The Hero’s Story Never Expires

Passover Email 2019

Dear Fellow Israelites,

Douglas Rushkoff, an American media theorist, recently tweeted: “Values once gave human society meaning and direction. Now this function is fulfilled by data, and our great ideals are reduced to memes.”(see definition of meme below).

I haven’t been able to stop thinking about this tweet for weeks.

I keep thinking, how does our Jewish tradition instruct us to impart our values? Do we have a system in place for that? And if we do/did, have we also shifted away from a value-centric system towards a data-centric system?

There are a number of places within our tradition where we deliberately transmit our values and our stories to our children. Most notably, the Passover seder is designed to illicit questions from our children as part of the mandate to recount the narrative of the exodus from Egypt to our children and grandchildren. But how do we do that? What is the mechanism through which we impregnate human society with meaning?

I’d like to posit that the seder and our Haggadah act as an antidote to the virality of a data-centric value system. Here’s how:

The Hero’s Journey, popularized by Professor Joseph Campbell, is a well-known 17 step framework for understanding stories and it is inextricably linked to Moses’ story. (Fun fact, George Lucas credited Campbell for inspiring him when he was creating Star Wars).

The Hero’s Journey at a glance:

A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man.[4]

The deeper you dig into Campbell’s framework the more similarities it has to Moses, here are the first 5 steps as an illustration:

1. The call to adventure — Moses sees the Egyptians strike the Israelite (Exodus 2:11)
2. Refusal of the call — Moses argues with God at the Burning Bush (Exodus 3)
3. Supernatural aid — God turns Moses’ staff into a snake (Exodus 4:3)
4. Crossing the threshold — Moses goes back to Egypt (Exodus 4:20)
5. Belly of the whale — Moses brings the plan to life with Aaron (Exodus 4:28)

What’s my point in all of this? My point is that when we want to impart our values onto our children we tell a story and we do not rely on data. We tell a story that can be found over and over again (Star Wars, Harry Potter, Lion King, etc). A story that has a framework that we encounter throughout our lives. A framework that relies on a hero’s understanding of their own inherent capabilities, which are more often than not capabilities that the hero musters against the odds:

Would you bet on Harry Potter if you had only read the first chapter (and the book wasn’t called Harry Potter) ? Would you bet on Simba after his father is trampled by a stampede? How about Moses when he is placed into a basket in the river?

Sure, there are a lot of numbers in the Haggadah, but those numbers don’t prove anything, nor do they try to prove anything. The numbers in the Haggadah are either there to offer a structure (4 Questions, 4 Cups, 4 Sons) or they are argued about at length and without definition (how many plagues).

Now let’s revisit our question from the beginning : What is the mechanism through which we impregnate human society with meaning?

It is through telling a story of someone who was unlikely to succeed but went on to do great things. It’s through song, and ritual and food and through actions that spark questions from our children.

On Passover we focus on questions, not on answers. We focus on stories not on memes. We focus on values, not on data.

Chag Sameach,

Alex

Definition of a meme: a humorous image, video, piece of text, etc., that is copied (often with slight variations) and spread rapidly by Internet users.