Walt Whitman Meets The Merchant of Venice

By G. David Schwartz

If I would take the time to list the errors of my tongue, and misdeeds of my days, the list would undoubtedly be long and dreary. No doubt the list would resemble one which can be jotted down by any number of people. I like to think that my grievous errors lie only in the past but, of course, I know I will look back upon these very days and notice offenses and insensitivities I either casually or unknowingly commit.

This is the long way of saying I never was, am not now, and do not seriously anticipate ever being perfect. Sin crouches at the door — a phrase I know not only from Torah, but from walking back and forth to the door so often.

Occasionally, I content myself with the thought that at least I’ve never killed anyone. In any event, I am not as foolish or trite or terrible as ... who? Who is it that I know sufficiently well to compare myself? Most everyone I meet is well enough like me that in moment of self-scrutiny and concern, they are able to see two points plainly. First, they are not perfect. But second, over time we all change.

Transformation of our behavioral or moral stance might come about through repentance, or through the dull process of aging and maturation, or through the agonizing process of intellectual and ethical readjustment. Each of us does things just a little bit differently, a little bit slower, perhaps, a little more conscientious, just slightly improved, or disproved, than we did a month ago, a year ago, or certainly, a decade ago.

It is surely annoying when friends utter a statement which seems to pin us to the bulletin board of behavior which we had assessed and discarded a while back. It is stressful when things for which we have asked forgiveness for doing or having left undone, when ideas or plans we have devised or left unattended, when rash utterances to which we gave no special credence, suddenly surface with the attributed power of a worldview. Can something said in haste define us? Occasionally, if we ourselves later accept such pressured statements as definitive.

Part of the reason this is annoying is that we would prefer our friends be cognizant, if not of our internal processes of repentance, then surely the fact of our having grown. We expect a little more observation from our friends than from mere acquaintances. We don’t expect something we said at age 10 to haunt us at age 30.

It is ironic that a similar kind of stress becomes evident when people who do not know us except on the most cursory and superficial level make claims against us.

I am a male. I cannot automatically be assumed to exploit women, to be incapable of nurturing of my children, to be disabled when it comes to doing laundry, and whatever else you think you know about men. "Male” is not a code word. Nor is it a key concept. Can you not watch how I behave and treat me accordingly?

I am a Conservative Jew. It is a synagogue affiliation, not a political designation. I am not hesitating between the seat of orthodoxy and the chair of reform. I am not the wandering Jew. I am not devoid of faith or hope or concern. I am not out of touch with contemporary life, nor believe in myths, nor rest content with an unattractive heritage, much less an unspiritual heritage. Can you not speak with me and learn what I do believe?

I am a thinker. Have I not emotions?

I am a vagrant on the street. Do my clothes define what I have contributed in the past or may yet contribute in the future?

I am a Pacific Islander. Don’t you want to know that before you ask me where in "Japan" my family has derived? Don’t you want to know that I was born in Duluth before you ask me what country I come from?

I am a Native American. Don’t you want to know my views on alcohol and tobacco before you make accusations against me? Don’t you want to know what I do for a living, what my intentions for the future are, before you call me an alcoholic, a shaman or a pagan?

I am a Muslim. Don’t you want to know that I am philosophically opposed to violence before you attack me for being a fanatic?

I am an African-American. Don’t you want to know that I have a doctorate in physics, that I own a thriving business? Or consider the fact that "black" is not a metaphor indicating malevolent and malicious inabilities?

I am a woman. Don’t you want to know that I have skills, wit, and intelligence, something to contribute to society, a sense of humor, hopes, dreams, a personality of my own, and honor?

Don’t you know I have eyes? Don’t you know I have needs?

Don’t you know the demarcation you impose upon me with such stringent measure is not me, not my ounce of flesh, but as a sign, a sigh, of your own limitations?

I, Dave Schwartz, am a Caucasian, middle-class, Conservative Jewish male. I have no gender or spiritual confusions. Yet, I refuse to be limited by my natural allies or expected conditions. I refuse to be told either that the accident of birth or the choices of the moment are sufficient. I refuse to be told that my current choices or inherited givens are insufficient as a springboard forward. I refuse trite and petty assessments which would bind me to the present. I refuse superficiality.

In this refusal is acceptance of something much more grand, much more inspiring. I am today surrounded by a number of friends who, not being me nor even replicas of me, allow me, inspire me, compel me to become much more far-reaching than I am.

We have attempted to dance through some hurtful memories. They are part of our experience. We can neither be done with them, nor linger with them. Like our very legs, we cannot have become who we are without these experiences and the attendant memories; unlike our legs, we cannot stand on memory alone.