Lepers And Cancelled Artists

Please note: This track may include some explicit/triggering language/words.

Join me to explore the timeless wisdom of Parashat Tazria (Leviticus 12:1-13:59) through the lens of modern-day challenges faced by canceled artists. We can draw parallels between the ancient laws regarding leprosy and the contemporary struggles of artists navigating cancellation. Through insightful commentary and compassionate reflection, listeners are invited to consider themes of isolation, empathy, and redemption.

Delve into a conversation of insights into the human experience and the power of understanding and forgiveness in times of adversity. Tune in as we explore the intersections of ancient wisdom and contemporary culture.

Transcript

This week in Bible we read the stories of lepers in congregations around the world.

The stories in the second book of Kings chapter 7 of lepers outside the gate of a city in siege and in Leviticus 13,

The commandments and instructions of how lepers should behave and be treated within the social fabric.

We're told that lepers,

Aside from being excluded out of the city in siege,

During their other times should bare their head,

Cover their lip,

And shout impure,

Even elsewhere that people should cast stones at them to keep them away.

Maybe one might understand this as a public health measure.

We're not really talking about Hansen's disease,

Which is highly communicable.

Probably something more like an eczema,

Psoriasis,

Or just being ashy.

Just a rash of some sort that is not necessarily transmissible.

But in the pre-germ theory of disease in the era of the Bible,

I suppose,

They didn't know that.

But it does seem quite capricious morally and socially to exclude people based on,

In other places,

Physical inability,

Incapacity,

Or maiming.

And here,

Especially based around a skin ailment that is almost entirely out of one's control.

It might be a societal breakdown that enough moisturizers weren't produced.

I believe they've recently discovered ancient lipstick.

They certainly had ancient what they called kohl,

Which was an eyeshadow,

But they perhaps did not have skin care.

And this social exclusion,

This shameful dwelling apart,

Both occurs in the story of Miriam,

But also generally in the law codes and the guidelines of society given in Leviticus,

It's painful to consider.

In Talmud of the 2nd,

3rd,

And 4th and 5th centuries,

We're told that four are as if dead.

A poor person,

A leper,

A blind person,

And a childless person.

Without delving into those categories,

Which are morally questionable,

I think the point in Talmud is that these people are without social intercourse.

A leper has no one to talk to,

No reactions and interactions with that which is created.

And therefore,

His life,

Says one of our later sages,

His life is no life.

Even to the sensitive minds or sometimes less sensitive minds of our sages of later centuries,

There was an awareness that this all seems too unfair,

That there was no equity or equality in this condition,

That these are caprices of the human body and perhaps God's divine wrath,

One could imagine.

It seemed to afflict people without any social or sin cause.

So in Talmud and elsewhere,

In Midrash,

Jewish collections of story and law based in and extrapolating from Torah,

Our sages understand these,

And this is through verbal punning,

Let's say,

That these afflictions come through two possibilities.

One is tzarut ayin,

Narrowness of sight,

Constricted vision,

Blindness,

Lack of moral imagination,

I would say.

Or they might be caused by slander or idle speech,

Lashon hara,

Wicked talk,

Which goes beyond just gossip,

But any speech that is unmerited and unnecessary,

Using words,

Not just unkindly,

But fruitlessly,

Or wasted words,

One could say.

Most commonly,

We think about that as a kind of gossiping,

But it doesn't have to be technically.

And there are many,

Many,

Many rabbinic teachings about the wickedness of gossip and slander.

But I'll share with you just one.

Parable of a tailbearer who goes to his rabbi and seeks atonement,

Seeks to make amends for his tailbearing,

For his gossip,

For his rumor-mongering,

For his wasted and frivolous speech.

In the Peace Corps outside the medical office,

I remember the nurses sitting and gossiping on benches,

One man especially.

I always thought,

Didn't you have anything else to do with your time,

Like curing people?

Anyway,

This gentleman goes to his local rabbi and explains his desire to acquit himself of his tailbearing to make amends.

