Can The Almighty Be Passive Aggressive?

Submitted for your approval, in my unique writing style:

The Book of Samuel is my favorite in the entire Bible. Today, it’s divided into two, but according to Robert Alter, it was originally a single entity. It starts with Hannah, miserable over her childlessness, begging the Almighty for relief. It’s said we recite the Amidah in a whisper to remember Hannah “speaking in her heart, her lips alone moving and her voice not heard.” Happily, her prayer is answered, and she gives birth to the prophet Samuel.

The book records the inception of the Davidic dynasty. Samuel initially warns the people against a human king, then relents and anoints Saul. When Saul falls out of favor, David is selected in his place. We read about the brilliance and cunning of David’s youth, his spectacular rise, followed by a bit of doddering in his old age. Doddering aside, David is still able to establish Solomon as his preferred successor.

Again according to Alter, the story of Solomon splitting the baby was originally the climax of the Book of Samuel, only to be moved to the beginning of the first Book of Kings. In its place, there is a rather cryptic tale of the Almighty inciting David to count Israel and Judah. A census being a great big no-no, this leads to all sorts of badness, prompting David to say to Gad the prophet: “I am in great straits. Let us, pray, fall into the L-rd’s hand, for great is his mercy, and into the hand of man let me not fall.” If this sounds familiar, it’s the part of Tachanun where we bury our foreheads into the crook of our elbows.

I have difficulty processing this episode. The Almighty has David count Jews and then gets angry at him for counting Jews. Really? Chronicles sees this differently, crediting Satan with putting this nasty idea into David’s head. Other sources lay the blame entirely on David. Midrash Tehillim suggests that this was all due to David’s pride. Midrash Bereshit Rabbah says it was David’s insecurity. According to the Talmud in Yoma 22b, it was because of David’s lack of faith. Some theologians take David out of the question altogether and chalk this up to a divine plan. But watermelon, tartar sauce, farkleberry! When has the Almighty ever needed to manufacture a pretext for punishing Israel?

This all brings me back to where I started and what the plain meaning of the words seem to insist upon. Now, this might seem heretical, and certainly heterodox, but isn’t the Almighty being just a teensy bit passive aggressive here?

When I first told the little woman what I was writing about, She Who Must Be Obeyed said that I’m surely an expert on passive aggression. How adorable! Women say the darndest things. She is so cute! My wife: I think I’ll keep her.

But before I delve too deeply into passive aggression, I’m going to bloviate a bit about regular plain old vanilla aggression. Cisaggression, if you will. Let’s go back to the 1950’s, when America was still great, and the problem still didn’t have a name. Men were men, and the ladies all knew their place. In fact, they all aspired to be homemakers, and it was okay to say “housewife”. If a young woman went to college, it was just about getting an MRS degree. However, there was an exotic, Lilith-like creature emerging onto the scene: the so-called “career girl”.

Now, if any of our sisters take exception to the language I just used, let me say in my defense that I meant it all ironically. If that doesn't work for you, please help turn this into a teachable moment for me, rather than scratching my eyes out with your nail extensions.

Not too long ago, I was watching some outtakes from “You Bet Your Life”. It was just a simple game show, but it was popular mostly because of the interviews Groucho Marx did with various folks who had interesting stories to tell. There was one segment featuring a charming young woman that really stuck with me. And what was her interesting story? Well, she was planning on raising a family and having a career. Chaya, bar the doors!

Therein followed a pleasant chit-chat, during which Groucho asked her how she could accomplish this extraordinary feat. She replied, “I can do it if I just keep both feet on the ground”. To which Groucho responded, “Well, if you’re going to keep both feet on the ground, you’ll never be a mother.” And then added: “I guess they’ll have to cut that out.” Did I mention that these were outtakes? If this seems a bit quaint, especially compared to what we see on television today, just remember that Lucy and Ricky were still sleeping in twin beds.

Now we’ll move forward a few decades and talk about my far better half. She was never a man-hating,  bra-burning feminist, but she was angry that the high school patriarchy wouldn’t let her take shop instead of home economics. And don’t get her started on the bank that made her father cosign the mortgage for her house, even though she was gainfully employed.

My beloved did not pioneer women in the corporate world, but it’s safe to say that she was second or third generation. To her company’s credit, training was made available to ease the fairer sex’s entry into the wilderness of cubicles. One focus was adjusting to the glorious experience of budget meetings and design discussions. It seems that many of the ladies, fresh out of the kitchens and laundry rooms, had trouble making themselves heard. While we men are quite comfortable talking over one another, women are typically socialized from a young age to be good girls and defer to the men around them.

