A friend buys you a gift – a brand new outfit.
“Oh! That’s so nice of you! But how did you know my size? Is it even going to fit?”
“Oh, don’t worry… One- size-fits-all. I’m sure it will be fine.”
But then you quickly learn: One size doesn’t fit all…
The Torah and the Talmud tells us a fascinating story that makes the very same point. Abraham and his nephew Lot were living together when Lot told his uncle – “I want to move out on my own.” Abraham responded: “OK – where do you want to go?” Lot answered: “I’ve heard some exciting things about the twin cities, Sodom and Gomorah. I think that’s a place where I will fit in.”
Abraham and Lot, it turns out, were two very different kinds of people. Abraham was known as “HA-IVRI”, which we translate as “the Hebrew.” But the word seems to indicate that Abraham was different from most people. “The whole world stood on one side, and Abraham stood on the other” the Midrash tells us. He was his own man. He marched to the beat of his own drum, and he didn’t care what other people did, or said. He left his parents’ home, his country, and he worshipped his own God in a revolutionary way. He had to be true to the deeper calling that he heard in his heart.
Lot, on the other hand, wanted more than anything, to fit in, to be like everyone else. He didn’t want the challenges that his uncle took on – and he didn’t want the loneliness that came with those challenges. Which is why he ended up in Sodom.
The rabbis tell us that when a traveler came to these two cities, he was made to lie down upon a bed. If he was too short to fit perfectly on the mattress, the townsfolk brought out a rack, and they tied the traveler’s arms and legs, and pulled – until the sockets were dislocated, bones were broken, and muscles were torn. By this means, the traveler was stretched until he fit the bed. But, if it turned out that the person was too tall, the people of Sodom and Gomorah brought out an axe, and lopped off the inches, starting at the feet.
What’s the meaning of this crazy legend? Is it just some primitive fairy tale or horror story?
Actually, I think it’s a pretty sophisticated myth, and a rather modern one, at that. The Rabbis are describing to us the essence of Sodom and Gomorah: It was a place that valued conformity above all else. They couldn’t stand people who were different. If you wanted to live in the town, you had to be like everyone else. They wouldn’t tolerate someone who was taller, or someone who was shorter. Everyone had to be the same. And that’s what drew Lot to the cities. More than anything, he wanted to pay the price to be like everyone else – no matter what it cost. You could say that the motto of the city of Sodom was “One size fits all.” And Lot embraced that way of looking at the world.
About 1700 years after the Rabbis of the Talmud created the story about the Bed of Sodom, a Jewish woman in California created her own tale about the allure, and the dangers, of conformity. In 1962, Malvina Reynolds’ song became a number one hit when it was sung by Pete Seeger:
Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes made of ticky-tacky,
Little boxes, little boxes,
Little Boxes, all the same.
There’s a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one
And they’re all made out of ticky-tacky
And they all look just the same.
And the people in the houses
All go to the University,
And they all get put in boxes,
Little boxes, all the same.
And there’s doctors and there’s lawyers
And business executives,
And they’re all made out of ticky-tacky
And they all look just the same.
And they all play on the golf-course,
And drink their Martini dry,
And they all have pretty children,
And the children go to school.
And the children go to summer camp
And then to the university,
And they all get put in boxes
And they all come out the same.
And the boys go into business,
And marry, and raise a family,
And they all get put in boxes,
Little boxes, all the same.
There’s a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one
And they’re all made out of ticky-tacky
And they all look just the same.
You could make the case that the young people who came of age in the Sixties were trying to be like Abraham, who broke his father’s idols, and went on his own path. But you can also make the case that the hippies of the 1960’s went on to become the Yuppies of the 1970’s, and like Lot, they looked back toward Sodom and Gomorah, and embraced the value of conformity. Life in the suburbs hasn’t really changed all that much: there may be SUV’s in the driveway instead of Volkswagen Beatles, but the houses all look just the same. The kids today may not sport crew-cuts and dungarees and P.F.Flyers, but they’re all made out of ticky-tacky, and they all look just the same.
