In 2004 I worked as a composer-pianist at a Christian ballet school. It was a difficult transitional period in my life, and after some time of financial difficulty I came across a ballet center that were hiring pianists for their dance classes. Jumping at the opportunity, I got the job and was warmly welcomed by this overtly Christian community. I was unhappy where I was living in noisy downtown Los Angeles, and the choreographer at the school who was obviously well connected in her community contacted a landlord friend of hers who was gracious enough to lower the rent on a beach front apartment building, one of the nicest apartments I ever lived in, down here in California.
After a a few weeks of being employed at the ballet center, the choreographer who owned the school was very eager to get me to come to her home for lunches and dinner parties. I explained to her that I was an observant Jew, and though enjoyed getting to know her over tea or coffee, hang out with her on occasion, and acknowledging my new warm, kind compassionate friend, there were dietary restrictions that I observed, and certain religious laws that I joyfully adhered to. She seemed to be fine with these religious restrictions at first, but as time went on it became apparent that this was not so.
She began to discover that I would not work on Saturdays because this was my Shabbat or Sabbath, and my Jewish observance restricted me from earning money or engaging in secular activities. Judaism is not a proselytizing religion. Its a system where one comes to it on ones own. It views other faiths as unique and special and placed there by G-d to fulfill that purpose of diversity, “His coat of many colors” as it were, and paradigms distinctly different from it, are for those people born into them to utilize to find those highest of G-d’s ideals as He pours into those unique systems. But I grew to understand that Christianity was antithetical to the structure of the Jewish paradigm, and because of its urgent desire for humanities redemption, it seeks converts at all costs, negating the principle of G-d’s multi-facetedness.
My new warm and kind hearted friend helped me with work, and a beautiful apartment, but her love was conditional. She would call me every friday night to persuade me to go with her to her Church that “specialized” in Jewish customs. She would invite me to restaurants where we would meet, but persist that I ate what ever I “wanted”, or rather whatever she wanted me to eat since kosher dietary laws were no longer in effect since “Jesus died for our sins”. No matter how much I (erringly) explained to her the mystical significance in eating or abstaining from certain foods, behaving or practicing certain rituals she would increase her determinism to convince me otherwise, that these laws were good “once upon a time” but since the advent of Jesus, they were null and void and thus works of Satan. Oy !
The work environment became increasingly intense and uncomfortable. In addition to dance classes, knowing that I needed the money, she brought more work my way which I graciously accepted. She was after all, really kind, charismatic, big hearted individual. My previous Jewish students were now outnumbered by reborn Christian girls from the local Catholic girls school. My Sunday morning and thursday night schedules consisted of rehearsals of religious choirs from the local churches. I became increasingly uncomfortable.
There was a price to pay for my lovely apartment at the lowest imaginable rate, and for my increasing financial comfort. And my emotional discomfort did not seem important to her as much as my material comfort. This was the work of “the devil” and I had to learn “to overcome it” because “truth and blessing came into my life.”
I tried to trust her because indeed my life seemed very much to improve financially. I even got a commission to compose a ballet from another company down the road, which indeed I did, and it was performed, even though on some level I felt great distress and anxiety. The warm and kind choreographer was already contacting pretty Christian girls she knew were looking for nice Jewish husbands. During this time I even got a record contract to sign to a Christian label, who would produce my music on the condition that all the cd’s would have a happy cross and “Jesus saves” on the label.
I met various teachers at that center. Some were there for a very long time. Christian of course. One woman was there when I began working but somewhere along the line, she disappeared. She was a hard core liberal and didn’t take the choreographer’s sugar-coated religious candy at all lightly in the recent months. During this time of the year around spring, the dance center put on a major production. For reasons, or rather details I don’t know, the liberal hot-headed dance instructor who happened to be choreographing some of the pieces stopped showing up to rehearsals. The sweet older asian dancer, a ballet celebrity of her time from the royal school of ballet and New York Ballet principle dancer took over. She was of course a Christian.
Later on in months, by pure coincidence, I bumped into the hot-headed liberal dance instructor at another college that held dance classes. I happened to be the substitute piano player they now and again called to accompany the girls during their dance exercises. After the class me and this dance instructor united excitedly over coffee and a bagel. She happened to be a happy vegan and totally respected (or didn’t care) what I ate nor my dietary restrictions. She disclosed the details of what happened with warm and big-hearted choreographer we both worked for in the past. She explained to me that she, the liberal, refused to choreograph an overtly “Jesus is god” Christian piece of music, and also was horribly opposed to the ghastly costume design imposed on her by the Christian choreographer that owned the company. They got into a huge fight, and she fumed out. Consequently they both were happy with how this all ended. The liberal went on her own liberated way, and the Christian now knew who was really batting on her team and who was gonna go to to hell! I eventually left due to some bizzaar events transpiring. Suddenly I would show up one day, and some other boy would be playing in my stead. At enquiring about the confusion, the Christian choreographer apologized that it was a mistake, but then as time went on, she confessed he was a better fit for the school, that teachers requested him based on them requiring him on Saturdays and other such times I was not able to show. Also she mentioned that he was more what the teachers needed.
It was interesting. Perhaps she had more than enough of my resistance, and she had more than her share of experiences with people who did not comply with her demands nor shared her beliefs, the her “all loving lord” loved only “those who loved him...”. What makes this subject particularly difficult and complex is the fact that Christianity encourages empathy, and here was a successful choreographer exemplary of this principle, reaching out to culturally diverse individuals such as myself, to really and truly help them. Yet, oops, somewhere along the line, this altruistic gesture fell short where there and then something much more human kicks in, that is the discomfort of the one who is culturally diverse unless their assimilation into the dominant culture takes place (Ivey, 1987), or they’ll be damned.
