One might ask, why do mediators allow participants to kvetch, Yiddish for
complain or vent, during mediation? What good is discussing the past during the
reconciliation process when it comes to shaping a resolution for present and
future? After all, according to Israel philosopher Avishai Margalit:
[T]here is no backward causality. We cannot affect the past; we
cannot undo the past, resurrect the past, or revivify the past. Only
descriptions of the past can be altered, improved, or animated. The past
itself, unlike its descriptions, cannot be brought back either in form or in
essence (Margalit, The Ethics of Memory, 2002, p.66)
So why accommodate into mediation,
an effort at peacemaking, something as unchangeable and subjective as the
kvetch? Why encourage parties to tell opposing versions of the past? The answer
has to do with the need for venting, since identifying needs is a major
function of the mediator’s job. Venting fulfills many needs: the need to have a voice in the relationship,
the need to hear and be heard, and the need to release pent-up emotions. One
need that is not often explored, however, is the need to rebuke.
Rabbi Shimon, son of Lakish, a/k/a
Reish Lakish, was a bandit turned religious scholar who lived in the Galilee in
the third century of the common-era. In his exegeses of the biblical verse “And Abraham reproved Abimelech (Gen 21:25),” Reish
Lakish explained, “reproof leads to peace.” Then he made an even bolder
statement, “Peace unaccompanied by reproof is not peace (Midrash Genesis
Rabbah).”
To understand Reish Lakish, one would first have to understand what he
meant by peace. Reish Lakish lived in 3rd century Palestine under
Roman (Byzantine) occupation. In this context, peace could have meant Pax, the Latin etymological source for
the word, or it could have meant shalom,
the Hebrew word for peace, which has a completely different etymology.
Pax is a cessation of
violence, a truce, whereas shalom is
a return to wholeness or completeness. Pax,
unaccompanied by reproof is still a truce, but shalom unaccompanied by reproof
is definitely not the peace and harmony of wholeness. This raises the
question: when mediators facilitate
discourse between disputants do they seek a truce or shalom?
In my mediation training at the Center for Conflict Resolution in Chicago,
we were taught that the relationship is always an agenda item of the mediation,
but how the relationship of the disputants will look like after mediation is
none of our business. Our interest is the conversation. Mediators often feel
like they have to sit on their hands and bite their tongues to stop themselves
from making suggestions or directing the parties to the agreement they see as
right. “Right”, however, has little to do with mediation. In fact, the dispute,
in many cases, is caused by the subjectivity of righteousness and justice. Each
side has a narrative that highlights their own righteousness and the other
side’s injustice. When disputants choose litigation, they are seeking justice,
which is the determination of righteousness according to the law by an outside
party.
Many biblical
scholars believe that the Holiness Code – found in Leviticus chapter nineteen –
was written well before the text that surrounds it. If true, this is a
significant theory because it means it does not take its authority from God,
but rather is a human commentary on morality.
If viewed as a religious doctrine, it is a form of justice prescribed by
a divine external authority. However, the Holiness Code includes a prescription
for peace that tries to preempt divine justice. “Do not hate your sibling in
your heart. You must certainly rebuke your neighbor (Lev. 19:17).”
Interestingly, the verse ends with what might be an addition to the original
text, “and not bear sin because of him.” Sin is a violation of divine law, but
it is quite possible that the Holiness Code aspired to achieve peace by rebuke
without divine justice.
Wisely, we mediators are professionally instructed that this is not our
mediation: that the participants know their needs and will have to live with
their decisions. We don’t decide whether peace is pax or shalom.
The job of the mediator is humbling, and the mediator understands that real
peace is the construct of the disputing parties. The mediator allows venting
because people get stuck in their own stories and often can’t see beyond them.
When participants in mediation tell their stories, they are not trying to do
backward causality. They are sharing their understandings of the past. This kvetching
is their chance to be heard and to hear, to give voice and flesh out the
substance of the dispute. Most of all, kvetching and rebuke are essential to
peace making because “peace unaccompanied by reproof is not peace,” otherwise
it is just a truce.
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