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Post by Mussar student on Apr 2, 2011 23:48:00 GMT -5
Alan, consider that you may be angry because of your unique background in spirituality pre-Mussar. Look for the overlap of your history and the participants current place, and see if the source is there.
You found your answers in Judaism after that journey, so what this leader is doing may seem treacherous to you, i.e., it may seem like using the power of Auschwitz, now a holy place, to keep people on a Zen path. If any are Jews, you might feel it continues our destruction G-d forbid, a horrific irony.
Is any of that right? If not, please pardon my guesswork. If that's close, you could try writing out (privately) why you think it's wrong at length so it becomes clear to you and you get it out onto paper (and less in your system).
After you're able to speak calmly about it, you could try to get to know the leader and explain yourself to him. If nothing else you'll be doing something about it constructively. Don't approach him while you're still angry, it will make communication impossible. Also consider Dale Carnegie: "Seek first to understand, then to be understood" an effective strategy for such a discussion.
Good luck - and good for you, for being honest about how you feel.
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Post by theholodoc on Apr 2, 2011 23:53:04 GMT -5
There is only one real test for the truth of ones anger and that is whether or not it, the anger, is useful in doing the lords work, e.g. to spread peace, harmony and respect among our species, not only our family, our community, our religion, our nation, but peace and good will to all. If it does not meet this test, then no justifications, no rationalizations, no cognitive manipulation at all, can make it shine with god's light.
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Post by hrbrill on Apr 3, 2011 10:30:17 GMT -5
Some thoughts on anger: Anger is a common pathway for several positive middot that need more development. Previous posts mentioned tolerance and patience, but calmness is also a middah mentioned in the Mussar literature. Calmness is a more developed response to justified anger. Is this a problem calling for tolerance, patience, or calmness?
In my reading of Alan's essay and looking at the Zen Peacemakers website I don't think this is a problem of patience; this is not a burden to be borne but a reaction to a practice of others. Is tolerance called for or a calm rebuke, or both?
A Buddhist response to Auschwitz will be different from a Jewish response. An early 21st century, Americanized version of Buddhism, will carry our shared cultural baggage of preoccupation with the self. As Micha says, I think a Buddhist response will focus on orientation to the moment. That can be productive, because it help us develop healing relationships with others, seeing the other truly in the moment, in contrast to a particular fixed concept of the other.
Jewish history and experience is more than Auschwitz. It is important to recognize the pain and horror of Auschwitz, and Auschwitz's place in Jewish and human history. But it is also not the totality of that history. I think that is something Buddhism teaches.
My mother is a survivor of the Holocaust. When I was growing up she viewed our Christian neighbors from the lens of the Holocaust. This meant no one was to be trusted. She has grown over the years and no longer looks at the world that way. Interestingly, when I interviewed my grandmother and aunt, I learned that my family's survival depended on the incredible and selfless bravery of a Christian couple. The suffering invoked by looking at the world in a particular way ("all Christians hate us no matter how nice they seem") is something that needs healing. That's something a Buddhist practice may help with.
Now a self-absorbed translation of Buddhism may take a less constructive form. If, in fact, the Zen Peacemakers imagine Nazis with clown noses as a method of healing, they need redirection. The transposition of a visual exercise for dealing with minor upsets to brutal murderers is disturbing. To where is the intention directed? Is it to heal intergenerational pain or as a personal growth exercise for persons with no connection to either victims or perpetrators?
A Jewish response will be different than a Buddhist response. How do we fix a broken world --- act in the world --- so there are no genocides? There are places where the Jewish responses and Buddhist responses will intersect, but the differences also need to be respected and acknowledged. As Jews, we need to be aware how our own responses can be distorted and self-absorbed. Because we were victims does not mean we are incapable of causing harm.
We are living in a time when the last survivors of the Holocaust are leaving our world. We have a responsibility to insure that historical memory is authentic and takes the form of an active moral response to ongoing evil and cruelty in the world.
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Post by Mara on Apr 3, 2011 22:22:08 GMT -5
Dear Alan,
Thank you so much for your recent article. I sincerely appreciate the honestly, openess, and willingness with which you wrote this article. I also had heard about these retreats, and would like to share some of my thoughts, feelings, and ideas around this, and how I worked with all this, and also my suggestion of a course of action for you.
I saw a documentary about this retreat on TV about a year ago. I remember watching it, and feeling angry, well actually furious, profoundly disturbed by what seemed like something both disrespectful and enormously inappropriate.