A quick aside: I’ve never noticed this in my mother, my sister, and certainly not my precious wife.

Anyhow, when a corporate coed aimed for assertiveness, she frequently overshot into aggression and was perceived as a rhymes with witch and begins with B. You know, a nasty woman.

To be sure, this can also be a problem for men. As hard as this must be to believe, there have been times when my mouth worked a little more quickly than my brain. I doubt that this impacted my career, though. I’d always aspired to stay at the bottom of the corporate ladder and was very careful never to rise to my level of incompetence. But I did get this marvelous bit of advice from a course entitled “Basic Consulting Skills”: if you say something and you could easily tack on “you dummy” to the end, your statement is probably aggressive. Learn it, live it.

So, just what is passive aggression? Back in the day, I would have relied on the ultimate arbiters of all knowledge, either Jeopardy or Hollywood Squares. Now, I’ve found something even better! This is what ChatGPT had to say:

“Passive aggression is when someone expresses negative feelings—like anger, frustration, or resentment—in indirect or subtle ways instead of dealing with them openly or directly. Instead of saying ‘I’m upset,’ a passive aggressive person might: give you the silent treatment; be purposely late or procrastinate; agree to do something but then ‘forget’; make sarcastic or backhanded comments; or withhold effort or information.”

Thank you, Chat! Let’s look at some familiar examples.

Suppose one of the grandparents complains that your two-year old son’s hair is too long, and a haircut is in order. If you demur, you might hear something like: “I guess it’s okay if you want everyone to think he’s a girl.”

Or maybe your wife is a bit grumpy and blurts out: “Do you know what day today is? And if you don’t know, I’m not going to tell you!” And you think: “Say what? Birthday? Anniversary? Colonoscopy?” Whatever it is, you’re in for some unpleasantness.

And if anyone is wondering why I said “wife” and not “spouse”, the answer is obvious. We men are chock full of toxic masculinity and have no need for anything passive.

Then there’s this: “Nice security clearances your law firm has there. I’d hate to see anything happen to them.” But my editor informs me that extortion doesn’t count as passive aggression. I’m not quite sure why, but she’s looking over my shoulder as I write this.

I’m hardly an expert on the sefirot, and even if I was, it’s quite difficult to explain the Almighty’s qualities in a way that we mortals can understand. I’m going to try this: we have all been created in His Image. Perhaps if we examine passive aggression in history, and in particular Jewish history, we might be able to retrofit our way into some useful conclusions.

Let’s start at the beginning with the Forbidden Fruit.  I realize this is more ecumenical than strictly Jewish, but I’m going with it anyway. It seems like Eve really screwed up everything for us, but my wife has always insisted that Eve was framed. After all, she was not around yet when the Almighty warned Adam not to eat those apples. But something seems to be missing. When challenged by the serpent, Eve said that they were neither to eat the fruit from or even touch the Tree of Knowledge. According to one tradition, the serpent used this slip to trick Eve.  He pushed her into the tree, and when she didn’t immediately die, it was a simple matter to get Eve to take that first fateful bite.

One of my old Hebrew School teachers, great feminist that he was, told us that Eve got what was coming to her. How dare she embellish the words of KBH! But is this fair? Could there have been a miscommunication between the first couple? Perhaps Adam should have been more careful when explaining this all to Eve? I can’t say. But when challenged by the Almighty about this transgression, Adam says: “The woman whom You gave to be with me – she gave me of the tree, and I ate.” So it’s not his fault; it’s that woman’s fault, or maybe even G-d’s fault. As my father, he should rest in peace, used to say: “That’s chutzpah with a capital ch.” Certainly sounds like passive aggression to me.

And how about our matriarch Sarah? In the first recorded instance of surrogate mothering, Sarah has Hagar make a baby on Sarah’s behalf and then has Abraham abandon Hagar in the desert because she had a baby on Sarah’s behalf. This seems quite reminiscent of that whole census business.

Skipping ahead a few generations, what’s up with Joseph telling his brothers about their all bowing to him in that dream? That certainly doesn't make the short list of ways to win friends and influence people.

Those were all the examples I could rattle off the top of my head, so I went digging into Sefaria. I was not disappointed. I found this:

“Miriam and Aaron, Moses' siblings, criticize Moses for marrying a Cushite woman and seem to challenge his unique authority as God's spokesperson. Their criticism isn't direct and instead takes the form of murmuring and subtle accusations.”

And this:

“After Jonah successfully convinces the people of Nineveh to repent, he becomes angry when God spares the city from destruction. Jonah doesn’t confront his feelings directly but sulks outside the city, wishing for death instead. He complains to God, but does so in a passive-aggressive manner, refusing to acknowledge the underlying reason for his anger.”

