What Woodchoppers and Songwriters Teach Us About Inclusion (Nitzavim 5779 and Rosh Hashanah 5780)

Woodchoppers are mentioned only once in Torah
UK Women's Land Army (1941)

Torah teaches a powerful lesson about human interaction this week. A lesson that it took researchers a few dozen centuries to figure out. That is, teams comprised of those with diverse perspectives and ideas outperform collections of individuals who all are similar to each other. 

This is especially true when a team is creating something, solving complex problems, or performing complicated tasks. The contemporary research is explained in Scott Page's The Diversity Bonus: How Great Teams Pay Off in the Knowledge Economy. This was one of the books JCHS educators read over this last summer. 

Page writes about the Beatles' John Lennon and Paul McCartney. He presumes most people know that as a songwriting duo they top the "Billboard" list of songwriters with the most number one hits. What most people don't know is that in third place on that list is Martin Sandberg (who writes songs under the name Max Martin). Martin is famous for writing song such as I Want It That Way for Backstreet Boys, DJ Got Us Fallin’ in Love for Usher, and I Kissed a Girl for Katy Perry. 

Lennon, McCartney, and Martin wrote more number one hits than anybody else. What's more, they wrote most of their songs as part of a collaborative team. Not alone. According to Page, teams of three or more songwriters now write a majority of the Billboard 100 hits. (Page, p.162) The productivity and ability of a creative group are improved by including others, collaborating in the exchange of ideas, perspectives, ways of being in the world. That's what he calls the "diversity bonus."

By contrast, in predicting the productivity and ability of a group whose work is routine and simple, say wood chopping, is nothing more than the sum of the abilities of its members. If one logger is able to chop down 10 trees in a day and another is able to chop down 8, then together they can chop down 18. 

Our experience of the modern world reveals something far more complex. As Page explains it, the modern world relies on universities, think tanks, and other complex organizations to design spaceships or aircraft, conduct neuroscience research,  or analyze health-care. For that type of work, there is no single dimension to predict a group's ability. Even the number of ideas that an engineer can generate each hour will not determine the effectiveness of her airplane design. Those types of groups, like songwriting teams, will do their best when the group includes diverse ideas and perspectives, competing frameworks. Page calls this type of diversity cognitive diversity because it's about the difference in their outlooks and ideas, not just superficial aspects of identity. 

Page's formula is that one plus one actually can equal three when each of the  "ones" are different enough from each other. Otherwise, if each of the "ones" is just like the other, then one plus one will equal only two.  

That type of inclusion opens this week's Torah portion. "You stand today, all of you . . . your tribal heads, your elders, and your officials, all the men of Israel, the children, the women, to the stranger in your camp, from the woodchopper to the water drawer” (Deuteronomy 29:9-10.) As my colleague, Rabbi Sue Levi Elwell writes, from this introduction "it is clear that all are included. No one is neglected, overlooked, left out." Everyone from different backgrounds, ways of being in the world, and very likely with different ideas, is included. 

More than that, the strength of the community idealized by Torah depends on our capacity to make our communities inclusive. Young and old. Insiders and outsiders. Women and men. The most highly respected and the least. All are to be included. And everyone in between. 

In the year that begins next week with Rosh Hashanah, the strength of our community depends on our ability to include people who think differently, have different perspectives, and offer different ideas than each of us could do on our own. We need to include others to achieve the bonus that comes from listening to, having empathy for, and honoring difference instead of judging it.

In the weeks and year ahead may we have the strength to withhold judgment about those who are different and the wisdom to value differences in perspective and ideas.