Art of Criticism - Noam Zion

Noam Zion – Art of Moral Criticism

At Beth Am 2/24

The Art of Protest -

To protest effectively takes creativity and sometimes even a bit of humor/sarcasm.

Examples: McDonalds in Israel had a garden planted to illustrate a cause but they failed to water the plants. To protest a person wrote a check to McDonalds for 20 sheckles to specifically cover the cost to water the plants. It got their attention and the protest was effective.

To protest the release of Holocaust criminals the official protest was to read the names of all victims known. This started a tradition to read the names every year.

Noam Zion’s talk was filled with stories and examples of how criticism can be done in a more effective way.

Tocheicha – the mitzvah of confronting ones neighbors in the community with misdeeds and character faults in such a way as to catalyze the process of teshuvah (reflection and repentance)

It is with great care that we practice this mitzvah so it will be effective.

Robert Fulghum (of All I Really Know I Learned In Kindergarten) offered Hassidic advice to a man seeking to understand his failures. He suggested that he look at the baseball statistics for Ty Cobb. This pointed out that, while he was a great hitter he only got a hit less than half the time. This worked to show that even the best don’t succeed all the time.

Peace must have an element of criticism to be real PEACE. You need to confront the real issues and it is important for people to be self-critical.

A Story to make the point: Martin Buber – How to tell of your Rabbi: A tale of Six Scenes (summarized)

1. Rabbi Jacob Joseph was very rigid in his rituals and his ways. A stranger comes to town that is a great storyteller and captivates the people so they forget to be punctual to morning prayers that day.
2. Rabbi gets to the house of prayer and finds it locked and is outraged. He is ready to beat the stranger that caused this delay in his prayer time.
3. Baal Shem, the storyteller, goes to see the Rabbi as he is summoned. The Rabbi yells that he was keeping people from prayer. Baal Shem tells a story about driving cross-country with 3 horses that were ‘not happy’. When a peasant saw this he suggested slackening the reins. When Baal Shem did this the horses were happy again and moved faster. The Rav immediately understood.
4. The Rabbi fasted for a whole week each month to try to amend for his wrong ways.
5. Baal Shem visited again and reminded the Rav that the Devine prefers to have him see joy in the commandments rather than gloom.
6. The Rav changed his ways and began to spread the message that “worry and gloom are the roots of powers of evil”.

There are lessons to be learned from the stories of Talmud. There are ways to criticize that are more effective than yelling and punishment.