Very happy with how this one came out. My Kol Nidre Sermon: Two stories. Both true in their own way. Emir Kamenica (EH-meer KAH-meh-knee-tza) escaped from war in Bosnia as a child and made his way to the United States. But as a refugee he naturally faced a number challenges along the way. His family ended up in a minority neighborhood outside of Atlanta and moved into a cockroach infested slum. After enrolling in Clarkston High School, he faced additional challenges. He was one of twenty white students in the whole school. He struggled to make friends. One day during English class he heard a student get shot outside. On another day, students stole their biology teacher’s rabbit and decided to use it as a soccer ball. Throughout those early days Emir struggled with English. To remedy this, he began translating a stolen library book from Bosnia called the Fortress, one of the few possessions he took with him when fleeing the country. Then one day, his luck changed. A student teacher named Ms. Ames gave him a writing assignment. Squeamish about his English, Emir went home and plagiarized a selection from the stolen Bosnian library book. He knew it was wrong and was therefore not surprised when he got a note from his teacher to see her after class. But instead of scolding him, Ms. Ames announced that she was going to a job interview at a prestigious private school nearby and invited him to join her. Emir met the headmaster, nailed the interview and received a substantial financial aid package. He enrolled in the school and that decision helped him find his way to Harvard and eventually land him a job as a professor of economics at the Universality of Chicago. * * * A second story: Like Emir Kamenica, Moses tells stories that frame his life. One of the most profound of these appears in the Book of Deuteronomy, at the end of his life. In it, Moses explains why he was not allowed to enter the Promised Land after leading the people to freedom from Egypt and through the desert for forty years. Moses’s story is that he was a great leader, but was constantly tested by the people at every turn. The people complained. The people rebelled. Life was certainly not easy for him. And when the time arrived for the people to finally cross out of the wilderness and enter the Promised Land, Moses would learn that he would not be coming with them. And, according to Moses, it’s entirely their fault that he will die on the wrong side of the Jordon River. Moses was to die there because thirty eight years previously the people lacked faith in God and questioned God one too many times. Their faithlessness caused God to decree that all those in the wilderness above the age of 20 would never enter Canaan, even their faithful leader. Moses would die on Mount Nebo as the people prepared to enter eternity. He was blameless and resented the Israelites for ruining his chance to enter with them. * * * Although seemingly unconnected these two stories have something very profound in common. Both have conflicting narratives. In a recent This American Life episode, Emir Kamenica got a chance to finally meet Ms. Ames after many decades. He learned that his story was entirely incorrect. Rather than a struggling school, Clarkston High was an average school that served middle class African American and white students. Rather than a quiet, barely literate student, Emir was actually one of the shining stars of his class. Ms. Ames helped him get into the private school because of months of good work. In fact, she doesn’t even remember the plagiarized essay that Emir sees as the turning point in his young life. In her words, if he hadn’t gone to the private school he “would have gotten into the honors program at UGA or Georgia Tech…and then could have gotten into Harvard or Chicago for a PHD.” Like Emir, Moses’s story is disputed. And like Emir, the Jewish tradition has a Ms. Ames to clarify. For although Moses’s telling appears as a first person account in the book of Deuteronomy, the previous narrative sections in the Bible found in the books of Exodus and Numbers are said to be in God’s words. And here is where we find another narrative. Yes, the people angered God while in the desert. Yes, God punished them by not allowing them into the Promised Land. Yet, in telling the story of his leadership, Moses leaves out one crucial detail. His history includes sin as well. He loses his control of the people and yells at them, calling them rebels. He fails to follow God’s instructions one too many times. Sometimes he a strong leader, but at other times he is petulant and moody. And it’s for these reason, we are told earlier in the Torah, that Moses cannot enter the Promised Land. But Moses leaves them out of his story. Although these two stories share the common thread of conflicting narratives, they differ in one profound way. While Emir learns that his telling of history is incorrect and he must rewrite it with Ms. Ames new information, Moses is never corrected. No one challenges his narrative. He dies telling the story that he lived a life free of sin and it was the Israelites fault that he was kept him out of the Promised Land. I imagine there have been times when we have engaged in conversations similar to the one had by Emir and Ms. Ames, where the stories that we tell about significant moments in our lives are challenged by the conflicting narrative of someone else. We also may have been like Moses, believing a story that may not be the whole truth, yet we avoid seeking this alternative story out. But which is better? Are we, better off telling our stories without being challenged or should we always seek a truer story? Should our narratives be left alone as they were for Moses or tested as they were for Emir? We all tell stories. They are the scaffolding of our lives. They give us purpose. They give us meaning. They shape our past and inform