Friday, August 29, 2008

i and thou

I'm considering dropping the capitalization of the letter I in the proper noun that refers to me. I do this with all due respect for one of my mentors, Martin Buber, who illustrated for us the importance of the change from an I – it perspective on the world to an I – thou.
I place Buber in the long chain of rabbis and other great teachers who struggle with the problems of justice and holiness in the world, and I see his wonderful addition to our collective knowledge as a major, tikkun, or repair in our efforts to perfect the world, but I think he missed something essential. I and thou doesn't fulfill the mitsva, “Love your neighbor as thyself.” It is a step in the right direction, but it still puts the I above the thou through the capitalization of the pronoun.
“Love thy neighbor as thyself,” is a complicated commandment. It is the basis of the golden rule, “do onto others as you would have them do onto you,” but I think this is a critical misunderstanding of the mitsva, so did Hillel. According to our great sage, we should not do onto others what is hated by us. This is not an interpretation so much as it is a derivative message, but the way it is stated clearly relates more to the misinterpretation of the golden rule.
“Love your neighbor as thyself,” is about the treatment of others, but it is also about the way we treat ourselves. This I learned from my partner in crime, Rabbi Dov Taylor. Rabbi Taylor and I work at Congregation Solel together and, as the education director, I sit with the rabbi, almost weekly, as we help our thirteen year olds develop their ideas for dvrei Torah, sermons, that will be presented at their bar or bat mitsvas. In one of these sessions, Rabbi Taylor told a student that the essence of this commandment is not in how we treat others but in what it requires of us. In order to love a neighbor, one must love oneself.
I love Rabbi Taylor's interpretation, especially for adolescents who are filled with internal strife about their own self worth. His interpretation also guides my thinking about I and thou. Can I really love my neighbor if I see her as the non-capitalized pronoun positioned next to my very important capitalized I?  i don't think so.
Caroline Winter recently substituted for William Safire in his column about language in the New York Times, and she explained how the capital I "first reared it's dotless head." It comes from Middle English and is a variation of "ic" or "ich," which always reminds me of the Kennedy proclamation, "Ich bin a Berliner." But even that would not be capitalized had it not started his sentence.
The reason the "I" received the capitalization, according to Ms. Winter, is that, "it could not stand alone, uncapitalized as a single letter." This, she implies, was the product of pressure from early manuscripts and typography which, "played a major role in shaping the national character of English speaking countries."
i'm not sure if the great educational philosopher bell hooks had the same intentions as I do when she dropped the capitalization of her two names; bell – which she was given by her parents, and hooks – which, in our patriarchic society, was given by her father. i love the fact that she draws Our attention to these changes, and i wonder what the world would look like if they were not aberrations. 
By dropping the capitalization of my personal pronoun, i hope to draw each and every thou amongst you closer to me, and in doing so maybe i will find partners to create these very necessary precursors to a more perfect world. This is what i believe bell hooks was doing with her name, and it certainly was what Martin Buber was doing with his introduction of I and Thou. i believe there are others out there who will help make these small changes into the necessary catalyst on the path of tikkun olam, repairing our world.

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