Thursday, September 16, 2010

Karma Contrition: Joel Stein's Child's Nut Allergy & Rabbi Compares Helen Thomas to Hitler

This Yom Kippur, I plan to speak to my congregation about issuing apologies for things we shouldn't have said. I know, that sounds like "nothing new under the sun," but I'm going to look at how karma plays a role in our contrition.

Here's an example: The witty Joel Stein, who writes the bi-weekly back page for Time Magazine, penned a funny, yet hurtful, LA Times column back in January 2009 claiming that American parents have gone nuts over nut allergies. He wrote, "Your kid doesn't have an allergy to nuts. Your kid has a parent who needs to feel special." Ouch!

Stein clearly won no fans from the parents of children with peanut allergies. And I'm sure there were a good number of those parents out there wishing that Joel Stein would get a taste of what they go through on a daily basis -- carrying Epi Pens and worrying that their child would come into contact with an allergen. Stein wasn't alone in writing cynical articles calling into question the mass hysteria caused by over-vigilant parents, but his wit came out as criticism and was very hurtful to many parents.

Fast forward to August 2010 and Joel Stein when karma comes knocking on Joel Stein's door. In his mea culpa column in Time, Stein writes:

At the beginning of last year, I wrote a column that questioned whether the increase in food allergies among children was a matter of overreporting. It began with this carefully calibrated thought: "Your kid doesn't have an allergy to nuts. Your kid has a parent who needs to feel special." After that, I got a little harsh.

The column was not the first thing that came to mind after my 1-year-old son Laszlo started sneezing, then breaking out in hives, then rubbing his eyes, then crying through welded-shut eyes, then screaming and, finally, vomiting copiously at the entrance of the Childrens Hospital emergency room an hour after eating his first batch of blended mixed nuts. But it was the second thing. Because after my nut-allergy column came out, many parents wrote me furious e-mails saying they hoped that one day I would have a child with life-threatening allergies.

Stein maintained his trademark wit and mockery in the column, but managed to sneak in some contrition as well. Perhaps he was thinking that Yom Kippur was approaching and he owed an apology to all the peanut-allergy parents out there. He wrote, "I realize that the more I understand of other people's difficulties, the less funny they are." I'm sorry that Stein's son Laszlo developed a peanut allergy, but I'm glad the writer saw the error of his ways and found the ability to apologize. That is the message of this season of repentance.

Another possible example of karma calling is Rabbi David Nesenoff getting tripped up in an interview with the Jerusalem Post. Nesenoff, a Conservative rabbi, made headlines last May after videotaping journalist Helen Thomas issuing a career-ending anti-Semitic opinion that Israeli Jews should return to Germany and Poland. Yesterday, in either an act of karma or gotcha journalism, Nesenoff put his own foot in his mouth.

Even though he retracted his comparison of Helen Thomas to Adolf Hitler, The Jerusalem Post made sure that both his comparison and the retraction became part of the public record. The Jerusalem Post reports that "Nesenoff proved he isn't immune to impolitic remarks when he drew analogies between Thomas, Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler and sex offenders, before retracting the Hitler comparison... Nesenoff also went on to draw an analogy between Thomas, the long-time former UPI and Hearst Newspapers correspondent, and a high school teacher found guilty of sodomy, asking whether such an individual's record in educating children shouldn't be blemished by his offense."

At the end of the phone interview, Nesenoff acknowledged that his comparisons were "a little exaggerated." The rabbi then retracted the Hitler comparison and said he was sorry.

I don't question the fact that Helen Thomas should have resigned after making her comments, but the type of journalism used by Nesenoff to acquire those comments was questionable. "What comes around goes around," as they say. Nesenoff now finds himself apologizing for his own insensitive comments. This could be karma masked as gotcha journalism. Nesenoff tried to retract the statements he made which are damaging to his own character and integrity, but he learned the same lesson that he taught Helen Thomas: Anything you say can and will be used against you.

A lesson was learned in both the case of Joel Stein and the case of Rabbi David Nesenoff. Both men got a taste of their own medicine and issued apologies. No matter how we get there, that is the ultimate goal of repentance -- feeling contrite and owning up to your wrongdoing.

2 comments:

  1. Re: Joel Stein, the thing that bothers me so much about his behavior as well as similar behavior of others is that it smacks of such arrogance. Why do so many feel that they have the right to judge others?? How can someone who knows so little about a subject be so quick to condemn another who has spent countless hours researching a particular subject and basically "living the life" that another is mocking??

    This sort of thing hits too close to home for me- I have a daughter with autism and a family who has spent not a moment researching it, attempting to understand it, or living it, yet they feel free to judge me and the decisions I have made in the course of treating it. They are completely devoid of empathy and their arrogance in my opinion is breathtaking. Why must it take having a personal experience themselves (at which point they declare themselves "the experts" and argue that their experience is "different" and "more real" than mine or anyone else's for that matter) for them to semi-understand and stop blathering about others...until the next issue comes along?

    While I appreciate Joel Stein's semi-mea culpa, he still casts a bit of judgement on how other parents deal w/ their child's allergies when he mentions that he won't have a nut-free house, they won't be looking for nut-free schools, etc. In my opinion, every parent has a right to decide for themselves when the stakes are too high and make decisions for their child(ren) accordingly.

    Here's a current example from my life: some "friends" feel that my daughter should be allowed to cross streets on her own in our neighborhood b/c other kids her age (and younger) are doing so. They say that my daughter is "fine", that I am used to having to watch her every second and I am having trouble letting go. Some might even tell me about how they understand b/c their own children "have issues"- a learning disability of some sort, or AD/HD, etc. These people know nothing about how my daughter thinks and understands things- they look at her and she looks typical enough so I must be a crazy attention-seeking mom!! HUHHHH??? I don't feel that she is ready to cross a street on her own and if I were to take a chance and let her (to appease others!), she probably wouldn't walk away with just a skinned knee if she were to make a mistake in judgement. That is a risk I am not willing to take! How arrogant for another parent to judge my unwillingness to take such a large risk to my child's life when I, her parent, feel that she is not ready to handle that responsibility!

    I just wish that people would worry more about what's going on in their own lives and spend less time judging others for things they know nothing about- Yom Kippur or no Yom Kippur. Has Joel Stein learned the bigger lesson for the future re: being so judgemental of others? Or has he simply learned a bit about the true concern for children w/ nut allergies??

    I'm happy to have discovered your blog, Rabbi. L'Shana Tovah!!

    Karin

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