Parashat Va'era: Heschel, King and the Legacy of Hardened Hearts

A sermon given at Congregation Temple Emanu-El, Reno, NV:

Friends, at the first conference on religion and race, the main participants were Pharaoh and Moses.

And Moses' words were, "Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, let my people go." While Pharaoh retorted, "Who's the Lord that I should heed his voice and let Israel go? I do not know the Lord. I will not let Israel go." The outcome of that summit meeting has not come to an end. Pharaoh is not ready to capitulate. The Exodus began but is far from having been completed.

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel uttered these words at the Conference on Religion and Race in 1963.

During a week when we honored the memory of Martin Luther King, Jr., Heschel’s legacy rises quickly to the forefront, as well. Particularly with the advent of Facebook, everywhere I turned this past week, I saw a picture of Abraham Joshua Heschel, arms linked with Dr. King in 1965, marching across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, during the march for voting rights.

When asked snidely why he wasn't in shul that morning, without pause, Heschel responded, "I felt like my feet were praying."

During my visit to Israel, Heschel's imprint and legacy weighed on my mind.

I visited the shuk, Mahane Yehuda in Jerusalem three or four times each week. Avocados are being sold for a dollar per kilo! Yeah, that’s right. Not each. But a dollar per kilo!

I bought the newest Israeli music on the shelves, a blend of the ancient and modern, weaving traditional narratives of Jewish texts in modern Hebrew to the tunes of rock and roll. As we have seen together during our studies, Jewish culture lives in totally new ways over the past 60 years, expressions of piety and spiritual searching both by people that label themselves as “secular” and “religious.”

I traveled to northern Israel and spent Shabbat atop a mountain in a small village, fully in nature, following the sun as my only clock for the 25 hours.

And then there were the many people in Yerushalayim who pulled over to the side of the road to ask me directions. During this visit, I felt more comfortable navigating the streets of Yerushalayim, and even directing others to their destinations, as any city I’ve ever lived in.

But Heschel has been on my mind recently not because of the enduring power that Israel has on me. Though he has been at other points in my life for precisely this reason.

He was on my mind because of the national and international press that our homeland has gotten over the past month, both when I was in the country and since I have left.

Heschel spoke with the passion and vision of the Prophets that he studied throughout his life. He was a bridge builder — among Jews, between Jews and other religious groups. He gave religion a voice in the American consciousness.

He looked the Other in the face.

This week we read of Moshe’s encounters with Pharaoh, a classic impasse in the history of mankind. Pharaoh has a hardened heart, one that is certainly unwilling to negotiate. But also a heart that is even willing to hear the views of the Other in front of him.

The twentieth century Jewish French philosopher Emanuel Levinas describes  a face to face encounter as a privileged phenomenon in which both the other person’s proximity and distance are both strongly felt. He states “The Other precisely reveals himself in his alterity not in a shocking negating the I, but as the primordial phenomenon of gentleness.”

To translate into less complex English, Levinas expresses that an individual becomes more fully himself when looking into the face of another, and doing so does not compromise that person's individuality at all, but rather complements it.

This is the ultimate, and original Facebook.

Yet Pharaoh’s unwillingness to see Moshe’s face makes this transcendence impossible. This is the condition of a hardened heart.

This narrative of closed hearts beats within me during several weeks of inner strife among the Jewish nation.

More and more, women are being shut off from national discourse in the name of Judaism in our Holy and blessed homeland. And where it used to be a small group of marginalized individuals that did not give women a presence in discourse, it has now risen to a level of national policy.

Recently, Professor Channa Maayan was unable to receive an award from the Israeli Health ministry for her recent book on hereditary diseases common to Jews, because the event was gender-segregated. She was unable to be on the same stage as men.

The narrative of oppression became that much uglier on New Year’s eve when a group of Jews dressed up as victims of the Holocaust, placing Yellow stars that said Jude on all of the children in attendance.

But unfortunately the story is not resigned to this hyperbolic display of attention seeking by residents of the Meah Shearim neighborhood. This group was protesting what they deemed to be the mistreatment of their population for harassing Naama Margoles of Bet Shemesh.

Naama became famous because she is an eight-year-old girl who was on her way to school and was spit on for wearing clothes that some deemed to be too promiscuous. She was physically attacked by a group. An 8-year-old. She was dressed to go to school.

People have scratched out pictures of women from billboards. The Puah Institute for Medicine recently barred women from its gynecology conference. Yes, you heard that right.

The list I just read is a litany. It is ugly to think about, let alone to read.

During this week, of all weeks, where we celebrate the legacy of Dr. King, I utter with utter conviction that “separate but equal” is not equal.

One group’s declaration of Jewish and religious intolerance does not make it dogma. Isolating and limiting women’s involvement in society strays profoundly from both the political values of a liberal democracy and the Jewish values established when God created humanity in God's image.

Yet, my teacher and mentor Chancellor Arnold Eisen states that for every “no” we tell about Israeli life, we must scream 5 “yes”es from the rooftops. There’s something quite sage about that. It’s no secret that Israel has its detractors in the national and international community.

I am quite proud that we are bringing together the entire Reno community tonight around a shared passion for Jewish creativity and Israeli culture by watching the hit show S’rugim. 7 pm right here.

Yet here we are in 2012, with a Jewish homeland that is fighting amongst itself in ways that resound heavily to the same strife that we saw 1950 years ago at the destruction of the second Temple.

Rabbinic literature speaks uniformly about the causes of the destruction of the Second Temple. Yes of course it was the Roman empire that breached the walls of Yerushalayim, and set flame to the Holy of Holies, a light that could be seen for miles on end.

But our communal narrative does not look outside of itself to remember our greatest catastrophies, the fall of the Temple. We look at our own civil strife. The Temple was destroyed, we tell, because of Sinat Chinam, because of senseless hatred.

The Jewish people were engaged in a civil war. And because of that, our people were helpless against outside attack.

Last month, Rabbi David Hartman, founder of the Hartman Institute in Yerushalayim, a think-tank for Jewish studies, and the most prominent living Jewish philosopher in the world, wrote a feature-length article in the Israeli paper Yediot Aharonot entitled “Religion is now more dangerous than the Arabs.”

Our inner strife makes us weak, vulnerable to all attacks from the outside. As Hartman says in the article:

“The leaders of Religious Zionism have lost all sense of purpose. Everything has become a war - a war with stones, a war to preserve power. Religion today is controlled by people who do not understand what Jewish revival is, what revolution is, and what we wanted to have here.”

We stand at the brink of that civil unrest, one felt distinctly by citizens of the Jewish homeland. And this is the conversation by many currently in Israeli society, both colloquially and in the press. This was the topic of conversation over dinner during my second of three Shabbatot.

