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Monday, July 06, 2009
The Eulogy You Won’t Hear for Michael Jackson
When he witnessed the explosion of the atomic bomb he had worked so hard to develop, Robert Oppenheimer famously quoted from the Bhagavad-Gita, “I am become death, destroyer of worlds.”
Anyone who witnessed the tragic implosion of the life of Michael Jackson and its circus aftermath over the last week might amend the saying to read, “I am fame, destroyer of lives.” From the media infatuation with every prurient detail of the aftermath of his death one would think that it was a cartoon character, a caricature of a real man, that had died rather than an actual person. Michael always had a mutually exploitive relationship with the American people. He used us to feed his constant need for attention and we used him to feed our constant need for entertainment. Still, it would have been hard to believe that Michael’s story could be more bizarre in death than in life. But from the mother of Michael’s two older children ‘deciding’ whether or not she wants her kids to Joe Jackson talking up his new record label as his son’s body lies unburied to nurses coming forward to claim that Michael asked them to inject him with quantities of painkillers that would have felled a water buffalo, clearly the impossible has been achieved. But is there any adult here to bring proper sobriety to the moment, to actually remind us that a human being has died, that a tormented soul finally lost his battle with life, and that three innocent children have been orphaned?
And just when you thought this theater of the absurd had reached its zenith, now comes the news that Michael’s memorial service will take place at a basketball arena complete with twelve thousand fans and that the Ringling Brothers Circus will be occupying the same arena the very next day.
Did noone say to themselves that what actually destroyed Michael’s life and what brought such untold misery to the Jackson family as a whole was an inability to cope with superstardom and that perhaps something might be learned from Michael’s untimely passing by sending him off in a quiet, dignified, truly religious ceremony that focused on the quiet acts of kindness he performed rather than the albums he sold?
Here, then, is the eulogy that should be given to bring redemption to Michael’s life.
‘The death of Michael Joseph Jackson is not just the personal tragedy of a man who died young. Nor does it solely represent a colossal waste of life and talent. Rather it is, above all else, an American tragedy. For whether we wish to acknowledge it or not, our obsession with Michael Jackson, our infatuation with every peculiar detail of his life, stems from the fact that he represents a microcosm of America.
‘It has long been fashionable to caricature Michael as an oddball, as a freak. But how different were his peculiarities to our own?
‘Michael’s dream was to be famous so that he would be loved. Having been forced into performing as a young boy, he never knew a time when affection was a free gift. Rather, attention, the poor substitute for love with which he made due, was something that he had to earn from the age of five. Hence, his obsession with being famous and his lifelong fear of being forgotten by the crowds. And if that meant purposefully doing strange things in order to sustain the public’s interest, he would pay that price too because he could not live without his drug of choice, fame. But how different is that from the rest of us, living as we do in an age of reality TV where washing our dirty laundry in public makes us into celebrities and competing on American Idol promises us that we can be the next Michael Jackson.
‘Of course, there was Michael’s constant plastic surgery. How much could one man so hate himself, we asked, that he is prepared to disfigure his face utterly? But the same question could easily be asked of millions of Americans, especially women, who live with extremely poor body image, who starve their bodies and undergo extreme cosmetic procedures – including sticking a needle in their forehead – to rediscover lost beauty and youth.
‘Yes, there was Michael’s troubled soul. Could a man so blessed with fame and fortune, we wondered, really be so miserable that he had to numb his pain with a syringe of Demerol? And yet, my friends, America is the richest country in the world with the highest standard of living. Still, we consume three quarters of the earth’s anti-depressants and one out of three Americans is on an anti-anxiety medication.
‘As far as Michael’s materialism and decadence, particularly when we watched him on TV spending millions of dollars on useless baubles, is it really all that different to the rest of us who have maxed our credit cards buying junk we don’t need to compensate for an insatiable inner emptiness?
