the other side helps one to be able to really understand one’s own views. And B: because the points that the other is making, right, are important to consider if I’m genuinely interested in truth as opposed to being right or to being correct. So, you know, it’s not prevalent, it’s certainly not common, but I think it is one of the best pieces of advice and tactics. If a person genuinely wishes to arrive at what is truthful and, you know, and at a point of integrity, it’s a very important thing to do.
I want to encourage people to submit questions 'cause we’ve got about 15 minutes left until we’re up to the hour, and I’ll select some of them. So please do in the Q&A, submit a question for Rabbi Dweck, if you have one. A few final things just to touch on before we do that. I mean, rabbi, you’ve had some frankly religious extremists, and I’m sure anyone with a nuance or thoughtful religious perspective will sometimes suffer this, you know, attempts to try and silence you, cancel you, so to speak. What do you think the state of cancel culture is in the Jewish world today? And perhaps more so among the religious Jewish community?
I honestly don’t think it’s very different from the rest of the world, Ollie. I think that same issues that run, it’s the same human beings, right, that, you know, deal with these kinds of things. I think when it comes to religious life one might say the stakes are a bit higher. One might say, you know, that the stakes are a bit higher. It could be that people will argue otherwise, you know, whenever it’s your issue it’s your issue, and the stakes are as high as they are, you know, to how they… But in religious circles, people are fighting for a lot; they’re fighting for their children, they’re fighting for their communities, they’re fighting for their way of life. I mean, you know, it is absolutely tragic and painful to watch what’s happening in Israel right now. And I don’t think that, you know, my own personal view is I don’t think that we as a nation can afford to fight the way that we are, you know, in Israel right now, but without getting into the depths of that. When you’re fighting for your children, when you’re fighting for your way of life, when you’re fighting for what you deeply believe to be true, and there is a voice that is influential enough or strong enough that that could, it could shake or threaten that, the backlash is severe. The backlash is severe. And I think that in the religious world, because, I’ll say another thing on that, and I don’t think that this is just with the religious world, I think this is going on in the world at large. We’re talking about nuance, right.
One of the reasons why we are having difficulty with nuance in society today is because society itself is advancing at exponential levels and at lightning speeds, right. So in other words, the developments of society, technologically, right, and for that matter, socially, right, are moving at lightning speeds, and they’re becoming more and more complex. And that means that as a society, we need to adapt, we need to understand those complexities, and we need to qualify those complexities, right. In other words, give meaning to those. And it’s happening almost too fast for us to be able to do that. So what we are doing is we are sacrificing nuance and we’re digging our heels into what we know, which essentially is extremes. Because the more extreme I am, the more black and white things are, and the easier it is for me to be able to find. And I think we’re seeing that on all levels. We’re seeing that societally, we’re seeing that religiously, we’re seeing that politically, we’re seeing, we’re seeing that manifest all over. I think that is more nuanced than I’m presenting it to be fair, right, I don’t want to give a black and white answer, a reason to what’s going on in society when I’m saying that nuance is important. But I do think that that’s a major part of it. And in the religious world, there’s no question that that is part of it, right. So what does one do with doctrine? What does one do even with dogma, which, you know, is part of religion, whether one, you know, likes it or not, when a world is proving to be so rapidly malleable? So any kind of, you know, a perceived threat on that is going to be, you know, is going to invite a very serious backlash. So certainly not how I would like it to be, not how I wish it to continue, but I think it’s a level of diagnosis of what it is that we’re seeing. So people will revert to any tactics, they’ll revert to terrorism, right, they’ll revert to cancelling people completely, they’ll revert to the character assassination of all of all sorts in order to keep things in check and to protect, right. That’s a big part, I think, of what it is that we’re seeing.
So you’ve diagnosed the problem, which I think it sounds pretty fair and accurate, but what is, how can we be part of the solution? What can we do? What can you do as a rabbi?
