There's Nothing New...

(Note: this piece was adapted from a lecture I’ve been prepping for 11 years.)

In the words of Kohelet:

“That which hath been is that which shall be, And that which hath been done is that which shall be done; And there is nothing new under the sun.”

Kohelet, considered a penname for King Shlomo, wrote this early in his scroll, which is read on Sukkot. The verse stands out because it hasn’t aged a day; after all, humans don’t invent, they reinvent. Maimonides, one of Judaism’s great philosophers, allegedly predicted airplanes during Islam’s Golden Age, calling them “iron birds”. If that happened in the 12th Century, it’s safe to say that “nothing new under the sun” is accurate. I’ve yet to see a good counterargument.

This doesn’t have to stop at inventions. It can apply to ideas too, particularly controversies. We’re plugged into the world constantly, and sooner or later its scandals and hot-button issues flock to us. I’ve seen it with geopolitics, but even minor debates have blown up thanks to the fascination people, particularly Jews, have with taboo subjects. This is a good springboard for me using four such examples. They’re weird, perhaps even esoteric, but I’ve wanted to discuss this for over 10 years. Bear with me.

    

The first one extends back to the early months of 2015. We all remember the dress scandal, right? What colour was the dress? Was it blue and black, or white and gold? The debate raged for months! However, it highlighted how something asinine could generate conversation about perception.

I won’t delve into the later scandal surrounding the owner’s relationship with her husband, as that’s not relevant. However, I want state that I never cared about the dress. Like the “Yanny VS Laurel” debate, it was wasted energy. It was a dress! Who cares what colour it was? Will it cure world hunger, or reverse climate change?

However, this debate actually got me started on this drasha, as I think it connects to a similar case about perception: tzara’at. Tzara’at, or “leprosy”, was a Biblical punishment caused by lashon hara, or speaking falsely about others. The disease was highly-contagious and covered the skin, forcing the afflicted to isolate. However, because it was difficult to differentiate from other skin diseases, it was up to the Kohen Gadol, or High Priest, to examine it and determine if it was tzara’at. As Vayikra 13:1-3 states:

“GOD spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying: When a person has on their skin a swelling, a rash, or a discoloration, and it develops into a scaly affection on their skin, it shall be reported to Aaron the priest or to one of his sons, the priests. The priest shall examine the affection on the skin: if hair in the affected patch has turned white and the affection appears to be deeper than the skin, it is a leprous affection; when the priest sees it, he shall pronounce the person impure.”

The implication here is that the Kohen Gadol is announcing “This person is contagious, stay away!” in order to protect everyone else. But why is it the Kohen Gadol’s responsibility? Isn’t it obvious that the person looks afflicted? Perhaps it’s because of perception issues, lest there be debate and everything gets worse. And now we see how this ties into the dress, if loosely.

  

Next, there’s GamerGate and Vivian James. I’ve covered this before, but for those unfamiliar, here’s a rundown:

Back in the Summer of 2014, a rumour circulated around the internet that game designer Zoë Quinn had slept with various video game reviewers to court favour for Depression Quest. Started by her ex-boyfriend, it took root in forums like 4chan and gained the attention of Adam Baldwin, who coined “GamerGate” to suggest a conspiracy ala President Nixon’s Watergate Scandal. Despite the pretense that this was about “ethics in game’s journalism”, a growing list of women, including Brianna Wu and Anita Sarkeesian, became targets of harassment and doxing.

Around this time, a group known as TFYC donated a massive sum to have a character created. Named “Vivian James”, a pun on “vidya games”, she quickly became GamerGate’s mascot. Despite the copious amounts of inappropriate fan art, due to her being a teenager, the question of whether or not a fictional avatar can be a spokesperson for a movement, especially when she had no agency, took centre stage. Was it appropriate to use a fake character as a mouthpiece?

I try not to dwell on GamerGate. I lost a lot of friends over it, some of whom I’d known for many years. However, the part that miffs me to this day is that Vivian James was being exploited by toxic gamers. And she was a teenager, one without any agency. Assuming she was real at all, where was her perspective? Was it fair to misuse her?