And here, I return to Heschel. In that same speech to the National Conference on Race and Religion, he said the following:

“We are all Pharaohs or slaves of Pharaohs. It is sad to be a slave of Pharaoh. It is horrible to be a Pharaoh. Daily we should take  account and ask: What have I done today to alleviate the anguish, to mitigate the evil, to prevent humiliation. Let there be a grain of prophet in every man!”

We are both slaves and Pharaoh’s, part of the liberation Exodus narrative both as the oppressed and the oppressors.

As we have spoken about together, being a part of the covenant between the Jewish people and God means bearing witness to Wonder, acknowledging our flaws, not being afraid to question God, to question our own family. As Judy Hirsch said last month, “This is a marriage, we’re in it for the long haul.”

The events over the past month cause me such alarm precisely because I am in love with the country, because I return yearly to navigate the streets of Yerushalayim, to speak Hebrew with some of my closest friends.

The messages of the past months reinforce even more strongly that No Religion is an Island. We cannot isolate ourselves within our own comfort groups out of convenience. Refusal to do so creates Pharaohs of all of us, individuals and communities that have hardened hearts, unwilling to interact with anyone that challenges us.

Our message for Parashat Va’Era speaks about encountering the Other, of Moshe’s approach to Pharaoh. Of Pharaoh’s inability — no, his unwillingness — to see Moshe’s face.

If we are going to declare ourselves with integrity that we are Moshe in this narrative, there is a certain requirement that we engage with people who are different than us. It mandates that we reach across the aisle and engage with people of different faiths. It requires us to learn about the Other in our own extended Jewish family.

During a week where we celebrate a national hero in Martin Luther King, Jr., we become abundantly aware of the work that remains to be done among our own family.

Being Moshe in this narrative means being aware when we close our hearts -- and then opening it again.

Our communal narrative mandates us to look the Other in the face. As Levinas explains, doing so does not compromise our individuality. We need not be afraid of it.

Let us find the other in our midst and engage with these people. The first conference of religion and race was between Moses and Pharaoh. There are many more engagements of differences that we need now, and in our day.

No Religion is an Island. May the work of bridge-building begin and continue into the future. Ken Yehi Ratzon.

Walking by Revelation/Stopping to Witness Revelation

Every day upon entering the Jewish Theological Seminary, I walk under the institution's seal, an imprint of the burning bush from Sh’mot 3:2, and the words, “And the bush was not consumed.”

Victor Brenner first designed the seal in 1902, corresponding to the ascendancy of Solomon Schechter to be chancellor of the Seminary. Brenner would become famous in 1909 for designing the imprint of Lincoln on the United States penny. With the reorganization of the institution in 1902, JTS sought to impress on the Jewish community that Jewish learning and living would live on into the future on American soil, never being extinguished.

This week we read of Moshe walking along and bearing witness to this ultimate wonder of God (3:1-4):

1. Now Moshe was keeping the flock of Yitro his father-in-law, the priest of Midyan; and he led the flock to the farthest end of the wilderness, and came to the mountain of God, unto Horev.

2. An angel of Adonai appeared to [Moshe] in a blazing fire out of a bush. He gazed, and there was a bush all aflame, yet the bush was not consumed.

3. Moshe said, “I must turn aside to look at this marvelous sight, why doesn’t the bush burn up?”

4. When Adonai saw that he had turned aside to look, God called to him out of the bush: “Moshe! Moshe! He answered, “Here I am.”

Look closely at the verses. Moshe does not recognize this revelation of God until the angel speaks to him out of the Bush. He is walking along, and there happens to be a burning bush on his walk past Horev. Had there been no voice, it seems very likely that Moshe would have failed to notice this epiphany. Humans go through life seeing through a dark glass. We often walk right by the revelation of God, whether walking through the desert, or down Lakeside Drive. Sometimes we hear a still, small voice, and sometimes we don’t need it. Often we just pass on by.

Michael Fishbane, author of Sacred Attunement, describes this event as an “awakening of habitude, and through it we may perceive a first intimation of what covenant attentiveness might mean. It occurs in the wilderness, amidst the labors of sustenance and routine, in an endless terrain of sameness” (52).

This is an individual moment, the covenant of one person with God. The communal covenant will happen at Sinai.

“Hence the first experience of Moses only provides a model for theological reflection about the primariness of covenant living in one’s personal life; and it is only with Moses’s second experience that we can derive some insight into the way a covenant may also establish a social structure for God-centered living. It is the foundation of this form that is so primary for biblical religion and theology; and its ongoing revision is of absolute centrality for Jewish theology and its various life-forms” (55).

Through the model of explicating Torah, Fishbane outlines a lens of attuning to the divine in our lives. Covenant exists both in individual and communal contexts, sometimes overlapping, others not.

As we journey through the parasha this week, allow yourself some time to notice moments of revelation, those that call out to you and also those that you might have walked by.

A "closed parasha" during a week of chaos in the Holy Land

Finding the beginning of Parashat Vayechi is a harder task than any other parasha in the Torah. It is the only parasha that does not have a break between it and the previous one, dubbed in Hebrew a parasha setuma, a “closed parasha.”

Like in English rhetoric, the physical separation in the Torah between parshiot typically represents a thematic break of some kind. But why no break this week?

Rashi (Northern France, 1040-1105), citing the midrash, says that the first pasuk of Parashat Vayehi begins on a negative note, and thus the two parshiot are elided together in the writing of the Torah. We read in Breishit 47:27-28 (the end of Parashat Vayigash and beginning of Parashat VaYehi): 27 Then Israel lived in the land of Egypt, in the land of Goshen; and they got them possessions therein, and were fruitful, and multiplied exceedingly. 28 And Jacob lived in the land of Egypt seventeen years; so the days of Jacob, the years of his life, were a hundred forty and seven years.

Rashi suggests that because Yaakov’s death has been foreshadowed, his descendants blocked (nistamu) their eyes and hearts from the upcoming slavery that would await them. Another interpretation, Rashi says, is that Yaakov attempted to tell the people of Israel that his days were numbered, but they prevented him from doing so (nistam mimeno).

Common to both of these interpretations is that form follows function: just as Bnei Yisrael did not want to hear the negative news, the physical structure of the Torah itself does not want to begin the parasha on such a foreboding note. 

Last week in shul, I heard Rav Benny Lau of Beit Knesset Ramban in Jerusalem add another interpretation to Rashi, dedicated to the memory of his uncle. He suggests that we have a parasha setuma in Parashat Vayehi not because of the beginning of Parashat Vayechi, but rather because the final pasuk of Parashat Vayigash speaks of the children of Israel becoming rich and multiplying while in Goshen. That was never supposed to happen. Yaakov’s children were supposed to make a quick trip to restock the food supply and then head back to Canaan. But they became preoccupied with the momentary wealth of this foreign land, ultimately being seduced by it. It would only be a matter of time before a Pharaoh “who did not know Yosef” would rise over the land of Egypt. 