I think. Yeah. So, you know, for me, part of it is to, like I said, to really understand the other side, right, to really take time to understand and hear the other side. It’s easy for me to fight my fight, right, to be able to stand on my points. It’s less easy for me to really hear and understand what the other side is saying and why they’re saying it. So I think that’s one. And I think at the core of that, Ollie, is humanity, because what ends up happening in these things is people become headlines, people become ideas, people become, you know, points to argue, they cease to be people. And some of the most complex things in this world are people. So it’s about in whatever way we can humanising, humanising the discussions, the issues and what it is that we care about. And actually being able to sit with another human being that I may not agree with at all, that I may think is completely opposed to what it is that I believe is right and true, but recognising there’s a human being there, there are human beings there that live lives, that have children, that raise families, that are working, that are trying to live the life that they can in the best way that they can. And when we can kind of connect that way, it helps to diffuse. It’s very easy to shoot at unnamed, you know, unnamed, concepts as opposed to, you know, living, breathing hearts.
Someone once called it being a keyboard warrior as a much, much easier to attack people online than when you’re face to face with them and you see their humanities-
And that’s, I think that that’s one of, as I say, I think that’s one of the problems of the anonymity of social media, you know, you can say anything. It gets very toxic.
Absolutely. Absolutely. Okay, let’s take some questions, and again, feel free to submit in the final few minutes.
Q&A and Comments:
Q: Question from Holly Stallman. “But there are cases where only one side is just, "and a stand must be taken.”
A - And those are? I’m not saying that there aren’t, but that’s, again, it’s a very vague, broad point.
Yeah.
So in those cases, are you sure that the case that you are thinking of is that case? Are we sure that the case that we’re trying, or that the, you know, society is making a judgement on, is indeed that case? My point simply is, be responsible in the judgement . And if we find that there is only one side that is just, and the other is not, well then okay, you know, then we may need to deal with it accordingly. I will say just on that point, there is this law that everybody knows about: Purim. It’s very strange law on Purim that we are supposed to drink enough so that we have trouble telling the difference between Mordechai is blessed and Haman is cursed, right. Haman’s the villain in the story of the Book of Esther and Mordechai is the hero of the story. And we’re supposed to drink to a point where we’re not so sure about that. But people think, well, I mean, you know, how plastered does a person need to get in order to be able to not to? And the point is not that at all. It’s not that you don’t know, it’s that you become open to hearing the case of the alternative. Was Mordechai really absolutely perfect in his judgement ? He brought an entire nation into mortal danger because he decided he wanted to stand on his convictions. Was that appropriate? Was Haman absolutely wrong in terms of what it is that he said? I mean, did the Jews not start this war with Amalek? Did they not begin this? Hmm. Not, well, sure, of course you can make the case otherwise, but there’s always aspects right, that we have to be careful about and consider. And again, I’m not saying that one should switch the verdict, I’m saying that it needs to be responsibly considered. That’s all, that’s my point.
Q - Okay. A question from Alfred Helmholtz. “Please address the excommunication of Spinoza "in the context of this evening’s discussion.”
A - You want me to speak about the excommunication of Spinoza.
It’s not directed to me?
Well, I’ll tell you. I mean, it’s a very interesting thing because as far as strict rules are concerned, I am not allowed to mention Spinoza’s name from the pulpit because my community is, you know, the mother community of the Spanish and Portuguese in this country was the Amsterdam community, and that is where Spinoza lived. He was a member of the S&P in Amsterdam, and his rabbi Haham Saul Morteira excommunicated him and made it, you know, for all the communities not to speak of him. But again, I think in that situation, it was a question of preserving the community. And it was a very difficult decision. I know that Haham Morteira did not make that decision with his beit din at all easily. It was not an easy decision to make. But the reality is, is that Spinoza was brilliant. Spinoza was making very major assertions philosophically that certainly shook at the very foundations of Judaism. And they were not able to deal with it in a debate-oriented way. They had to isolate, and I hate to use this term, but the infectious nature of his ideas to Judaism. It would’ve been wonderful if they could kind of engage in dialogue and work it out in a more sophisticated way, but they just didn’t have that luxury nor that capacity. So they had the only choice that they saw that they had was to isolate it and to separate it from, and essentially to quarantine. And it was a form of philosophical quarantine in order to be able to protect the community.