As a Jew and as a practicing Tibetan Buddhist, I remember feeling upset and betrayed that fellow Buddhists could do something so extremely inappropriate. And that the leader of the retreat was a fellow Jew... I wanted to write letters, I wanted to scream at the organizers, I wanted them to stop.
Growing up my father told me stories about his experiences of Auschwitz. I am filled with sadness, pain, and anger about the atrocities done to my people, my family.
My anger was so strong watching the documentary that I knew I needed to look at it, why so much anger in the face of a meditation retreat? I did not want to take any action in the heat of this raging anger, but wanted to get to a clearer place, and then make some decision about what action if any would be appropriate.
When I looked at the intensity of my anger, I realized that my anger was like knotted and tangled bits of string – not just anger at the retreat, but also all the anger, sadness, and fear I have about how Jews have been killed again and again, about the profound anti-semitism which continues to exist in this world. About the people who deny the holocaust happened, and about all the people during my life who have said to me “Get over it, it’s in the past”, or “Lots of other people have been killed”.
It was like I had this banked fire living inside my heart, and that a tiny spark could transform it into an enormous forest fire.
Then I thought about the people doing the retreat. Probably some of them were spiritually self-absorbed, in it for some experience. But I also imagined that sitting in Auschwitz, chanting the names of those who had been killed could be personally transformative in a way that could lead to benefiting the world in a positive way.
If doing this retreat which I felt was profoundly inappropriate led people to feeling more whole, and by feeling more whole led them to increased empathy with peoples’ suffering and injustice, if it led them to actively help people who are victims in the world, then how could it be bad? On the other hand, if I was feeling like it was so inappropriate, how could it be good?
I already knew a bit about the Zen Peacemakers organization before I saw the documentary. I knew it had been around for thirty years, and was actively involved in soup kitchens, homeless shelters, helping street people, childcare, vocational programs, work in prisons, AIDS services etc. I knew they had done and were doing some truly wonderful work in the world.
So then I had this confusion – here is this organization that has been doing all this innovative social action work for 30 years. Here is a group of people that really puts their time and money where their mouth is. But then they’re also doing this retreat at Auschwitz which makes my skin crawl.
So after trying to think/feel last year about this, these were the conclusions I came to for my own actions -
1 – I still felt that there was something inappropriate about the retreats, but I could not be sure there actually was anything inappropriate with them - because I realized a good chunk of my anger had nothing really to do with the retreats, it was a triggering of fundamental anger at the holocaust and holocaust deniers.
2 – I have intense emotions and pain around anti-semitism, and that I wanted to examine them on an ongoing basis so that my actions in the world do not come from that place of anger, fear, and sadness.
3 - Because I could not get to a place of clarity around the anger, I decided it would be inappropriate to take any action to stop or criticize the retreats.
4 – I prayed that the people who attended those retreats would develop greater love, empathy, clarity and wish for justice, and that their experience doing the retreat would lead them to help all those who need help.
My suggestion for a possible course of action for you….
What is clear to me is that although you are teaching in different traditions, both you and Bernie Glassman have a motivation to help people and the world. You are both teachers. You are both trying to help people grow and learn and be better human beings. You are both working with your own emotions and minds. You are both Jews who have emotions around being Jews and the holocaust.
So my suggestion for a course of action is that you get in touch with Bernie, ask him if he is open to an open-hearted and open-minded dialogue with you about the Auschwitz retreats. If he is, then have that dialogue with your own open heart and mind – and just see what happens….
If he does not want to have a dialogue about this with you, write to him and express how you feel and what you think.
Maybe this would result in the retreats ending. Maybe this would result in the retreats changing. Maybe there would be no result. Who knows? But I think a dialogue like this could have potential for a great deal of learning for both of you, and could be very helpful for all of us connected to either you or Bernie, and are working with our own emotions around the holocaust, working with anger, etc.
With my very best wishes,
Mara
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msmim
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Post by msmim on Apr 4, 2011 9:04:29 GMT -5
It seems to me that the question being asked is not whether the anger is justified or whether the object of the anger has indeed committed an atrocity, but that we as human beings experience anger and outrage and how best to manage that with the least amount of damage to ourselves and to the "other". The object of ones anger is subjective, transitory and therefore disputable, but anger itself just "is". And so it begs the question "What has it come to teach me?"
