We can either choose to divide or connect. Dividers spew hate, connectors share love.
People can be divided into two categories: connectors and dividers.
Connectors look for commonalities, dividers focus on differences. Connectors give the benefit of the doubt, dividers look to find fault. Connectors let things go, dividers bear grudges. Connectors look to compliment, dividers look to criticize. Connectors feel good through (not surprisingly) connecting, and dividers thrive by fostering division.
Dividers spew hate, bully, call names, and practice discrimination, bias and injustice. Connectors share love, fight for equality, stand up to justice, protect the vulnerable, and love even those they struggle to like. Dividers often disguise their predilection for conflict as fighting for principles. This is a smokescreen. Connectors have values and ideologies and are genuinely principled, but they are committed to find a commonality with others who may not share the same values and principles without compromising what they themselves believe.
Over the last few weeks, the national conversation has focused on racism and more recently on anti-Semitism and that will hopefully bring positive progress.
The Talmud (Yoma 9b) tells us that the Second Temple was destroyed because of sinat chinam, baseless hatred. The people at that time observed Torah laws and performed mitzvot but grossly mistreated one another. They were Torah-observant dividers instead of connectors.
What is baseless hatred? When I dislike someone who believes, observes, votes, or lives differently than I do, when I hate someone who sees things differently, there seems to be a real basis for my hatred. Then why is it called baseless?
We are coming up on the first yahrzeit of my dear friend, Rabbi Dr. Brian Galbut z”l, one of the most extraordinary human beings many of us have ever known. Earlier this week, at the bris of Brian’s first grandson, poignantly named in his memory, Brian’s father spoke. He described Brian as an amazing connector in every direction, with his wife, with parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles above, with siblings and cousins to his side, with children, nieces and nephews below, with friends, co-workers, and neighbors, those to the left and to the right of him religiously and politically, with those in front or behind him in life.
Leading up to his yahrzeit, I have spoken with several of his friends of diverse backgrounds, lifestyles, and levels of religious observance. One of the commonalities of them all is each feeling that Brian was their best friend. Brian found something in everyone to connect with. He was a Torah scholar who took Torah learning and living incredibly seriously and connected with so many who shared that passion and identity. He was an athlete who excelled in basketball, golf and running and could relate to so many teammates, competitors, friends and acquaintances who enjoyed playing and following sports. He was a brilliant physician who didn’t just provide top medical care but paired it with outstanding human care, genuinely devoted to his patients and beloved by his colleagues, nurses, and staff. His warm smile, contagious laugh and singular focus while he spoke to you could win anyone over, people with whom he had great similarities and those who on the surface he seemed to have so little in common.
I once asked Brian how he kept that positive disposition and attitude all the time, how he got along with anyone and everyone and how he managed to be the eternal optimist no matter what reality was presenting. We were walking on a golf course at the time and he stopped, paused, and said, “I have been working on it since I was young.” Living with faith, he continued, seeing good in others, feeling happy, hopeful and positive are all choices, they are not feelings. It isn’t easy but we can choose to be positive, choose to be faithful and choose to be connectors, not dividers.
Part 2 appears in Parshas Vaeschanan
RABBI EFREM GOLDBERG