our future. Our stories tell us why we were successful in business so we might do the same thing again. They tell us why we fell in love so we understand our value and the value of our spouse. They tell us why we got divorced and challenge us to avoid the same mistakes again. They explain the kind of children we were so we can better appreciate the trajectory of our lives. Emir’s story made him more sensitive to gifted students in struggling school systems and made him appreciate the role of teachers in shaping students’ destinies. Moses’s story protected his dignity as he faced the great unknown of death. But as we know, stories are always subjective. There are too many details in this complex life we lead to synthesize everything. So we simplify our stories, unconsciously sifting details. This I will keep. This I will discard. Until we can boil a year of transition or a year of growth into a fifteen minute tale we tell our closest friends and family. And the funny thing about our stories is that to some decree they are all true. The way we see our experiences shapes our memories, and leaves indelible marks on our spirits. In her book, Empathy Exams, Leslie Jamison writes about a group of people who have Morgellons (more-gel-anns) Syndrome, a condition where sufferers are convinced that beneath their skin they have insects, parasites, or fibers but in reality none are present. Haunted by these sensations, they are additionally plagued by the fact that no one will believe them. The objective truth is that these sensations are delusions. Yet, Jamison asks the question: aren’t the sensations true for those suffering? And if we are truly to be empathetic to those afflicted, don’t we have to accept the truth of their experience even if there is no veracity to their disorder? Morgellons Syndrome is an extreme case. But Jamison uses it to make an important point. There are lots of ways something can be true. Yes, we can define truth by the ability to be proven by science and fact. Did it happen? Who did it? What was said? That truth is called “Forensic Truth.” But we can also define truth by the powerful story that an event creates and the effect it has on a person. How did my experience shape me? How will it shape the person I will become? And this “Narrative Truth” is no less powerful. So we return to our original question: if our stories are just as true as someone else’s, our experiences just as profound, why should we bother sharing them if they might conflict? To answer this question, we turn to the Talmudic story of Rabbi Yochanan who one day lost his friend and study partner, Resh Lakish. Now alone, his rabbinical colleagues go in search of another study partner for Yochanan. They bring him a young hotshot named Eliezer Ben Padat. After a few minutes of studying together Yochanan throws up his hands. “I can’t study with him!” he proclaims. Rushing into the house of study, the rabbis ask Yochanan what he found wrong with Ben Padat. “When I used to study with Resh Lakish,” he cries “he used to challenge me. Everything I said, every story I told, he would find fault with it. I would then need to readjust and this would make me a stronger student, scholar and person. With Ben Padat, every point I make is followed by a dozens of reasons why I am right. How can I grow with a study partner like this!” The story of Yochanan and Resh Lakish teaches us that there is tremendous value in sharing our stories, even if they disagree. For at the very least hearing another’s story sharpens our own. In a different section, our tradition likens two people who disagree to iron sharpening iron. In the clash, both get more refined (Taanit 7a). And in still another section we are told that although God pays attention to all who study and tell stories, God only records the stories that bounce between two people, for it is the space between each of their experiences that are closest to God’s own experience of the world (Brachot 6a). In a somewhat audacious claim, this text teaches that seeking out a different perspective actually brings us closer to God. Every year, we are faced with those who might challenge our deepest and most profound narratives. And their presence in our lives is incredibly scary. Their perspective serves to destroy the deepest sources of truth for us, our personal stories. And for this reason, I can’t stand up here and say that every time we get the opportunity to hear someone challenge our stories, we must take it. What good would it have done Moses to hear, moments before his death, a challenge to his understanding of his life trajectory? Yet, if we are brave and when others present us with the opportunity, we shouldn’t always shy away from hearing another’s truth. It brings our story into more focus, adds thickness to our experience, and creates a natural bond with another. There is nothing more powerful then sharing a story with someone you care about. So my challenge for you in this coming year is, at some point, to step outside your comfort zone and let yourself be challenged by another’s story. It may be a counter narrative to a breakup. It may be another’s story of how you ended up in your current career. It may be your parent’s account of how you actually behaved as a teenager. Let their story wash over you. Know that your story is as true as theirs. It is your experience, and they can’t take that away from you. But integrate parts of it. Make your story stronger through there’s like two pieces of iron that sharpen one another. Let their truth bubble up and become part of your own. Etch some of their words upon your heart. If God, who is called by the nickname, Truth, in our tradition, dwells in the space between two stories, why shouldn’t we embrace this opportunity to encounter the Divine?
Posted on: Sun, 05 Oct 2014 21:12:48 +0000
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