Such parallels are found, in my mind, in a section of The Mishneh Torah pertaining to divorce, particularly the Gett:

“When a man whom the law requires to be compelled to divorce his wife does not desire to divorce her, the court should have him beaten until he consents, at which time they should have a get written. The get is acceptable. This applies at all times and in all places. Similarly, if gentiles beat him while telling him: "Do what the Jews are telling you to do," and the Jews have the gentiles apply pressure on him until [he consents] to divorce his wife, the divorce is acceptable. If, however, the gentiles compel him to write [a get] on their own initiative…”

Honestly, the Gett is one the hardest parts of Judaism to swallow. Not because it isn’t necessary, especially since men aren’t trustworthy historically, but because withholding it causes the wife unnecessary pain. It’s boorish, and yet it happens so frequently! Not giving a Gett also creates an agunah, or a chained woman. And if this agunah ends up pregnant from another man, her child is a mamzer, a bastard whose lineage is cursed for 10 generations! That’s not something any sane person wants.

Ignoring how many modern marriages have civil prenups that automatically enforce Getts, I can’t help feeling for the woman here. After all, she’s being abused! And she’s given little-to-no agency! I also can’t help wondering what’d happen had women had an active role in formulating the Halacha, but it’s too late to fix that. Perhaps that’s why women need to be listened to…

We all remember the riots in Ferguson, Missouri. They weren’t that long ago, and they shed light on systemic abuse from law enforcement. Unfortunately, the situation hasn’t gotten much better. All the riots did was bring attention to how racist police officers can be, as well as how little accountability they have. ACAB, as they say.

Even if you don’t mind cops, the reality is that they’re human beings. And like any humans with authority, they’re flawed. They make mistakes, they screw up, and sometimes their mistakes are deadly. After all, if politicians are recognized as shady, why are police exempt from that? As Alan Moore once wrote, “Who watches The Watchmen?”.

Perhaps the weirdest ripple effect involved a cop who was dismissed for a weird reason. As The Anime Herald wrote on May 14th, 2015:

“Last night, Florida’s WFTV News reported that an officer in the Casselberry Police Department. Police officer Matthew Blunt was suspended for one shift (10 hours) without pay, after sending an off-color text message to his supervisor.”

This is putting it lightly. Blunt, apparently, had been excited about winning the local Powerball lottery, and he wanted some of the money. It wasn’t a lot of money-$32 USD-but even a sushi dinner at a Kosher restaurant is something. However, Blunt using an anime image with a racial epithet was, apparently, going too far, and he was suspended. Interesting.

When Blunt’s story went viral, a debate over whether or not his suspension was justified tagged along. The most-troubling question was “Why this?”. I’m not defending Blunt, he should’ve known better, but between the profiling, beatings and, yes, even shootings police have been guilty of, being suspended over a racist meme is suspect. It begs the question of what police can get away with.

Judaism isn’t a stranger to critiquing authority figures. King David was punished by God for seducing a married woman, having her husband killed and impregnating her. Yet the one passage that sums up this best involves Yoav ben Tsuriah. Yoav was David’s nephew, and he was his highest-ranking general. Nepotism aside, he was a formidable strategist, serving David well. But his hamartia was a bad case of wounded pride. He routinely disobeyed protocol to settle personal scores, including the tragic death of David’s son, Avshalom, after his hair got caught in a thicket. David never forgave him, and it didn’t get any easier once Shlomo took over:

“When the news reached Joab, he fled to the Tent of GOD and grasped the horns of the altar—for Joab had sided with Adonijah, though he had not sided with Absalom.

King Solomon was told that Joab had fled to the Tent of GOD and that he was there by the altar; so Solomon sent Benaiah son of Jehoiada, saying, “Go and strike him down.”

