Vayashev 5779 Sermon: Hanukkah and Bullying

In our prayers celebrating Hanukkah, we say that “you delivered the mighty into the hands of the weak.” Hanukkah celebrates the victory of faith over might. Might doesn’t make right; in the long run, we win through faith, not by might.
This is true on a historical level-look at the collapse of Russian communism. It did not happen because of the cold war, because we built larger weapons. It happened because of economic pressures, and because democracy and freedom are right. At times, we do backslide, but ultimately “the arc of history tends toward justice.”
On an interpersonal level, too, we “win” not by vanquishing our foe, not by being more powerful, but by interacting with compassion and openness, and not always getting our way. There are people who always need to get their way, and will use every tool at their disposal to get it. They may force their will, but the other person is not happy, and ultimately it is a pyrrhic victory: they have won the battle but lost the war. By getting their way through force, they have already sown the seeds of their own undoing.
Bullying is very real. I believe the word is so overused now that kids don’t know what it means. Saying something mean online is not cyberbullying. Bullies are people who have power and enjoy using it. When I was a child, I was beaten up on the walk home by a group of children, for no reason other than to gratify their desire to be powerful.
The Greeks were bullies. They had a lot of power: they used elephants to build was essentially a tank, unstoppable by foot soldiers. They had massive phalanxes, which were clouds of lances killing anything in their way.
The Antiochus approach to relationships, which is basically bullying, is to try to use whatever tool I can to get my way. It is a game of mercy, bending the other person’s hand backward painfully until they give in. I can use threats, volume (yelling), insults. There’s no dynamic interchange of ideas, and ultimately, it kills the relationship: if the other person says yes, they only do so out of fear, but their heart wants to go the other way. We all do this at times; sometimes I do it with my own children. It is a challenge to do it differently.
American culture is built on this kind of relationship. As a father of small children, I watch a lot of Disney. Think about Sleeping Beauty: the prince defeats the evil witch by force. So many movies have the following dialogue, or some version:
“Ha ha ha”
“Oh no you don’t”
“I’ll get you next time”
We still teach our children that force solves problems; really, it only causes more problems.
And we see these problems in our synagogue culture. So often, somebody wants something, and uses all sorts of power plays to try to get it. Imagine someone who wants to paint the shul pink: It’s Florida, so pink is appropriate, and it would make us stick out. They may yell at volunteers and staff, insult them, badmouth them, threaten to resign. These kinds of interactions, sadly, happen all the time. They are really forms of bullying. We need to find a different way.
The Jewish approach is very different. At the end of the Amida, we read a prayer that says “may my soul be as dust to all, and may I be silent to those who curse me.” Can I be non-reactive, absorb insults without needing to strike back? We are taught to be flexible, and that it is good to compromise even if we are right, for the sake of peace.
What is a victory of faith?
Avoiding anger: the Talmud says our words should all be calm
Avoiding lashon hara: not badmouthing the person we are speaking with
Giving the benefit of the doubt to the person we are speaking with: they have the best intentions, and have a different experience than myself
Being flexible—The Talmud says we should bend like a reed, and not be stiff like a cedar. It is okay not to get my way 100%, even if I still know im right
Finding solutions cooperatively, which means listening to the person opposite me

The real victory is not winning every conflict. It is not being sure we beat the Greeks, or the Romans, or the neo-Nazis. It is making sure we retain our integrity, that we stand for a different way of being in the world. The victory happens when we model and teach that way of being to the world, increasing the radiance of holy light in the world