And the rabbi says,

Okay,

Well,

Let's gather a pillow.

So he pulls a pillow,

And he says,

Your amend is to tear the pillow.

So he struggles with the cloth,

Tears the pillow,

The down pours out.

He says,

Now gather up all the down.

And by that point,

The breezes had carried it all around.

He said,

I don't even know if that's possible.

He says,

That's the point.

It's very easy to let out gossip and very hard to pull it back in.

So not just that leprosy and tailbearing causes social exclusion and a social death,

But says our Talmud,

Evil talk,

Remorseless slander,

Flippant speech kills three people,

The speaker,

The listener,

And the one who is spoken of.

It pollutes our body politic.

It pollutes our souls,

Whether it's conspiratorial theories,

Based on human desire to see patterns,

Let's say,

Whether it's rumor mongering about political figures or more urgently in our time,

Or at least in my experience with artists,

Cancellation.

This too broad term we used to talk about,

Shaming,

Firing,

Imprisonment,

Some of which has validity.

I've gotten fired.

I know people have gone to prison for misdeeds,

Some of which is deeply problematic.

And in that category,

I'd put internet pylon and the word I'm looking for,

Precluded shaming.

Assumptions made about someone you don't know if they're in a position of power or celebrity or public office before the verdict is in.

There's a particular story this week about someone whom I don't know,

But I know people who knew.

Ed Piskor,

Who was a comic artist who was accused of some misdeeds.

I won't go into that because those accusations are not yet validated,

But was aggrieved continually,

Attacked continually on Twitter and other social media,

And died this week,

Perhaps a self-inflicted death of suicide.

And as I would say,

I don't know Mr.

Piskor.

I know people who know of him.

I don't know the validity of the claims against him,

And I wouldn't want to shame any victims if those claims are proven.

I don't want to say that public accountability isn't appropriate.

Certainly legal accountability is the nature of a society in a rules-based order.

And I don't want to,

Having seen suicides,

I don't want to fault suicides on other people.

When a child was a suicide,

The father could understand it to be his fault,

But there are so many factors at play.

It's not so clear.

So I'm not making any particular judgments about Mr.

Piskor's unique story.

But I have experienced enough with artists who were canceled,

And by this I don't mean just fired or imprisoned,

But publicly shamed such that their lives can't be retrieved,

Such that there's no avenue for renewal or amendment,

Repentance or returning,

To be permanently excluded from social discourse as if in some sort of cultural revolution village commune.

Those I can speak loudly against.

That is not the human way.

That is not the humane way.

It's certainly not the Jewish way.

We don't shame people through slander or accusation that can or cannot be proven.

We don't use our words loosely.

We don't sling tweets that we can't take back and we don't have to be accountable to because the person,

The victim,

The person whom we are accusing is not in front of us.

That I know I can't accept.

And so much is lost in a society that persecutes misdeeds in that manner.

Certainly it is in the nature of art to be transgressive,

And unfortunately it's in the nature of artists not to be that accountable for their misdeeds.

I do see it happening with a celebrity who might fondle a fan without her or his assent.

People who are artists sometimes get protected from judgment.

But in a world where the judgment is fast,

Furious,

And internet-based and scorn,

There's a lot that's lost.

Not just for the artist,

Not just for the individual lives affected,

Not just for the victims who don't have the opportunity to have their case heard in court,

But have it decided in the court of public opinion.

We're told that the leper should go out with his head paruah,

Which means sort of picture it like Boris Johnson's haircut.

Akimbo,

Scattered,

In disarray,

Says the Rashbam.

Samuel Ben-Mayer in Troy in about the 12th century.

Artists are by their nature in disarray,

Undisciplined,

To use his word.

That's part of their charm,

But it's also where the art comes from.

If we force them into a certain rigidity of social norms,

There's loss to society.

There is a need for artists,

Prophets,

And heretics to be transgressive,

To force us to account for our feelings and thoughts and our norms.

