Rischa Daraiisa-31-Season Finale-The RCA only includes the Master's Voice-Can a Rabbinical Organization sponsor a debate on Black Lives Matter without a person of color represented?
Season 1, Ep. 31
In the last episode before a summer break,the Rabbis debate over debates.
Rabbi Bechhofer believes that it is a mistake for the RCA to sponsor a "debate lishem shamayim" of how our community should relate to the Black Lives Matter movement.
Bechhofer cogently describes why responses like "all lives matter" remains deeply offensive even to blacks who don't necessarily align themselves with the movement.
Having a white man assume the "critical" position and another white man respond from the "sympathetic" side,can only result in a non edifying experience,along with a possible public relations debacle.
Bechhofer notes that a debate by its very nature doesn't result in admission,it is staged to produce a winner,an idea he feels is antithetical to the Torah.
Rabbi Kivelevitz responds with a brief examination of works of art,ancient dialogues,and classic medieval Rabbinic literature that served as a model for Rav Moshe Chaim Luzzatto's most effective works.
These were all written in the form of a "vikuach" - a way to capture interest and bring home issues in a dramatic entertaining way,and lead to a thoughtful nuanced reaction by the leader/listener.
Although Kivelevitz admits it would have been more prudent to have had an African-American involvement,he feels that the RCA deserve credit for tackling the issue while other Torah agencies are silent or openly hostile.
While the speakers and moderator come from a white modern-Orthodox suburban world,Kivelevitz feels that the exercise is comparable to the experiment Jane Elliot administered to her young students in the wake of Dr.Martin Luther King's assassination. The all white Iowa school children were effected by "one of their own" with the aggressive first step out towards racial harmony in the"Blue Eyes/Brown Eyes Exercise."
The pair agree over the dearth of solid oratory in the Rabbinic world and both give a thumbs up to the Denzel Washington vehicle-"The Great Debaters".
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