On a warm afternoon, on the second floor of a splendid palace that overlooked the market place of the city, sat a king and his minister. While the king was eating some honey on puffed rice, he looked over his land with satisfaction.
As he was eating, a little drop of honey dripped from his puffed rice onto the window ledge.
The minister was about to call a servant to wipe up the honey, when the king waved a hand to stop him. “Don’t bother, it’s only a little drop of honey, it’s not our problem.”
The minister watched the drop of honey slowly trickle down the window ledge and land on the street below.
Soon, a fly landed on the sweet drop of honey.
A nearby lizard shot out its long tongue and caught the fly.
The lizard was taken by surprise when a cat leapt on it.
The cat was pounced on by the dog next door that had broken free from its chain.
Meeowing and barking erupted from the street below the King and his minister. The minister was about to call a servant to go and deal with the brawling cat and dog when the king said, ”Relax, the cat and dog belong to the market people. We shouldn’t interfere. It’s not our problem.”
The cat’s owner and the dog’s owner, hearing the animals’ cries, came to save their pets and began yelling at each other and arguing about the behavior of the two animals.
Soon, people started coming out from their stalls and houses to see what all the screaming and shouting was about. Seeing their friend’s arguing, they joined in the argument. Very quickly, the shouting became violent and a fight broke out in the street.
The worried minister turned to the King but his only comment was, “Not our problem. Here, have some more puffed rice and honey.” The king and his adviser ate as they watched the fray below.
Soon the police were called in to break up the fight, but the people were so angry, each side convinced that they were right. They started attacking the policemen. The fight rapidly broke out into a full scale riot.
The king eyed the minister and said, “I know what you are thinking, but the army will handle it. Besides, this is not out problem.”
The riot swiftly escalated into a civil war with looting and destruction all over the city. Buildings were set alight and by nightfall, the magnificent city was reduced to a pile of smoking ashes. The king and his minister stood spellbound, their mouths were hanging open in horror as they took in the destruction caused by a single drop of honey.
Each week, when we read or watch the news our moral voices scream out on one side of our brain and the voice of reason whispers convincingly on the other side that it isn’t our problem. Some weeks our inner voices argue more than others as the actions of humans make us question the viability of mankind in a world where we can’t even maintain common decency between ourselves.
As Jews we have the Ten Commandments. They are simple and direct. There are only ten and the first four deal with our relationship with God and our maintenance of the Sabbath. The last six are pretty self explanatory.
Honor your mother and father
Do not commit Murder
Do not commit Adultery
Do not Steal
Do not bear false witness against your neighbor
Do not desire the belongings of your neighbor, not his house, his wife, his slave, his maid, his ox, his donkey or anything else in his possession.
One of our most famous rabbis, Rabbi Hillel simplified all the rules of the Torah down to what we know as the golden rule “That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow - or in other words “Do to others as you want them to do to you.”
This shows that as Jews we don’t mince words on some occasions and on others we can expound on a subject forever, literally forever, like commenting on the same five books over and over and over for the last three thousand years or so.
I try to live my life by the words of Rabbi Hillel. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. There is no confusion in a single sentence that underlines how humans should work together to make this world a better place by treating each other as they wish to be treated. However, with four children of my own I fully understand how even the simplest rules of proper behavior become difficult to live by.
These last two weeks my thoughts have been taken over by the events at Penn State, by the beatings David Osama Haddad suffered due to his race, and by the suicide of Ashlynn Conner, a 10-year-old fifth grader of Ridge Farm Illinois. She took her own life after years of being bullied at school with no lasting intervention from her teachers, principal or their superiors.
It is hard not to look at these events and believe that as humans we’ve learned nothing over the last ten, fifty, one hundred or even one thousand years. As adults we’ve watched our national population grow so swiftly over the last fifty years that events like this have become the norm and not the exception. Not a week goes by where we don’t hear about some national scandal concerning the abuse of power and/or the abuse of children. It took over a thousand years before the public outrage against the Catholic Church caused them to begin to face their own demons. Not a week goes by where we don’t read about some child suffering at the hands of their peers due to race, religion, body image, sexual orientation or personal issues.
