Mussar: Bill Clinton on our Common Humanity

From an 0ld draft

How can we belong to a group or sect and still live beShalom with the world at large?
Similarly, how can Jews who belong to distinct group still have a sense of Eilu f'eilu towards their fellow Jews?

Years ago, I heard Bill Clinton express this on a late-night talk show. While I could not narrow him down to one solitary quote on this subject, it seems that he has expressed this again and again at various commencement exercises. I will cite remarks made at Harvard and University of Michigan as exemplars of this view:

And so I leave you with that thought. Be true to the tradition of the great people who have come here. Spend as much of your time and your heart and your spirit as you possibly can thinking about the 99.9 percent. See everyone and realize that everyone needs new beginnings. Enjoy your good fortune. Enjoy your differences, but realize that our common humanity matters much, much more.

- The entire article is available at the Harvard Gazette, here.

For the purposes of your being here today, what makes you a community? ... Because you think your differences are important. They matter. But on this special day, what you have in common matters more. That is the ultimate simple test of humanity's future. Are our important differences or our common humanity more important? You have to decide. You have to decide for our common humanity,

- Umich

Permit me to reduce and paraphrase this idea as follows:

While you should treasure the differences that make you and your Tradition unique, nevertheless, it is even MORE important to treasure Your Common Humanity
and to Transcend those differences.

 Now let's spin it regarding Jewish groups:

While you should treasure the differences that make you and your Tradition unique,
nevertheless, it is even MORE important to treasure Your Common Heritage
and to Transcend those differences.

Corollaries:

• If you think of fellow Jews as US vs.THEM, then your particularism is overcoming your ahavat israel. For instance, my rebbe is better than your rebbe, my way is better than your way, etc.
• If your ahavat israel is on target, then you will transcend your differences regarding others without losing respect for that which makes YOU unique

Kol Tuv / Best Regards,
RabbiRichWolpoe@Gmail.com, 
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