The Passover haggadah speaks of four sons, was Trayvon Martin one of them? Which child was he? Walking home one night with a bag of Skittles and an iced tea, was he the simple son? Or, the wise? The contrary one, as police leaks have tried to paint him? Or, that night was he the fourth son, so pursued and frightened that he did have time or presence to ask a question?
And what of George Zimmerman, the shooter, a self appointed neighborhood watchman, which son is he? Perhaps the justice system will provide an answer.
Martin, 17, who was from Miami Gardens, Florida, was staying with his father in Sanford, an Orlando suburb, when he was shot and killed on February 26 by Zimmerman who has not been charged or arrested in the shooting. Approaching the seder, a night when Jews traditionally ask questions, we should add this one to the list: How did this happen?
The haggadah, famously, has the Four Questions, and many more to help us parse how we came to be free. But on this night that is so much different than the others we also need to ask: are we limiting another person's freedom through our stereotypes of them.
When each year we read the four sons, we usually think of them in the context of a pleasant little midrash (interpretive story) that helps us to personify how differently people perceive the same event. The four are just little characters. Seldom do we think of them as flesh and blood children who through our own misreading of them could put their lives in danger.
Yet as we listen to the 911 tape, and also audit a national discussion on hoodies and how some perceive them as thug-wear, the haggadah's little story shows how easy it is to categorize, make snap judgments: one is brainy, the other simple, a third is arrogant, and then there's the one in a questionless fog.
Then, there's us. How we categorize and profile people day-to-day puts the four sons right into the day's news.
But beyond simply identifying each character, the story also asks us to identify with them. Few of us think of ourselves as the simple son, the one who asks, "What is this?" But maybe we should. As we play out our own reactions to the tragic event: a black teenager walking through a neighborhood at night wearing a hoodie, would we be the one to look through false perceptions and ask simply, 'What is this?" Or would we become the person who "does not even know how to ask a question"? Even more so, would we become the person so caught up in our own stereotypes, that we have no need for questions?
I have lived with my family in an ethnically diverse area of Los Angeles for over twenty years. In retrospect, there were times when trouble was really a snap judgment based on a person's color, clothes or hairstyle. But over time, painfully, I have learned to discern. It's not about hoodies. Recently, men dressed in orange vests, masquerading as utility workers, stole the copper wire out of my neighborhood's street lights.
Then there's my own midrash.
A few years ago, in a dark early morning hour, I awoke to blood curdling screams coming from the Korean household next door. Again and again, my wife and I heard, long drawn out cries. "Someone is killing someone. I'm calling the police," I remember saying.
About fifteen minutes later an officer knocked on my door.
"They were just watching the game," he explained.
Unbeknownst to me, the Korean national men's soccer team had advanced in the World Cup tournament, and due to the time difference the game was shown here very early. Every time the Korean team scored a goal, they screamed.
Was I embarrassed by my cultural ignorance? Yes. Afterward, did I become the wise one? No. More like advanced "simple." Next time I would ask, "What is this really?" before taking action.
Edmon J. Rodman has written about making his own matzah for JTA, Jewish love music for the Jerusalem Post, yiddisheh legerdemain for the Los Angeles Jewish Journal, a Bernie Madoff Halloween mask for the Forward, and what really gets stuck in the La Brea Tar Pits for the Los Angeles Times. He has edited several Jewish population studies, and is one of the founders of the Movable Minyan, an over twenty-year-old chavura-size, independent congregation. He once designed a pop-up seder plate.In 2011 Rodman received a First Place Simon Rockower Award for "Excellence in Feature Writing" from the American Jewish Press Association."
