July 17, 2022|י"ח תמוז ה' אלפים תשפ"ב Bilaam's Cognitive Dissonance and our Avoda During the Three Weeks By Rabbi Jonathan Muskat

Before whatsapp and twitter and Facebook and texting and emails, there was the telegram. Because telegrams were very expensive, the messages tended to be very short. It is said that the typical Jewish telegram read: “Start worrying. Details to follow.” We Jews are always worrying. Sometimes we are worrying about external threats. For example, when President Biden met with Prime Minister Lapid this past week, he recalled his conversation with then Prime Minister Golda Meir almost fifty years ago just before the Yom Kippur War when then Senator Biden himself was worried about the threats surrounding Israel. She told him, “Don’t look so worried. Israel has a secret weapon. We have nowhere else to go.” President Biden remarked, “Fifty years ago, the threats were real. And the threats to Israel remain real today.” We are worried about external threats. We are happy with the Abraham Accords and we are happy as there have been some new steps to further normalize the relationship between Saudi Arabia and Israel, but we are worried about external threats, first and foremost from Iran.

At the same time, we also worry or should worry about internal threats, or specifically about the soul of our people. This is the time of year to worry about the soul of our people. The "Three Weeks" is a time when we think about the sins that led to the destruction of the Temple, and specifically the sin of the “sinat chinam,” baseless hatred towards others, which led to the destruction of the second Temple. I know we talk about this every year, but I wonder if we are actually getting any better in how we treat each other. I think about the sinat chinam two weeks ago at the kotel, when a group of young Orthodox Jews disrupted three bar and bat mitzvah ceremonies at Robinson’s Arch, the egalitarian plaza of the kotel, by insulting the participants of the ceremonies and tearing up their siddurim. Maybe we can argue that these young children don’t reflect our values. Some were dressed as charedim and some were dressed as religious Zionist Jews and I assume and hope that most Orthodox Jews would not behave that way. However, I think that these types of incidents only occur when there is a climate that allows for such behavior, a climate that allows us and maybe at times celebrates when we demean and shame and embarrass the “other” for his or her religious or political views. I have to say that I am very nervous when I think about the 2022 US midterm elections and the 2024 US presidential elections. It seems to me that the toxic opposition by each party against the other party has only intensified since the last election season. I am worried about the soul of the Jewish nation and how we have become influenced by outside society. Maybe we won’t attack people with whom we disagree like what some orthodox Jews did at the kotel, but many in our community have no problem verbally abusing or shaming them on social media and we are not viewed as pariahs for doing so. Disrupting a bar mitzvah celebration is considered fringe behavior, but verbal abuse and shaming those whose views offend us on social media are not considered fringe behavior.

I am reminded of a comment made by Netziv is in his introduction to Sefer Breishit when he writes that the Jews of the second Temple period were righteous, pious and involved in Torah study, but they were not proper in the ways of the world. The reason for this is that they hated each other and they suspected anybody who did not act, according to them, in a God-fearing matter to be a Saducee or an Apikorus. if they were dati leumi they hated the charedi community and if they were a charedi, then they hated the dati leumi community. If they were Republicans, then they hated Democrats and if they were Democrats, then they hated Republicans.

I hope we can truly use this three-week period leading up to Tisha B’Av to think about what can sometimes cause us to behave in an intolerant and nasty fashion and then think about what we can do to help curb this behavior.

When Bilaam has his second conversation with God about cursing the Bnei Yisrael, God says to him "im likro lecha ha’anashim kum lech itam" or ‘if these people come to call for you, you may go with them” (Bamidbar 22:20). The gemara in Makkot (10b) states that this passage stands for the position of "baderech she’adam rotzeh leilaich bah molichin oto," that God leads a person in the way that he wants to go. However, this interpretation of God’s response seems to be contradicted by the next few verses. Right after Bilaam receives this message, an angel appears, whose stated purpose is to stop him from going. How can we say that that God was leading Bilaam to curse the Bnei Yisrael and at the same time tries to stop him through the angel?