The details of each encounter with anger may be different, but there is a constant that runs through each of my own experiences with anger. There is a way that anger deteriorates my well-being, my relationship to that which is holy in myself, to that which is holy in the other and my relationship with God -- a trifecta of destruction. The mussar teachers instruct us to "distance ourselves from anger". I love this idea, because it doesn't betray my understanding that anger exists, it encourages me to face what is and then insert some space. In my own experience I have never found it effective to try to "think" my way out of my anger. (Try as I might.) I experience anger as an emotion that requires facing and "being with" and ultimately finding compassion for myself for needing in the first place. I say "needing" because I believe we do need anger to some degree for balance. Not the extremes per se, but a balanced sense of this middah. For me, what ultimately brings balance is engaging in a "non-thinking" activity like sculpting, painting, or turning on music that stirs my emotion and scribbling violently with dry pastels on large pieces of paper, anything that creates a safe spaciousness into which the well of anger can be accessed and allowed to breathe and express itself. I find this allows the expression of anger to be acknowledged and realized in a cathartic way that does not cause damage to my seichel (intellect) and which has the dual purpose of drawing me closer to that which is holy in me and others as well as to tolerance for my own darkness and the darkness in others. I believe it is from this place that open hearted, healing conversation can begin if that is possible and what is desired.
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Matthew Zachary Gindin
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Post by Matthew Zachary Gindin on Apr 4, 2011 11:18:20 GMT -5
First I would like to commend Alan on his honesty in exploring this issue. I admire Alan very much for his willingness to be vulnerable and open in his mussar work, despite his role as leader in the community.
I practice both in the mussar and the Zen communities, and am involved more generally in both Jewish and Buddhist practice. I would like to say first off that I think this anger is not a wise or appropriate response, and needs to be examined and abandoned. Since Alan has asked for help I will offer a few thoughts to that end.
1) Alan questions "what good" the Peacemakers offering their meditation to the dead will do. In Buddhism meditation is very much akin in value to davenning or Torah learning, and just as a Jew might feel that reciting tehillim or learning mishnayos or saying kaddish will in some way benefit the dead, or make their memory a blessing for the living, Zen Buddhists feel the same way about meditating there. A Buddhist might ask the same question about a religious Jew learning mishnayos for their dead Buddhist father- "what good will that do? Reciting some ancient laws? if only he would meditate for him...." That would show as much interfaith insensitivity as Alan's response to the idea of meditation at Aushwitz does.
2) Alan frames the retreat as merely providing "certain feelings" for the retreatants. Again, a Buddhist could view Torah study or davenning the same way: "Instead of doing something useful like feeding the poor or questioning the nature of the emotions, why is that Jew getting high learning gemarra, just for the sake of selfish intellectual pleasures that go nowhere? Davenning is just self-hypnotism for the sake of reassurance and feeling good. What a waste of time." I think that Alan views the retreatants activities as only producing "certain feelings" because he does not share their religious views. That is not fair.
3) I would suggest looking over reports from the March of the Living, where I would guess you will find testimonies of people having many emotional, spiritual, etc. experiences which could also be interpreted as nothing but a form of self-indulgent "tourism" if one read them with a hermeneutic of suspicion, as Alan reads the Peacemakers.
4) I was quite surprised by Alan's criticism of Roshi Bernie Glassman's advice re: visualizing someone you are angry at wearing a clown's nose. The fact that Alan didn't appear to understand what Roshi was saying, or see any possible value in it, is a good example of the mind-clouding effects of anger. "Resh Lakish said, 'Wisdom departs from one who gets angry' prophecy departs from a prophet who gets angry' (Pesachim 66b).
Roshi was saying that when you picture someone with a clown's nose it disrupts the momentum of your hypnotism by anger, and suddenly makes your own seriousness and anger seem silly, and you realize that we are all clowns- all fools, silly children carried away by delusion and our yetzer ha-ra. The point is to be compassionate and forgiving of other's foibles and imperfection. To me this is reminiscent of something R' Nachman might say. It cuts through our own seriousness and self-importance, and also provides space and disruption inside the serious cloud of our anger. I have tried it since reading Alan's piece, and it works. Most interesting here though is the fact that Alan writes: "This reflects nothing of the wisdom of mussar at all". Nu, and why should it? Roshi is a Zen teacher. It does reflect Buddhist perspectives on the folly of the ego-mind. Alan, do Buddhists not have a right to be Buddhists then?
