Learned behavior

I recently returned from a visit to Israel, one that included a visit to Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust Memorial Museum. This was hardly my first opportunity for studying the Holocaust, nor my first visit there. Yet, I came away with something new to me.

One of the first things Hitler did upon coming to power in 1933 was order a one day economic boycott of Jewish businesses. It basically didn’t work. People continued to shop where they were used to, they saw no reason not to, and the impact was minimal. It was after this that the Third Reich began an intensive propaganda campaign to instill anti-semitic feelings in the German people, to teach them to fear and hate the Jews among them that they once liked and appreciated.

It is human nature to classify people into us and other. That is probably a protective instinct. But, it is not necessarily human nature to hate the other. That hate has to be learned. It has to be fostered and fueled.

What can be learned can be unlearned. And each of us can be the teachers. We can teach by example. We can teach appreciation and celebration of our differences at work, at school, and at play. We can recognize the other, we can show our respect for the other and we can embrace those differences. When we teach we also get to learn. We learn about the strength and beauty that differences have and we learn that in finding and treasuring these differences we find unity and purpose.

Every year at our Passover seders we say: Tze Ulmad (Go out and learn)

I say 

Go out and teach. 

Go out and learn.