On a simple level, we can suggest that there is no contradiction. God will always allow us to follow our path of choice, but that doesn’t mean that God won’t put a few “wrong way” signs along that path, hoping that we will realize our mistake. Maybe Bilaam was given free will to do that which he wanted to do, but God, nevertheless, tried to help him by sending him an angel and a talking donkey to stop him. Typically, when you see a talking donkey, I would think you would stop and say, “Wow – this is strange! Why is there a talking donkey? Is there a message here?” But Bilaam didn’t stop to think how a donkey could talk; rather, he conversed with the donkey as if everything was normal. His biases totally blinded him.

Perhaps we can take the message of the gemara once step further. "Baderekh she’adam rotzeh lailaich" means that we are not only given the free will to choose the wrong path, but we are also empowered psychologically to choose the wrong path. Sometimes when we choose the wrong path, cognitive dissonance assists us in following that path and ignoring the “wrong way” signs that appear as we go down that path.

What is cognitive dissonance? Cognitive dissonance refers to a situation involving conflicting attitudes, beliefs or behaviors. This produces a feeling of discomfort. Now we don’t like discomfort so we will reinterpret events so that we have internal cognitive consistency. Cognitive dissonance was first investigated by Leon Festinger arising out of a participant observation study of a cult which believed that the earth was going to be destroyed by a flood. What happened to its really committed members when the flood did not happen? They were more likely to re-interpret the evidence to show that they were right all along and the earth was only not destroyed because of the faithfulness of the cult members. This sounds crazy, but this is how Bilaam operated. He convinced himself so thoroughly that what he was doing was proper that even a talking donkey, the ultimate warning, couldn’t phase him. The decisions that we make in life require constant evaluation and reevaluation to make sure that we are not victims to cognitive dissonance. It is so important for us to be open-minded about all information we hear or feedback that we receive.

Perhaps the best way to fight cognitive dissonance and to be open-minded about information that we hear or feedback that we receive is to expose ourselves to other points of view in a curious, open manner. In fact, the Torah tells us that when Bilaam saw that the Bnei Yisrael were “shochen lishvatav,” that they were dwelling amongst their tribes, he couldn’t help but bless them. Why? On the one hand, the Midrash Agada (Bamidbar 24:2) states that he saw each tribe dwelling separately. Each tribe had its own unique identity. Rashi comments (24:5) that when Bilaam said, “mah tovu ohalecha Yaakov,” or “how wonderful are your tents,” he was highlighting how “ra’ah she’ain pitcheihen mechuvanim zeh k’neged zeh.” He saw how the opening of their tents did not correspond to each other. In his Sefer Ma’or Va’shemesh, Rav Kalonymous Kalman Ha-Levi Epstein explains that every individual had his or her own “petach,” his or her own opening to God, his or her own path to spirituality, and this is the reason why Bilaam blessed them. The reason for the blessing was a feeling of unity amongst the Jewish nation even if each member of Klal Yisrael had a different path to spirituality or to his or her own vision of truth.

The way we fight cognitive dissonance is to recognize the dissonance, to struggle with the dissonance and to realize that there may be a kernel of truth out there that is different than your own. If half or even a third of your friends think differently than you about a religious issue or a political issue, maybe there’s a perspective that you hadn’t considered. Maybe there really are multiple openings to spirituality and to finding the truth. Maybe it’s okay to feel a little discomfort with passionately held positions if there’s a lot of disagreement in this area. To me, that’s not a weakness in character. That’s a strength in character. That’s an appreciation of openness, of recognizing that everyone has his or her own petach, or opening, to spirituality and to truth. It doesn’t mean that we necessarily change our positions, but it means that maybe when we are confronted by a donkey who tells us we are going the wrong way, we will think again. And maybe even if we don’t modify our positions, we will learn to be a little less cynical and divisive and verbally abusive to those with whom we disagree.

Maybe our avoda over the next three weeks is to engage in behaviors to be mindful of cognitive dissonance or to be open to looking at other perspectives. Maybe our avoda over the next three weeks is to go out of our way to truly appreciate some of the religious or moral values of those people with whom we have passionate disagreements in the area of religion or politics, even if we disagree with their conclusions. And maybe our avoda over the next three weeks is to commit not to be cynical and abusive and attacking, even in response to aggressive behavior directed towards us. Maybe we cannot change the world or the entire country, but little by little, we can help shape the tone and culture of our families and our communities, and these three weeks are a perfect time to begin.