5) I think it needs to be understood that for Buddhists the meditative confrontation with mortality and suffering is a fundamental aspect of their practice. Buddhists have long went to cemeteries to meditate (have been doing this for 2500 years) and still do. The fact is that cemetery meditations are a fundamental Buddhist practice. We may disagree with this practice, but it seems delusional to be angry about it. It is a well intended part of Buddhist religious beliefs! Why do people who have adopted Buddhism and practice in line with it with good intentions deserve anger, even if one disagrees with their practice? As one person above wrote, they are not harming anyone. The opinions of the dead are unknown to us. I can honestly say that if I was horribly killed, and a memorium was put up, and people came to meditate there and reflect on suffering, injustice, and death, and went away better people, I would be very happy about it- or at least I would want myself to be. Has Alan imagined himself as one of the dead? This might seems a strange suggestion, but I suggest it to anyone who thinks this practice is an offense to the dead.
6) Although it is a bit beyond limits of time and space here, I think that the rest of Alan's piece makes a halakhicly and hashkafically false case for the admissability of anger and unfavorable judgement, especially towards a fellow Jew. This is so even if the Peacemakers are clearly in the wrong in some way, which I do not think is the case. I would just say that anyone interested in this should consult the halachic work "The Right and The Good" by R' Daniel Z. Feldman, the chapters on judging favorably, grudges, hatred and love, and "Haser Ka'as Milevecha (Remove Anger From Your Heart)" by R' Avraham Tubolsky.
I will limit my remarks to the above and the following summary: I feel that this is a great mussar opportunity for Alan. The opportunity is to put himself more radically into the place and perspective of the other, and understand how from a Zen Buddhist perspective this retreat is justifiable. I am not saying Alan will come to agree with the retreat, but rather to understand it's function for the participants from their perspective, and to at least feel that it may be justifiable, may be good, and therefore anger is not appropriate.
I would also suggest that even if Alan cannot get to this point and feels the retreat is objectively wrong and he somehow thinks he knows this for certain, and think he is therefore justified in judging everyone involved negatively and being angry with them and even perhaps hating them in his heart, has v'shalom; I would like to point out that believing someone else is grossly mistaken and objecting to their activities does not require anger. It is also possible to have compassion. This is the meaning of the clown's nose. Even if we think that the Peacemakers are grossly mistaken who are we to judge them and be angry as if they were intentional wrongdoers, selfish, craven and evil? At worst they are imperfect human beings trying to live a spiritual life and benefit themselves and others but doing so in a confused way. Not only is anger not a justified response from this perspective, it effectively closes off the possibility of communication between us and them.
Thank you for raising this issue Alan. I hope my thoughts have been helpful, and I hope you'll post a response to all of us at some point. L'shalom Matthew
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Post by chaplainbonniel on Apr 4, 2011 14:09:09 GMT -5
I so appreciate the last posting from someone who practices meditation and Judiasm. If I wrote this to Alan, he would respond, "what an opportunity God has given you to explore your middot of anger". I had the opportunity to meet Bernie Glassman last summer at the Fellowship in Prayer conference at Princeton university. He was part of a panel of spiritual leaders from many paths to the Divine. I listened as he spoke of the retreats to Auschwitz and the context (kavannah) of those retreats. What I heard was an opportunity to bring healing to the past and for the future. You can call it new age spirituality...yet I see this as a path of tikkun olom. The retreats include participants of all faiths...just as those who died in Auschwits were not all Jews. Bernie Glassman presented himself and his work as one who is a peacemaker. The loudest anger I heard in Alans piece was about the money. The cost of the retreat, I imagine, includes hotel, food and transporation for the week. I dont see this as making money off the deaths of so many Jews. this is expenses for a retreat for education, healing, opening ones soul to another and 'bridgeing the understanding' of the past to make the future a better place. What this calls to mind are the middot of compassion and acceptance. to hold anger against another is so judgemental (another middah) in wanting someone/something to be different than it is. You can agree to disagree on this issue. Dear Alan, what is in within youself that you are truly angry at? Is there a retreat that you would like to do for healing? Is there a mussar path to such a trip in Auschwitz. Would there be Mussar teachings to apply to a group? Would you consider combining such a journey with the Zen Peacemakers and The Mussar Institute to apply teachings from both practices? Maybe thats the bridge to understanding. What could you offer to enhance this experience and add yourself and The Mussar Institute as a vehicle for peace
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Post by Seemah Berson on Apr 4, 2011 16:49:46 GMT -5
Mussar teaches us, among other things, that we must grow spiritually. Hillel teaches us to welcome the stranger; that we as Jews are not an exclusive club; that if a non-Jew wishes to become a Jew, who are we to prevent him/her from the blessings of Judaism.
