Avoiding the Herd Mentality- 1st Anniversary of January 6th
Parashat Bo 2022/5782
Rabbi David Baum
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| Photo by Jonatan Pie on Unsplash |
What was your favorite part of the Seder growing up, with the exception of the meal?
For most, it is the ritual of counting the Ten Plagues. We’ve created many party favors for this part of the service - kids throw plastic frogs at each other, or put on silly masks. It’s kind of weird and morbid right?
But the one plague that is genuinely problematic for all is the killing of the first born Egyptian males.
Here is how the Torah describes it:
וַיְהִי בַּחֲצִי הַלַּיְלָה וַיי הִכָּה כל־בְּכוֹר בְּאֶרֶץ מִצְרַיִם מִבְּכֹר פַּרְעֹה הַיֹּשֵׁב עַל־כִּסְאוֹ עַד בְּכוֹר הַשְּׁבִי אֲשֶׁר בְּבֵית הַבּוֹר וְכֹל בְּכוֹר בְּהֵמָה׃
In the middle of the night the LORD struck down all the first-born in the land of Egypt, from the first-born of Pharaoh who sat on the throne to the first-born of the captive who was in the dungeon, and all the first-born of the cattle. (Exodus 12:29)
The Torah is very intentional with its words here when they mention not just the killing of Pharaoh’s first born, but even the captive in the dungeon, literally the lowest person in Egyptian society who wasn’t a slave, and even the cattle. Anyone else think that this is cruel?
The killing of Pharaoh’s first born, even though seemingly cruel in our modern eyes, was necessary. For the first time, Pharaoh is confronted with true loss. No amount of servants, sorcerers, or soldiers could save him from this plague. But why all the other Egyptians? Even the ones who didn’t own slaves?
The Tanchuma/Midrash offers an explanation:
“Because they rejoiced at the misfortune of the Israelites” (Midrash Tanchuma, Bo 7)
As I think about this scene, I cannot help but recall an interview I heard with one of the men who was arrested after he stormed the Capitol on January 6. The New York Times created a three part podcast on the January 6 Insurrection. They wanted to find out who exactly joined the mob? In the podcast titled, herd mentality.
Who exactly joined the mob that, almost a year ago, on Jan. 6, breached the walls of the U.S. Capitol in a bid to halt the certification of President Biden’s election victory?
Members of far-right extremist groups were present but so too were doctors, lawyers, substitute teachers, church deacons and business owners, many of whom had previously been considered non-political.
The question of why these people were at the Capitol that day is hard to answer, but the some of the most useful clues come from three F.B.I. interviews that have been released to the public.
The most revealing interview according to the podcast was with a man named Robert Reeder, who was facing four misdemeanor charges for entering the Capitol. Mr. Reeder is from suburban Maryland, single and a father, and at the time of the riots he was a driver for FedEx.
He claims he joined the rally on a whim, although he was very active online leading up to the rally with Stop the Steal memes and posts.
During his interview, he said the following:
“After it was all over, people were all saying that everyone was headed to the Capitol. So that’s where everybody was going. So stupid me, I followed the herd.” When he got into the Capitol, he said, “I was just with the herd, pushing towards — not pushing, just kind of followed them up onto one of the bandstands.”
He had moments where he could have left, but he stayed inside the Capitol. Over and over he excuses his behavior by saying he was part of the herd, that it was a herd mentality.
His last line was perhaps the most interesting:
“I jumped on the metro train. It only took like 40, 45 minutes to get back home. I got in the house and turned on the TV. And they were showing pictures of what was happening at the Capitol. It made me sick. I mean, whatever you want to call it. But I felt sick. And I’m like, I hope the police get those guys and arrest them. And I realized, wait a second, I was there an hour ago.”
Those moments have changed his life forever - he lost his job, his reputation in his community, and even custody of his son, and, finally, his freedom as he was sentenced to three months in jail.
Although he said it was his fault, he blamed everything else - the herd as he called it, or the police who he said should have told him they couldn’t come into the Capitol.
I was thinking, what would the captive in the dungeon had said as he held his dying child on the night of the 10th plague? Perhaps when he saw the first born cattle dying, he realized that he was part of the herd, and even though he was swept up in it, even though Pharaoh created the unjust society that he benefited from, he also had to pay for his mistakes.
In our morning prayers, there is an interesting paragraph that we read. We ask God to help us overcome the Yetzer haRah, the evil inclination within us, but we also ask God to keep us far from wicked people and corrupt friends, in Hebrew, “הַרְחִיקֵנוּ מֵאָדָם רָע וּמֵחָבֵר רָע.”
