"Shalom bayit signifies completeness, wholeness, and fulfillment. Hence, the traditional Jewish marriage is characterized by peace, nurturing, respect, and chesed (roughly meaning kindness, more accurately loving-kindness), through which a married couple becomes complete. It is believed that God's presence dwells in a pure and loving home."
That's from the Wikipedia article "Shalom bayit," which I'm reading this morning after receiving an emailed comment from impresaria:
Removing the rock exemplifies the Jewish value of "shalom babayit," peace in the house. You give in in something even though you are in the right, to avoid unpleasantness with those you care about.
Here's my post from last night about the removal of a 70-ton rock from the scenic high point of the University of Wisconsin campus. Some students insisted on the removal of the rock — because at least once, long ago, a newspaper referred to it as a "[n-word]head" — and the university acceded.
Is a university like a marriage?
Posts
31 comments:
Jeffrey writes:
"If the University is like a marriage, the Black Student Union is an abusive partner. Yielding despite being in the right is excellent relationship advice, provided there's an underlying, loving commitment among those involved. That doesn't appear to be the case here, though."
MikeR writes:
"I'm not too happy with the presentation of shalom bayit. Probably simply "love" is a better description. If the two of you love one another, a good way to make decisions is to find out which one cares about something. Because each of you wants the other one to have what they need.
"Obviously there will sometimes be situations where both of you care, a lot, and those are the real challenges that need to be worked out.
Here? Maybe. Maybe something that is marked with that word hurts those students, and the rest of us should tiptoe around that. It could be. A lot of us are fairly comfortable with the taboo on the N-word for that reason. It matters to them, and I don't need the word. Mostly.
But, many people are starting to feel like the other half of the society is just using this as a weapon against them, that the other half doesn't love them at all and is just taking advantage. I care about everything I want, and you have no right to care about anything!
"There's no love there, just manipulation.
"A bayit divided against itself cannot stand."
Bob Boyd writes:
""shalom babayit," peace in the house. You give in in something even though you are in the right, to avoid unpleasantness with those you care about."
"I like that a lot. It has go both ways, though. And it must not be taken advantage of or used to manipulate.
"What will they do with the rock? Will it be destroyed like a bad, bad dog? Wherever it is, it will still "represent a painful history", won't it? Whoever harbors it will be suspect."
I'll add:
The rock has been moved to some out of the way place on University property.
Temujin writes:
"I'm not familiar with the term. But I am familiar with Jews 'giving in' to avoid unpleasantness. Trying to appease those who would have no interest in being appeased. Sure, we'll wear those yellow stars. Just stop beating us. Harsh, maybe. But you see how modern Israel reacts to aggression towards them. No more 'giving in'. Avoiding unpleasantness has been laid in the laps of those who are considering attacking Israel. Do we attack them, knowing the retaliation will be severe, or do we just avoid aggression toward them?
"As for the rock, I'm embarrassed at the UW administrators who felt that a rock needed to be removed. After all, a rock is still a rock, no matter where it sits, or what someone calls it. It's just a rock. And in this case, a landmark of a great university, removed because of a passing fad in anti-intellectualism."
I thought the removal was held up because it had to comply with requirements for not disturbing Native American burial grounds. How did they comply? What are the details?
Since this was deposited some ten thousand years ago, how do they know the Native American burial mounds weren't situated near the rock because the indigenous peoples chose to purposely place them near the rock? Maybe the First Nations people valued the rock. And no, I'm not trying to be snarky. I'm genuinely curious if this avenue was explored. I would assume the current Native peoples know the history of the rock - oral tradition and all. Or perhaps they don't. Or sold out their ancestors?
In this case, with this University, I'd say university is more like a contentious, ongoing divorce proceeding. I truly would have lost my mind trying to navigate 4 years in most of today's University climates - kind of like being married to a narcissistic psychopath and trying to escape.
If universities are like marriages then they're dysfunctional ones . Showing up at someone's house at 6:30 in the morning is an act of intimidation. Everyone participating in it should have been expelled. And if your grievance is that a rock was referred to using the n-word 70 years ago, then congratulations. You are definitely a big winner in the lottery of life.