The burr in your saddle Alan is the fact that you feel these people are desecrating the memory of why people were slaughtered in Auschwitz. If a group finds spirituality there through meditation, surely this in no way detracts from the sanctity of the place. Whose memory is being desecrated? The memory of the dead or your memory of them?
If on the other hand this group were defiling the place – and I don’t think their presence is a defilement – then yes, that would be an abomination. And still on the other hand, the fact that they have chosen to commune spiritually in Auschwitz, a name so filled with horror and utter, utter hopelessness, must in some small way bring a modicum of peace – perhaps even a reaching out in healing…. Tikkun olam!
Lastly, Auschwitz happened because? One was not as worthy as another…..!
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Matthew Zachary Gindin
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Post by Matthew Zachary Gindin on Apr 5, 2011 10:28:42 GMT -5
I read this this morning in my mussar seder and thought I would share it:
"A person should completely shatter the attributes of desire and anger. He should not get angry at all, even for the sake of a mitzvah, even when he is very upset...."
-The Maharal of Prague, Chaim v'Chessed, p.13, quoted in Haser Ka'as Milevecha, R' Avraham Tubolsky, p.147.
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Post by Julia on Apr 9, 2011 9:12:30 GMT -5
Reading these replies all at once has had a profound affect on me. I just wanted to thank Alan for writing about his anger and for everyone who took the time to respond.
I found all the responses thoughtful and also very useful for me.
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Post by Anrs Pris on Apr 10, 2011 18:58:02 GMT -5
Alan, thank you for your writing. It was useful for me.
In summary, I agree with sindywarren. And I want to add that tolerance is very important, but... it doesn't mean you have to acept everything. In a mutual respect relation, tolerance could be natural, but what happen when because of different values one think respect the other, but the other don't. I mean, I guess the zen think they respect our values, but I agree that the jewish memory deserve more respect and should not be treated as a thing. One way is to write a letter, not a "angry" one, but a clear one.
In the long run, I guess, an essential jewish place should be have some minimun jewish rules to behave, as a budhist place should be some minimun budhist rules to behave, and so on with christian and every one.
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Post by Gail Greenfield on Apr 10, 2011 20:15:29 GMT -5
I also checked out the web site and unless there is something else we don't know as another questioned, any group whose goal is remembrance, healing and creating a more just and peaceful world is doing good. They cannot control the experiences of the people who attend but it seems their intention is congruent with any spiritual path. Where my anger might be directed is seeing all these bright, spiritual Jews end up as Buddhist teachers. Maybe if Mussar had been more available in the 60's, more Jews seeking a spiritual path would have gone in a much different direction.
Use the energy of that anger to create more passion for Judaism without our youth.
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Post by M Lieberman on Apr 13, 2011 17:31:54 GMT -5
I have not as yet spent time studying and practicing the mussar approach. That perhaps may explain why I am not so sensitive to the issue of retreats occuring at Auschwitz. In fact, if I were to discuss issues that make me "angry", actions that may or may not offend people who are no longer alive, would not be very high on my list. The injustice in the world where there is wholesale murder in places like Darfur and currently in Syria, while the world turns away; the hypocrasy of the United Nations where countries that do not grant their citizens any civil rights are sitting on commissions dealing with those rights; the continued concessions to Arabs in Israel such as the removal of road blocks that allowed terrorists to enter a house and slit the throats of a young couple, their 3 month old baby, and their 2 boys ages 4 and 11 (as he was reading in bed) - those are high on my list of things to get angry about. As for what poeple do at Auschwitz., hopefully, their retreats will encourage them to be better people, and as Abe Lincoln said when he stood at Gettysburg "The ... dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract."
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Post by Celeste on Apr 28, 2011 23:28:05 GMT -5
When the root of anger is as deep as yours, it seems like you might need to dig deeper into the self to find the seed from which this anger is growing.
Understanding the middot are one thing. Connecting to the seed of what has sparked this anger in you specifically is often quite another. If you've thought this through and come up with some ideas, and yet have no relief from it, likely it's inviting you to go deeper still.