What’s particularly interesting for me is, as a thinking religious person, it seems to me the character of Jesus is one who suffered because of his “difference”. He saw the universe and G-d differently from his own people, thus suffering ostracisation by them, and reaching out to his non-Jewish followers from diverse pagan cultures, must have left him alienated. And yet the religion born from him seems not to mimick nor administer any trait of their founder. It seems not to tolerate differences at all well, but rather seeks to convert, to assimilate, and throughout history annihilate. A deep irony, since this was necessarily not what he preached by making statements like “turn the other cheek” if someone angers you, “love one another” and so on and so forth. You would think followers of this leader would live up to his ideals, and alas perhaps we are all too human to over come differences, and truly live in a love-based culturally diverse world, a tenet Judaism upholds by being a major religion that forbids proselytization - A system that sees G-d’s colors manifest brightly through out all the cultures and peoples of the earth, and to find one’s G-d through ones unique culture, only one finds Him the same through out all, a complete and whole puzzle pieced beautifully together, the tip of the tripod, the apex of the pyramids, all paradigms glued together.
The choreographer was obviously one in power, and being so, “power decides the rules for others to follow” Ivey (1987; p. 197), quoting from Lacan’s Seminar on the ethics of desire retorts, “those subject to the Order do not participate in its construction”.
It is obvious that for all her good deeds, the choreographer was evidently prejudiced and discriminated against others that did not share her beliefs. Her religious discrimination made her environment a particularly stressful one for those who found their way into it by necessity, such as work. Working under a “threat” of losing that work if not conceding to the rules of that environment is emotionally taxing, endangering a person’s well-being (Utsey, Ponterotto, Reynolds & Cancelli, 2000). Discrimination may lead not only to mental or emotional distress but also to physiological stress-related disorders such as “hypertension, high blood pressure, stroke and cardiovascular diseases” (Utsey, et. al., 2000). Besides middle-class advantages, the strain of discrimination can have a debilitating effect over the life span of the individual (Utsey, et. al., 2000). Perhaps in this context “go to hell” means a whole different thing...
It is difficult to imagine the choreographer given her proselytizing religion that seeks to convert people in the guise of undying love for them will ever be be able to practice acceptance or at least tolerance for diverse religious views. “Disempowerment” (Ivey, 1987) is the very method used by cults and religious practices that seek to breakdown individual self-concept and “empowerment” (which is perhaps a liberal as opposed to a traditional viewpoint). Religious people practice empathy but not in its true altruistic form. It is by necessity, conditional, limited and full of expectations just as a human being is. Perhaps the construct or belief in a god provides them a tangible tool to at least stretch a part of their ideal selves as much as it is able, much less without a god. It is simply a false expectation to expect a religious person to “walk in someone else’s shoes”, only if they really are secure in their beliefs and in their self identities (Miville, Carlozzi, Gushue, Schara, & Ueda, 2006).
She could have created an environment rich of diversity where each individual contributes to the rich fabric of the whole (Harvey & Allard, 2009) but that would mean not living up to a certain ideal of proselytization inherent in her religious paradigm, thus bringing upon herself guilt and potential emotional harm. Indeed overcoming cultural differences and viewing another pure in their own cultural diversity is a very high ideal not everybody is emotionally intelligent to do so (Miville, et. al., 2006).
We can suppose that the aggression some cultists or religious persons feel is the lack of their own self-identity (Marcia, J. 1966), and they could be in that false identity state described by Marcia suggested by Erikson as a state of foreclosure and not “formation” or identity awareness (Crandell, Crandell & Vander Zanden, 2009; Erikson, 1982). Because if they were, they would be a lot more ready to tolerate, and even love and accept individuals as they truly are as suggested by the exemplary religious lives of Ghandi and Mother Theresa and others of other faiths.
When the late Lubavitcher Rebbe, the head of the Jewish Chabad ultra-orthodox movement was asked, “How can you stand all day from sunrise to midnight, hardly taking a break, giving blessings to thousands of people jew and non-jew, rich and poor, man and woman alike?” His reply was, “When you count diamonds, you can never get tired” (Chabad World, August 2011).
REFERENCES
Chabad World, (August 2011). Moshiach: The definition of the rebbe. From the Chabad World website. Retrieved August 7, 2011 from: http://www.chabadworld.net/page.asp?pageID=DD356BBE-44D9-429A-BDE1-B6AB02F01C72&moshHdr=1
Crandell, T. L., Crandell, C. H., & Vander Zanden, J. W. (2009). Human development (9th ed.). Boston: McGraw-Hill Higher Education.
Erikson, E. H. (1982). The life cycle completed. W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. New York.
Harvey, C. P., & Allard, M. J. (2009). Understanding and managing diversity: Readings, cases, and exercises (4th Edition). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.
Ivey, A. I., (1987). The multi-cultural practice of therapy: Ethics, empathy & Dialectics. Journal of social and clinical psychology, (5) 2, 195-204.
Marcia, J. (1966) Journal ol Personality and Social Psychology. Development and Validation of Ego Identity. 3(5) p, 551-558
Miville, M. L., Carlozzi, A. F., Gushue, G. V., Schara, S. L., & Ueda, M. (2006). Mental health counselor qualities for a diverse clientele: Linking empathy, universal-diverse orientation, and emotional intelligence. Journal of Mental Health Counseling, 28(2), 151-151-165. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/198797070?accountid=27965
Utsey, S. O., Ponterotto, J. G., Reynolds, A. L., & Cancelli, A. A. (2000). Racial Discrimination, Coping, Life Satisfaction, and Self-Esteem Among African Americans. Journal of Counseling & Development, 78(1), 72-80. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.
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