Guilty as charged

My readers are certainly not monolithic when it comes to commenting on my columns. Some write a quick “good piece,” “nice job,” or even, once in a while, “excellent.” Sometimes they add a note of thanks for my having openly expressed an unpopular opinion in our community — one they quietly agree with but prefer not to utter aloud. Others praise my writing while disagreeing with my substance, and some, of course, just tell me how wrong I am.

All comments are welcome as long as they’re polite. More than anything, they prove that the hours I spend at my computer result in people taking their valuable time to read my efforts, agreement or not.

And then there’s Avram Sacks (and a few others). Avram regularly responds at length, offering thoughtful, wise analyses that get to the heart of my point and often expand upon it. Indeed, sometimes his comments are sharper and more cogent than the column to which he’s responding. And that’s exactly what happened with his email to me regarding last week’s column, “Making Honest Choices.”

But first, a word — or make that a paragraph or three — about Avram. He’s from Chicago, and we originally got to know each other online through the Areivim/Avodah email list. I’ve always enjoyed meeting virtual friends in real life, as I did at JOFA’s 2017 conference, where I met five of them.

So too with Avram, on lovely Friday afternoon in June of 2022. He and his wife, Annette, flew into New York City for a Monroe wedding. Needing to buy Shabbat food, he asked me to recommend a place near LaGuardia. Friday traffic ruled that out, so I suggested he order from one of our excellent Teaneck kosher stores and pick it up on his way upstate.

As so often happens nowadays, though, his plane was delayed, leaving him no time to get to Teaneck before the store closed. I stepped in and picked up his food, enabling him to retrieve it from my house, and serendipitously turning virtual into reality. We chatted while transferring the food to his car, agreed to meet at a Cubs game in Wrigley Field when I finally made it to Chicago, and he paid me for my efforts by agreeing to be added to my column’s email distribution list.

What did Avram think of my column? Rather than trying to paraphrase his detailed and deeply thoughtful email, let me present excerpts in his own well-chosen words.

“Your focus on ‘shame’ brought to mind the writings of Rabbi Sacks ztz”l. Rabbi Sacks saw Judaism as a ‘guilt’ culture rather than a shame culture. Guilt centers around responsibility and listening to one’s inner moral voice and concern for what is right and just, whereas shame centers around image and concern for someone else’s moral yardstick. Rabbi Sacks wrote about this in many of his divrei torah, but this one, on Breishit, captured the essence of this difference quite well. Rabbi Marc Eichenbaum wrote an essay on the topic for Lehrhaus that explores this difference as well.

“While I strongly agree with your basic premise that on both sides of the aisle there needs to be a lot of soul-searching regarding every single one of the examples you posted in your blog, I believe that it is not shame, but guilt that a party should feel over each of these matters.

“Like you, I am not shy about expressing my political views. Historically, I have long identified with and strongly supported many, if not most of the policy positions taken up by the Democratic party. I believe that it is the responsibility of government to take care of the health and well-being of its citizens, and that is accomplished not only through national defense, but also through programs and policies to take care of those who are impoverished and disabled, to provide for healthcare, and education. Republicans, for years, have championed ‘trickle-down’ economics, but the data demonstrates that it doesn’t work. Indeed, the massive income inequality that we are now witnessing, is matched only by the income inequality of the Gilded Age, which was notorious for the Robber Barons and its excesses in exploitation of labor….

“As I mentioned at the beginning of this note, it is not shame, but guilt that people ought to feel if they are responsible for the examples you raised in your article. Did I want to see a Democratic candidate get elected in Alaska? You betcha! But, not like this…. I do not feel shame, but I do feel responsibility by aligning myself with a political party that seems hell-bent on looking the other way over this matter. Remember when Sen. Lieberman, z”l, spoke up against President Clinton’s wrongful behavior? That was taking responsibility. We need to see more of that on both sides of the aisle.

“I think the biggest winner on Tuesday was not the Democratic or Republican party; it was democracy…. As Mark Twain stated, ‘The report of my death was an exaggeration.’ The news of the death of democracy can now be said to be an exaggeration.

“What we really have to cheer about regarding the election on Tuesday is the resiliency of American democracy. Trump and his ilk tried every which way to undermine the voting process with false claims of election fraud, attempts to sequester valid voting ballots, mid-cycle gerrymandering of districts, and outsized spending by the world’s richest person, enabled by a Trump-aligned Supreme Court with its ruling in Citizens United. Yet, despite all of that, the opposition party won, and it won big, repudiating Trump and all he stands for. That is a resounding affirmation of the viability of the political system we have here in the United States.”

Now you understand why I like Avi.

I hope he’s right about democracy and American resilience. I’m certain he’s right about the election results, and I deeply appreciate his sophisticated distinction between guilt and shame. While their definitions are close — and for purposes of Rabbi Greenberg’s quip and my friend Daniel’s paraphrase of it, the differences aren’t critical — the nuances that he persuasively explains are crucial. They provide an important tool to help turn a clever quip into a real, actionable blueprint for dealing with the flaws in both our religious denominations and political parties.

Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi (and others) teach: “Much … have I studied from my teachers, and I have learned more from my colleagues …, and [even] more from my students than from all of them.”  (Makot 10a) Had Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi been a columnist for the Jewish Standard/New Jersey Jewish News and not the editor of the Mishna, he might have added how much he also learned from his readers.

But since I am privileged to be such a columnist, I can say, with immense gratitude, how lucky I am to have you as readers. You read my words, compliment and/or disagree with me, hold me accountable, keep me on my toes, and — above all — teach me.

And as long as you keep doing your part, you’ll continue to find me right here telling you exactly what “I’ve Been Thinking.”

Joseph C. Kaplan of Teaneck, a regular columnist for the Jewish Standard and the New Jersey Jewish News and a Rockower Award recipient, is the author of “A Passionate Writing Life: From ‘In my Opinion’ to ‘I’ve Been Thinking.’” He is a retired lawyer; he and his wife, Sharon, have been blessed with four wonderful daughters and six delicious grandchildren.