Rav Benny Lau represents the creative religious energy that is so refreshing with each and every visit I make here. He delivers each dvar Torah with passion and humility, packed with content, with a take-away connected to the cultural currents of the day. He is a model to me for what it means to live a committed Jewish life fused with lived experiences of the real situations that surround him. He emphasizes the need to build the state upon the values of our tradition, of crafting Medinat Yisrael that lives up to the deep morality entrenched in the Torah. 

During a week of Jewish infighting in Jerusalem and Bet Shemesh, I want to elevate Rabbi Lau’s model of religious passion and commitment to the fullness of Jewish expression in the Jewish state. Such creativity must shine forth during this nadir of sinat chinam (senseless hatred) among the nation of Israel.

The Rabbinical Assembly of Conservative Judaism recently created a website devoted to spreading the light of Judaism for all to see. In the midst of a group of Jews spreading darkness by dressing up in concentration camp uniforms and yellow stars, this message of the Rabbinical Assembly shows that so many Jews live a life committed to bringing the light of Torah into the world. Please consider adding your own pictures to the site.

As we learn from the parasha setuma between Parashat VaYigash and Parashat VaYehi, we do not end or begin a week on an ominous note, on one of destruction. As we finish the book of Breishit this week, let us bring the light of Torah, of Jewish creativity, with gusto into the world.

Yehuda: A model of Teshuva

We left Yehuda last week in Parashat Miketz swearing to his father that he would return with Binyamin in tow. He swears to Yaakov that if he does not return with Binyamin, that he would “bear the blame forever” (43:8).

Taking a step back, it is quite remarkable to see the arc of Yehuda’s journey from the beginning of our “Joseph narrative” in Parashat Vayeshev, beginning in Chapter 37. There, we see a character who influences his brothers to sell Joseph for the highest price possible. “Why kill him, when we can benefit,” he questions openly and coercively. He is not the oldest in the family, but his brothers respect him — and he knows it. So he is going to use that power to get what he wants.

Then in Chapter 38, his daughter-in-law tricks him, ensuring that her dead husband’s progeny will come from his lineage, an ultimate act of thinking outside of herself, for the sake of God (see my d’var Torah from Vayeshev for more details on this). When Yehuda learns that the child Tamar is bearing is his, he can only proclaim, “Tzadka mimeni She is more righteous than I!” Yehuda’s outpouring of emotion steadily moves from pure self-righteous ego-centrism, to a more holistic view of his family and the world at large.

It is here that we encounter Yehuda in this week’s parasha. The introductory words of the parasha describe in both words and deeds the noted change of demeanor in the heir to the Messiah. “Vayigash elav Yehuda Then Yehuda approached him.”

Yehuda approaches Yosef with an impassioned plea to release Binyamin. But look closely at his arguments:

1.     Do you have a father or a brother?

2.     The child cannot leave is father, for if he does, his father will surely die

3.     We told our father your request and told him that if we do not come with the youngest child, we will not be able to see you again

4.     My father said that one of my sons born to my beloved is surely torn in pieces, and if you take my other son of this wife, I will surely die

5.     I (Yehuda) have sworn to my father that I will return with him, saying that I shall bear the blame forever if I don’t hold my word

6.     I pray to you, take me instead of the youngest, for how can I look my father in the face and tell him that his youngest son is not here

None of this is rational. No case studies on where Binyamin was in reference to when the goblet was stolen. No use of witnesses.

Yehuda seeks to evoke empathy from the man in front of him, the second most powerful person in the world. Moreover, he is arguing for the life of a known criminal. Yehuda has no doubt that Binyamin took the goblet — he was caught red-handed. All the evidence in the world was couched against him.

But despite this, Yehuda pleas on behalf of his brother.

The Biblical scholar Yochanan Muffs describes this mode of standing up for those that are guilty in his influential essay “Who will stand in the breach” (1992, found in Love and Joy). It features a model of the prophet whose key role is not a scolder or occasional comforter, but rather is the defender of the people. As Professor Ed Greenstein notes, the prophet is often “His majesty’s loyal opposition.” In essence, he states, “You’ll have to take me down, too!”

Such is certainly the case of Moshe’s defense of the people after the golden calf episode, when Moses pleads with God against destroying the people that he just redeemed from Egypt. There is no doubt that the people are guilty there. They just built a giant false-God out of gold.

So too is it with Binyamin in our narrative. Yehuda doesn’t try to appease the man in front of him. That won’t work. His brother, as far as everyone in the narrative knows, is guilty.

Rather he employs pathos, the energy and feeling of the prophet to sway the most powerful man he has ever encountered.

And after all of this energy, Yosef breaks down: V’lo yachol Yosef l’hitapek Joseph could not bear it any longer (45:1). He sends out everyone from the room and lets out tears.

Yehuda has the chance to put his word to his father to the ultimate test. “Take me and not my brother,” he insists. And because he puts himself on the line, imploring the man who will reveal himself later as his brother, ultimately Yosef reveals his true self to his brothers. Yehuda’s bearing of himself, in turn, provides a model for how Yosef can do so.

Over the course of the “Joseph narrative,” Yehuda goes from the manipulator to the manipulated. He goes from the person who thought entirely about his own material interests, of how he could use his power to bring goods to him, to an act of ultimate sacrifice, giving himself up for a brother that he knows is guilty of a crime.

We, the Jewish people, live the life of Judah every time we recognize ourselves as a people, as Yehudim. As Yehudim, we internalize the lessons of Yehuda over the course of this narrative, a character who stands in the breach for the other, who upholds family kinship as the essential value in his life.

Yehuda represents the model of teshuva — returning to a primordial self. He finds himself in the same situation a second time, and acts a completely different way. Now, in Parashat Vayigash, he thinks of how he can affect change for others.

S'rugim comes to Reno

Judah's Narrative Journey throughout the Joseph Story

For the next four weeks we will read about Joseph. His ego, his clothes, his dreams, his family relationships, his engagement with power. In many ways, the Torah gives us a fuller description of the full character of Joseph than any other figure in the Torah, with the exception of Moses.

But we also see a narrative arc for the character Judah, too. In this week’s parasha, Vayeshev, Judah leaps onto the scene while Joseph remains in the depths of a pit. He tells his brothers “What profit is it to us if we kill our brother, covering his blood. Come let us sell him to the band of Ishmaelites. Then our bloodguilt will not be upon him, for he is our brother.” The verse ends “And his brothers listened” (Genesis 37:26).