Benaiah went to the Tent of GOD and said to him, “Thus said the king: Come out!” “No!” he replied; “I will die here.” Benaiah reported back to the king that Joab had answered thus and thus, and the king said, “Do just as he said; strike him down and bury him, and remove guilt from me and my father’s house for the blood of the innocent that Joab has shed.

Thus GOD will bring his blood guilt down upon his own head, because, unbeknown to my father, he struck down with the sword two men more righteous and honorable than he—Abner son of Ner, the army commander of Israel, and Amasa son of Jether, the army commander of Judah.

May the guilt for their blood come down upon the head of Joab and his descendants forever, and may good fortune from GOD be granted forever to David and his descendants, his house and his throne.

(Melachim II, 28-33.)

Clearly, Yoav staked his claim with the wrong person, which cost him his life!

The final example I wish to discuss involves Tilly Norwood, whom I’ve also written about. Tilly Norwood is an A.I. actress created by Xicoia, a division of Particle6 Group, in 2025. Her creator, Eline Van Der Velden, desired to experiment with her. Despite never intending for her to replace real actors, Norwood created an uproar in Hollywood and the online world, with people accusing her of talent poaching and performance theft. After all, how can her acting be genuine?

Hollywood has blacklisted Norwood, yet her presence touches on a bigger issue surrounding A.I. It might be a hot commodity nowadays, but is its presence warranted? And is it a tool for change, or merely a fad? There’s plenty that can be said, but I won’t bore you. Instead, I’ll keep my thoughts brief: I’m not a fan. At all. In fact, I try to not rely on it, even at the expense of errors or misinformation. It can’t match up to human ingenuity on a good day.

I had to think hard on what would be a good compliment Tilly Norwood, but I settled on this story about Maimonides:

“There is a beautiful story of a disagreement that Maimonides had with a philosopher. The philosopher claimed that he could change a cat and make him act like a person. Maimonides said this was impossible. They agreed to make a contest. When the day of the contest came, the philosopher brought a cat that he had trained to be a waiter. The cat served an entire meal, and the audience was amazed. Just as they stared and assumed that Maimonides had been proven wrong, Maimonides took out a container from his pocket. He opened it up and a mouse ran by. The cat saw the mouse, dropped the tray of dishes that he was holding, breaking them all, and ran after the mouse. Maimonides was proven right, and everyone agreed that no matter what, a cat is a cat. As much as he may be trained to act in a particular way, he is still inherently a cat and must be treated as such.”

Pretty straightforward, right? Maimonides disagrees that animals can transcend their nature, he’s supposedly proven wrong, and then he games the system and ends up being right. The obvious lesson is to not second-guess a rationalist, which Maimonides was, but further research revealed that this might not be his story. Yeah, it’s a midrash, a parable meant to teach a lesson. It’s also a remix of an Aesop’s fable! You ready for this?

“The Cat and Venus

A CAT fell in love with a handsome young man, and entreated Venus to change her into the form of a woman. Venus consented to her request and transformed her into a beautiful damsel, so that the youth saw her and loved her, and took her home as his bride. While the two were reclining in their chamber, Venus wishing to discover if the Cat in her change of shape had also altered her habits of life, let down a mouse in the middle of the room. The Cat, quite forgetting her present condition, started up from the couch and pursued the mouse, wishing to eat it. Venus was much disappointed and again caused her to return to her former shape.

Nature exceeds nurture.”

Big thanks to George Flyer Townsend for translating this. However, that Aesop had covered this prior shows that even Jewish midrashim are responses to previous texts. That’s not necessarily bad. It simply shows that Judaism was self-aware, using prior stories as springboards. You simply can’t deny that.

But this all goes back to that Kohelet verse. Judaism doesn’t exist in a vacuum, as much as we sometimes want it to. Because Jews are a byproduct of the world. This extends to how we perceive and digest media. And if these controversies are indication, the issues present, such as that of perception, aren’t new either. Our sages and texts were grappling with this, and they too were influenced by the world around them. We should definitely remember and appreciate that as we grapple with contemporary issues.