Why say wicked people and wicked friends? Because free people don’t make excuses for our actions, and Jews must also see that our friends and fellow Jews can sometimes lead us down dark paths. We saw this on January 6 most infamously with Aaron Mostofsky, who, according to the Forward, identifies as an Orthodox Jew, who was arrested for his involvement on January 6. He is he son of Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Steven Mostofsky.
Let us return to our parashah and how Bnai Israel handled the death of the first born. This plague was different than all the other plagues. We see at Exodus 12:13:
וְהָיָה הַדָּם לָכֶם לְאֹת עַל הַבָּתִּים אֲשֶׁר אַתֶּם שָׁם וְרָאִיתִי אֶת־הַדָּם וּפָסַחְתִּי עֲלֵכֶם וְלֹא־יִהְיֶה בָכֶם נֶגֶף לְמַשְׁחִית בְּהַכֹּתִי בְּאֶרֶץ מִצְרָיִם׃
“And the blood on the houses where you are staying shall be a sign for you: when I see the blood I will passover you, so that no plague will destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.”
Rabbi Arnold Goodman wrote the following:
“The Midrash contends that God did not need the blood on the doorpost to identify Israelite homes. Obviously, God was quite capable of distinguishing, without any outer sign, between Israelites and Egyptians. The painted blood was to testify that the people had fulfilled the first command given to them as a community: to sacrifice the Passover lamb. This suggests that prior to the tenth and final plague, the Israelites were to perform an act that demonstrated their faith in God, and with this first mitzvah, our ancestors entered into a new relationship with God. They were no longer automatically protected by the kindness and concern of a beneficent Deity; rather they had to demonstrate that as a maturing community, they had made the choice to serve God. From the moment they were instructed to take and sacrifice the Passover lamb, they were accountable for their actions. The “free ride” was now a thing of the past.”
The development to being a free people began with the commandment to keep a calendar - the first step to freedom is being free to spend your own time.
The next step is responsibility - want to be protected? You have to smear the blood on the door. If you didn’t, you weren’t saved.
I think we saw Jewish responsibility after January 6 with the actions of two visibly Jewish men, Aron Weider and Alexander Rapaport, two Hasidic friends from New York. Here is a report of how they took responsibility after January 6 from journalist Arno Rosenfeld:
“Disgusted and saddened by the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol, Aron Weider and Alexander Rapaport – two Hasidic friends from New York – felt helpless from 200 miles away. But the bravery of the Capitol Police and the National Guard that day inspired them to make the trip to D.C. two weeks later – for the inauguration of President Biden.
Few tourists or well-wishers were allowed inside a vast security zone surrounding the Capitol for the inauguration, but that wasn’t where Weider, the founder of a Borough Park soup kitchen, and Rapaport, a Rockland County legislator, were headed. With a van packed with $10,000 worth of toiletries, energy drinks, energy bars and chocolates – paid for by a D.C. security firm – the two drove around the perimeter of the secured area, handing out goodies to members of the National Guard, who were pulling 12-hour shifts in cold weather and taking their breaks in parking garages.
‘We brought you some love from Brooklyn,’” Rapaport told the troops, who often asked for selfies with these unexpected gift-bearers.
Wieder’s four grandparents were rescued by the 3rd Infantry Division of the U.S. Army during the liberation of the Dora-Mittelbau concentration camp in 1945. “I will never miss an opportunity to say thank you to you guys and what you are standing for,” he said. Rapaport said that as shaken as he was on Jan. 6, he felt more hopeful with the transition of power on Inauguration Day. He returned to D.C. days later after restocking the van in New York.
Both he and Wieder said that they hoped that their obviously Jewish appearance sent a message to all who saw them in Washington, that “the Jewish people support our servicemen and women and value the stability of our nation.”
And the step after that is accountability - saying that I am ultimately responsible for my actions, but also knowing that you have an effect on someone else - you might be the chaver rah, the evil friend, but you can be the good influence if you choose it.
Remember when your father and mother said, if your friends jumped off a bridge, would jump with them?
We have to be careful not to let the Pharaohs of this world lead us to evil, and they must be held accountable, but we must also exercise our freedom with responsibility and accountability.
I hope and pray that we start looking at ourselves as people, not cattle, as a united people walking together toward a brighter future where we stop following the voices who tell us to trample over each other, and instead, pick each other up so all of us can be free.
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