And God help the kid who doesn’t fit on the Bed of Sodom.
When you move out to the suburbs, you’re expected to be, and act like everyone else. And it starts, just as in Sodom, when they see what you look like, and judge your body size and shape. Kids can’t accept other kids who are overweight – or those who are too thin. They immediately get labeled as FATSO or STRING-BEAN (or worse). If your teeth stick out, you’re BUCKY-BEAVER, and if you go to get them fixed, you’re BRACE-FACE. If you wear glasses, you’re FOUR-EYES. Your ears stick out and you’re DUMBO. Suffer from Acne – it’s PIZZA FACE. If you’ve got a bump up here – you’re HOOK-NOSE, and if you have curls instead of straight hair, you’re FRIZZ-HEAD. Not very tall – you’re a SHRIMP. Too tall, and you’d better be a star on the basketball court. And I don’t want to even go into what they say about the girl in 6th grade whose body develops before everyone else’s, or the girl in 10th grade, who develops long after everyone else… Our culture has set up a particular notion of what beautiful is – and if you don’t fit that definition then you are ugly. Some kids take to heart these names they’re called, and this imprints on their souls – for the rest of their lives – how they view themselves. They buy into the notion that because they don’t fit in – they are losers as human beings.
Other kids will resolve to change themselves – by any means necessary – and they willingly lie down on the Bed of Sodom and beg to be stretched out or cut down to size. Maybe that means starving yourself, or binging and purging; maybe it means going to the tanning salon so they’re not called PALE-FACE; maybe it means pestering their parents for a nose job or even Breast implants as a High School graduation gift. In PBM class this year, we talked about the case of the 17 year old who died on the operating table during one such procedure.
When Lot came to the twin towns, they only demanded of him that he be the right height. In our towns, we have many more expectations besides the physical. We are justifiably, proud of the high academic status of our school district. But what happens to kids who don’t, or can’t excel? Is it realistic to expect that every child is an honors student who will get into an Ivy League School? Why is it considered a joke if you end up at Nassau Community College? Is it really so terrible if you don’t take three AP courses every year? “Excellence for Every Child” doesn’t mean that every student has to achieve the very same definition of excellence. It means that every child should be helped to achieve the very best he or she is capable of. Getting a B on a test, or on a report card is not a sin, it’s not a crime, it’s not a badge of shame – it won’t bring down the real estate values, and it won’t assure a life of poverty. And yet, kids are given the message: You’d better get all A’s – or it’s the end of civilization as we know it.
I watch our kids as they go through the insanity of applying to colleges in their senior year – the ridiculous tests they have to take, the Byzantine applications they have to fill out, the amount of money they have to spend to support the college application industry. Worst of all is seeing the terrible anxiety they live through for six months waiting for the right acceptance. Somehow, the message is conveyed to them: If you get an 89 instead of a 90 in 9th grade, your life is ruined.
I sometimes wonder about the people who sit on the Admissions Committee at these colleges, looking over thousands of applications all of which are exactly the same. Same courses, same grades, same sports and clubs, same community service projects. “They’re all made out of Ticky-Tacky and they all look just the same.” And most of our kids, it seems, apply to the same ten schools. Seems to me, that if I was in High School, I’d try to make myself look as unique as possible, so that I’d be noticed, so that I’d stand out from everyone else. Seems to me , that I’d want to be me, and not just like everyone else. But like Lot, everyone is dying to get into Sodom College or Gomorah University (Where the Latin motto on the school sweatshirt reads: “One size fits all.”
And what about that kids who have learning issues, or emotional disabilities – kids who need medication, or require special services, or even a special school. They get labeled as well – EMO, or TARD, or a dozen other horrible names. Because they didn’t fit our narrow definition of what is normal. The truth of the matter is that every single one of us has special needs – every one of us has our own disabilities. It’s just that some of us hide it better than others. And “hiding it” is not necessarily the best life strategy.