Those final words are telling. Judah is not the oldest. That title belongs to Reuven. And a few verses earlier, Reuven had pleaded with the group not to kill Joseph, but rather to throw him in the pit, with the idea that Reuven would go save him later (verse 21). But while not the oldest in years, the brothers listen to Judah, they respect him.

Make no mistake, Judah most certainly was not acting altruistically in selling Joseph to the Ishmaelites. It was not to save Joseph’s life. If anything, it seems that Judah could have changed the tide of the brothers thinking in almost any case, and that he was directing it. The Torah Temimah (Rabbi Baruch Epstein, 19^th century Lithuania) states the following about this leader of the brothers:

This verse about a compromiser was stated only in reference to Judah, as it is stated, "Judah said to his brothers, 'What gain will there be if we kill our brother?'" And anyone who praises Judah for this is considered a blasphemer. And concerning such a person, it is stated: "One who praises a compromiser [Judah] has blasphemed Hashem."

We hear about Judah again in chapter 38, the infamous meeting between Judah and his daughter-in-law Tamar. We rarely talk about this chapter. It represents a law of times gone by, that of the levirate marriage, of values that don’t resonate with almost all of our post-modern sensibilities. And perhaps it’s a bit icky, as well.

Stemming explicitly from Deuteronomy 25:5-6, should a man die without having a descendent, his wife will marry his brother, in order to continue the lineage. Such was the case of Tamar’s husband, Er, who died. His brother Onan, in turn refused this process of levirate marriage, choosing to spill his seed on the ground instead of conceive a child with Tamar.

Fast-forwarding in the narrative, upon confronting Tamar on the road, Judah thought that he was approaching a harlot, for she hid her face. But Tamar knew exactly who Judah was. She took his cord and his staff as a sign (the modern day driver’s license or passport) so that he would return with payment for the sexual services. She encountered Judah and fooled him to sleep with her, moreover, because she was obeying this law of levirate marriage, ensuring that her husband’s progeny continue on to the next generation — Judah had not told his other son Shelah to consummate the levirate obligations, and thus Tamar took it upon herself to continue the line, in accord with God’s law.

Judah was incensed when he heard that Tamar was pregnant, that she had sold herself to harlotry. Of course, he didn’t realize during this episode that the children were his. But Tamar came forth with Judah’s identifying markers, proof that the children were indeed his.

This twist in narrative in the course of two chapters, of Judah manipulating his brothers to sell Joseph for profit, and then being the manipulated by his daughter-in-law, is certainly striking. As is Judah’s response to Tamar when he discovers the reality of the situation. He exclaims, seemingly in an outburst:  “She is more righteous than I! For I did not give her to son Shelah!” Judah realizes his misjudgment, and begins the process of teshuva that will continue on into future parshiot.

The twins she bore might have familiar names: Peretz and Zevach. Each week during L’cha dodi  of Kabbalat Shabbat we read: Al yad ish, ben parzi Next to a man, the son of the Peretz-ite. The line of the medieval poem refers to the Messiah, a descendent of Peretz. Judah is the ancestor of David. The line of the Messiah ultimately goes back to this tumultuous scene in Chapter 38 of Genesis.

I’ll again pick up with this narrative of Judah in two weeks with Parashat Vayigash. For now, read this narrative over, embracing the complexity of the character, of the narrative of arc of manipulation.

And perhaps most importantly, in two chapters where God does not communicate with any of the characters, there is a figure behind the screen seemingly pulling the strings of puppets along the way.

Jewish Geography 2.0

I recently attempted to publish my greatest contribution to society on Wikipedia. They didn't find my post worthy, though.

They told me if I wanted to play around, I should "go play in a sandbox."

Rough, guys.

Because Wikipedia is really the pinnacle of academic integrity.

But even if it were... Jewish Geography has ventured across Shabbat tables around the United States, with many claiming that they themselves invented the phenomenon.

Which is quite a compliment, really. It's traveled far.

But let's be serious. We know where the game originated and has spread forth, in turn.

So here's the ice breaker of the decade, published here on a measly blog instead of Wikipedia. Enjoy it as we have.


Jewish Geography 2.0

It’s a common principle that when you assemble several Jews in the same location, they will have many acquaintances in common. “Oh, you know Rachel Schwartz? We went to camp together!” Particularly with first encounters, two people try and find the commonalities between them – who do we know in common? Around the Jewish world, that’s commonly known as “Jewish Geography.”

During the fall of 2007, two friends staffed a Shabbaton for the Solomon Schechter High School in Westchester, New York. While there, they created an Ice Breaker which brought the joys of “Jewish Geography” to the form of a game that helps facilitate interactions. Since then, the game has traveled throughout the American Jewish world, often without a name attached to it, particularly around Shabbat tables.

The Game

Played with two people, or groups of pairs, each individual assigns him/herself either to say a common Jewish first name or a common last name.

For example, Zach is assigned to take the first name and Sarit assigned to take the last name. On the count of three, which is counted out loud with three hand claps, each person says the name in his/her head.

Thus, Zach might say Rachel and Sarit might say Shtern.

They then look around the room and say “Rachel Shtern, anyone know a Rachel Shtern?”

If you are playing with a large group, then the pair can subsequently move on to a different partner and continue the game.

Goals

1.     To make people loose around each other through laughter

2.     Find commonalities among a group

3.     Serve as a way to open up a program or discussion

Author of Redwall Series Dies

My favorite author growing up was unquestionably Brian Jacques, author of the Redwall series. The fantasy books pitted mice against stoats, badgers against weasels, shrews against foxes, traditional tales of good versus evil, all through the lens of fantasy animals.

See here for the NYT obituary.

I have followed along with most of the books that Jacques has put out over the past ten years -- they still have a touch of the same magic that I encountered as a kid. I look forward to reading them to my own children.

 

Hearing Israeli Music in the Indian Restaurant

After reading Rabbi Ethan Linden’s relatively-new blog on a daily basis, I have said several times that I should restart Magash Hakesef. If you aren’t checking in on the Chief Conservative Rabbi of Louisiana’s blog, then you should be. Add that one to your GoogleReader.

Tonight I went with my father and his friend and colleague Henry to Madras Mahal in the infamous “Curry Hill.” Southern Indian food – my favorite.

At a certain point I recognized the music playing in the restaurant. Because my Hindi is a bit rusty, I asked the waiter the name of the song. It turns out it’s a “nasha song,” a love song.

You might find it familiar:

Or maybe you don’t. But now listen to this one:

As far as I'm concerned, they are the exact same music. Do you agree?

Two love songs, same music and one or two Israelis make it over to India...

I plan to look into this parallel a bit more, but can only assume that the Indian song came first.

