Mah Zeh!

In a past life, when working with neurodivergent people, I was assigned to one lad who was quite a character. He had a reputation for violent outbursts when he didn’t get what he wanted. But he also had an affectionate, endearing and humorous personality. A mixed bag like the rest of us, but perhaps in more pronounced proportions. I learned from him many things. Recently, upon reflection on one of his idiosyncratic remarks, I was inspired to realise an enlightened application of his wise words.

On occasion, when served a dish he viewed as particularly contemptible, beyond all bounds of tolerability in a civilised society, he would exclaim with such pathos and vehemence in Hebrew: “Mah Zeh!” – what is this? The implication went beyond rejection and leaned towards complete disapproval of the thing itself. In other words, it makes no sense and is unworthy of any consideration. It occurred to me that this phrase, coupled with such an attitude, could accurately describe a host of conflicts in society.

I had been reading in Isaiah about the Prophet being commanded by God to remove his clothing and go around naked for three years as a warning to the Egyptians and Ethiopians that they were soon to fall into the hands of the Assyrians and would be dragged away with their buttocks exposed, to their shame! You could imagine poor Isaiah going about his daily business, heading to the grocery store, and a horrified mother covering her children’s eyes and pointing at him while screaming, “Mah Zeh!” To which Isaiah could only mount a semblance of a defence by motioning heavenwards.

However, the application really comes into lucid force when considering the clashes of contemporary identity politics. The blue-haired, gender-fluid Palestine activist at an anti-Zionist protest, screeching a version of “Mah Zeh!” through the loudspeaker at their genocidal, colonial-settler, apartheid opponents on the other side of the divide. And the mitzvah-enthused Rabbi on the counter-march, who has no comprehension of what could motivate this caricature other than anti-semitism, thinking, “Mah Zeh!”

Another potent illustration is to be found in the realm of religious debate. I once viewed on YouTube an adorable, bold, petite Korean lady preaching the Gospel to an increasingly agitated and baffled public of Orthodox Jews in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem. From her perspective, it was obvious that they should accept Jesus as the Messiah. She was radiating the Korean equivalent of “Mah Zeh!” And simultaneously, the seething crowd articulated a collective “Mah Zeh!” to this intrepid missionary encroaching on their home turf, espousing what they regarded as heresy.

I’m sure that you also have multiple opportunities for “Mah Zeh!” in your own conflicted lives. It is an integral part of the human experience in this confusing world. Perhaps the most profound aspect of “Mah Zeh!” is that it almost invariably operates in both directions. Each party is utterly persuaded that the other has lost their marbles, while remaining blissfully unaware that precisely the same sentiment is being directed back towards them. And perhaps that is something worth considering occasionally before our next inevitable “Mah Zeh!” moment.