April 2, 2022
Author(s): Rabbi Wes Gardenswartz,
Shabbat Hachodesh
Parshat Tazria – Rosh Hodesh
April 2, 2022 — 1 Nisan 5782
Seconds and Years
Temple Emanuel, Newton, MA
It was the slap, and the rant, heard around the world.
How many of you saw Will Smith strike Chris Rock, and then rant about it, in real time?
How many of you read about it, or saw a clip of it, after the Academy Awards?
It was of course raw and shocking, unscripted drama that was by far the most dramatic thing that happened all evening.
If it were just a celebrity thing, a famous actor slapping the face of a famous comedian, it would just be another moment of sensationalist news.
But it’s not just a celebrity thing, it is very much a human thing. Because most of us, in our own quiet way, have been tempted to do our own version of what Will Smith did that night. Something ticked us off. Something got our blood boiling. Our temper went from zero to 100 in a nano second. And we were tempted to lose it. To give the other person a piece of our mind.
And yet, when we lose self-control, we lose control. This is a hard truth of life. It may not be fair. It just is. We are not judged on our best moments. We are judged on our worst moments. In fact, our worst moments can and do cannibalize our best moments. Years of good living can be undone by our worst moment. Did I just say moment? I didn’t mean moment. I meant seconds. Will Smith’s slap and rant lasted seconds.
But these mere seconds overshadowed 20 years. He was nominated for Best Actor for Ali 20 years ago, in 2002, but he lost. He was nominated for Best Actor for Pursuit of Happyness 15 years ago, in 2007, but he lost. He was nominated for Best Actor for his role as Venus and Serena Williams’ father in King Richard, and he finally won. This should have been his night. This should have been his time. He worked for it. He earned it. He deserved it. It should have been a glorious culmination. But instead nobody talked about his Best Actor win. All they could talk about was the hit. All they could talk about was the rant. Seconds cannibalize years. Our worst seconds cannibalize our best years.
How do we not do what Will Smith did? Especially when our anger is justified.
Will Smith’s hitting Chris Rock has led me to reinterpret one of the most seemingly unfair stories in the Torah. When the Israelites complain about the absence of water, God tells Moses to talk to the rock. But Moses does not talk to the rock. Rather, Moses hits the rock.
In response, God punishes Moses by announcing that because Moses hit the rock, and did not talk to the rock, Moses would never get to enter the land of Israel. Moses would die on the wrong side of the River Jordan.
It does not seem fair. Moses leads the people for 40 years. How can 40 good years be undone by a few bad seconds?
When the story is analyzed through the lens of fairness, it is not a satisfying story. How is it fair? It’s not. How is it right? It’s not. But it’s not about fair or right. It’s about what just is. 40 years can and is undone by a few bad seconds. True for Will Smith Sunday night. True for Moses in the wilderness. True for any of us who are not able to check ourselves.
To not lose it, even when legitimately angry, requires eternal vigilance. Let me offer up an acronym from the word talk, as in talk to the rock.
T is for time. Just count to 10, and give yourself time to act when you are not hot. You want to act when you are cold, not hot. When you lose self-control, you lose control.
A is for alarm bells. When our anger starts coursing through our system, and we are tempted to strike out, to lose it, hear the alarm bells going off that will remind you that our life will not be the same if we cannot check ourselves.
L is for loved ones. Imagine coming home and telling your husband or your wife, or your children, or your parents, or your business colleagues, that I lost it; I snapped; I slapped somebody; there’s a video of me ranting and raving. Imagining that horrible conversation should inspire us to check ourselves. That is a conversation we never ever want to have.
K is for kaput. If we indulge ourselves and lose it, our reputation, our story, our future impact are kaput. As the High Holiday liturgy puts it, sarnu m’mitzvotecha hatovim vloh shaveh lanu, we departed from the right path, and it’s just not worth it.
Talk to the rock. Do not hit the rock.
A few bad seconds have an outsized power.
But the flip is also true. A few good seconds also have an outsized power. The Talmud teaches yesh koneh olamo b’sha’ah achat, v’yesh koneh olamo b’shanim rabot. Some people acquire their world, they have their impact, in a single moment, while for others it takes many years. We want to seek out the few good seconds where we can truly change somebody’s life for the better.
This past week a group of peace activists, Jews and Muslims, Israelis and citizens of United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, who work to deepen economic ties and mutual understanding under the framework of the Abraham Accords, came to tell their story at Temple Emanuel. The name of this group is Sharaka, which means partnership in Arabic.
One of the speakers was an Israeli Arab-Muslim named Yahya Mahamid, who grew up being taught to hate Jews. He remembered at the age of 5 or 6 asking his mother what would be on TV, which was always tuned to Al Jazeera, if there were no fighting between Israelis and Palestinians, because that was the only thing he ever saw on TV.
That was how he grew up. And yet, as an adult he chose to join the IDF. Why? He shared that one day, when he was working in Tel Aviv, a Chabad rabbi stopped him to invite him to make a blessing over the lulav and the etrog. At that time his Hebrew was very poor, and it took him a while to say in broken Hebrew that he was not Jewish, and that the rabbi was wasting his time. He had always been taught that Jews, especially religious Jews, are the enemy. But this Chabad rabbi answered that he did not care what religion the young man was, as long as he was a good person. That encounter caused him to rethink everything he had been taught about Jews, and it set his life in a different direction. He has dedicated himself to educating others about anti-Semitism and misinformation about Israel.
This Chabad rabbi spent seconds with the young Israeli Arab, but in those few seconds, changed the world.
Be careful, very careful, about the seconds. For bad, and for good, our seconds can be even more powerful than our years. Shabbat shalom.