‘There were also Michael’s broken relationships. Two divorces, estrangement from brothers and sisters, and extremely questionable and perhaps even criminal sexual activities. Yes, few of us, fortunately, are guilty of such crimes. But the huge success of ‘barely legal’ pornographic websites, ‘Girls Gone Wild’ videos, and the sexualization of teens like Miley Cyrus should perhaps have us question the adolescent nature of our own sexual interests. As for broken relationships, Time magazine just reported that of every one hundred marriages, fifty divorce, twenty-five stay together unhappily, and only twenty-five are happy.
‘In sum, my friends, we are fixated on Michael Jackson because he was always just a very extreme version of ourselves and compacted into his short life a supercharged version of all the strangeness and profligacy of a culture which puts attention before love, fans before family, body before spirit, medical sedation before true inner peace, and material indulgence before spiritual enlightenment. Perhaps the only reason the rest of us did not become as strange or as broken as Michael was that we simply lacked the talent and the resources to do so.
‘And therein lies a profound morality lesson. Where Michael goes, the rest of us go. Our obsession with Michael was always selfish. It was a focus on where we ourselves were headed, where our culture and our interests were leading us.
‘And now we have the power to take a senseless tragedy and given it meaning by learning from the heartbreaking demise of a once-great legend that life is not about fame and fortune but rather about G-d, family, community, and good deeds.
‘Rest in peace, Michael. May you find in death the serenity you never had in life and may they judge you more charitably in heaven that we did here on earth.’
Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, who served as Michael Jackson’s Rabbi for two years, is the founder of This World: The Values Network. His upcoming book is ‘The Blessing of Enough.’ http://www.shmuley.com
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Friday, July 24, 2009
sherry
Hello rabbi. I wasn’t a follower of Michael Jackson music but I was quite in shock when I heard of his death. My heart and prayers go for his children and his immediate family. I agree with you Michael was a very lost person. I can understand alot of what he did because of the parents he had. Instead of the father, Joe, earning the living for the family he pimped his own children to do it and I’m angry with his mom because I don’t think she did anything to stop him. Michael could of had the best psychiatrists or therapists to help him work though his trama, emotional deep wounds of not being able to be a child, teenager and even an adult. I can understand him medicating the terrible vaccum he had inside of him but somewhere along the line you hope that he would of received professional help. It is obvious Michael had alot of issues regarding women especially since he had a pornography addiction maybe sexually addiction also. I’ll bet that Joe or his mom ever asked Michael to please forgive them for what they did to him. He was never given any direction for his life. God did bring alot of people into his life to help him see to try to get him to turn around I wished he would of listened. I thought Michael made his own business decision that he ran the show but obviously that is not true. He should of told the manager screw you I’m going to spend my time with my children and get my life back together. I wondered if Michael deep down had a death wish because he had to of been so physically, mentally and emotionally tired. I think thats why he liked just being put out at night. I didn’t watch the memorial service because I didn’t feel it honor Michael. I saw where his daughter, Paris spoke about her daddy and I thought you know what that should of stopped everything right there and everybody just grieved for her and her daddy. I know it shook me to my core. The reason I said that I could understand somewhat of how Michael felt is because I came from an alcoholic home. My father was a very mean angry drunk and mom was the enabler and I was the youngest of three girls. I grew up in great fear, tremendous lonliness that plagued me for decades, powerless, helpless. My parents never gave me love, respect, direction, help, security, etc. I had a huge hole inside of me that the wind just blew through. Our home was fights, ugly words, fear, chaos, extremes, unpredictability, meanness, darkness. I would listen through the heat vent when dad came home drunk just in case I needed to protect mom even though I did not know what that would be. I wished I could of had role modeled for me what a good home and a happy marriage is. I didn’t know how to have a relationship with men and so much more that I was emotionally affected by. It has taken many years of counseling, reading books, prayer, support groups to understand what it takes to have these things. It is sad because you cannot make people get well. It is there choice to stay sick or get well and that’s what bothers me the most about Michael’s death is the if only. If only he would of sought out professional help and made a commitment to get off the drugs and deal with his pain and also to do if for his children. He had to of known deep down that he could not continue to do this to his body. I hope Michael is in Glory. Only HaShem and Michael know that. Just think to be in the presence of God no more struggles, deep holes, sadness, drugs, demands, pressures, wanting to be a child your whole life but you have to grow up somewhere along the line while keeping the childlike qualties also. Just think eternal peace, bliss, joy unspeakable joy there nothing negative there. Only GOOD!!!!!!!!!
