Rabbi Greg Bank discusses the perils of social media and attacking others through its perceived anonymity.
You have probably written for a newspaper or magazine. A headline you crafted has made it to the front page of a tabloid before. If I had told you this twenty years ago, it could be dismissed but in 2022 most of us write for the front page, if not daily then at least weekly.
You see, a post on social media is nothing less than an article published in the paper. It is public. It is open for all to see and it can attract a large audience. The opinions we share and the stances we take online are not like the private chats we used to have over a cappuccino at our local coffee shop or over a cup tea at home. Those yesteryear methods of communication may have caused gossip to spread but the “r rate” of their infection would be easier to maintain.
Somehow, we think our computer and phone screens are barriers from the public but, as the name of the Microsoft product suggests, our monitors are windows that are wide open, and the world is invited to look inside. What we say online is heard and what we express is recorded. The privacy we give ourselves when posting on social media is misleading. The lack of human response in the room makes us comfortable with a false sense of anonymity. However, we are there and so is the online community. When we give blessings they are amplified tenfold but when we throw out the garbage on others then its stench is potent and is smelt across the globe.
Let me introduce you to Haman’s daughter. This dark figure takes the side-line in the Purim tale in relation to the role of her villainous father. According to the Talmud, she does, however, cause harm by throwing out the garbage.
After seeing a parade around town with a nobleman being honoured on the king’s horse, she wrongly assumes that her father is the honouree, and that Mordechai was subjected to leading the horse around town. From a hidden spot on her balcony, where no one could see her contempt for Mordechai, Haman’s daughter takes out her rage on the Jewish leader. She literally takes the garbage and as they proceed past her concealed outpost, she pours it on the head of the horse’s driver thinking that it was Mordechai. The opposite, however, was true and in an ironic twist she throws the garbage out over her father’s head.
On metaphoric level the Talmud is telling us to take heed. When we attack from a hidden position and try to humiliate others in public, then ultimately, we land up with the garbage on our own heads and on the heads of those that we associate with. When we attack our fellow in a fit of anger, we land up trashing our own values. When we degrade, we end up degraded.
Haman wanted to hurt the Jews physically. His daughter wanted to harm them with public degradation. She was making a statement of what she felt was trash. By exploiting a public display in Shusan she could humiliate someone she had ill feelings for, and her identity could remain hidden.
In the Shushan of today’s social media parade, let us think before trashing others. Ultimately, we will end up covering ourselves in the by-products of our own waste online.