These issues are the drops of honey on our streets which if not dealt with will eventually lead to the destruction of the society we love and hold dear. All the predators and bullies didn’t just appear over night. They’ve all been home grown through their own family upbringings and personal experiences. It takes monsters to create monsters.
Penn State continues to try and come to terms with the extent of the damage done by one person to the lives of numerous innocents as well as the loss of reputation by an entire university. The spotlight on how predators isolate those most vulnerable while maintaining a life of success and prestige is eye opening. It is amazing that those surrounding Sandusky never did enough to bring a swift end to his immoral behavior and bring a stop to the number of individuals who suffered under his mentorship.
When I was in grade school and middle school I experienced the cruelty of bullying. I can name my tormentors to this day, but know that I never felt anything compared to what Ashlynn Connor experienced or what David Osama Haddad suffered. I was most fortunate to be able to switch schools for High School to a place where the bullies were less numerous and held less social power.
From my experiences I planted a kernel of hope deep inside of me hoping that I would grow up into a world where parents, teachers, supervisors, coaches, mentors, priests, rabbis, and imams would all stand up and teach their children and students how to wipe out bullying once and for all. I hoped as a society all adults would band together and wipe out child abuse in all forms. Many have begun the work, and yet the work remains far from complete.
I can’t believe the stories I hear from friends and the experiences of their children let alone all the things I read in the news on a daily basis. In the three decades since I was in middle school both much and little progress has been made in the abolition of bullying and child abuse. The predators grow more and more numerous, many of them also victims of abuse as children. Children grow more and more brazen in a culture of excess, media saturation, and the proliferation of instant communication tools.
Children fail to understand the significance of their words or their deeds and parents too often dismiss the actions of their children as just kids being kids. As adults we neither want to coddle our children and seem overbearing, nor do we want to see them come to harm from a lack of supervision.
I believe all good behavior stems from the fifth commandment: “Honor your mother and father so that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God has given you.” I believe that this one commandment has the power to prevent us from breaking any other commandment. If a parent honors their parents and all adults honor their parents and each adult teaches their children and students by their example then all children should learn to hold human life as sacred and learn how to treat each other with respect and love. The moment a parent stops honoring their parents is the moment children stop honoring their parents. We are all children of this world. We are all children of the cycle of violence whether from personal experience or knowledge of someone with personal experience. As Jews let alone as humans, we understand above all else what bullying and child abuse can do to a society that considers itself filled with upstanding citizens. The oven’s of Auschwitz never really feel over six decades away when today people still kill each other over skin color, religion, sexual preference, gender, political beliefs or simply for the honor of a family.
Once the cycle of honoring our mother and father is broken an innocent drop of honey left sitting on the street has the potential to turn into a civil war.
As Jews and as humans it is our duty to speak up. It is our duty to bear witness to the nations, to the people, to our communities and defend the defenseless. As Jews we are supposed to be a light to the nations. Despite all the violence we’ve suffered at the hands of other religions most of those religions wouldn’t exist without Judaism as their foundation. They exist because we set the path of righteousness upon which they tread. We don’t pretend to be perfect, but we make the practice of living righteous lives integral to our very existence.
So as humans our spirits weep when we read the daily news and hear of tragedies such as Penn State, David Osama Haddad and Ashlynn Conner. We pray for the families and communities of these individuals trying to find where the humanity is in these instances.
May the humanity be found in post-tragedy reactions in hope that they save children from suffering in the future. May the humanity be found in the communal outpouring of love, sorrow, sympathy and compassion. May the humanity be found as these instances bring us closer together by forcing us to work to be more diligent, observant and conscientious of our words and deeds.
When we think of the drop of honey we all think how easy it would have been just to clean the drop off the ledge.
May we all have the insight to mend our worlds to the best of our abilities and be a positive influence on the lives intertwined with our own.
Kayn yehi ratzon - may this be God’s will