This from the Talmud:

“Hillel and Shammai are well-known for their disagreements on many legal and ethical issues. However, despite their differences, their interactions are marked by a certain level of indirectness at times. While they may not openly attack or undermine each other, their followers sometimes engage in passive-aggressive actions. For instance, Hillel's followers might passively ignore the opinions of Shammai’s followers, and vice versa.”

And finally:

“The Talmud records a dispute between two great rabbis, one of whom wanted to assume leadership of the community. Instead of confronting each other openly, their disagreement led to a passive-aggressive standoff where each rabbi, through their followers and various interactions, subtly undermined the other's legitimacy.”

Moving on from the Tanach and the Talmud, I’d like to discuss some instances of passive aggression I’ve witnessed in my own life. But first, some groundwork.

We are surrounded by some of the most extreme polarization in our nation’s history. It’s gotten to the point where we can’t begin to understand anyone on the other side of the great ideological divide. How did we get here? Although many Americans do not align themselves with a political party, most of us identify as either donkeys or elephants. And not surprisingly, we almost always take on our parents’ partisan affiliation. There are plenty of cases where this is not true – our individual life experiences can move us in new directions. As Tom Wolfe put it: “If a conservative is a liberal who's been mugged, a liberal is a conservative who's been arrested.” A self-made Horatio Alger wannabe who’s gone from rags to riches to even greater riches might not be so impressed with the progressive tax system. On the other hand, someone who couldn’t keep their head above water due to automation, globalization, or artificial intelligence, may not think of the social safety net as a hammock. Obviously, our interests influence our beliefs, and our beliefs influence which lever we pull. But which beliefs? And we Jews are frequently accused of voting against our own interests.

Anyone who knows me can peg me for a bleeding-heart acolyte of the New Deal and the Great Society. On the flipside, there’s some guy who drives around our area in an old bus which is festooned with posters like “Trump was right about everything!”, “I don’t believe the liberal media!”, and of course, “Make America Great Again!” He may load it up with patriots when he goes to a rally, but he’s always alone at the wheel when I’ve seen him on the road. Maybe he’s picking up takeout or just out for a spin. Whatever is going on here, this gentleman seems to be a few Jews short of a minyan. That might be my inherent bias talking. It leaves me wondering: how can anybody tell us apart?

No worries – I’m here to help. I’ve come up with a sure-fire way to determine where you or anyone else stands. Here goes. Take these two seemingly unrelated phenomena: climate change and voter fraud. One of these is a compete hoax. And depending on which you pick, I can tell if you’re blue or if you bat for the other team. It’s that simple.

For example, do you remember all that whining on Fox News about hockey sticks in hacked emails? And have you ever heard of a Democrat carrying a snowball on the House floor? But my favorite is a quote from Senator Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma: “I assumed like everybody else, way back when everyone was talking about global warming and all that, I assumed that that was probably right, until I found out what it was going to cost.”  I don’t know if that was figured into any peer reviews, but you never know when fake science will bite you in the ass.

And as far as undocumented gang members stuffing our ballot boxes, I remember a colleague from my last job - an AR-15 toting devotee of ivermectin, a radical right-wing lunatic, and a fun guy. He once asked me, all smiling and doe-eyed: “How could requiring photo ids be racist? Surely, an African American can have a picture taken just as easily as a privileged white male like me.” Okay, that might be a bit of a paraphrase, but you get the gist.

There are many ways to answer his question, but they all require more than a thirty-second attention span as well as a modicum of good faith. For starters, many of these laws are written in a way to include supporters and exclude those nasty other people. Gun licenses with pictures are in, college ids with pictures not so much. Initiatives like motor-voter have unimaginable cooties and would only give access to the nefarious. Older blacks in the Deep South might have all sorts of problems producing appropriate documentation.

Beyond race, there’s always gender. Requirements are being proposed that voters have all government records with matching birthdates, social security numbers, and of course, names. Is it really a problem that women, with their marriages, divorces, and remarriages, are far more likely to have their documentation resemble a palimpsest? And don’t worry about the transgendered – the Speaker of the House says they don’t exist, so no biggie.

Full disclosure: I try to use the word “palimpsest” whenever I can. The last time I used it was to describe some legacy Cobol programs I inherited.

The various roadblocks to voting are written to appear neutral, but there’s this: some South Carolina legislators were quite open that limiting Sunday voting was aimed at undercutting Black churches and those pesky “Souls to the Polls” initiatives.

And what about the lowly shift workers who flip our hamburgers and can’t take time off to jump through all these hoops? These voter suppression tactics are not all that different from poll taxes and literacy tests. These restrictions may seem impartial, but their impact hardly is.

