From Your Minister

Quest Monthly Magazine

According to some folks, everything wrong in this world is because of one disobedient woman who listened to a snake. She just had to eat that apple, and then everything that was whole became broken. We were all doomed.

Time was, I thought that story was just plain upside down, and that Eve was actually the story’s hero. Long live disobedient women! I said, and became one myself. Now that I’m older, and a parent, and have watched the way things work, I have more appreciation for obedience than I used to. But not unquestioning obedience. Maybe something more like respect; and understanding that simply obeying certain reasonable demands that are made on us (not smoking in restaurants, say, or getting vaccinations) makes life better for everyone.

Imagine if Eve had been courageous enough to say to G-d, as my teenager would most certainly say to me, But seriously, why can’t I eat that apple? My kid at any age would absolutely not accept my, or G-d’s answer, “Because I said so.” Trust me, I tried.

And while some faith leaders would tell people that when kids don’t accept that line, it’s time to beat some respect into them, I believe it can’t be done. Fear can be beaten into a kid, and with each blow respect for authority goes further afield. Respect is more complicated, and has to be built with mutuality in it, and yes, with humility that comes from understanding how broken we all are.

What if, instead of simply forbidding the eating of the apple, G-d had explained the logical consequences? G-d did tell Adam and Eve they’d die if they ate it, but what could that have meant to them? Suppose G-d had said instead, “If you eat that apple, all kinds of evil will come into the world that will affect everybody who’s ever born, and it will forever be laid at your feet.” Would you eat that apple anyway? Sadly, I’m almost sure that I would.

I’m not proud of that certainty, but it’s born out of my lived experience that I, and everyone I know, make all kinds of irrational, even stupid choices in our lives, for reasons even we’re not sure of. Mohandas K. Gandhi put it this way: “I have only three enemies. My favorite enemy, the one most easily influenced for the better, is the British Empire. My second enemy, the Indian people, is far more difficult. But my most formidable opponent is a man named Mohandas K. Gandhi. With him I seem to have very little influence.”

Any adult who’s ever asked a kid the question, “Why did you do that?” after that kid has painted the floor with nail polish or cut off the cat’s whiskers or smashed something made of glass in the street, knows what a completely pointless question it is. It is likely to be met with a blank stare and eyes that gleam with the unspoken words, “I have no idea. Absolutely none.” If we’re honest, many of us look in the mirror to see those same eyes staring back at us.

Years ago, when my own kid was about two and my niece four years old, I was tending to them both when a friend called to say that the musician Peter Yarrow (of Peter Paul and Mary fame) was going to meet with a handful of people to talk about his work against bullying, and why didn’t I come and bring the kids? I have two memories of that day: One, which still puts a smile on my face, is that Yarrow sang “Puff the Magic Dragon,” inserting the names of my kid and my niece, to sing, “Little Jie and Niko loved that rascal Puff….” Be still my heart!

The other memory, however, is less charming. While Jie and Niko were fairly quiet during Yarrow’s talk, they were in the corner pinching, biting, and pulling on each other’s arms as they fought over some toy or another that both wanted. I kind of sat in front of them so that their behavior wouldn’t be too noticeable, periodically hissing over my shoulder at them through a clenched, fake smile to cut it out. Indeed, no one did notice what they were doing, rapt with Yarrow’s presentation.

After giving us his pitch (with music) against bullying, Yarrow concluded dramatically, “Imagine how wonderful the world would be if all children played together as harmoniously as little Jie and Niko!” I kept that fake smile on my face, but with a sinking, sinking feeling about the possibility of ever stopping school bullying or anything else.

Blame it on the snake, the woman, the apple, bad parenting, rock-n-roll music. Kids and adults alike are not always our best selves. We’re not always who we want to be. We—and everything else—are broken. And yet, in that brokenness, amazing things happen. Buildings are erected that don’t keel over. Drivers manage to navigate crowded roadways with relatively few accidents. Kids grow up and fall in love. Every now and then, influenced by the actions of very broken people, the moral arc of the universe bends, imperfectly but perceptibly, towards justice. It’s enough to keep me going.