So, yes I am still struggling with his death with the if onlys but I pray that HaShem will guide and direct his children through Katherine and the nanny. Thanks for letting me share my thoughts on Michael death.I wondered how Dr. Murray likes the money he was paid to administer these drugs? There goes his career, his respectability, his reputation, character and so forth. How could he of been so stupid to throw it all away.
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Friday, September 11, 2009
jesterka
Many greatings from Prag - Europe.
My thoughts on this, dear rabbi,
Spiritual advisors should be always the ones who keep most quiet about personal information intrusted to them - you called yourself MJ`s rabbi as well as friend - MJ was always most afraid of being exploited, afraid that anythig personal he shared with people could be misused - and see….
In my church - catholic - it would be unacceptable for a priest to leak information that was gained during a process of spiritual guidance of a client - even if that was a friend at the same time, even if the information was not harmfull or sensational - YOU ARE JUST SUPPOSED TO KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT.
YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF YOURSELF, RABBI.
Sadly, rabbi, you are the one who is confused on this matter. You are well aware of some vices in our society - like the role the media plays in shaping - or rather disfiguring - reality, the celebrity and its substitutional role in peoples lives etc. And you are right.
BUT - you are no better than the rest of us. What you SHOULD HAVE DONE is KEEP QUIET ABOUT MJ`s PERSONAL ISSUES, that would be the only fair way to stay true to your feelings about the celebrity frenzy - and that is the way TRU CLOSE FRIENDS of MJ decided to handle his death. I have not seen Elisabeth Taylor, Diana Ross, Liza Minelli, Lisa Marie or Janet Jackson spill the beans.
You have a desire to be heard and make a name of yourself too - doing TV-shows, talking to the world via media etc. And you have no right to criticize others for wanting to be heard or acnoladged for what they do.
As a matter of fact - MJ DID NOT BECOME CELEBRITY in the same way as PARIS HILTON and her like,
HE BECAME CELEBRITY BECAUSE HE HAD THE MOST MAGICAL CHARISMA ON STAGE THE WORLD HAS EVER SEEN, BECAUSE HE WAS AN EXCePTIONALLY GIFTED DANCER AND SINGER, A HARD WORKER, AND HAD A VERY SWEET SPIRIT THAT COULD BE FELT IN HIS VOICE to top it all of.
That he was tastelessly exploited by media, sued hundreds of times by greedy people, deceived by almost everybody, particularly by people in his bussiness, that he was mobbed wherever he went etc. etc. - EVEN IF HE WANTED THE FAME - that does not mean that he was responsible for the nasty behaviour he had to deal with. Provoking a reaction does not make us responsible for the reaction itself - he just was able to bring out the worst in people with his uniqness - including You, rabbi - you could not resist sharing your story about this one of a kind person with the world.
MJ did not ask for the publicity about his personal matters. HE BECAME FAMOUS FOR HIS ART, his work, and that should be descussed - not his tormented soul.
One more thing. I AM APPALED BY THE WAY YOU COMMENT ON THE CRIMINAL CHARGES THAT WERE BROUGHT AGAINST MJ. HE WAS AQUITTED IN ONE OF THE MOST EXPESIVE, MOST THOROUGH CRIMINAL TRIALS IN HISTORY. Even if you knew from personal conversations with him as his spiritual advisor about some sins he commited - there is no way you disclose such things in your blog. NO WAY. How dare you write - he may have been guilty of serious crimes - it is truly disgusting and I would not trust you as a rabbi one bit after reading what you wrote.
SHAME ON YOU RABBI SHMULEY, SHAME ON YOU.Regards
Zuzana
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Wednesday, September 23, 2009
krystalroz
““Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven: / Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again.”
Yea..I think the Rabbi may be in a bit of trouble. -
Thursday, September 24, 2009
cookie
“Two divorces, estrangement from brothers and sisters, and extremely questionable and perhaps even criminal sexual activities.”
And you wonder why you were not invited to give a eulogy.
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