We will see how peaceful the house is when they go for the Lincoln statue.
What's next?
Shall we defoliate the areas where Brazil nuts are grown because they were once known by another name?
Blacks were once forced to ride in the back of city buses. Should all buses be scrapped?
Should we ban cotton t-shirts?
Math and physics have been declared racist. Some people have declared they are offended. Shall we tear down the campus buildings that house their teachers and classes?
So here we are, in the midst of a Monty Python sketch from the late seventies. What the Pythons mocked has become SOP in 2021.
It is easy to see that the objectors, having proven that the university administrators are weak and craven, will move on to the next opportunity to upset university life through absurdist behavior.
Yesterday a friend and I were playing golf paired up with two guys about 30 years our junior. On the eighteenth tee, we saw a member of the group ahead of us marching up and down in the deep rough, probably looking for a lost ball, but appearing to be wandering around aimlessly. I said, "Look! There is President Biden!" The young guys laughed, and then one said, "You have to be careful. Some people get really angry when you make remarks like that."
WTF? Are we really in a place where the party that called Abraham Lincoln the Original Ape and Donald Trump a Russian agent gets huffy when people note the (a-hem) peculiarities of the current incumbent?
Overheard in my mind:
"I'm taking a course on the geology of race. What kind of rock is that?"
"Leaverite."
"Leaverite?"
"Leave her right there. It's just a rock."
My wife points out that this reads like a satirical article from The Onion. Wasn't The Onion (America's finest news source) written in Madison? I guess some of the writers moved over to the State Journal.
I can't help but think that this rock controversy was a missed opportunity.
Had I been chancellor, I would have said:
We will leave it up to the students of this university to determine what should be done with the rock and to arrange for that thing to be done. It is up to students to create a fair process, which will be an opportunity for creativity and learning.
If they decide to move it, destroy it, carve it into something else or just leave it as-is, it will be up to them.
A strange wrinkle of this rule is that if the wife of a Cohen says she is raped, you must not believe her -- because if you did, then her husband would have to divorce her, and preserving the marriage is deemed more important.
- Impresaria
Moving the rock makes perfect sense if you think about it: Moving the rock is a tactic. Tactics support strategies.
The strategy is to inflict shame on students, make them more tractable, and to give supporters a small victory. — Read the book The Power of Habit for an interesting chapter on the political usefulness and importance of small victories and the all important corollary that even small victories must be denied your political opponents, a small victory like talking them out of moving the rock because the idea is silly and a wast of money, for example.
Strategies are developed to attain goals. The goal is political power which is an end in and of itself and which justifies the means. After all, we already had moved on to the better world where the rock was simply known as a rock, and yet that didn't suffice.
Meanwhile all of the petty arguments we make about it are only so much noise. "The words they use, for to get the ship confused, will not be understood when they're spoken," as the Bard of the Old Northwest once put it in a song.
A university is only like a marriage when it comes to divorce.
It will cost you a ton of money (tuition) and will either take or destroy all of your stuff (the rock).
I don't think a university is like a marriage, or a family for that matter, which seems a better analogy (commitment between fellow university students is not nearly as strong as a marriage commitment, and parent/child and sibling relationships are even stronger - no divorcing your brother/sister).
Regarding Shalom bayit in this instance, I think that the key phrase in the posted definition is those you care about. Applied to this case, I think that the assumption is that we should care about "black lives" (and their sensitivities). That is not the group that I react against in this case. The group that I'm reacting against is those with extremely poor reasoning skills that think that spending someone else's money to remove something that for decades existed without general knowledge that someone, somewhere once applied a derogatory term to it is worthwhile, and that this ancient utterance somehow tarnished the thing itself, but its costly removal to another location will purify it once more. Or perhaps the group I react against is one in which power is exercised by making unreasonable demands against the most obscure slights... I don't know the true motivations of these students. However, I do know that for this group of students, whether black or white, rich or poor, etc., I do not "care" one whit about their perceived personal insult dating from the 1920's nor their 'solution' to the problem which solves nothing at all.
