Ben Zoma Omer - Eizeh hu chacham? Halomeid mikol ha-adam.
Ben Zoma would say, “Who is wise? The one who learns from everyone.” - Pirkei Avot 4:1
Most Americans get their news from on-line sources. More millennials get their news from comedy shows that network news shows. A majority of Fox News viewers think CNN makes up the news. A majority of CNN viewers think Fox makes up the news. Readers of the New York TImes are more likely to vote Democratic than Republican. Readers of the Wall Street Journal are more likely to vote Republican than Democratic.
I made all that up. It could be true, but I did not bother to do any research. After all, it is much less time consuming to just write something down than to lay down a reasoned argument - since people will already have decided to believe what you are saying based on whether they perceive you agree with them or not.
Perhaps it is trite to say that following social discourse requires a healthy amount of skepticism. We are always ready to be leery of news or information sources when we think they are biased in the opposite ways that we are. We are even skeptical of news produced by our own camp’s outlets. So, all in all, I am not worried about whether or not you have a dose of skepticism, I am worried about the “healthy” part.
Ben Zoma was the zen master of Pirke Avot. He created aphorisms about archetypes that inverted their expected meaning. Who is strong? - Not the one who can lift mighty objects, but the one who has mastery over his/her own inclinations to do wrong. Who is rich? Not the one with the most possessions, but, rather, the one who content with whatever it is they already have. And, who is wise? Not the one who has achieved the pinnacle of knowledge, but rather the one who realizes that there is something to be learned from everyone else.
Study after study decries the tendency to limit one’s social media voices to those who are in agreement with one’s own political views. (I actually heard that on the radio; I did not make it up.) Those who listen to different voices are better adjusted; more able to cope with life. However, listening to different opinions and voices is only a first step. Hearing them leads to the next step - understanding. It takes effort, and sometimes a willingness to wade through a lot of invective, to go past what someone says, and even thanking them for saying it, to engaging in a conversation to find out what they mean, and why they are saying it. We often congratulate ourselves for having friends with differing views, but are we truly friends if we focus on what is different, rather than what is in common?
The Temple received a Better Together grant from a well-respected Jewish organization to engage in a project to bring together Jewish teens and senior citizens, to learn from each other. We broadened the grant - to bring in a parallel cohort of African-American teens and seniors. During one of our conversations, we asked each participant if they could think of a time when they had been influenced to change their own behavior. Each and every incidence (except for one participant who had decided to become a vegetarian because she saw a video) was rooted in a conversation and a relationship. People do not modify their views because of a good argument; they are influenced by those they have come to know and, therefore, to trust.
So, in this time of increased finger-pointing and divisiveness, let us make a choice for wisdom. Let us learn from Ben Zoma that we are not the source of our own wisdom, others are.
