Well, I was called an idiot this week. Not exactly directly, and definitely not to my face, but after reading and rereading an email that I was sent this week I am 99.9% sure that I was indeed called an idiot. Let me give you some background.

For many months now I have been receiving emails from a person whom I don’t believe I know, the emails are generally not signed at all, or if they are they only signed with initials. Most of these emails are not sent to me only, they are sent to a whole bunch of other people as well, and I am not sure how I got on this person’s email list in the first place, but there it is.  

The person is on the far right of the political spectrum, and the emails are the standard fare that is circulated among listeners of Rush Limbaugh, and watchers of Sean Hannity and Fox News - although as I said, this particular person is pretty much on the far right. Now you may ask me why I don’t simply delete these emails, and the truth is I do delete many of them, because on an average day I get about 3-5 from this person. But I try to read at least one a day, and every once in a while I will respond to one. And there are two reasons why I do occasionally read and respond - the first reason is that I feel this person’s opinion should be respected, even if I don’t agree with it, and I feel that just deleting all of the emails sight unseen would be disrespectful. And the second reason is that it is a good way for me to be in touch with what the far right is thinking, saying, wanting, and I would add frankly imagining, but that is another conversation.
    
Well this week, my ‘contact’ sent me an email claiming that all Muslims are dangerous, can’t be trusted, and that in every Muslim community, whether it is hidden or in the open, the ultimate agenda is total global domination and the elimination of the west. Now this is a classic argument of the right these days - you find it in Europe these days, you find it here in the States, and I am quite sure there are a number of people who are in the room this morning that agree. I don’t agree with that idea, but if you do it is your right. And that brings me to the tagline of the email that caught my attention, which is what I really want to talk about. It said this:  if you don’t believe this argument, in other words if you disagree with the email, if you don’t think that all Muslims are dangerous, then, said the message, you are an idiot.
    
Now again, this was a group message that was sent out, so maybe it was meant to preach to the choir and I was the only person who received it who didn’t agree. But even so, since it was a group email, I wasn’t the one being specifically called an idiot, because it wasn’t addressed to me. So I wanted to get a little clarification. I responded to the email, and I wrote this - 

“OK - forget about the fact that it is a personal insult to call someone an idiot. Forget about the fact that it shows no respect for who they are and views they might hold.  But this in a nutshell is the problem with rhetoric from the far right and the far left - if you happen to hold a different opinion from theirs, you are immediately personally attacked, and your opinion, however thoughtful it might be, is rejected out of hand. Isn't this a problem?  

Take me, for example - I believe there are moderate Muslims, because I know some people who actually are moderate Muslims. I guess someone who doesn't believe that is possible would tell me I am naive and I don't really know what their true intensions are - but lets leave that aside for a bit. I believe there are moderate Muslims because my life experience has led me to believe that. From that point, using the rhetoric that the initial email was using, I would have to be categorized as an idiot. No respect for the fact that I do a lot of reading about these issues. No respect for my right to form an informed opinion based on what I have learned and other life experiences. No respect for the fact that I have, thank goodness, a decent brain in my head. (I understand this is pure speculation on my part!)
    
If this is where we are at in terms of discussing important issues of the day, then we are in trouble. As soon as I say 'well I am not sure that is correct,' or 'I don't agree with you about that,' then the name calling begins. I hope we can all figure out a way to attack these issues in a more productive way than what you see on the Sean Hannity show.”
    
The response I got restated the person’s opinion that all Muslims are radical, and then it included this sentence: “Yes, you do have to be an idiot to believe in the myth of the moderate Muslim.” So there it is - the person didn’t come right out and say ‘you are an idiot” - but saying ‘you do have to be an idiot to believe in the myth of the moderate Muslim’ after I just wrote that I believe there are moderate Muslims is pretty much the same thing, at least as far as I can tell.
    
Now maybe I shouldn’t be surprised in a world where the political discourse has become as childish and demeaning as I can ever remember in my life, when the President of the United States and the Speaker of the House have public spats about when speeches can be given, or far more seriously with the debate about the budget and the deficit that we were all subjected to this summer.  And I know that some of you are thinking, yeah, well, but this one said that first, or this one should have done or said this, or the other ones started it first, but you know what?  It is getting harder and harder to care.  It was interesting - and I think telling - when Ben Bernanke said in his recent speech - by the way there were no scheduling issues with it - that it was the rancor of the debate, the conduct of the participants in the debate, that had an active, actual role in hurting the economy and slowing the recovery.  
    
Now people often cry out in these situations, it is what is just!  In other words, my point of view is the right one, the true and just one.  And part of the implication of that cry is that any means are justified to achieve that goal.  Justice, of course, is not a modern concept - it is as old as the Bible, and probably older than that - and in this week’s Torah portion we have one of the most famous verses that speaks of justice in all of the Bible, really in all of western literature - tzedek, tzedek, tirdof - - justice, justice you shall pursue!
    
And I would like to leave you this morning with an interpretation of that verse from Rabbi Simha Bunum, one of the great Hasidic masters.  He said that the reason you have the word ‘justice’ in the verse twice - tzedek, tzedek - justice, justice - is to remind you that a goal of justice or righteousness should only be pursued through righteousness means.  If you are able to achieve your goal, even if your goal is just, and you use means that are not proper - that are unjust - then the goal you have achieved is diminished - and maybe, more importantly, so are you.  
    
By trying to make our points by diminishing others, we diminish ourselves.  Simple equation - easily forgotten - and these days, rarely remembered.  Lets remind one another.  Not necessarily by agreeing all the time - we don’t have to do that.  But by treating one another with respect and decency - even when we disagree -