Opinion

Manhood is on the ballot

(RNS) — This final week is all about seizing control of the narrative about masculinity.

(Photo by Szilvia Basso/Unsplash/Creative Commons)
Joshua Hammerman
November 1, 2024

(RNS) — “The Cruelty Is the Point,” proclaimed Atlantic staff writer Adam Serwer’s 2018 essay and subsequent book about the Trump era, and never has it been more apparent than during the waning days of the current campaign, and especially at Sunday’s rally in New York.

While Donald Trump himself often improvises as he spins his “weaves” of hate, the racist, vulgar diatribes spewed by his loyalists at Madison Square Garden were scripted, vetted and teleprompted. In other words: intentional. It added up to a symphony of scuzziness designed to intimidate, overwhelm and dominate, the verbal equivalent of Hulk Hogan ripping off his shirt (or trying to).

On social media, some commented that MAGA’s opponents shouldn’t be baited by the rhetorical histrionics because this verbal garbage was a cleverly laid trap designed to capture the news cycle during this final week. But even if it was, this is a battle worth fighting. If the meanness is the message — and it is — naming that meanness should be the message of Trump’s opponents, because everything else flows from that. Trump’s entire agenda, from abortion to xenophobia, emanates from the lack of empathy at the core of his being. The cruelty isn’t just the point, it’s the veritable DNA of his movement.

If this harshness is a strategy aimed at attracting young men, the MAGA world has a distorted view of masculinity. True manhood is not about dominance, it’s about kindness and taking responsibility. I should know. I wrote the book about being a mensch (or at least one of the books). For Jews, the ideal model of a man is not a musclebound intimidator. Incidentally, although in German the term mensch clearly refers to males and connotes masculinity (or, in the case of Nietzsche, uber-masculinity), for Jews it is not gender-specific — a woman can be a mensch, too.

As I wrote in “Mensch-Marks”:

In the Talmud, Hillel the sage states, “In a world that lacks humanity, be human.” In a world as dehumanizing as ours has become, simply being a kind, honest and loving person, a man or woman of integrity, has become a measure of heroism – and at a time when norms of civility are being routinely quashed, it may be the only measure that matters.

Leo Rosten, who wrote “The Joy of Yiddish,” defines mensch as “someone to admire and emulate, someone of noble character.”

Saul Levine wrote in Psychology Today:

The admirable traits included under the rubric of mensch read like a compendium of what Saints or the Dalai Lama represent to many, or others whom you might think merit that kind of respect. These personality characteristics include decency, wisdom, kindness, honesty, trustworthiness, respect, benevolence, compassion, and altruism.

But one does not need to be a saint just to be a decent, thoughtful person. To be a morally evolved human being means in fact to be fallible and imperfect, but always striving to do better. It means to seek justice but never at the expense of compassion. It means to connect, to family, to one’s people and one’s home. It means to seek transcendence, to see the extraordinary in the ordinary, to love unconditionally, to serve a higher cause and live a life of dignity and integrity.

In other words, to be a man is to be the opposite of what the MSG-MAGA rally promoted. In truth, to be a real man is to be the opposite of Donald Trump.

And that needs to be the message, not only for the final week, but for all time. We can’t allow Americans of all genders to forget it. But especially men.

This election could be an inflection point, not only in the trajectory of U.S. politics, but also in how we perceive masculinity. The choice could not be starker: Hulk Hogan, the rip-off artist who failed to rip it off, or Doug Emhoff, the consummate gentleman, who’s already being called the “First Mensch.”

“I can’t wait to see him help her light the Shabbat candles,” said a DNC delegate from Long Island to The Forward.

Supporters of Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump enter a campaign rally at Madison Square Garden, Sunday, Oct. 27, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)

This may, at long last, be the moment when it becomes fashionable for real men to eat quiche. But even if it’s not, we can’t let the hypermasculine cruelty that we saw last Sunday stand.

It’s like the story of the man outside the gates of Sodom, warning the people to stop their sinning, a legend popularized by Elie Wiesel:


He went on preaching day after day, maybe even picketing. But no one listened. He was not discouraged. He went on preaching for years. Finally, someone asked him, “Rabbi, why do you do that? Don’t you see it is no use?” He said, “I know it is of no use, but I must. And I will tell you why: in the beginning I thought I had to protest and to shout in order to change them. I have given up this hope. Now I know I must picket and scream and shout so that they should not change me.”

And, I would add, if we cultivate civility and integrity with dogged persistence, we will eventually change them, too.

That’s our task now. Highlight the hate and present a new model of love. Masculine love. Years ago, when I circumcised my own son, the first time I had ever performed a bris, it helped me to understand an essential lesson about fatherhood, that the knife transforms the father not into a sculptor, but, paradoxically, into a shield. I wrote, “The breast provides, but the knife protects. It channels a father’s natural anger and jealousy into one controlled cut. He takes off one small part in order to preserve – and love – the whole.”

I appeal to men not to fall for this Übermensch nonsense. America is better than that.

Now is the time to prove it, by taking back the mantle of mensch-hood. This final week is all about seizing control of the narrative about masculinity. If the meanness is the message, so is the menschiness.

(Rabbi Joshua Hammerman is the author of “Mensch-Marks: Life Lessons of a Human Rabbi” and “Embracing Auschwitz: Forging a Vibrant, Life-Affirming Judaism That Takes the Holocaust Seriously.” See more of his writing at his Substack page, “In This Moment.” The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of Religion News Service.)