This same phenomenon happened to me several years ago, when I heard what I thought was a Yiddish folk song at a Japanese baseball game. It turns that the Japanese audio director for the Osaka Giants liked the title track for Dschingis Khan’s album and was not up on Mordechai Ben David’s “Yidden.” 

Or maybe he knew both. Who am I to judge?

And we’re back in business. More commentary to come on a more continuous basis.

I am a Published Author

It has been awhile since I have posted. I have every intention of being a more regular poster in the coming months.

For now, I wanted to let people know that I was recently published in the American Jewish Archives Journal for a piece which originally began as my senior thesis at the University of Pennsylvania, over five years ago. It has gone through several drafts since then and it has now hit the world of the academic journal. Welcome, "The Excommunication of Mordecai Kaplan."

I'm quite proud of the piece, which you can find here, and will be available shortly on the American Jewish Archives website, as well.

For now, I'll paste the acknowledgements which I wrote for the original thesis. I should note that one person suggested that the acknowledgements were the best part of the thesis. So read away!

Many adjustments should be made to these thanks based on the past five years, but here they are as they were in the original:

This project did not originate as a thesis. It began as a twenty-page research paper as the conclusion of an independent study internship at the National Museum of American Jewish History. But quickly it started to consume me.

My dad says that this thesis managed to combine every segment of my college experience. I used my love of journalism unconsciously as a model for how to pursue a story and search for the last source that is out there — because that’s where the best information sits. I incorporated my love of studying Jewish texts, nurtured both in the classrooms of the University of Pennsylvania and in my own pursuit of knowledge. I have also realized that I am deeply passionate in the American Jewish experience in the twentieth century and how Jews express their Judaism. Overall, however, I love thinking and talking about Judaism.

I thrust myself at this project because it had already been growing inside of me for some time. And thus it grew from a term paper to a project that I chose to continue attacking, whether that included sorting through archival materials on one of my several trips to New York, speaking with various scholars or typing during the nights in my designated corner of Penn Hillel.

Many people aided this process, for which I am extremely thankful. To my friends, many of whom assembled a mini fan-club around this thesis, sparking a “Mordecai Kaplan fact of the day” montage throughout second semester. But above all, who supported me in this project because they knew it meant so much to me, and perhaps that is the most touching part of all of this. The crowd that came to hear me present the thesis made me feel extremely lucky.

My professors at Penn continue to draw my respect with how they combine a deep interest in pedagogy and a complete mastery of their subjects. I have loved absorbing the subject matter of the classes I have taken, but I have also taken notes on how these scholars communicate their knowledge, which is equally impressive to their scope of learning. Thank you for being such great models for the discipline and giving me a fantastic undergraduate experience.

Thank you to the many scholars across the country who showed keen interest in the project and immediately offered their insight and advice. Particular thanks to Rabbi Neil Gillman of the Jewish Theological Seminary, who invited me to follow him for a day, and whose anecdotal accounts of his own time as a student under Mordecai Kaplan proved to be particularly fruitful. Each of my interactions gave me a new respect for the academy and the notion of collaborative scholarship. The care that each of the scholars puts into his or her work is inspiring.

To Professors Beth Wenger and Ari Kelman at Penn, who nurtured this work most closely and watched it grow. I adopted Dr. Wenger as a second adviser during second semester of this year partly because she led the “Senior Seminar” for the Jewish Studies major. But more than that, Dr. Wenger was completely willing and enthusiastic to discuss the thesis. Ranging from micro issues of prose to discussing larger themes in American Judaism, Dr. Wenger continues to help me to understand broader notions of what it means to be a historian.

Dr. Kelman helped me to work through this process from my opening ideas of only knowing that I wanted to write something about Mordecai Kaplan. Throughout this project he remarkably was always able to steer me in the correct direction, even though I had done the research. He showed a keen awareness for the process and helped to direct me throughout the course of the year. With an interest in film, Ari both literally and figuratively helped me to craft a storyboard for this work, offering help in all three main segments of the process: research, writing and revising. His e-mails consistently served to inspire me and keep me going, often necessarily pulling the reins and making me laugh all at the same time.  In pursuing this project, I also got the opportunity to speak about many greater issues in American Judaism, and discovered that we have similar views about most issues on the current American Jewish scene. His greater vision and easy-going general outlook on life made working under him a privilege.

Perhaps I learned most that no matter how much children try to run away from their parents, that even if they sit on benches outside of art museums instead of going in just to be spiteful, ultimately we are all truly our parents’ children. I have truly loved this experience and have now begun to realize why —and how— my dad can sit upstairs in front of a computer for up to fourteen hours at a time with only Diet Dr. Pepper, a baseball game and a stack of books about Dutch etchings. Some would say other than my choice of subject, I wasn’t so different with this project— except that it was basketball season this time.

Thank you to everyone who helped me craft what has been the most rewarding intellectual experience in my undergraduate career, one that hopefully is just the beginning of this exploration.

Life imitates West Wing? Or vice-versa, perhaps.

From today's New York Times, a discussion about placing religious symbols in public locations.

From Episode 13 of Season 1 of the West Wing (Take out the Trash Day):

Toby is working at his desk. Sam enters quietly. 

TOBY
Yeah? 

SAM
There is a town in Alabama that wants to abolish all laws except the Ten Commandments. 

TOBY
I saw it. 

SAM
Well, they're gonna have a problem. 

TOBY
Because the Constitution prohibits religious activity in any form connected to Government? 

SAM
Good point! Two problems. 

TOBY
Sam, I'm busy here! 

SAM
I just mean that some of those Commandments are pretty hard to enforce. 

TOBY
What is it? 

SAM
I just got a call asking me if I wanted to comment on a story that's gonna run in the 
Georgetown Hoya tomorrow. 

TOBY
The student newspaper? 

SAM
A sociology professor has been teaching what the paper, at any rate, feels is racist 
stuff. Too much funding for Head Start, welfare mothers, and... 

TOBY
And why are they talking to us? 

SAM
Zoey's in the class. 

TOBY
Who cares? 

SAM
This minute? The Georgetown Hoya. Tomorrow...? 

TOBY
The President's daughter got an idiot sociology professor, and we gotta... 

SAM
I'll talk to Zoey. 

TOBY
Please. [long pause] What else? 

SAM
Coveting thy neighbour's wife, for example. How are you going to enforce that one? 

TOBY
Sam! 

Turn your ear into a funnel: A D'var Torah for Parshat Ekev

I delivered these words this weekend at Beth Judah Congregation in Ventnor, NJ. I owe many of the thoughts to the teaching of Rav Shai Held. Additional inspiration from Rav Benny Lau. 

--

There are few things Jews can agree on. So go the idioms: Two Jews, three opinions.

One island, two synagogues.