"The rock has been moved to some out of the way place on University property."
Like Dick Cheney, the Rock has been both referred to with offensive language and moved to an undisclosed location. That can't be a coincidence.
All well and good - up to the point where one party feels empowered to push the other around for the sheer pleasure of it. Reasonable people will differ on where that point is, but then reason is reactionary, we are told.
Mark my words, we haven't heard the last of this incorrigible Rock.
They should take the damn thing out and drop it somewhere in the deep ocean, like Osama Bin Laden.
Time is on the Rock's side.
The University missed a unique learning opportunity. Incentives matter, as do objective measures of support for such causes that are championed by progressives.
Were I the University Prez, I'd have left a few sledge hammers and chisels beside the rock, and told the progs to go at it, if they really wanted its removal. With actual outrage over now-disused, 100 year old idiomatic geologic nomenclature, the removal could have been done for free, with thousands of souvenir stone chips created for students to cherish as mementoes of this victory over past racist practices.
Instead, once again, the progs got the work necessary to placate their self-entitled faux outrage performed by others. This only incentivizes more faux outrage.
Making a predictably compliant administration yield to the power of woke words as a power trip is not the same as the marriage analogy in which it is presumed the other party is sincere although incorrect.
Forcing a predictably compliant administration to yield to the power of woke words is not the same as the marriage analogy, which presumes the other party is sincere, although mistaken.
I think mikee has a good point. There is something beneficial about cathartis, and there are so few opportunities available for that these days. University of Wisconsin-Madison in this case might be more like a sexless marriage, no opportunity for release of tension. It also resembles contemporary marriage in that many marriages only last 7-8 years, mostly temporary.
What happens if some Black students read about the controversy and discussions after WWII on whether or not to demolish the concentration camps in Europe and the need for us to keep some reminders of the past? People decided that at least some memorial of it should remain. Will the students change their minds and demand that the rock be returned? Will the subservient administration pay to return or replace the rock? Kind of pathetic and weak leadership.
I find the model of shalom bayit in this instance to be inappropriate. A family must try to maintain peace but a university should encourage curiosity, exploration, debate, etc. What I see here is "the blind leading the blind" and a university which is failing its primary mission which is to educate and to lead people towards wisdom.
I’ll bet quite a few students are being taught something by this moment. But probably not what the UW intends to teach.
Even if the marriage analogy held true, it really only works if there is a modicum of good faith on both sides. Placating these people (and no, I don't mean black people, I mean progressives or whatever they insist on being called today) will only give way to the next unjustified demand, without end.
It’s a rock. Move it for any reason or no reason. The rock doesn’t care. We move rocks all the time. Still, wow what a dumb reason!
As others here have pointed out, the application of shalom bayit is nonsense. This isn’t a marriage and there will be no harmony. Only more demands. That’s how it works. Activism is a mindset. The latest cause is merely the latest cause. Solve it and there will be other causes.
Hebrew is a beautiful language. I'll remember shalom bayit. Peace in the home is important (though not at any cost). The rock dilemma reminded me of another ancient word. Adiaphora. It's a Greek term for indifferent, or an indifferent thing. I have a giant basket of Adiaphora, things I can be indifferent toward. Rock or no rock in Madison is adiaphora. But I suspect the rock there is only a stepping stone toward bigger things, like maybe that tall pointy rock in DC. Fortunately they haven't gotten that far yet. I would not be indifferent to removing that rock.
It would have been better to dig up the grave of the offending journalist from 1925 and moved that. What's a little desecration to keep peace in the house.
Or maybe that's next weeks plan.
how did the rock get there in the first place?
The concept requires mutual respect and reciprocity. The disruption of settled arrangements at great expense for an imaginary grievance is coercive. The "offended" students will simply escalate demands for "safe spaces" and suppression of the normal speech of faculty and other students because they can and will not provide any respect for campus traditions and the values of their peers.
I'd have a different opinion if the "offended" students raised the funds to remove the rock.
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