Erev Yom Kippur 5772
How many of you have read the book or seen the film
version of “The Help?”
I saw the film this summer and found it to be a powerful
and evocative depiction of racism in the South in the
early 1960’s. “The Help” are the African American
housekeepers and nannies who cleaned, cooked, and
reared the children of their white employers, while
suffering the degradation of racism and economic and
emotional exploitation.
It raised the question of how these white employers,
people who were not all bad can come to share the
enormous blind-spots of their community and culture,
how so many children could grow up to continue the
exploitation of the “help” who had lovingly cared for
them when they were young, how people who attend
religious services and participate in charity fundraisers
can fail to see the cruelty and injustice they are
perpetrating. Examples portrayed included not letting
the help use the bathrooms or drink from a cup used by
the family, or punishing them by falsely accusing them
of stealing household property.
It struck me that the attitudes of selfishness, disrespect
for the downtrodden and of building oneself up at the
expense of others that is portrayed in the film is not
unrelated to the introspection we are called upon to
engage in on Yom Kippur. What have we failed to see
about ourselves?
The film portrays vividly the personalities of the
housekeepers, who together with their families
responded to oppression in a variety of ways, and of the
cruel racists and their followers, and the more
kindhearted and courageous white citizens of Jackson,
Mississippi 50 years ago. Everyone had their unique role
in the dynamic of the predominantly racist society.
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The civil rights legislation of the 1960’s led to great
changes in American society and in people’s attitudes.
We have an African American president today and that
is an extraordinary expression of change. Yet much
remains to be done to overcome vestiges of racism that
remain in our country.
The courage and faith of the pre-civil rights legislation
housekeepers portrayed in The Help were deeply
inspiring, as was the character of the young white
woman journalist, Skeeter, who encouraged them to tell
their stories that moved readers throughout the land,
like a 20th century Uncle Tom’s Cabin. The story of
Skeeter’s empowering the housekeeper’ to tell their
stories and not be afraid made me think of our
observance of Passover, and I saw the journalist as
having a role comparable to that of Moses in lifting the
spirits of the downtrodden and fostering in them a
striving for freedom. Like Moses, the journalist had
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some understanding and access to the “halls of power”
in her community, which she put to use to help the
oppressed. Also like Moses, the journalist had been
raised by the oppressed women, he by slaves, she by
the descendents of slaves, and did not forget or betray
their love. Like Moses, Skeeter could not deny the
humanity and dignity of those oppressed and
recognizing the callous cruelty of the powerful decided
to work against it.
Looking at The Help through the interpretive lens of the
Passover story, it was easy to be drawn to identify with
the oppressed housekeepers. We Jews have suffered
oppression, by all sorts of tyrants, since our arrival on
the stage of history, and we have continually been
inspired by our tradition to be merciful and courageous
on behalf of those who suffer. The Passover Haggadah
teaches us in its central passage: “In every generation
each person must see him or herself as personally
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having come out of Egypt.” The purpose of seeing
ourselves this way, as “having come out of Egypt” is to
encourage our own personal emotional self-liberation
from things that bind us and also to inspire ourselves to
become redemptive in society, to become people who
are fulfilled in supporting the liberation of others. As I
mentioned last week the most often repeated verse in
the Torah is: “Love the stranger for you were strangers
in the Land of Egypt .”
Yet despite being historically among the oppressed and
not the oppressors or perhaps to some extent because
of what our people endured and because of our own
personal varied painful experiences, we are not free
from our own misdeeds which are most often about
hurting others. There is no more fitting time than Yom
Kippur to reflect on this.
Alfred Adler one of Sigmund Freud’s early and most
prominent disciples broke with Freud because of
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Freud’s emphasis on the role of the sexual drive in
organizing human personality. Adler thought instead
that a more general Will to Power was the primary
underlying determinant of human behaviour.
His theory helps us understand ourselves, especially
why we participate in actions that hurt others.
“The Will to Power” also correlates with many religious
myths and teachings about the origin of sin. Early
Christian theologians postulated that all humans were
morally imperfect through the “original sin” in the story
of Adam and Eve told in Genesis. In direct disobedience
to God they ate fruit from the forbidden tree of
knowledge in an effort to become more aware. I could
never get particularly exercised about that so called sin.
It is a story about human development, and I am
sympathetic to their aspirations. Still, it is about the Will
to Power, taking authority for oneself without humility. I
have always taken much more seriously the more
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realistic story coming soon thereafter of how Adam and
Eve’s son Cain killed his brother Abel in a fit of jealousy,
in an explosion of sibling rivalry. This early biblical,
paradigmatic, evil act of one brother, because of
competitiveness and resultant anger, killing his younger
sibling is also an expression of the Will to Power.
Genesis IV:7 tells the story of God warning Cain “if thou
doest not well, sin coucheth at the door, and unto thee
is its desire but thou mayest rule over it.”
Cain, in the next verse, because he had not been as well
received as his brother, could not control himself and
kills him. He was unable to rule over, or to control, his
Will to Power.
You likely remember how the story continues that when
God asks Cain after the murder “where is your
brother?” he responds with the Bible’s intended
rhetorical question “am I my brother’s keeper?”
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The Torah is telling us that we are our brother’s keeper,
that we have responsibility toward one another and that
we must control our Will to Power.
