Are Jews a People?
While there were many challenges I
encountered as a Conservative Jew attending a
modern Orthodox high school, there were also many
things I loved. Walking into the school on important
days on the Jewish calendar was amazing.
On Rosh Hodesh, the beginning of the new month, everyone got
dressed up and after more spirited and song-full services than usual, there
would be brunch and festive dancing with live music. You could feel the
holiday and the joy of the community.
On Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day,
the school was draped in black, the lights dimmed with
six large yellow candles burning in the lobby. The
mood was somber and everyone felt it together.
On Yom Hazikaron, Israel’s Memorial Day, the
school was quiet; we listened to those who had lost family members in
Israel’s wars or terrorist attacks. Tears flowed as we learned of their
losses.
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On Yom Ha’atzmaut, Israel’s Independence Day, we held a great
celebration with food, music and festivities. One year, a commander who
fought in the Six Day War spoke of the battle for Jerusalem and the
euphoria he felt when they liberated the Kotel.
Beyond supporting Israel, the major issue for Jews in the 1970s and
1980s was the struggle to free Soviet Jewry. We attended rallies and sent
students to Russia to smuggle prayer books and sets of tefillin into the
Communist controlled country.
One thing I was taught well it was a sense of Jewish peoplehood.
We were taught - Am Yisrael Hai - the Jewish people lives. Especially,
after the Shoah (the Holocaust) and the Yom Kippur War, we were filled
with a sense of pride that the Jewish people had survived these tragedies.
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We were also taught the famous Talmudic dictum: Kol Yisrael
Areivim Zeh Bazeh - all of the people of Israel is responsible for one
another. There was never any question - Jews take care of Jews. End of
story.
While you might daven with a mehitzah (a divider separating men
and women) as the Orthodox do and I do not, we are still sisters. While
you might be an atheist and I, a believer, we are still brothers. While you
might believe in settling the West Bank, and I do not, we are still cousins.
While you might be a Haredi ultra-Orthodox Jew and might even
deny my rights to be Jewish in Israel and I oppose you forcefully, we are
still relatives. While you might be from Yemen, speak Arabic, have darker
skin and a totally different education and perspective and I, light-skinned,
English-speaking from the US, we are still part of the same family.
Kol Yisrael Areivim Zeh Bazeh - all of Israel is responsible for one
another.
Whatever disagreements and differences we have, and we do have
them, we are still one people, one nation, one family. Am ehad, le’um
ehad, mishpahah ahat.
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Fast forward thirty years. While that innate, reflexive and axiomatic
sense of Jewish peoplehood may have once solidly bonded us one to
another, it is no longer the same. The bonds have frayed. The feelings
are muted.
This was driven home for me over the last week since the kidnapping
of the three teenage boys: Gilad Shaar, Naftali Frenkel and Eyal Yifrah.
May they be returned speedily and safely to their families.
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While much of the Jewish world has rallied behind these boys and
their families, some have used this terrible situation as an opportunity to
make political points. A few on the right have utilized the kidnapping to
advance their political agenda and a few on the left have used this as an
opportunity to blame Israel for the morass of Israeli-Palestinian relations.
The former politician and
current Israeli commentator,
Avram Burg published an
article in Haaretz where he
claimed that the kidnapping
parallels Israel’s “kidnapping”
of the Palestinians by arresting them for terrorist involvement.
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http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.599318
I have to say while he raised many interesting points, this
comparison was both inaccurate and not well timed. While he may have
many claims - some may be legitimate - against the Israeli government,
Burg’s using this moment to further his agenda felt terribly insensitive and
inappropriate.
And then this week, I followed a discussion among a group of
current and future Jewish leaders. Here, I have to say how I was taken
aback by a few of the reactions. Some shared their experiences in Israel
over the last week - the sense of shared communal anxiety for the fate of
these three boys and how they are praying for the welfare of these
kidnapped youths.
They asked what we were doing in the US?
I and others told how we have been adding prayers for these boys at
every minyan - something we have been doing and just did here at
Emunah.
But some jumped into the conversation to question Israel and
question our need to be so supportive of Jews.
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One person wrote: “It troubles me that people seem to be upset
because the boys are Jewish. From both a moral and an emotional
perspective, I cannot (or perhaps will not) place a comparatively higher
value on Jewish life and wellbeing in comparison with non-Jewish life and
wellbeing.
“It troubles me that so many of us insist that Jewishness must
include that kind of familial bond. The deployment of family metaphors in
politics, to me, seem most often like ethno-centrism and radical
nationalism in sheep’s clothing. It scares me.”
When I read this, I was truly saddened.
