3 min read
ByLaura Janner Klausner , BY laura janner-klausner
'This is precisely the time to expand and to strengthen others, particularly leaders under extreme pressure'
October 29, 2020 09:59We’ve all had a prolonged bout of “Coviditus”. Common symptoms of Coviditus are raised levels of agitation; frustration with how others are dealing with Covid-19; a heightened focus on physical and mental health and/or on financial stability. People have lost their jobs, their tempers, their sense of perspective and their sense of mental equilibrium. Relationships have been irrevocably damaged rather than being soothed with a gentle walk, an in-person conversation or a cup of tea and TLC.
Coviditus has proven the truth of the great Yiddish proverb: “mann tracht, un gott lacht”. People plan, but God laughs. It’s upturned and overturned many plans.
However, like other illnesses, Coviditus has had some collateral benefit in granting its sufferers perspective. It’s been fascinating how many of us have recalibrated profound aspects of our lives over the last six months.
This has certainly been true for me. On leaving my role as Senior Rabbi, I’d planned to undergo a PhD in Digital Theology to research the future of our Jewish communities in light of how online communication affects young people’s in-person participation, particularly in synagogues. Yet the Source of Life laughed at me and tossed my plans high up into the air. When they landed, they looked very different. Covid made me reassess, “What is the most important thing that I could be doing?” and “Where can I make a difference at this delicate time in history?” I realised that this is the time to bring change and not to retreat into my own head by studying. This is precisely the time to expand and to strengthen others, particularly leaders under extreme pressure.
Leaders, whether in business, politics or even religion who I’ve talked to recently agree. They’re worried, but not terrified, about the economy, about Brexit, about global warming.
However, they’re terrified of what is called cancel culture. Cancel culture is a “suitcase term”, packed with different connotations and concepts depending on who’s discussing it and the argument they’re trying to win. Its immutable essence, though, is profoundly unforgiving.
Cancel culture is a growing pattern, often involving far-too-hasty attacks on the reputations and right to a livelihood of people whose views are seen as unacceptable. People are labelled and discarded out of conversations, sometimes without proper concern for whether their views really were problematic, or whether they were simply hesitant to unquestioningly follow the narrative of their cancellers. Cancel culture threatens our ability to have productive discussions and healthy relationships.
As Jews we have experience of our own form of cancellations. Past impositions of the herem — excommunication — has had intellectual giants such as Baruch Spinoza, Leon Trotsky and Maimonides (posthumously) be cancelled as social and commercial pariahs. Being put under the herem has included bans on receiving aliyah to the Torah, engaging in business with others in the kehillah (community), and even coming within 6ft of a person who has been excommunicated.
While modern-day cancel culture is somewhat less radical in its measures, it can still be as devastating.
The Mishnah teaches us that “ladun kol adam l’kaf tzchut” — we must judge everyone by giving them the benefit of the doubt. The assumption that others hold opposing views out of active hatred, selfishness or prejudice rather than any number of more honourable reasons only leads to hostile conversations and retreating into echo chambers. We must continue talking to people who hold different views from us, both for the sake of societal cohesion and also the fact that they might even be right! And if they are wrong, we should start by assuming that people can make mistakes out of good faith and in the same good faith, learn from them and change. That is the very core of our High Holiday season’s message.
At the same time, the Black Lives Matter movement has continued to highlight widespread injustices in our social and legal institutions. These need to be dealt with. So too do injustices involve sexuality, gender and religion. Younger people especially are now using the tools and language of cancel culture on social media to point out what should have been attended to for many years. They are often right to be frustrated. These vital issues call for stronger social and government action.
I’ve been jolted into reality by the unpleasant nature of the public square, and so my own Coviditus spurred me to exchange academia for something more immediately pressing. I am planning to offer practical support to leaders facing a world where brutal cancellations have replaced constructive conversations.
Last week, I launched a consultancy with 19 partners to help leaders proactively understand vital issues such as race, gender, sexuality and how to actively tackle potential causes of cancellation when they get it wrong. Our leaders, whether in politics, commerce, civil society or otherwise, need to understand these issues both because it is intrinsically the right thing to do but also to help them not be inappropriately cancelled when they made mistakes in good faith.
Teshuvah, Judaism’s decree that we every single day must recognise where we went wrong, to apologise sincerely, atone and be forgiven, is our glorious, wise and compassionate gift to the universe. It is the perfect antidote to cancel culture because it’s based on the core assumption that we all have the capacity to strengthen not only ourselves, but our community and society as a whole.
Rabbi Laura Janner-Klausner is a leadership consultant and the former Senior Rabbi to Reform Judaism