Seeing through the eyes of the "Other" - a Jewish Rabbi on President Trump's Jerusalem declaration

In IDC (Intercultural Development Continuum) terms, intercultural growth involves moving from an ethnocentric way of relating to others (Denial – being basically unaware of difference, or Polarization – being pushed away by difference / pushing difference away, feeling threatened by it, negatively stereotyping, etc.), i.e., experiencing my own way of seeing things, my own value system, my own interpretations, etc., as the only real and true way of being human (corresponding, simply, to “how things really are”), to an ethnorelative or global perspective on others. As we move into Acceptance and Adaptation (in how we experience difference), we become open to difference, curious about it, respectful of it. We come to see things from the perspective of others, and to be able to appreciate those different perspectives, to see them as real; and to see those different others as equally (though differently) human.

A great example of this, I think, is reflected in the writings of Rabbi Hanan Schlesinger, including this recent reflection on the declaration of intent of President Trump to move the American embassy in Israel to Jerusalem - https://www.myjewishlearning.com/rabbis-without-borders/torn-between-a-particular-truth-and-a-mutual-peace/.

Rabbi Hanan demonstrates the intercultural (which you could also simply call human or interpersonal) skills of empathy, ability to see things from the perspective of the other – the ability to understand and reflect and even accept a different narrative of how things are.

Rabbi Hanan reflects a deeply held, deeply felt Jewish perspective on Jerusalem (see the article for details), concluding with the words,

“For most Israelis, the refusal of the world since 1949 to recognize Jerusalem as our capital has been a bewildering affront to our dignity, our identity, and our sovereignty. Many would attribute it to irrational vestigial anti-Semitism. United States president Donald Trump is to be commended for finally correcting the painful and unjust slight and doing justice to the Jewish State. We are deeply thankful and we feel vindicated, as the greatest power on earth has recognized the truth at the foundation of our millennia-long identity.”

At this point you think here’s one more person “taking sides” in the deeply polarized non-dialogue about the status of Jerusalem. But this is not the end of the article. Rabbi Hanan proceeds to say,

"I write the above words with fervor and conviction. It is all true. But it is only a part of the truth. There is another truth as well, and there will never be peace as long as we hang on to only part of the truth as if it were the full truth."

And he then lays out a Muslim Palestinian narrative of (perspective on) Jerusalem, in terms which I think most Muslims would recognize and agree with; and he concludes that section of his reflection with these words about President Trump’s declaration:

"From this perspective, President Donald Trump’s momentous announcement was a prodigious slap in the face. Its various caveats did little to soften the sting of humiliation. It gave a piece of the greatest prize to Israel, while the Palestinians still have nothing. Blatantly violating international consensus, it stole from the Palestinians and from the Muslims their last remaining sliver of dignity and hope. It recognized reality indeed, the reality of Israeli’s usurpation of their holy city. It gave the ultimate seal of approval to injustice after tragic injustice perpetrated against the Palestinian people and the Muslim religion."

He goes on to conclude,

"We have here two truths. Both are valid, reflecting part of human reality. Each, however, becomes false when they separately present themselves as the full truth, the only truth. If we want real peace, we must take both into account (emphasis added).  If we really want peace, there is no room for the blind hubris of exclusivity. We must work it out together. There is no place for unilateral measures. We must not lend a hand to any move that triumphantly tramples the last shred of the other side’s dignity. We must make our music heard in harmony with the concert of nations."

"I am deeply torn between (a particular) truth and (a mutual) peace, but if I must decide between them – and indeed I must – I will come down on the side of a mutual peace."

This is all the more remarkable because of the deep and deepening polarization between the Palestinian and Israeli sides in their conflict, where neither listens to the other (there’s plenty of shouting at each other, though), and in fact, where there is hardly any relationship or contact between those on the two basic sides of the conflict.

Rabbi Hanan represents the human potential to understand the different “other” (even one with which our own people are in conflict), to meet the other as a fully human being, to enter their world and empathize with their perspectives and values. And this not only represents a positive model of “intercultural” growth and development, but also shows how this growth can be relevant to peacemaking in a situation of intractable conflict.

The challenge of culture "giving way to the Word"

I was in a training on counseling skills recently, with a few others who live and work in a cross-cultural (intercultural) setting. We were all Christians, and the specific counseling skills were related to doing what we think of as “Biblical” counseling.

The trainer, in introducing a case study about the cultural dimension of counseling, made a statement to the effect that of course, ultimately, “culture has to give way to the Word” (i.e., the “word of God,” the Bible). And in the ensuing discussion, one of the participants raised the point that there is a “kingdom culture” (i.e., referring to the values of the “kingdom of heaven” or of God, which Jesus referred to constantly) that we as people of faith in Jesus are all being enculturated into, or that we enter into, which is in some way “supra” cultural.

Here are some of my reflections on these ideas, as an Anthropologist who is a reader of the Bible and a follower of Jesus:

My personal conviction is that the Bible is the Word of God, and as such is an external standard. If it is, as we believe, from God, it is in its essence connected to God himself and to “objective” reality (outside of us).