But if there’s one thing that we Jews agree on, is that we love food. Sure you say kugel, I say kiegel. But in the end we all ask for seconds.

And so at the end of the first aliyah today, when Moshe introduces the people Israel to a land literally overflowing with bountiful food, you can picture the scene. All mouths drop — simultaneously. A land not only flowing in milk and honey, but one with streams, springs and fountains, of wheat, barley, grapes, figs, dates, pomegranates and olive oil. The seven species of fruits of the land of Israel. The list puts even the great produce junction to shame.

It is a land where the people will lack nothing.

Yet the Israelites are reminded just verses earlier to slow down. Not so fast my friends! After all, they survived in the dessert. 

Ki lo al lechem lvado yihyeh haadam ki al kol moza pi adonai yiheye haadam.

“Humanity does not live on bread alone, but may live on anything that HaShem decrees.”

One does not need to mine the depths of the Rabbinic consciousness to draw a direct connection between Torah and bread from this pasuk, between physical satisfaction and spiritual nourishment. Humanity does not live by bread alone. But by what God issues.

Humanity survives on more than what it farms. It lasts, indeed thrives, on the words of God.

Let’s follow the metaphor. Bread and Torah.

HaMotzi Lechem Min HaAretz. It’s such a fundamental statement. The first prayer we learn as children. There’s that cute tune from pre-school, “We give thinks to God for Bread, our voices rise in song together.”

But when we take a second glance at it, even briefly, we notice that on its simplest level, it is simply not true. We don’t bring forth bread from the Earth. Humans make it from component parts. We do the plowing the reaping, the grinding, the baking.

Some of the early kibbutzniks in Israel went as far as to change the brakha to “Praised be the farmer who brings forth bread from the Earth,” a switch which caused the religious establishment in Israel to bristle.

Yet this is clearly not the norm, rejected by the kibbutz movement, certainly by the rest of the Jewish world.

We don’t have any problem stating HaMotzi Lechem Min HaAretz. We joyfully teach the blessing to our children. We believe that God had a hand in the creation of bread. And humanity carried forth in the rest of the process. There is sheer Wonder in the process of planting a vegetable in the spring and then digging into the soil and digging it out of the soil in the fall. Failure to acknowledge it as anything less as Wonder bears perjury to the soul.

But for many of us, the term Torah min HaShamayim, Heavenly Torah, is a tougher term to swallow. We may have taken an Introductory Academic Bible class at university and learned some of the theories that the Torah is made up of component sources, that the first two chapters of Genesis represent the P source and the J source. We recognize immediately the parallels between the Code of Hammurabi and Parashat Mishpatim of Shmot and wonder what is so different between our Biblical Law of “Eye for an Eye, Tooth for tooth” and that of other Ancient Near Eastern legal codes; between our flood story and that of the Atrahasis Epic or of Gilgamesh. The History Channel always shows the historical roots of the Biblical Exodus during the spring months, trying to match up the plagues with natural events during the time.

So then, what is Torah Min HaShamayim, with all of the above facts, and more?

Firstly, Torah min HaShamayim has many meanings, and has since the Rabbis of the Talmud first began explicating the depths of the Torah during post-Second Temple times. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel’s magnum opus Torah min HaShamayim, recently translated by Rabbi Gordon Tucker, culls Rabbinic literature for how the Rabbis interpreted the notion of a Heavenly Torah.

Even by simply looking at the size of the book, by judging it bys its cover, so to speak, we ascertain that the Rabbis had many understandings for the term “Heavenly Torah.”

During Shavuot last year, my teacher Rabbi Shai Held drew my attention to an article by 20^th century Jewish Theologian Jakob Petuchowski, appropriately titled for today “Not by Bread Alone.”

He identifies this essential trop of the Torah and bread sustaining humanity. The parallelism of Lehem min HaAretz and Torah min HaShamayim. Bread From the Earth and Torah From Heaven.

We say one with gusto, without thinking twice. So should it be with Torah. I believe in Torah from Heaven just as I believe in Lechem min HaAretz.

I say this not to appease myself. Nor anyone in this room. But because I believe it is the honest articulation of what it means to study the breadth and depth of our Tradition. To live a Jewish life of passion, charging forward and learning as much as possible without straps which hold me back. To study the entire gamut of Torah min HaShamayim, a divinely given corpus of text, infused with human ingenuity and interpretation throughout the generations.

This is the meaning of Torah min HaShamayim. This is the meaning of Lechem Min HaAretz.

I push the metaphor of bread and Torah one step further.

If indeed there is direct parallel between physical nourishment and spiritual nourishment, then why do we not say a Birkat HaMazon of sorts after we study, as is Biblically prescribed for food in this very Parasha! We read in Chapter 8, verse 10, V’achalta v’savata, uverachta ed Adonai Elohecha, al haaretz hatova asher natan lach. When you eat and are satisfied, you should bless HaShem your God for the good land that God has given you.

If we’re going to use a metaphor, after all, let’s use it.

There is a discussion in Massechet Brachot page 11a, about the proper prayer that we should say before studying Torah, determining that it is asher kidshanu b’mitzvotav laasok bdivrei torah, who commanded us to engage with Torah, as well as the blessing we are familiar with from Birkot HaTorah, asher banu mikol haamim v’natan lanu et torato. (These are on page 6 in your Sim Shalom siddur)

Commenting on this, the medieval commentators the Tosefot (the grandsons of Rashi, for historical reference) rhetorically ask why one only should say this prayer only in the morning? Why not say the prayer over studying Torah every time one sits down to study?

They answer: because every hour that one is awake one has the obligation to study. Therefore one says it upon waking up in the morning and is exempt for the rest of the day.

Translating it back to my question about Birkat HaMazon, one is never satisfied or satiated from studying Torah. Therefore there is no finality to the “meal.” One prayer before studying lasts the entire day. 

The Tosefot say this in the grammatical indicative. One is exempt from saying this prayer for studying throughout the day because the obligation for study is not bound to a particular time.

I issue it in the grammatical imperative. Of all times, during Shabbat pick up a book that you haven’t read before. Read over the parsha. Mine the depths. Make studying for half an hour a regular part of your Shabbat afternoon, at the beach, at your home, with your family, on your own. Let’s face it. We’re all going to the beach this afternoon, anyway.

We read on page 3a of Massechet Hagigah in the Talmud, Taaseh Oznecha k’afarkeset ukneh lcha lev mevin. Make your ear into a funnel, thereby acquiring for yourself an understanding heart. (such imagery!). The moral? Listen first. Allow all information into your mind and heart. Filter it only after you have opened your ear as a funnel.

On this Shabbat, turn your ear into a funnel. Ensure that saying the brakha over studying Torah in the morning really does last for the entire day, because you will be studying throughout the course of Shabbat.