And if we punish them through shouting them down in the court of social media,

We lose a lot.

Again,

I'm not saying that people shouldn't be accountable to their misdeeds,

To their crimes,

To their hurts,

That there is no reason that someone shouldn't be allowed to amends,

To make repair.

Even prison is a kind of amends making.

It shouldn't be viewed as a retribution,

But a possibility for restoration.

And if society is consumed by this kind of hatred,

This kind of caustic conversation where we're just shouting each other down,

Whether we can't listen to the artist because of their misdeeds,

Or we can't listen to the art because it seems too transgressive or provocative,

Or we can't be in conversation with the thing that offends us,

To quote the theologian Howard Thurman,

Hatred tends to dry up the springs of creative thought,

He said in the book,

Jesus and the Disinherited.

That's where we're heading.

I don't know if you've seen the opening scene of the three-body problem on Netflix,

And it's,

I think,

The opening scene of the book too,

But a terrifying scene of the cultural revolution.

And if we cancel people like Mr.

Piskor,

Like some of the people with whom I've worked,

And don't give them any chance at restoration,

Amends,

Or the possibility of making it right,

And there's no value in them learning.

We've cut off people's ability to change and learn and assume that we are fixed quantities and that we should be judged on our worst action.

So,

I want to offer two solutions that our sages,

Mostly in the 19th and 20th century,

Offer on this difficult question of leprosy as a failing based on sarut ayin,

Narrowness of vision,

Stinginess,

Or lashon hara,

Sloppy,

Slanderous talk.

One is internal reflection and internal discernment.

Rabbi Yisrael Salanter in the 19th century,

He was a very rigorous rabbi,

Said to a tale bearer,

Person of lashon hara,

Idle speech,

If you're such an artist who came to him specifically saying,

Oh,

This guy is very,

You know,

The classic story in Judaism is I don't gossip,

But you know who does?

So,

This guy comes to Rabbi Salanter,

Who is complaining about someone else's gossip,

And he says,

If you're such a great artisan at finding these transgressions,

You should,

To quote scripture,

Go outside the camp,

Go be by yourself,

Settle with yourself,

He says,

To find where you have lax and sins.

Structurally,

The point.

Also,

The point of 12 step,

You know,

Take care of your own side of the street first.

Don't worry about someone else's 12 step program.

Don't worry about someone else's art.

Don't worry about someone else's business.

Focus on what you control and what you can see and what you truly know.

Even of ourselves,

We don't know a hundred percent.

We are capable of lying to ourselves,

But at least there we can have a more clear-eyed view of our own deficits and where we need to make amends and repair.

And then,

Says another rabbi of the same era,

That the priest is the only one in the ancient world who can diagnose and bring the leper back into society.

And what Rabbi Trunk says of Kutnow,

The priest could view not just a person's deficits,

But his wholeness.

That was the priest's ability.

That's our struggle,

Right?

That a person shouldn't be judged by their worst action,

Shouldn't be judged by their most terrible mistake,

Shouldn't be judged by a challenge that they're facing and not in the composite of all that they are.

Yes,

We should be held accountable legally,

Morally for our deficits.

We should get fired when we make a mistake.

As I pointed out,

I've been fired.

It sucked.

I deserved it.

People have broken up with me.

I deserved it.

I wasn't always a good,

Kind,

Decent person to every person.

But we do hope for the artist and every human that we're seen in our fullness,

That we're not just judged on our worst moment,

That we can be seen as entire people,

A mosaic of good,

Bad,

And neutral.

I invite you in this society that is so eager to cancel each other,

So eager to shout each other down,

Whether on social media or elsewhere,

To be a voice of moderation,

To be a voice of reason,

To be a voice that says,

This isn't the whole story.

We can't know the interior of another person.

We can account for their acts,

But we don't know who they truly are.

And this sort of public shaming doesn't do anyone any good,

Not least of which the audience for art.