Not to get too zen here, but I would think some meditative reflection, asking G*d, or even the anger itself, about the purpose for its presence as a response to this situation, may help you see where this outrage is coming from. Underneath anger is often fear. Perhaps this is something to explore.
The illegitimacy of this group, its methods and goals don't seem so obvious to me. Taking action at this point seems like an outlet for your energy of anger, but not a resolution of it, nor a key to deeper understanding.
There is an answer, with a gift of understanding, waiting. Of that, I'm certain. And when you find it, you will know if action is needed or not, and if so, what that action needs to be to honor yourself, your kavanah of kadosh, and to honor G*d and His children.
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Post by Fred on May 2, 2011 8:23:04 GMT -5
I missed the piece in the last newsletter so I'm only now reading the original column and the various responses.
I should say that I teach university courses in Holocaust literature and have participated in seminars with people who are in different positions than myself: including those who present Holocaust material in Christian seminaries and who "use" the material differently than I might. One thing I've learned in the past 5 years of working in this area is to reserve judgment but to proceed with caution. I encourage my students to remember, as they write eloquent responses to memoirs and diaries they read -- that these are not *their* stories, they're someone else's. But at the same time, every time we encounter the Holocaust it does become "our" story. We can't *not* be transformed by what we encounter when we look there. Today I will be collecting students' "memoirs" of their semester of reading Holocaust literature -- in an effort to encourage students to be mindful of what they've learned, but also what they've brought to the subject.
Having said this, I question my own ethics in the "use" of this material on several levels. I also teach works of Holocaust literature in a course on life writing; where does "using" the transformational narrative of Holocaust experience cross the line from appropriate to inappropriate? Like a number of Holocaust educators, personal encounter with the material (as an outsider) led to commitment to teach about it for others. But even here, at what point does the *choice* to put oneself in this space cross the line into voyeurism? As an excellent earlier post mentioned, what of the kind of "Holocaust tourism" that brings people to these places?
I am not familiar with the program being discussed here, but I'd offer the following thoughts. Any "spiritual encounter" with the Holocaust (and what encounter doesn't involve "spirit" in some way) must honor those who died by seeking to resist solipsism. Whatever contemplative practice is done in the spaces themselves should have a clear focus to work to bring the practitioner out of the limited self to an awareness of the ability to effect positive change in the world. However, Holocaust encounters -- at Auschwitz or in a cinema or museum or reading a book -- MUST take into account the feelings that arise as we come to this material (including the most personal, most deeply psychological). I have repeatedly brought this up with Holocaust educators; some of whom are so removed from this affective piece that they in turn begin dehumanizing, they lose the individual perspective. Their work either becomes skewed or they "burn out."
I'm reminded here of the controversy over the work of Viktor Frankl, the survivor who deployed his authority and narrative of camp experience in developing a school of psychology -- but who also wrote perhaps the most widely read popular book on the Holocaust next to Anne Frank: _Man's Search for Meaning_. There are people who canonize Frankl as having written a "life-changing book"; there are also those who denigrate him as an "inauthentic survivor" and who don't regard his work well at all.
I am surprised that this conversation did not bring up differences between the "convent at Auschwitz" story and the Zen practice story, because there are of course religious differences. The cross at Auschwitz perhaps served as a reminder of the long history of Christian anti-Semitism; and along the same lines as the Catholic canonization of Edith Stein, the suggestion of the Christian martyrdom versus (presumably "unredeemed") Jewish martyrdom.
In this Zen case, there may be no history prior to the Holocaust of Zen conflicts with Judaism, but we know in the recent history that plenty of Jews have chosen Buddhism. Is there a subtext of the argument also, then, that the Zen presence conveys not just a Buddhist "colonizing" of Jewish memory -- but of Jews themselves? Is the argument also, then, that there is something inherently wrong with Buddhist teachings on suffering and forgiveness? I'm curious to determine to what degree Zen Buddhism is "on trial" here, and to what degree it's a traditional statement about what is or isn't appropriate for the memory of those who have died.
I should close by identifying myself as someone who is not a Buddhist. But I am someone for whom encounter with Holocaust history changed my personal and professional life. The latter I've already discussed here. As to the former, studying about the Holocaust significantly contributed to my re-connection to my familial Jewish heritage, although I was not raised as a Jew. We mustn't limit what it means to be Jewish by the history of the Shoah. But nor can we underestimate the power of Holocaust history in the transformation it effects -- collectively and individually.
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