Acquire yourself a lev mevin, an understanding heart, through the spiritual nourishment of Torah min HaShamayim.

Annie Lewis on becoming a rabbi

My friend Annie Lewis recently put words to paper on her growth into the position. My writing teacher in college said that with good writing, you can feel the texture between your finger tips. "You feel it?" he'd ask.

You be the judge here.

This was published on the Lilith Magazine Blog and seems to be part of a series.

Letter from Jerusalem:  Listening on the next generation of Conservative women rabbis

“Get yourself a teacher, acquire for yourself a friend.” – Pirkei Avot 1:6

Blessed are You, God, who clothes the naked. My mother’s closet is full of clothing from various eras of her life. Suits hang in every jewel-tone from decades of shul-going. She has even saved her Bat Mitzvah dress, yellowed lace with patches of pastel. When I was younger, I used to love playing dress-up in her closet, awaiting the day I would grow into her clothes.

Among the diverse discussion topics when a group of women rabbinical students gathered in Jerusalem living rooms this past year was the contents of our own closets: how we see ourselves and how we are seen; the ways we choose to cover and uncover; the garments we have inherited and those we have taken upon ourselves. My hevruta (study partner), Kerrith Solomon, and I convened this group of women from the Jewish Theological Seminary and the Ziegler school so we could talk with our peers about things we have not yet had safe space to explore within our schooling, reclaiming and exploring our identities as women on our paths toward the rabbinate in the Conservative Movement.

For my first two years in rabbinical school, I felt pressure to be both a Jewish man and a Jewish woman. I accepted the full gamut of ritual obligation, but never had any conversation around integrating my gender identity into the role of rabbi. I fastened kippot to my hair and didn’t quite feel at home. When a male colleague argued that all female students should be obligated to wear kippot, my reflex was to guard my hair from the demands of others, to preserve it as a domain for self-expression. I found myself choosing to wear my most feminine garb to class and spending time in front of the mirror with a mascara wand. Encountering older layers of text from the tradition I thought I was in love with, I experienced a sense of loss and lack that I didn’t know how to name. A committed feminist, I felt alienated and disconnected from so-called holy sources that related to women as objects and second-class citizens. Many days, I felt like a spinning head, detached from my body. Often, I would end up with the mascara as a smudged trail down my cheeks.

Some of the women in our group wear kippot, others choose not to cover their hair. Still others have dipped into Jerusalem’s colorful market of headscarves and hats of all shapes and sizes. Some of us worry about how Conservative congregations might react to a rabbi in a fancy hat on the bimah. Two female classmates who wear kippot cover the covering with a scarf or beret when venturing into public spaces in Jerusalem.

Walking through Jerusalem, I often feel as though everyone is in costume or uniform. We all feel hyperaware of how what we wear here conveys messages about who we are. When I arrived in Israel, newly engaged, I bought a book with instructions for tying intricate designs with headscarves. Some days, I have wrapped my hair in flowery cloths, perhaps for practice or perhaps to entertain my curiosity, noticing if people treat me differently when I code into my outfit a message of being off-limits. Though my mother might have palpitations if she saw me, there is something sacred to me in making space for ritual role experimentation.

As I brace myself to enter marriage this summer, I am particularly grateful for one open conversation we had in the group around roles and responsibilities at home, telling the stories of the models we knew growing up. One classmate shared how her mother pours her father’s cereal every morning. Another spoke of her parents’ emphasis on performing chores of choice, having themselves been raised with servants in South Africa. Where will we carry on family traditions and where will we create practices of our own?

This year, meeting as a group with our teacher Rabbi Miriam Berkowitz, we have looked at halakhic and traditional texts and examined our own emotions around niddah, mikveh and kissui rosh (head covering). We have spoken about boundary issues, rereading the laws of “yihud,” in the Shulkhan Arukh (a 16th century authoritative Jewish legal anthology), which regulate men and women spending time alone together).

Some women were comforted to find a place in the traditional sources that supports our right to say, “These are my boundaries.” I saw it as an opening for discussion of sexual tension and transference that may arise in pastoral work and steps we can take to establish healthy contours for relationships in our professional lives. We encounter these conventional codes for gender relations with awareness that in our group and communities, people have a range of identities in regards to sexual orientation and differing comfort levels with intimacy of various sorts.

What does it mean to pick up and dust off things the Conservative Movement has stored away in corners, such as hair-covering, or niddah (the laws mandating, in their most stringent interpretation, no physical contact at all between husband and wife during her period and for seven days after) that I have generally associated with Orthodoxy and with the perpetuation of gender hierarchy? Why are we reaching for these rituals? Can we call our search for meaning feminist, or is it something else?

One participant spoke of her commitment to observing the laws set out by Jewish tradition as well as the need to attribute new meanings to Halakhah to make it relevant to our lives. “When the tradition says go to mikveh, I go. I find joy in fulfilling the mitzvah. I find it meaningful to have time apart from my partner to reinvest in my self. I find immersion in the water relaxing. Once, a mikveh attendant told me that if you pray in the mikveh, God will hear your prayers more. I have made it a time for spontaneous prayer, to acknowledge what is happening in my life, to ask God for strength and healing. I feel like it is the closest thing I have to a “Holy of Holies,” an intimate and quiet space, alone with God.”

* * * * * * * * *

“God, open my lips and my mouth will sing your praise”

I have a recurring dream in which my teeth fall out into my hand. I have spent the past few years in rabbinical school spiritually sore, as if my soul has been teething; as if I have been waiting for something to break through, to catch the cries and to form them into words. In this group, I feel finally able to speak, to articulate, to give language to an intensive search effort for who I might be, as a rabbi and as a person.

One Wednesday evening, over lentil stew, we spent time on questions of feeling authentic, about perceptions of what a rabbi “looks like,” about dreams of becoming pregnant or raising families and concerns about how that might impact our careers.

“How big do you want to be?” Aderet Okon Drucker was asked by a mentoring rabbi when she sought advice about which internships and jobs to pursue as she begins her rabbinic career.

“How big do you want to be?” What does it mean to want to be big? What sacrifices will we have to make in order to make room for our influence to grow? Are we allowed to not want to be big? We discovered we were annoyed with the go-to definition of “big” and the culture of comparing congregation size–A, B, C, D–that we have heard permeates rabbis’ gatherings. I joked that mine would be a Double D, if only there were a correlation between shul size and bra size.

One woman redefined big as an integrated identity that allows you to be your many selves as a rabbi, partner, parent, friend, daughter and person. Being big would mean having a sense of self that could hold and weave together many facets of life beyond the professional realm.

