Category Archives: Family friendly

Over the course of my career, I have participated in many forums debating funding for Jewish day school education. Most of the time, I was principal of a Jewish day high school arguing for more funding for my school. Across the table often were representatives of Federation, the community funding agency charged with distributing money to a variety of constituent agencies.

In the early days, Federation was the enemy, the force that would potentially deny a Jewish education to needy families. As time passed, I took a different view of Federation. In truth, they were not the enemy. They were decent, intelligent people who wanted to do the best in their stewardship and management of community funds. Theirs was not an easy job: to determine with the wisdom of Solomon how much money went to each agency, all of whom were competing for allocations.

A friend of mine, Geoff Frisch, of blessed memory, with whom I studied Torah weekly, gave me an important piece of wisdom. Geoff, a master salesman, introduced me to the tapes and writings of Zig Ziglar, a motivational guru, who espoused seeing things “from the other side of table,” seeing things from the vantage point of the opposition and recognizing that they have a legitimate point of view, even though you disagree with them. Zig would say: “always look for the win-win situation and you will be successful.” Geoff practiced that approach and imparted it to me as well, and for that I am eternally grateful to him.

I thought of that negotiating approach as I watched Lincoln, a thoughtful and engrossing take on the presidency of Abraham Lincoln. The film deals only with a small piece of Lincoln’s presidency, but it reveals Lincoln’s nuanced tactics to get his legislative agenda passed by Congress.

In January of 1865, the Civil War is almost over, but Lincoln is troubled by the fact that even though the slaves have been emancipated, there is still no constitutional amendment making slavery illegal. Only a constitutional amendment will bring closure to slavery in America. The Thirteenth Amendment, passed in the Senate, still needs House ratification. Moreover, within Lincoln’s own cabinet and party, there is division. Some want to end the war first; others feel that if the war ends first, there will be little incentive to pass the amendment, and so Lincoln initiates a strategy to secure enough votes to pass this critical piece of legislation before war’s end.

The strategy is complex and nuanced. Lobbyists are hired with the explicit goal of securing the votes of those who are not yet committed to vote yea or nay. The approach they use varies from person to person, and Lincoln himself sometimes steps in to apply political and social pressure, always seeing things from the other’s perspective. Ultimately, the amendment is passed and Lincoln feels he has forever ended slavery in America, a historic legacy for which he will be remembered.

It is a remarkable performance by Daniel Day-Lewis that separates this Lincoln from any other film about this illustrious president. We can see and hear the thoughts and words of a man focused on his mission in spite of much political opposition and in spite of stress on the home front where his wife Mary is still grieving of the loss of their son Willie three years before. In the face of these pressures, Lincoln keeps his cool and enables those around him to do so as well. Often he is able to diffuse a situation with an amusing story or the sheer power and logic of his argument.

Jewish tradition fosters argument for the sake of arriving at truth. The Talmud tells us the sages Hillel and Shammai often disagreed with one another, but their respective points of view have endured because of the purity of their motives. So it was with Lincoln and many of his opponents in Congress. Lincoln did not see them as the enemy but as friends who needed to be convinced of the correctness of his position. His nuanced management style is worthy of admiration as we negotiate our own life challenges.

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When I assumed my first position as a synagogue rabbi, I was a man with many opinions. Fresh out of rabbinical school, I felt I had access to the whole truth and nothing but the truth. If someone wrote an article with which I disagreed, I wrote back a sharp response to indicate the intellectual weakness of the writer’s argument and the truth of mine. I could not resist not being silent. I knew the right answers and it was my mission to let everyone else know of the correctness of my position as well.

Very soon, thankfully, I became aware of the arrogance and silliness of my ways. I received an acidic letter from someone whose article I took issue with. He accused me of narrow-mindedness and insensitivity. As I reflected on his comments, I realized he was right. There was no reason for me to publically criticize someone else just to demonstrate the correctness of my position. I forgot the maxim of our Sages that silence is a fence to wisdom, and that my overall success in the rabbinate did not depend on my diminishing the reputation of others. There was no point to my diatribes. I should have remained quiet, and from then on, I did.

The issue of silence is critical in A Man for All Seasons, the story of Thomas More and his quarrel with Henry VIII, King of England, who wanted More, in his capacity as Lord Chancellor of England, to ask Pope Clement VII to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon, who did not bear him a male child. More resigned rather than take an Oath of Supremacy declaring the King as Supreme Head of the Church of England, an oath that would allow the King to dispense with the need to ask the Pope for the annulment.

More chooses silence as his response to the political pressures around him. He is cautious about his words and serves as a sterling example of the man who measures carefully each and every word he utters, knowing that the wrong word can ruin him in this world and possibly in the next.

However, he cannot escape the entreaties of the king, and ultimately More is branded a traitor for his unwillingness to take an oath supporting Henry’s new marriage to Anne Boelyn. More’s silence is construed as high treason against the king.

At his trial, the matter of silence is a key argument of Cromwell, the prosecutor, who explores the different interpretations of silence: “Gentlemen of the jury, there are many kinds of silence. Consider first the silence of a man who is dead. What does it betoken, this silence? Nothing; this is silence pure and simple. But let us take another case. Suppose I were to take a dagger from my sleeve and make to kill the prisoner with it; and my lordships there, instead of crying out for me to stop, maintained their silence. It would suggest a willingness that I should do it, and under the law, they will be guilty with me. So silence can, according to the circumstances, speak.” Cromwell then attacks More by suggesting that his silence is an clever denial of Henry’s authority as Supreme Head of the Church of England.

More responds that his silence should not necessarily be interpreted as denial, but rather as the silence of consent. In truth, he should be acquitted for he has never said a word against the King.

Jewish tradition has much to say about silence. The Ethics of the Fathers offers several pithy statements: “There is nothing better for a man than silence. Silence is a fence to wisdom. He who increases his words increases sin.” Clearly, the thrust of Jewish tradition is to weigh one’s words. Once uttered, they cannot be recalled. Therefore, it behooves us to carefully consider the value and purpose of our speech before opening our mouths to offer an opinion. I am thankful I learned this lesson early in my career.

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