The Talmud teaches the same idea: “Who is mighty?
The one who takes control of his instincts.”
Many of us are here this evening to take stock of our
behaviour in the years gone by and to consider how we
want to change and grow to be better people in the time
remaining ahead of us. I think a key to understanding
the root of our misdeeds, what some refer to as our
sins, is the Will to Power. In the extreme, stealing and
other financial crimes are about taking assets to put the
criminal in a stronger financial position, rape is less
about sex than about violence, control and power. More
likely for us, in the marketplace, the workplace and at
home, most of our misdeeds are the attitudinal and
verbal kind and these too are usually about the
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assertion of our desire to prevail, to be powerful, to be
dominant and influential.
Why is this will to power so strong for many of us?
Each of us sustained some loss, some pain, some
emotional injury in growing up, when we were young,
impressionable and more vulnerable, for which we have
a lifelong need to compensate by asserting ourselves,
by needing to prevail, to dominate others and to
aggrandize ourselves.
Humans are sentient beings. We are aware of our
mortality. What more does any living creature need to be
aware of in order to bring about a sense of inner
vulnerability and anxiety for which we spend a lifetime
compensating? Sometimes we compensate through the
pursuit of productive achievement and sometimes our
compensations are not so pretty and not very sensitive
toward others.
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I heard a story this week about how a principal in a local
middle school enacted a rule that for a week following
the event students should not wear tee shirts describing
their attendance at a recent Bar or Bat Mitzvah out of
sensitivity to those students who had not been invited. I
thought that was very sensitive of him and felt the rule
should not be limited to only one week. I then learned
that the parents who provided such tee shirts were
angry at the principal and challenged his policy. A Bar
or Bat Mitzvah is first and foremost about commitment
to spiritual values. What is the matter with these
people? Their pride and arrogance is more important to
them than the pain of youngsters whom they left out. We
can each think of many examples of selfish willfulness
in the community, with people totally disregarding the
feelings and rights of others and motivated only by their
own selfishness and greed, their own will to power.
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The movie, the Help, portrays how the racist employers
are insecure. The “queen bee” who controls the Junior
League was jilted by the boy she wanted to marry. Her
pretty follower is ashamed of her own child whom she
considers homely, and she is unable to manage her
household. Skeeter’s own mother yearned for
acceptance by Jackson’s “club women.” They seek to
build themselves up through the denigration of the
housekeepers and by rejecting a beautiful, open hearted
but vulnerable white woman of humble origins who
seeks inclusion in Jackson society but who does not
share their views. They gossip about her and isolate her,
as if they were still in junior high school.
The day to day denigration the housekeepers endure
and the murder of civil rights leaders and activists
continually fuels their own fear, insecurity and
reluctance to speak out. It’s the early 1960’s and the
young white journalist encourages them to risk their
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livelihoods and their lives and to tell their story for
publication. The journalist suffers loss of friendship and
love for her role, but the greater risk is always theirs,
and it is their transformation and triumph that the movie
celebrates.
Some of us are like the housekeepers, afraid to engage
fully in life and to acknowledge the truth about what is
really happening in our lives. Some of us, in some ways,
are like the racist employers; our will to power makes us
put ourselves first with a disregard for the needs and
sensitivities of others.
I want to call on each of us tonight, on this occasion
devoted to introspection, to reflect on how we can be
more courageous to speak up for what we know to be
right, to not go along to get along in the face of
wrongdoing. The Torah teaches: “Lo taamod al dam
reiecha, Do not stand idly by when your neighbor’s
blood is being spilled.” Our sages interpret this to mean
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that we must stand up even when verbal violence,
slander and gossip, is being perpetrated against
another, to not just go along to get along in an
expression of the Wiil to Power that really betrays
ourselves in our essential weakness.
I want to call on each of us tonight to reflect on how we
sometimes do violence to the feelings of others because
of our need to prevail and to dominate, to have things
our way. The Talmud teaches “Meod meod hevei shafel
ruach – exceedingly, exceedingly be of humble spirit.”
Imagine the satisfaction you can feel in letting someone
else prevail or have the last word as opposed to
wondering if perhaps you pushed too hard.
I want to call on each of us tonight to find meaning and
fulfillment in devoting ourselves to being like the young
journalist to become an instrument for the protection of
the downtrodden. Our liturgy includes a couple of
readings from alternate sources: Francis of Assisi’s
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“May I be an instrument of peace,” and the Dalai Lama’s
“May I become at all times a protector of those without
protection…” speak dramatically of religion’s deep
concern for us to really care about and take action to
alleviate suffering.
The Talmud teaches us Lekabel kol adam b’sever panim
yafot, to receive everyone with kindness and a receptive
attitude.
We each know our personal areas in need of self
development and personal transformation.
Yom Kippur is the time to resolve to gain more control
over our instinctual Will to Power. We must do what
Cain was unable to do. Now is the time to resolve to
become ohavei tzedek lovers of righteousness, always
on the lookout for how we can diminish anxiety and
anguish in the hearts of others.
L’shana tova- may this be a year in which you devote
yourself to seek the empowerment of others, in which
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you aspire to goodness of heart, to risk to grow in love
and to seek other’s satisfaction as our own.
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