Your body has to be just right if you want to fit in. But it’s also how you clothe the body that determines if you’re accepted or not. We’ve all heard many times the stories about kids in the ghetto who wear the wrong color in the wrong neighborhood – wearing CRIPS’ blue while walking through the hood of the BLOODS, whose color is red – and that mistake can get you killed. We look down our noses and think “How primitive!” and pathetic. Yet I’ll never forget an incident that happened in our Hebrew School maybe 25 years ago. One girl informed another: “We’re never going to be friends with you until you start wearing the right brand of jeans.” That particular month, the right brand of jeans was Jordache. The company doesn’t even exist anymore, but I know that the memory of the humiliation of being excluded and the loneliness of not being accepted still brings tears to that woman’s eyes all these years later.
We ridicule the Taliban for making women wear the same clothes, the Burka that covers them from head to toe. And yet we, in our own way, demand the same conformity in what we expect our girls to wear. The difference is that the Taliban believe in an extreme form of modesty, while we’ve gone in the opposite direction. We dress up five year olds to look like hookers – with tank tops, exposed midriffs and the shortest of skirts. A new word has even been coined to describe the look: PROSTI-TOTS’. Who is it who decides that you have to dress a certain way to be accepted? The devil, who wear PRADA? Britney Spears? A middle school Madonna Wannabe or the people of Sodom and Gomorah?
How is it possible in an age where everyone learns in school again and again about the dangers of driving while under the influence of alcohol that so many kids still get into cars driven by someone who was just drinking at a party?
How is it possible that we read almost every month in the papers about teenage boys killed in car crashes after driving too fast?
How is it possible that 45 years after the world learned the links between smoking and cancer that you can still see a bunch of teenage girls trying to look “cool” by lighting up cigarettes?
How is it possible in an era when we know so much about STD’s and HIV that teens are still coerced into having sex, way before they’re emotionally ready?
It’s possible because we’ve been brain washed into thinking that being cool, and accepted is more important than self respect, or good health, or even life itself – Just like Lot, who risked his life by moving into Sodom and Gomorah.
The poet William Wordsworth wrote “the child is the father of the man” – meaning that when you’re brought up a certain way as a kid it’s hard not to turn into the same kind of adult.
After Lot passed the Bed Test and moved into Sodom, he was met by a delegation from the local Civic Association. “We want to welcome you and Mrs. Lot, and we want to let you know what we expect of you.
“First, you’ll of course knock down your home and put up a McMansion in its place…”
But our kids are all grown and have moved out of the house. We don’t need that much room…
“That’s what’s done here. Second: You’ll need to redo your kitchen and put in a home theater in the basement.”
But Mrs. Lot hardly ever cooks and we don’t watch much TV anymore.
“That’s what’s done here. Third, we expect you to drive the same make, model, and color SUV as everyone else…
But with gas prices going through the roof, that doesn’t make a lot of sense…
“That’s what’s done here. Fourth, we expect you to go on a family cruise in December.”
But I get sea-sick!
“That’s what’s done here. Fifth, when the new I-Phone comes out, we expect you to stand in line all night so you can be among the first to get the latest model”
But in a couple of months they’ll come up with a better version at half the price! And besides, I don’t want to be bothered by phone calls every minute of the day…
“That’s what’s done here. Sixth, when it comes time for a Bar Mitzvah or a Wedding, you’re going to make the same exact party as everyone else – with the same food, and way too much of it, and the same band playing the exact same songs, and way too loud…
But it’s a waste of so much money, and everybody agrees that deep down they know it’s a mistake to do it
“That’s what’s done here. And Seventh, when your kids come to you and ask permission to do something or buy something, and you feel it’s wrong or inappropriate, and they tell you ‘But all my friends are doing it!’ – You’ll give in and let them do or buy whatever they want.”
But that’s not being a good parent!
“Hey – do you want to live here, or don’t you? This is the way it is. Get on board, or go someplace else.”
And so what did Lot do? He said: “I’m in. Tell me where to sign!”
Lot was a bright guy. Yet at the first sign of peer pressure, he ditched his conscience and drank the KOOL-AID. And so, too often, do we.
