NOTE: As Jews who are living in a world in which public opinion, governmental norms, and world order is constantly shifting, we cannot afford to remain ignorant of the many lessons learned from the various cultures and circumstances through which we have survived.
Next week we will be cosponsoring an online seminar with MEIS (The National of Italian Judaism and the Holocaust) to learn about the violence meted out by the Italian Fascists. This is a subject that many know nothing about.
The presentation is Jan. 25th at 10:00 am Pacific time and you can register with this link. This session is an important page in our Jewish survival guide.
Dear Chaverim:
How, when, and why does someone’s behaviour warrant that they be shamed? While we might not be aware that we ask ourselves this question, we consider it reflexively all the time on a case-by-case basis. It factors into how we discipline those who we have power over. It factors into how we try to limit the reach of those who have power over us. It factors into how we compete to influence the thoughts and actions of others. We witness shaming in social media when posts react to what someone takes as an offensive comment or when they express outrage at a politician or viewpoint.
People seem to have an innate or perhaps cultural sense of how much shame is deserved for a given offence. However, sensibilities differ. In our postmodern, “post truth” world some believe that their version of morality is perfect and not subject to critical thinking. Others believe that, as the saying goes, “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.” Both of these positions are rash and harmful. In the court of public opinion, the roles of the judges and witnesses define how shame is used in public discourse. However, there is no judicial authority over the internet, or X, or TikTok. The decentralized, unregulated role of the witnesses – i.e., the madness of the crowd – defines the social structures and functions of shame. The average person in everyday life does not have the power to send someone to prison or garnish their wages, but anyone with a cell phone and social media account can play the shame card.
Shame – a noun – is an emotional and cognitive state of guilt and culpability. Shaming – a verb – is a process of human relations. In conflict resolution theory, all behaviours can be understood as intersecting efforts of cooperation or competition. When shaming is directed critically at someone else it is an instrument of interpersonal conflict. When it is directed critically at oneself, it is an instrument of intrapersonal conflict – this is what we recognize as the feeling of guilt. In other words, it is the inner voice of conscience. In any society, culture, or polity, outriders with a common cause might become allies to do things that run counter to the mainstream’s morals or rules. The easiest corrective to this is not the courts or the police, it is to shame the outriders. Shame can include everything from gossip, to targeting on social media, to planting stories in the press. Examples abound from Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle, to Orwell’s critique of 1948 Europe in the novel 1984, to Anthony Weiner’s resignation from politics after he accidentally Tweeted lewd images that were reported by Breitbart News.
In theory, shaming is supposed to convince someone to feel guilty and repent – an intrapersonal intervention – or use force to subdue and sideline them – an interpersonal intervention. A classic example of this in Judaism is the process of cherem – or excommunication. If a rabbinic court – Bet Din – finds someone has broken the law, they can sanction that person through cherem. In the extreme, a sinner can be shunned by the Jewish community, forbidden to participate in business, religious life, and social relations. Putting a sinner in the cherem places enormous pressure on them to feel shame, to confess, and to repent.
Rabbinic bodies exercised the cherem in cases that could invite harm to the community – e.g., counterfeiting the coin of the realm, or wearing the clothes of nobility. In the case of counterfeiting, all the Jews would likely be punished as they were most likely to carry the fake coins. In the case of Jews wearing clothes above their social station, it would invite the jealousy and ire of their non-Jewish neighbours, inviting further persecution and taxation. The shame of the cherem was a self-defense mechanism.
This leads us to consider two timeless moral questions; what is the ultimate value of shaming, and how far can one go with it?
As a case in point, we can apply this question to the 10 plagues. How far did the Almighty need to go to prove Pharoah to be a feckless narcissist pretending to have any power over nature whatsoever? Was it not enough to make him drink blood? Was it not enough that Pharoah had to beg to have the frogs removed? Was it not enough to ask him to beg Moses and Aaron to pray for him for the removal of the Arov – rampant wildlife or insects that were destroying the land? Was it not enough to force Pharaoh to say, “I have sinned this time, Hashem is righteous, I and my nation are wicked?” (Shemot 9:27) Was it not enough to force Egypt to sit in paralyzing darkness for three days? Was it not enough to slay their first born? After all that, did the Almighty have to drown Pharaoh’s army in the sea?
The escalation of these events and judgments shows us that sometimes evil has to be firmly and conclusively repudiated. The Torah will turn the experience in Egypt into a meme – a shorthand to remind us that we are to respect strangers and concern ourselves with the poor, the widow, the orphan, and the stranger. We are meant to revile the ways of Pharaoh. The answer to the question of the ultimate value and extent of shaming is twofold; the Almighty needs to be respected because G-d is the ultimate source and judge of power and morality, and Pharaoh needed to be shamed until he either came to repent on his own or had to be sidelined.
In our own times Nazism stands as an example of how much shame is necessary. Today in educational and philosophical discourse the term nazi remains a derogatory epithet, and Hitler is the prime example of pure and undeniable evil in the world. Furthermore, the Nuremberg trials historically and culturally represent the triumph of international morality over unrepentant evil. Germany as a nation went through its period of cherem in the community of nations, repented, and now takes its place as a democracy and even an ally of the Jewish people.
By comparison, Italian fascism may not have gotten enough shame. Mussolini’s name does not conjure the same visceral response as Hitler. Yet, he too instituted race laws. He too deported Jews to death camps. University of Siena’s Professor Paul Corner has argued that the failure to shame Mussolini has fostered the resurgence of fascist beliefs in Italy today. There are glaring examples of this, such as the annual march to Predappio every October to commemorate Mussolini’s rise to power at the site of the Mussolini family crypt. Four thousand people marched last year. This is not a fringe event; the roots of the problem are mainstream as many Fascist monuments still stand today: the Obelisk at the Foro Italico and memorials to fascist generals among them.
Corner argues that Italy chose, “amnesia over accountability.” He notes the following.
The regime is no longer associated immediately with violence; the Duce is not remembered as a man whose power rested at least in part on the cudgel, the rifle, the pistol and the knife… Mussolini was, by common consent, the lesser evil. But from being the lesser evil the path has been short to him becoming no evil.
The lesson of the memorialization of the lesser evil is an instructive place to begin an education on the ways of shame and shaming. Every time Pharaoh refused an opportunity to repent, his heart became further hardened. He earned his fate one step at a time, until the scope of his evil was greater than the sum of his acts of lesser-evils. There are many figures who warrant the shaming and fate of Pharaoh. Hitler does not, should not, and must not stand alone in the pantheon of evildoers. Our world is one in which the lines of right and wrong are often blurred, reframed, and falsely characterized by partisan media and social media echo chambers. We all play a part in this: we are morally bound to be truthful witnesses who will not let the world forget what warrants shame, and bear witness that G-d alone is the true judge.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Rosenblatt and Dr. Terry Neiman
