November 5, 2018November 5, 2018 admin

Hate

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Last weekend, a sociopathic gunman with an AK-47 stormed into The Tree of Life synagogue and, over the course of 20 minutes, slaughtered 11 innocent people, and injured six more.  When he was finally stopped by police, he told them, “I just want to kill all the Jews!”.  Like most rational, peace minded people, I was horrified by this, and it brought to mind a question I’ve been asking people of differing faiths and beliefs for over twenty years:  Why does everyone hate the Jews?  I decided to write an essay about the answers I’ve received over this time period, so I sat down and started writing.  I couldn’t stand anything that I put on the page. 

My musings ran the gamut of people hating Jews because they were “disgusting, horrible people”, to, “I don’t know, but didn’t they kill Jesus?  Maybe that’s why.”  The “killing Jesus” excuse was the closest I got to an actual reason…despite the fact that it wasn’t the Jews who executed him, it was the Romans.  Crucifixion, being the Roman’s preferred means of execution, is much more cinematic than stoning (which would have been a more likely punishment if Jews had, in fact, killed him), and, many years later, the Romans would go on to invent pizza, so apparently the blame had to be shifted so we could have something to eat on game day without feeling guilty.

However, everything I wrote just felt wrong.  It wasn’t just discovering the answer to the question was simply “everyone has just been taught to hate Jewish people, so they do”, or seeing how accepting of the hate Jewish people are, “It’s just something we have to deal with” I was told.  I just couldn’t seem to find what it was that I wanted to say.  So, I stared at the page, re-reading, editing here and there, and still not liking what I had written.  Then my phone rang.  Tommy was headed home and wanted to know if I wanted to join him and our friend Barb for Martini Monday, a weekly tradition.  I told him that I really wanted to finish the essay I was working on, what it was about, and how unhappy with it I was.  

“You need to take a break from it.  I’ll pick you up, we’ll get a little buzzed, and when you get home, you’ll sort it out.”

I acquiesced (it’s really not hard to talk me into drinking), he picked me up, and we went off to join Barb at the martini bar.  I would be surprised to discover that inspiration for an essay on hate after the tragedy in Pittsburgh would come from booze and baseball.  I’m not trying to be flippant, this is a serious topic, but it’s how it happened. 

We were about halfway through our first drink, discussing Barb’s work day, joking with the bartender, and eating delicious french fries with rosemary, roasted garlic, truffle oil, and a house made aioli, when I glanced up and noticed baseball playing on the TVs.  Even though both Tommy and myself are completely apathetic towards sports, Barb is a big fan, so I mustered up as much fake interest as I could and I asked her if she was happy that the Red Sox won the World Series.  I really thought this was just some innocuous query that Barb would enjoy talking about.

It was not.

Barb, very pointedly and firmly, put her glass back on the bar and looked at me with an expression of anger.

“No,” she said, “I am NOT happy.”

I was a little surprised by this response, so was Tommy.

“Oh,” I said, “um, why?  They weren’t playing the Indians (we live in Cleveland) so who cares who wins?”

“They are just a horrible disgusting team, just horrible…I fucking hate them.”

Normally I would have let this go and changed the topic, after all, it’s baseball, I don’t have anything to say about it, but her reaction was, at least to me, extreme, and exactly like the responses I received when I asked people why they hate Jews.  So I pushed her,

“What exactly makes them horrible and terrible?”

“They’re just awful, ugh, hate ‘em.”

“But, specifically, what have they done that is terrible?”

“The fans are horrible.”

“Specifically…in what way?”

“Whenever they play here they, like, buy thousands of tickets to the game so there is more of them here then Indian’s fans.”

“But, isn’t that good for the city to get all of that outside money pouring in?  Restaurants, hotels.”

“No, no, they are horrible, I just hate them.”

I didn’t push any further, but it’s not the first time I’ve heard people discussing hating Sports Team “A” or Sports Team “B”.   They all have similar reasons, too, “horrible, bad, they suck, I hate ‘em”.  I’ve never gotten invested in any kind of team sport so I don’t understand rivalries based on where you live or went to school, I just acknowledge that they exist.  But the exchange brought to mind one of the most important lessons I’ve learned in my life, a lesson I’ve referred back to often, and even given it out as advice to people.  It was truly life changing.