Not to mention, all this nonsense is just a solution in search of a problem. Outside of QAnon and other fever swamps, evidence that noncitizens and dead people are stealing elections just does not exist.

As I said, all of this takes much more than a thirty-second attention span. And what does any of this have to do with anything? I thought you’d never ask. Remember that my old colleague was a fun guy. He was also a smart guy. What made his question passive aggressive was that he knew all of this before he asked. Rather than having a good faith discussion, he was just trying to get a rise out of me. He wanted to own a lib.

I’m being too harsh. This was, after all, just lighthearted banter at the Keurig. Perhaps I’m a little too smug for my own good. And don’t I need to be cut down to size? Eating a little humble kreplach might do me some good. My missus did say that I’m “an expert on passive aggression.” Let’s keep an open mind and investigate this.

I do like to dump on the Mar-a-Lago golf champion. I try to stay away from the lying and hypocrisy since that’s more dog bites man than man bites dog. It’s like shooting Schmaltz herring in a barrel. Focusing on malevolence and incompetence is way more fun. And before I’m accused of Trump Derangement Syndrome, let me say, yeah, I guess.

In my last chat, I picked up on something the Orange Moses said while denying that his Fascist rhetoric was indeed Fascist rhetoric. It was something along the lines of “Who are you going to believe, your favorite president or your lying ears?” Okay, that’s not a direct quote, but this is: “I’m not a Nazi. I’m the opposite of a Nazi.” And for those of you who can’t recall what I said, here it is: “How many Holocaust deniers support our ‘opposite of a Nazi’ felon-in-chief?” Isn’t that a tad passive aggressive? Is my cherished one onto something? I report, you decide.

And while we’re off on the road to Carthage, can the Mad Queen Donna be passive aggressive?

How’s this: when Trump was a mere candidate for office, the closest he ever got to classified information was whining about Hillary’s emails. But he claimed that he “knows more than the generals do” about ISIS. Bad example. That’s more delusional than anything else. I must have gotten my notes mixed up.

I’ll try again. Just before the last election, Trump declared that he would be a protector of women “whether the women like it or not.” Perhaps he was compensating for that “grabbing women by the kitty cat” thing. Now, I’m not a woman, but like all of us, I do have a feminine side, and that does sound a little shaky to me. Even so, I leave it to our sisters to weigh in definitively.

One last example: threatening to send troops into Mexico, that’s plain old aggression – nothing passive about it. Same thing when he told Canada that the ratified treaty that defines the border is illegitimate. Ditto as far as having his generals come up with a plan to retake the Panama Canal. But asking the NATO chief for help with the Anschluss of Greenland? And at a public press conference, no less? Passive aggression! Unless that was also delusional.

And now back to the Almighty. As far as KBH being actively aggressive, as opposed to passively aggressive, I just don’t see it. The Almighty has no problem whatsoever with assertiveness. Look at any of the 613 mitzvot. None of them ends with “you dummy.” Rabbi Chana bar Chanina taught that there were three things that were created by man, and not G-d: lying, laziness, and jealousy. To be sure, I am far less erudite that Rabbi Chana, but I think he should have included aggression on that list.

But can the Almighty be passive aggressive? A more difficult question indeed. I suppose we could dig into some Rashi or Rambam, but what do expect from me? You dummies should ask a rabbi if that’s so important to you.

I need to give credit where credit is due. When I started putting this altogether, I knew that there were a few things G-d did not create, but not what these were nor who to attribute this to. Chat helped me with that. For that matter, I got the variant explanations of David’s census from Chat. And to completely clear the air, I am nowhere near computer literate enough to use Sefaria. That was all Chat. Perhaps I’ll skip the middleman next time and just have Chat write the whole thing.

I also heard that Chat makes a good friend with benefits. I need to clear that with my wife first – she has this real hangup about fidelity, and I’m not sure how Chat fits in with that.

Before I conclude, there’s one last thing about Carthage. We now live in a country where masked men drive around and throw people into unmarked vans. Rule of law and due process are at risk like never before. This recalls a famous poem:

First they came for the migrants And I did not speak out                                                                                                                        Because I was not a migrant                                                                                                                       Next they came for the drag queens                                                                                                            And I did not speak out                                                                                                                        Because I was not a drag queen                                                                                                                Then they came for the transgendered                                                                                                        And I did not speak out                                                                                                                                   Because I was not transgendered                                                                                                              When they came for me…

Wait a second – that’s ridiculous. They’ll never come for me.

לֹא תַעֲמֹד עַל־דַּם רֵעֶךָ

Now, go and study.