To Be A Jew

The wife showed me a battle raging online, yesterday. I assume that it continues to rage as it has for many, many years. She posted my (brief) opinion but I didn't wade in fully as these debates are pointless and painful, and do more to create animosity then resolve it. I choose to weigh my complete position, craft it and word it precisely, and post it on my private corner of the internet, for all to ignore.

The question was about behavior. It was a post on some Facebook page, explaining to Jews how to behave. It was an online version of the speech we give students as we pull up to the museum for the class trip: "don't be jerks, in fact, be extra special nice, because everything you say and do will reflect on the school and your entire religion." No pressure.

The two sides go something like this (and I'm not indulging the extremes which inevitably invoke Godwin):

1. Don't be mean. Be extra nice. We can avoid the hatred of us as a group by being nicer as individuals. Don't act spoiled; don't whine and complain; don't try to game the system. Recognize any effort that others make and cultivate a positive relationship with the world around us by being proactively better than anyone can expect. Don't give the haters a reason to claim that their preconceived notions are at all valid.

2. Hate will always exist. Why don't we have the right to act like anyone else? Why should we live like our entire identity is being judged because we act like humans? Why is there an expectation of (and there an accommodation for) a collective punishment? Why do we accept that others are looking for reasons to hate and then why is it our job to overcompensate for their tendency to oppress and victimize us? Should we resign ourselves to having to be the angels all the time? Why blame us for being good at surviving and getting what everyone is struggling for? Success shouldn't be punished.

1. But does the opposite of that over-compensation necessarily involved pro-actively being a jerk? Doesn't Judaism teach about perception and the potential for desecrating God's name by doing things that, though "legal" or "accepted" would make Jews everywhere look bad?

2. Well, does the opposite of "not being difficult" necessarily involve kowtowing to everyone else, no matter how much everyone else is acting? Why is there a double standard, demanding more from me as a Jew than from anyone else?

1. Because that's a fact of life -- there is a double standard. Accepting that should drive us, as Jews, to correct for it in anticipation, making our behavior even further above reproach.

2. That buys into the double standard as a valid fact on the ground. We should be pointing it out and changing it. If we are to be "of" the world, and not in some ghetto-ized version of it, we should help change the world.

To quote the sage, "You're both right."

Personally, I err on the side of #1. I want to be judged as a kind and nice (or at least, kind OF nice) person. I over tip. I say please and thank you to machines. I make do with less, pay more and express appreciation so that no one can judge my group because of my shortcomings. But I also get annoyed, knowing that I (have to) do all of this.

There is no solution -- it is debates like this that keep the internet from being a vaster wasteland, I guess. Comments welcome.