The problem, though, is in applying the Bible to situations, especially when we are dealing with people in different cultures. The Bible – the word of God – cannot come to us in unmediated form. We are human, limited. We deal in perceptions, apprehensions, understandings, etc. We “process” the world – including God, God's Word, etc. – through our minds, through our language, through our categories of thought, through our understandings of the world, etc., all of which are colored by our humanity. Thus, we can't really talk about “what the Bible says” as much as “what we understand or perceive the Bible to say.”

As human beings, we are cultural by nature. We can't escape our culture. We change and grow, yes, but we change and grow in a cultural way, and in a cultural context. I do not find it very helpful to think of us entering “kingdom culture” or some kind of “supracultural” realm (partly because, for any of us, how we define the “supra” cultural will be colored by our own culture and culture-boundedness).

In my view, the Biblical paradigm is that God's word, and God himself (with the prime example of this being Jesus in the incarnation), enters our (human, sociocultural) context, takes on the “clothing” of our culture / culture-boundedness / our humanity, and transforms everything from within. He changes us, of course, stamps us with his image (which, by the way, we all bear as human beings, but which doesn't stop us from being different from each other in how that image is manifested, and the sociocultural outworkings of our humanity, or of his life, after he comes into our lives and our contexts). Jesus enters our life and walks our road with us. In personality terms, for example, Jesus does not change an INTJ (me) into an ENFP (my wife) – he works within the boundaries (and limitations) of my personality, but allows me to blossom and grow into the fullness of the person he created me to be. And so with culture – he doesn't change a Chinese person into an American, etc., or even a “Muslim” into a “Christian” (though we may seek to bring about these changes), for them to follow Jesus.

I find it more helpful to think of the life of God like a seed, that can be planted into any “soil” and grow up within that soil (this is the best way I've seen of expressing what many in Christian circles refer to as “contextualization,” in the writings of Hiebert, Kraft, and others).

There may be human universals, but they work out differently, in different cultural settings. There is a distinction (biblically) between essence and form. I would say, for example, that the essence of basic "peacemaking" teaching (Matt. 18, etc., on dealing with sin and offense between people) is that to follow Jesus you have to deal with sin and conflict, with relational issues that come up between believers, etc. How you do that, however, can be very different, depending on the cultural context (and even on personality). How you "go to your brother/sister" can look different, in an "indirect" or "hierarchical" culture, vs. a "direct" or "egalitarian" one. Or take basic “relational needs.” You can argue that any people anywhere may need respect, comfort, acceptance, approval, security, etc. – but the way people express or receive any of these needs may differ considerably from one cultural context to another. So we can't just say the Bible says, “accept one another.” We have to learn, for different individuals and in different cultural contexts, how people express and receive acceptance (or not).

We need to recognize our own basic tendency to be ethnocentric. We all are. In a nutshell, we see God and the Bible and the world and ourselves, from our perspective (there's a lot to this, it is rooted in our personality, personal history, culture, etc.). And we tend to project “sameness” or “universality” on other people, from our frame of reference. Thus, if I say to you that “we are all human,” and the principles of leadership that I am teaching are “Biblical and relevant to us all,” what I'm usually giving you is “Biblical principles” that I have come to believe and practice and work out, within my context, and which (of course) I assume to be “universal” because (a) they work for me and mine, and (b) they are “in/from the Bible.”  We need to be very careful of our tendency to be culturally imperialistic, to assume that our practices and principles of following Jesus, teaching the Bible, living in community (church practices, etc.), are simply “from the Bible” and thus “universally applicable.”

My overall conclusion, from 28+ years of living cross-culturally and trying to adapt to and understand cultural difference; from all my study (Ph.D in Anthropology, intercultural training, and reading hundreds of books, etc.); and from coaching and observing all kinds of people from all kinds of nationalities, is that we all are far less competent in dealing with cultural matters than we think we are; we have far less understanding of culture and cultural dynamics, than we think we have; and culture is far more significant (and deserving of respect and attention!) than we realize or admit. 

We need a huge amount of basic humility and caution in relating to people of different cultures, to take care not to be overly confident that we know and understand and have answers. History is full of the disasters brought about by people working with this cultural self-confidence (arrogance). And we Americans are particularly bad about this, both in the secular realm and especially when we are dealing in a context of faith and using the Bible (it gets messy when the eternal, the divine, is wrapped up in the human).

So rather than saying culture must "give way to the Word," I would probably say that the Word has to come in and change our culture; and when we are engaged in relating to people of other cultures, we need to be open to listening to and learning from their reading and application of the Bible. Often, what was obvious to us in our cultural context, will look quite different when we see it through the eyes of culturally different others. And this is to be expected, since the God we believes in is certainly outside of the limitations of our cultural contexts (though he works within each of them).

Perspectives on Muslim-Christian relationship and reconciliation

If you want an interesting perspective on Muslim-Christian relations, deeply relevant to the themes of "faith and culture" and "faith in cultural context," check out these posts by a good Muslim friend of mine, and let me know what you think:

"Reconciliation: The choice of peacemakers"
http://safikaskas.blogspot.com/2010/01/reconciliation-choice-of-peacemakers.html

"360 degrees love"
http://safikaskas.blogspot.com/2010/03/360-degrees-love.html

and "Who needs reconciliation?"
http://safikaskas.blogspot.com/2010/08/who-needs-reconciliation.html

I'll post some of my thoughts another time.