Judaism does not place a higher value on a Jewish person’s life than
anyone else’s. At the same time, Judaism does not see itself solely as a
religion. It is a civilization encompassing the notion of a people. Jews are
not merely a set of ideas, ideals and practices, we are a family. A small
family - when one of us hurts we all hurt.
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I was sitting with
my son Ari this
week watching
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the now-classic E.T. I was struck by the bond that Elliot, the young boy,
and E.T. form. When one hurts, the other is hurt. When one is drunk, the
other gets drunk. They share a bond - a bond of friendship, a bond of
caring, a bond of love.
How beautiful that is! How precious and fragile it is....
Those bonds can easily be broken.
Today, young people are taught that all people are equal and
therefore, Jews are no better than anyone else. And that is true, we are all
humans, equally human, and therefore, at the core, fundamentally the
same.
As the rabbis of the Mishnah write, every human being is created in
God’s image. And therefore, every person is of ultimate value.
But it does not mean we all feel the same. It is OK to feel closer to
our children than to someone else’s children. It is OK to feel closer to our
family. While we should treat everyone with equal respect, when we have
to choose among competing needs, we can choose to take care of
ourselves and our own.
The Mishnah teaches that our community’s needs take precedence.
That is not because we are superior. That is simply because we start with
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ourselves, followed by our family and then our community and then, we
reach out beyond that to all humanity.
As Rav Kook, the first chief rabbi of the land of Israel in the
beginning of the twentieth century, wrote in his poem: Shir Meruba - a four
fold song, the ideal person sings to themselves, their people, all humanity
and all creation - all at the same time. Therefore, we should reach beyond
the circles closest to ourselves, nonetheless, they are closer; that’s where
we start.
Aniyei irekha kodmim - we take of the poor of our city, of our
community before others. That’s because that’s how families work. For
some, it might be nice to imagine a fantasy world where we all loved all
people equally, caring for everyone identically, but that is not our world. (I
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happen not be drawn to that world, no matter how logical and fair it might
be.) Our world is one where we love those around us more than those
further away from us. We have families - we are not married to everyone.
It is OK to say Kol Yisrael Areivim Zeh Bazeh - all of Israel is
responsible for one another.
It’s OK, because otherwise, who will care for us??
The world has not always been such a good babysitter to the Jewish
people!
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This notion of Jewish peoplehood is raised by our parashah. Korah
brings his complaint to Moshe; it seems reasonable and fair. We want to
share the leadership with you. But our tradition sees Korah as removing
himself from the community and promoting himself.
Korah’s claims that all the people are holy. Again, quite legitimate.
But while that might be true in a purely rational world, human beings are not
computers. We are not Spock. We are not pure justice.
We are our emotions. We cannot separate ourselves from our
emotions - try as we might. Our justice is tempered by rahamim - mercy.
We love.
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Love is not always a great thing. It’s messy. It’s overwhelming. It
can cause you to do some crazy things. And it can fall apart and that can
leave a bigger mess in its wake.
But love is what makes the world magical. Love builds the bonds
that people need to live and to thrive. We have evolved to love.
Watching ET with Ari and crying, feeling the love that is displayed
there, reminded me how essential it is. Yes, we cannot have love without
boundaries and without guidelines, but we can and we should love.
Kol Yisrael Areivim Zeh Bazeh - all of Israel is responsible for one
another.
This is not merely an after-school club or an affinity group; this is a
family - one that stretches back in time almost 4,000 years; one that has
brought the world ideas that sustain the world and ourselves.
It is OK to love your family and care about your family. And when
they are hurting, you take care of them first.
It’s not only OK, it right and just.
In my eyes, sadly, many young Jews don't feel that same sense of
peoplehood, that intrinsic sense of connection.
How can we restore it?
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It will take a profound effort - from all of us - to create enough
peoplehood experiences, to teach our people’s history, to feel that rhythm
of the Jewish calendar and Shabbat, to immerse ourselves in serious
Jewish learning, to connect to strong social networks, to feel bound once
again to the unique destiny of the Jewish people.
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Later on in the narrative about Korah, the firepans that the rebels
used are taken and hammered as plating for the altar. I always thought this
was a particularly redemptive moment - even though there had been a
major rupture, these critical pieces, the mahtot - the firepans are reunited
with their sacred purpose. While the Torah claims that this an ot - a sign,
perhaps a warning, I prefer to see it as a symbol of the Jewish people even though the people are torn apart, we can heal those rifts and become
one people, one nation, one family again.
Kein yehi ratzon - may God’s will and ours help it come into being
and let us say Amen.
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