The following is an essay written many years ago by a then very young Talmid Chacham. He sent it to me and I thought it was quite brilliant. I believe it is perfect companion piece to my recent essay on Racism. Here now, the essay:
The story of the curse of Noah's son Cham is quite complex and there are disputes in the commentaries about what exactly happened and what the punishment was. Basically, Cham and his son Cana’an jointly committed a grave sin, for which they received a curse of slavery and their skin is blackened.
To deal with the slavery issue first, the Netziv raises the question that not all descendants of Cham are slaves and not all slaves are descendants of Cham. He therefore explains that the curse was not that they should or would be slaves, but rather that those who did find themselves in that capacity would be more at ease with it, having inherited it from their ancestor. Other people, however, would have a strong drive to fight for freedom.
With regard to the skin color, one of the commentaries on the Midrash points out that the reason why Africans have black skin is in order to protect them against the fierce sunlight of their country. However, it was Noach’s curse which brought them to live in such climates.
To sum up: all the Torah tells us is that Cham and Cana’an committed a sin, as a result of which their descendants came to live in a hot country that darkened their skin, and were hampered in their efforts to resist slavery.
Some people seem to be working with the idea that since Noach cursed Cham, it is up to us to enhance that curse. Well, like it or not, we’re all cursed in one way or another. Chava was cursed with labor pains, but we do not try to increase those for women. Nor should we try to enhance the “sweat of our brow” with which man was cursed to support himself. Nor is there any mitzvah to inflict pain upon snakes because of their curse. If God or Noach, curses someone, then that’s their business, not ours.
So much for being on the defensive against racist slurs. It should be clear that if people want to be racially offensive, they cannot claim that they are doing it for Torah reasons. Now let’s take the offensive. The Gemara (Taanis 20a) relates a story which, according to the explanation of the Maharsha, is a revealing lesson in race relations.
The Gemara relates that Rabbi Eleazar was riding on his donkey one day, feeling happy and proud of himself after a successful period of study. A black man walking along (Tosafos explains that it was Eliyahu HaNavi in disguise) greeted him, but Rabbi Elazar did not return the greeting.
“Raika!” he called out (a derogatory term which roughly means “good-for-nothing”). “Is everyone in your village as ugly as you?”
“I don’t know (if I am allowed to answer that question,)” replied the black man. “Why don’t you go and tell the Craftsman Who made me?”
Rabbi Eleazar was instantly torn with apology. “Please forgive me!” he begged.
“Not until you go and tell the Craftsman Who made me,” replied the black man. He continued home to his village, with Rabbi Eleazar following contritely behind.
When he arrived at the village, he was astonished to see his fellow townsfolk greeting Rabbi Eleazar with respect.
“If he is a Rabbi,” said the black man, “then let there not be more like him in Israel!”
“Why?” asked the townsfolk. The man related what Rabbi Eleazar had said to him. They pressed upon him to forgive Rabbi Eleazar, and he consented to do so, on condition that he would not act in such a way again.
Thus ends the story. The Maharsha spells out the lesson for us to learn from it. If you see something that you consider ugly, it is not your place to mention it. Doing so is attributing a deficiency to Creation. Making derogatory comments about black people is effectively saying that G-d messed up, chas v’shalom.
The story also implies that Rabbi Eleazar’s unpleasant comment was caused by excessive feelings of pride. Bigotry stems from arrogance. Whatever has happened in Crown Heights is totally irrelevant to this. With the frequently heard but undoubtedly offensive word “shvartzer,” one might be stacking up a serious slew of sins, as we see in the following case, related by Sarah Shapiro, that took place in Jerusalem recently.
A non-Jewish black youth by the name of Matt, who grew up in America, found himself strangely attracted to Judaism. He eventually found his way to a proper conversion to true Torah Judaism, and began to study at a ba’al teshuvah yeshivah in Jerusalem. Although he found fulfillment in his new way of life, he was experiencing a distressing problem. He would constantly be the subject of taunts and ridicule by the religious children of the neighborhood. One can only imagine what effect this had on that which he had been taught about Jews being kind and sympathetic people. He struggled on for a while, but eventually it became too much to bear, and he went back.
As Sarah Shapiro concludes: “Shall we attribute his departure to our country’s children behaving like children? Or to Israeli parents’ gross failure to passionately inculcate the most basic of Jewish values: respect for the other, who was also created by G-d – the other, who is not like you.
“Where are you now, Matt? And who in the world do you think we are?”
• Sources:
Bereishis Rabbah 36:7 and Yefeh To’ar ad loc.
Ta’anis 20a and Maharsha ad loc.
HaEmek Davar
Sarah Shapiro, Don’t You Know It’s A Perfect World?, Targum Press 1998.