Q - Wow! Barbara Shaw asks: “Cancel culture gives permission to the epidemic "of estrangement within families. "Your thoughts?”
A - I need a little bit more detail on that. I don’t know that there’s an epidemic of estrangement in families. Is that something that we recognise? I’m not sure.
I’m not sure. It certainly does exist. You know, I’ve certainly, I mean-
I mean, I think all families might have something, I don’t know if it’s an epidemic, right, and I’m not sure that cancel culture is creating an epidemic in families, that there’s estrangement. So maybe if there’s a little bit more to kind of-
Maybe the idea that we are quick to judge and slow to forgive is that concept within wider society is slowly penetrating into internal family life.
It’s possible, although, again, I’m not so sure that that’s ever changed in humanity. I think that that’s always been the human nature. We’re very quick to judge and slow to forgive as human beings in general. So I’m not sure about that.
This is a really good question, and interesting as well, given that you are a father, and by the way, I heard you are recently going to be marrying one of your children.
Yes, indeed, my first.
Mazel tov.
Yeah. Thank you. Thank you.
Wow! That’s going to be in New York, right?
It’s in New York. I’m wrapping my head around it. Thank you. I appreciate it.
Q - Mazel tov. Wonderful news. So Louise Sweet asks: “What is helpful training of mind and perception "for children and adults to take the time "and have the insight to see "the other sides of one’s assertion?”
A - It’s a great question. It’s a great question. I really do think that it begins with one’s own personal practise, right. It begins with one’s own personal practise. And then it’s a question of education, in other words, how is it that we teach our children? Because there are, as a parent, there are teaching opportunities that come periodically in the very few years that a parent has to educate a child. And there are not many. There are very, very few years. There are teaching moments that come, and I think it’s important for parents in general to kind of identify teaching moments and take advantage of them. Where can I teach a lesson? Where can I show a moral principle? Where can I present a value? And I will say for parents, right, and I say this as a parent, it matters much less what I tell my children, and matters much more what I do and what my children see me do, which is why I’m saying that it’s a personal practise. Children will not listen to what you say if you do not do what you say. They will always do what you do, right, they’re very good at that. They’re very good at being able to recognise what’s actually being done, right. So you can tell your children how important Judaism is, and how important it’s to be dedicated to their Judaism. If they do not see you dedicated to your Judaism, they will not be unless they find it in themselves and from their own conviction. But it is not about the instruction, it’s about the practise and behaviour that they mimic. So it’s personal practise. It’s you do that and your children will see you doing it and recognise it as a way to be.
I think that’s a great answer. And that’s the way I’ve always understood our approach with regards to, unlike most other religions Judaism not being proselytising, we don’t seek converts. We welcome converts, but we don’t go out there trying to missionize because we believe in set an example rather than try to do as I say.
Yeah. Excellent point. Excellent point. Yes.
Okay. I think we’ll wrap it up there. It’s been an hour and we’re just so grateful for your time, rabbi. Rabbi Dweck, thank you so, so much for joining us again on Lockdown University. Thank you to everyone for joining. It’s been a fantastic discussion, really enlightening, and so nice to get some wisdom with regard to issues that we face and see on a daily basis. So, Mazel tov again on your upcoming-
Thank you and truly an honour and pleasure to be on Lockdown University. Always very appreciate the opportunity. Thank you.
Well, I’m sure, I hope we’ll be able to do more if you’d be happy to do them-
Always happy. Always happy.
Great. So yeah, so just to wish everyone a shana tovah u'metukah, a happy and a sweet New Year, and we’ll see you all on the other side.