From 1987 to 1995 I worked at an independent bookstore in Westlake, Ohio.  For several of those years I worked with a woman named Shelagh (which, by the way, is pronounced Sheila…she was just a little Irish).  Shelagh was a Catholic kindergarten teacher, so of course she had to have a second job to make ends meet.  She was smart, tough, funny, always spoke her mind, and I loved working with her.  One day we were working together and I was ranting on about something, I don’t remember what, but I’m sure it was about a book I hated, or a movie I hated, or some food I hated, or a TV show I hated…something pointless.  She looked at me and started to say something, but then stopped.  I asked her what she was going to say, and at first she wouldn’t tell me.  After some friendly prodding, she finally gave in…and gave it to me.

“You’re kind of annoying, and I have to say I’m a little disappointed in you.”

I was surprised by this sudden change to a serious conversation, especially one when where I was the bad guy.

“What are you talking about?”  I asked her.

“You hate EVERYTHING!”

“So what…there’s a lot to hate.”

“Yes, but…you’re so smart and you have such a good vocabulary, why do you attribute hate to so much?  Save it for the big things.  How can you say you hate that candy bar, then turn around and say you also hate Adolf Hitler?  They are not the same things, they are not equal.  There are so many other words you can use, save hate for when you really mean it.”

“Maybe I’m just an extreme guy?”  

“No.  Hate is too important.  People don’t realize it’s power.”

And with that, she walked away, shaking her head.  I stood there for a moment, a bit confused, then shrugged it off…at least for a little while.  About a week later she came up to me and apologized for what she had said, she hadn’t meant to go off on me like she did.  I think she was taken aback when I thanked her.

You see, I had a great deal of respect for her, so when she lambasted me about my word choices, it made me think about she had said.  During my drive home, I realized that not only was she challenging me, but she was throwing me a vocabulary challenge.  The geek in me was intrigued, so I decided to pick up the gauntlet.  I’ll stop using the word hate.

And I did.

It took a few days to get used to it.  When I would say “hate”, I would backtrack and then say something like, “No, no, I don’t hate it.  But I don’t like it.”  Simple…although the change I experienced was extraordinary.  I felt happier, and I was already a pretty happy guy.  I felt lighter, as though I had been carrying a weight on my shoulders unknowingly.  By removing the extreme of hate from my word choices, I also removed it from my life.  It forced me to think about why I didn’t like something, to get specific.  Perhaps some food was bad.  I don’t need to hate it, it was just too salty for me, then, if I make it again, use less salt, then I’ll like it and it will make me happy.  Bad music playing on the radio?  Maybe I didn’t care for it because it sounded angry and made me uncomfortable, simple fix, change the station.  By not allowing hate to come out of me, I was allowing peace to come into me.

Thank you Shelagh.  

And thank you, baseball and booze, for reminding me of this lesson.  For the past couple of years, hate has become a common presence throughout this country.  It’s on TV, the radio, social media, the internet, everywhere.  We’ve forgotten how important hate is, we’ve forgotten it’s power when it quietly seeps into our bodies, gently persuading a touch of anger here, a bit of rage there.  We don’t even know it’s there, but it is.  Do Republicans really hate Democrats?  Do Democrats really hate Republicans?  If you do, is it because they are “horrible, disgusting people”?  Do you even have a real reason to hate?

Give it a try.  Try not saying the word hate for a couple of weeks.  I’m not saying grab hands and sing “Kumbaya” in a circle, this isn’t about negativity…it’s about hate, they are different.  It’s okay to dislike something or someone, but to hate?  Save it for the really big things.  Think about why you don’t like something, find a reason, something real and specific.  By looking a little deeper, you might discover something about yourself, something amazing.  Something happy.  Maybe even something worth loving.  There is very little worth hating.  After that, ask your friends to stop saying the word hate.  Challenge them…nothing bad can come of it.  Hearing it is bad, too, just don’t start hating the haters.  Let’s get rid of “Swear Jars” and instead have “Hate Jars” where, every time you or someone else says the word, they have to throw a buck in…the goal, of course, being an empty jar.  We should send a bunch of “Hate Jars” to Washington D.C., stick them in the White House, the Senate, and the House of Representatives.  I imagine they will fill up pretty quick, which would be fine because then we could pay off the national debt in a bi-partisan way.  The jars will have to be enormous to  hold all the money.  

As you weed the word hate out of your life, be sure to fill the vacancy it leaves with other powerful words, like peace, happiness, love…and gin.  It’s just a few days until the mid-term elections, which is a good thing.  The amount of hate speech spewing forth from the never-ending political commercials is overwhelming, so let’s approach voting day with peace.  Let’s cast our votes with happiness, and, when we get home, fill the house with love.  Let’s start a revolution against hate.  Then let’s drink some gin.