Grammatically Correct
Who is he real realist? The pessimist or the optimist? Both, when combined! We believe that the future will be good, but we must act as if it wouldn’t happen without our efforts.
Double Negative
In the English language, a double negative is a positive. In Russian (and Yiddish as well) a double negative is a negative. When an English teacher tried to impart this grammatical lesson to a student, the teacher added that there is no language in which a double positive becomes a negative. One student pipes us and says: “yeah, right…”
In the week before Tisha B’Av, when we were struck with repeated negatives (destruction of two Temples, destruction of Beitar, expulsion from Spain in 1492, just to name a few), this lesson in grammar comes in handy.
There are three attitudes we can take in our lives: a) The cynical approach, b) the pessimistic/realist approach or, c) the spiritual/optimistic approach.
The Cynic
For the cynic, no matter how many positives are stacked up, he will always find a way of minimizing their true impact and maximize and often grossly exaggerate the potential for negative.
Our generation has witnessed unprecedented and repeated good. From medical miracles to the survival and growth of Israel, from the proliferation of knowledge to the infinite acts of goodness and kindness in recent years, our lives have been enriched with infinite G-dly blessing.
Yet, the cynic has a way of dampening these positives by accentuating the negatives that still persist.
Another cynical approach is to minimize one’s appreciation for the many good things precisely because these positives are so frequent they have become commonplace. When so much good occurs in our lives, rather than generating great feelings of elation, the cynic will dismiss them by saying, “Big deal, I’ve had this, fill in the blank, thing, so many times, it means very little to me.”
The “Realist”
We can also follow the “realist” approach to life—the “Russian model”—where a double negative is indeed a negative. The realist who sees only darkness cannot cope with life without doing something to drown out the misery. People, with this so-called realistic approach to life have to distract themselves from their misery. In Russia they may use Vodka to accomplish this, but in the United States we entertain ourselves out of our negative perception of reality to keep our sanity.
The Optimist
And then there is the third approach—the grammatically correct approach— in which we can take two negatives and turn them into a positive.
Fortunate for the Jewish nation, we have survived this long, notwithstanding all of the repeated negatives, because we had an uncanny ability to see things in their true light. We were able to see through the negatives and to see the positive emerging from and actually embedded within the negative.
Hide and Seek
The following parable illustrates the point. A father was once playing hide-and-seek with his children. When the father hid in a poor hiding place and his children were able to find him quickly they continued to play, receiving great satisfaction from their ability to easily find their father. However, when the father used a really good hiding place and his children could not find him, the two children reacted differently.
One child gave up. He lost interest in the game. The second child, however, got even more excited about the game because of the new challenge it presented to him.
He knew that his father must be there.
When G-d gave us the doubled negatives on Tisha B’Av, he was playing hide-and-seek, as it were. His apparent abandonment of the Jewish people—his children— generated two reactions. Some of us took their inability to find G-d within the suffering and misery as a sign that G-d was no longer with them.
They gave up searching. To be sure, we ought not sit in judgment of these individuals, particularly considering it was they who went through the suffering, and it was certainly no game for them.
Those Who Never Gave Up.
However, there were always significant numbers of Jews who did not stop believing and searching. They must have realized that G-d must be here and that their inability to find Him was an indication that He was giving us a greater challenge.
After confronting the “double adversity,” there were many Jews who would say to G-d: “G-d, in spite of your efforts to make me despair and forsake my connection to you, I will remain loyal. I will never give up looking for Your radiant face and remain hopeful that you will quickly bring an end to all of our—and the entire world’s suffering— imminently!” Some actually said these, or very similar, words. Most others simply expressed the very same sentiment in their unrelenting faith in the coming of Moshiach, or in the way they so admirably maintained their connection to Judaism and the Jewish people.
This is what we mean when we say that two negatives become a positive. When we see how the negatives are a test and discover the presence of G-d hiding within the disguise, we actually have the power to generate goodness and happiness in the most literal sense of these words.
And while we may fast and mourn the suffering of the past, beginning with the destruction of our two Temples, deep down we know that these tragedies are intended for us to overcome and to have them ultimately transformed into double positives. We accomplish this by never losing hope and faith in the glorious future G-d will bring, imminently!
From the book Light from the Future: Parshas Devarim by Rabbi Heschel Greenberg, published by the Jewish Discovery Center.