Why do we do it?
Social biologists say that it can be traced back to our animal roots. We descended from apes, and from who knows what before that. Animals quickly learn that safety is found in sticking with the herd. If you reject what the rest of the group is doing, and you wander off on your own, you set yourself up to be picked off by a predator. We figure out when young: Either run with the crowd, or get eaten. Never stand alone, never draw attention to yourself. “Different” equals “Death”.
Psychologists say that we are basically social animals – we have a deep longing to be with other people, and a desperate need to avoid loneliness – at all costs. If given the choice between following our conscience and abandoning the group, or putting aside what we believe in order to gain a social network – most people will opt for the latter.
Economists will say that it often comes down to a question of marketing. We have been brainwashed by Madison Avenue and the advertising arm of American Capitalism to buy things we don’t need, with money we don’t have, to impress people we don’t really care for.
Philosophers would say that the problem is that most of us haven’t really given a lot of thought to who we are, what we believe, and what it is that we want to become. We fill our days with trivial pursuits and never really give much time to thinking about the ultimate questions of life and existence. We let our senses lead us around, instead of following what our brains tell us.
Let no one misunderstand what I’m saying: I’m not condemning the wonderful, comfortable life we live in the suburbs. There’s nothing inherently bad about the homes we live in, the cars we drive, the clothes we wear, the parties we throw, or the vacations we take. The only bad thing is thinking that there’s only one way to look, or to live, that one size fits all.
There’s a famous Hasidic story about Zusya, the rebbe of Hanipol at the end of the 18th century. As he lay near death and thought about his choices in life, he told his followers: When I get to the World to Come, they will not ask me: Zusya, why weren’t you like Moses? Instead, they will want to know: Why were you not Zusya?”
We worry why we weren’t more like some great Tzadik; God instead will wonder why we spent so much time just trying to keep up with the Joneses…
In the Talmud, we’re told that when human beings make coins from a single mold, they all turn out exactly alike. But the greatness of God is that He created every person from the same mold as the first human being, yet, miraculously, every single one comes out unique, and different, and special.
It’s so important to remember that Adam, and each and every one of us was created in the image of God. When people see someone who is physically different, then often gasp and think “What a freak!” But Jews are taught to recite a Blessing
BARUKH ATA ADONAI, ME SHANEH HA BRIYOT
We praise you, Adonai, who made all kinds of living beings.
We are reminded that God didn’t want us all to look or act the same. But if we can see beyond what’s different, we come to find what we all have in common: We are all created in God’s image. We must learn to respect people who are different – either in how they look, or how they act. And we must never be afraid of looking or acting differently, ourselves.
Lot wanted to fit in, to be like everyone else, which is why we ended up in Sodom with its notorious bed. If you read carefully, you’ll find that Abraham, who wasn’t afraid of being different, was at the time living in a town called BET EL, or as its pronounced in English Bethel. The word means House of God. How appropriate that it’s in a House of God wherewe sit today.
Today, in every House of God, Jews are all reciting the same three key words: TEFILAH, TESHUVA, TZEDAKA, which the Mahzor translates as “Prayer, Repentance, and Charity.” But I think these three words have a different meaning that speaks to the essence of what Rosh HaShanah is really about.
Tefilah is “serious self-analysis.” It’s taking a good hard look at who we are and why we do the things we do.
Teshuvah is “turning our lives around.” It’s deciding that we’re not altogether happy with who we see in the mirror, and resolving to make different choices in the coming year.
And Tzedakah is “doing what’s right.” It’s translating our New Year’s resolutions into real change.
Today we have the opportunity to decide what’s really important in life – and what’s not.
Today we have the chance to accept the fact that each of us has infinite worth – and that our choices are just as good as someone else’s.
Today we can muster the courage to break away from the crowd, and begin to go our own way.
Today we can decide to leave behind the Bed of Sodom, walk away from conformity for conformity’s sake, and not turn back.
Today we can decide to be an Abraham, not a Lot.
Today we can begin to understand that one size doesn’t fit all.
|
