Who Gets to See the Whole Room?
by Ed Reither
This week, I read an article in the London Review of Books titled “Who is a Jew?” by Alexander Bevilacqua. It explored, with delicate nuance and historical depth, the experience of the Conversos—the Jews of medieval Iberia who, under pressure and threat, converted to Christianity but often continued to live with a shadowed or concealed sense of Jewish identity. The question, Bevilacqua reminded me, was not just religous and theological. It was legal, political, biological, social. And always, as this is the way I think, historical.
The article stayed with me not just because of its historical insight, but because it touched a deeper question—one that had quietly confounded me since childhood. Growing up in New York, identity was often flattened into a kind of civic unity: “I’m a New Yorker.” It was a melting pot, sure—but behind closed doors, people still held tightly to their particular identities: Jewish, Italian, Irish, Christian, secular, religious, and more. Only later, as life grew more complex, did new questions begin to arise in me: What does it really mean to be someone—a New Yorker, an American, a Jew, a Christian? And more fundamentally: From where do we see ourselves?
In 2012, I spent three months in India. Almost immediately upon arrival, I began to realize how deeply my internal landscape—my entire way of seeing the world—had been shaped by living within the United States. It wasn’t just that the food, air, language, and rhythms of daily life in India were different (and they were, in every imaginable way). It was that my whole sense of “the world” and the “news” about it had been filtered through a particular point of view—one I had absorbed and assumed without even realizing it. That view carried with it a subtle sense of “rightness,” a feeling of objectivity. Even when I thought I was consuming “global” news, online or otherwise, I could see now how thoroughly it remained ethnocentric—still orbiting around an American center of gravity.
It was as if I had been standing in a room my whole life, confidently describing what I saw—only to discover that someone else had been in that same room all along, standing in a completely different place, facing the opposite direction, describing things I had never seen. Then something unexpected began to reveal itself: I was now seeing America from the outside—almost upside down. Not just America, but my entire point of view had flipped. What once felt natural, obvious, and true now seemed unfamiliar, even inverted. At first, it was unsettling—even frightening. But gradually, it became clarifying. The disorientation gave way to insight.
I’ve since come to think of this as a kind of condition we all live in. We each look at the world through a particular aperture—shaped by culture, trauma, religion, language, bloodline—and then mistake that narrow field of vision for the whole. Sometimes we argue about whose view is correct. Other times we build whole civilizations, or wage wars, trying to protect it.
But what if none of us see the whole room? What if truth—identity, self—is something we can only begin to approach by turning toward one another, not to debate, but to see?
Reading Bevilacqua’s piece about the Conversos reminded me how deeply our identities are shaped not only by who we think we are, but by the systems—governments, churches, blood laws, academic definitions—that tell us what we are allowed to be. A Jew who converts under pressure becomes a Christian, legally. But are they no longer Jewish? Rabbinic law, political necessity, family memory, and institutional suspicion all give conflicting answers. There is no simple truth here—only a field of tension.
And so I began to wonder: Is the question “Who is a Jew?” really just a stand-in for a deeper, more universal human question: Who am I beneath the stories I’ve inherited?
Here’s the metaphor I keep returning to:
If we don’t turn and face one another—if we remain locked in our inherited positions—we end up viewing the world through the knot of our own contractions, peering out through the keyhole of ego and mistaking that narrow, microscopic—or telescopic—view for the whole sky.
I don’t offer this as a truth—just an observation from my own life. I’ve spent years watching myself try to hold onto fixed identities. And I’ve also, at times, tasted what it feels like to loosen that knot—to stand in a circle with others, make an about-face, and share stories and points of view, eye to eye, heart to heart. And thankfully, there have been moments—though not always—when someone else had the courage and willingness to do the same.
There’s a kind of seeing that happens in those moments—not through anything particularly said or even consciously understood. Yes, we all have things to express—stories, wounds, affections, opinions—but what begins to emerge, more than anything, is a presence. A presence of connectedness that is felt, not spoken; yet somehow understood. What you—or I—begin to realize is that what seems to divide us is often the very doorway through which we connect. I know that sounds paradoxical, but it’s true. It’s not something anyone has to prove; it’s something you have to feel.
Maybe that’s all I’m really suggesting: that we need more circles. That we need fewer answers and more shared questions. And that the most urgent news isn’t what flashes across our screens—for that’s shaped by the ancient news of yesterday, by the fears, doubts, and scars of the heart we’ve carried far too long. But what if, in our exhaustion from all the fighting, something else begins to arise? What if, by looking not only into another’s eyes but also into our own mirror, we realize—we’ve never really seen the whole room?
It seems to me—after eighty years of looking at this world—a word of caution is worth offering. For anyone who remains locked inside the wounds and tensions of a fixed identity—whether religious, national, ethnic, or cultural—with a lingering sense of threat or superiority, your point of view will remain local. It will be rooted in the body, anchored in memory, and you will only ever see 180 degrees—not just of the room you’re in, but of the world you live in. And what’s worse: you will suffer. You will be trapped in the isolated, shadowed recesses of your own mind, ruled by the narrow stories, beliefs, and perceptions you inherited. Fear and survival will become your only true motivations, no matter how righteous or justified you believe yourself to be. And the world you help sustain—despite its new coverings and modern costumes—will carry the same old bones, the same old memories, passed down unchanged from generation to generation.
📚 Suggested Reading List
1. Who is a Jew? – Alexander Bevilacqua (London Review of Books, July 2025)
The catalyst for this reflection. A historically grounded exploration of the Converso question that raises the enduring tension between law, memory, identity, and power.
2. The Invention of the Jewish People – Shlomo Sand
Challenges the biological or racial foundations of Jewish identity. A bold historical work that destabilizes essentialist ideas and invites deeper questions about peoplehood and narrative.
3. The Location of Culture – Homi K. Bhabha
A foundational text in postcolonial theory. Bhabha explores how identity is formed in “the third space” between cultures—fluid, hybrid, and always negotiated.
4. The Master and His Emissary – Iain McGilchrist
An exploration of how the divided brain gives rise to two fundamentally different ways of experiencing the world. Offers a neuroscientific (and spiritual) framework for understanding fixed perception versus relational presence.
5. The Art of Seeing – Aldous Huxley
Not just about visual perception—it’s a gentle philosophical meditation on how the mind can limit what we perceive, and how learning to see requires inner transformation.
6. The World’s Religions – Huston Smith
An accessible and deeply respectful overview of major religious traditions. Useful for readers interested in loosening inherited categories while honoring the truths they hold.
7. I and Thou – Martin Buber
A touchstone of dialogical philosophy. Buber’s “I-Thou” relationship mirrors your image of the circle—real encounter transcending fixed identities.
8. The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are – Alan Watts
Cuts to the root of identity, ego, and social conditioning in a voice that is both playful and piercing. An invitation to reorient one’s sense of self beyond categories.
9. An Interrupted Life: The Diaries of Etty Hillesum
The writings of a young Jewish woman in Nazi-occupied Netherlands who—despite her persecution—finds inward freedom, clarity, and presence. A model of spiritual seeing amidst collective trauma.
10. Not-Two Is Peace – Adi Da Samraj
A radical and visionary call to transcend all forms of tribalism—political, religious, national, or racial—and recognize the non-separateness at the heart of reality. Adi Da offers not merely critique, but a new paradigm of global human culture grounded in prior unity. For those interested in the spiritual root of peace, this book is both confronting and illuminating.