We spoke of hopes that our generation can redefine rabbinic identity in this way, taking some of the pressure off of the expectations of unyielding self-sacrifice placed on the rabbi. Our vision of the rabbinate would involve a makeover of communal expectations, in which it would be acceptable and encouraged for clergy to have time and life outside of the pulpit/office etc. We see benefit in this for rabbis-to-be and rabbis-that-are of all genders.

If this is what it means to be big, I would like to super-size my rabbinate.

-Annie Lewis

The Rotem Bill explained

People have spilled large amounts of ink, virtual and tangible, about the recent conversion bill which hit the Israeli Knesset (Congress) floor, a law which would give designated Israeli Orthodox courts the sole rights over conversion to Judaism, and hence hold a monopoly over the age-old question of "who is a Jew" (certainly in reference to immigration to Israel).

The news left the banter of the Jewish world with Alana Newhouse's NYT Op/Ed; it continues to flow through the pages of the Jerusalem Post, HaAretz and every Jewish blog I've encountered thus far.
 
But my friend Jonah Lowenfeld has provided the best analysis I've seen thus-far. He outlines the politics of how the bill once really was out to help Russian immigrants gain status as Jews in Israel but turned to a political barnstorm of attempting to buy Charedi votes, giving political muscle to Rabbi Shlomo Riskin of Efrat and beyond.

If you read one article on the topic, this is the one to read.

It appears that the bill has been tabled until the next session of the Knesset, in no small part due to the outpouring of letters from Diaspora communities to PM Bibi Netanyahu (upwards of 50,000 — 25,000 through the Masorti website, alone).

Haven't written yet? Make it happen.

Israel and the Diaspora — Embracing Tension

A Dvar Torah for last week's parasha, "Matot-Masei." Delivered at Congregation Beth Judah, Ventnor, NJ.

V’horashtem et haaretz vishavtem ba. Ki lachem natati et haaretz lareshet otah.

“You shall take possession of the land and settle in it, for I have assigned the land to you to possess.” Numbers 33:53.

It’s a pretty specific order.

Nachmanides, Ramban, the medieval Biblical exegete, legalist and one of the first Kabbalists, lists this pasuk as the basis for one of Biblical imperatives — to dwell in the land and inherit it. Both Maimonides and Nachmanides cull the Torah and create a list of the 613 Biblically prescribed commandments — but Maimonides does not list a commandment to live in the land of Israel. Nachmanides does in his gloss to Maimonides’ list in Sefer HaMitzvot.

It’s another part of the chain in a centuries-long rabbinic argument about the place of Israel in the life of the Jewish people.

We find the aforementioned pasuk in Chapter 33, verse 53 of B’Midbar. But take a look at the previous 52 verses, beginning with the very name of the second of the two parshiot we read today, Mas’ei, from the Hebrew root to travel. It is a chapter of motion, of marching from place to place. Each detail matters. There is a story at each location in the journey.

From Ra’amses to Sukkot. To Etam. To  Pi-hahirot. To Marah. To Aleph. To Bet. To Tav.

And finally, enough of this wandering. You’ve gone far enough. Stop here. Go settle.

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, the current chief rabbi of England, describes this journey in these terms:

“The paradox of Jewish history is that though a specific territory, the holy land, is at its heart, Jews have spent more time in exile than in Israel; more time longing for it than dwelling in it; more time traveling than arriving. Much of the Jewish story could be written in the language of today’s sedra: “They journeyed from X and camped at Y”. 

Hence the tension. On the one hand, monotheism must understand G-d as non-territorial. The G-d of everywhere can be found anywhere. He is not confined to this people, that place – as pagans believed. He exercises His power even in Egypt. He sends a prophet, Jonah, to Nineveh in Assyria. He is with another prophet, Ezekiel, in Babylon. There is no place in the universe where He is not. On the other hand, it must be impossible to live fully as a Jew outside Israel, for if not, Jews would not have been commanded to go there initially, or to return subsequently. Why is the G-d beyond place to be found specifically in this place?”

All of this, of course, I am saying during the week following July Fourth, the anniversary of American Independence. This is a land that has given room for the Jewish people to grow unlike any other country in history. Without any doubt amidst tribulations, it is simultaneously a haven which has welcomed the tired, the poor and at this point in history, provides the opportunity for social mobility, for expression of autonomy.

This year was only the second time in the past 17 years that I have seen the fireworks on July Fourth. I’ve either been at Camp Ramah in Wisconsin, in Israel or in a different country. After a year of studying in Israel, celebrating American Independence Day earlier this week reinforced the absolutely unique place in history in which all of us sits today. I am an American Jew, dedicated to my home community, my multiple communities here. And simultaneously I feel indelibly tugged toward a land and people across an ocean.

I spent this past year thrusting myself toward an Israeli experience of life. Speaking Hebrew was my entrance to Judaism; I raced through the work books during my fourth grade Hebrew school class and asked my parents to go to Solomon Schechter the following year. And they agreed. I continue to find Israeli music to be one of the most authentic engagements with contemporary Jewish life, living lyrical expression of centuries’ old themes. Modern rock and roll painted with the brush strokes of ancient stones.

On May 31, I jumped and sang along with three generations to the 25^th anniversary concert of the rock band Mashina. During sukkot, lights and sounds bounced off a wadi by the dead sea as both “secular” and religious Jews bounced up and down to Gidi Gov’s version of Yaaleh v’Yavo. This can only happen in Israel. As the refrain of another rock song goes, “Rak B’Yisrael.” Only in Israel.

We have autonomy in America. It is a home.

Israel represents the building of Jewish civil society, the religious and cultural dream of a nation. 

And because we have these multiple opportunities, these two nations of growth, of depth, along comes tension. And it’s one we should relish.

It’s fundamentally a tension which has been a part of our condition from the outset.

Complexity is the authentic position of our tradition. Certainly about this particular case of our relationship with Israel.

We find two polar statements in the writings of our Rabbis about our case at hand. From the Tannaitic Midrash Mekhilte d’Rabbi Ishmael: “Wherever the Israelites went into exile, the Divine presence was exiled with them.” Clearly, God’s presence is not tied to a particular place. After all, God is God.

In turn, virtually the opposite from Massechet Ketubot of the Talmud (110b): “One who leaves Israel to live elsewhere is as if he had no God.”

Entrenched throughout the Rabbinic cannon there is conflict. Between the rationalism of the school of Ishmael and the irrationalism of the school of Akiva. Between describing an immanent and a transcendent God in peoples’ lives. And here, between God who is with the people Israel in all places and at all times and who has a special seat in Jerusalem.

“Can one find God, serve God, experience God, outside the holy land? asks Rabbi Sacks. “Yes and No. If the answer were only Yes, there would be no incentive to return. If the answer were only No, there would be no reason to stay Jewish in exile. On this tension, the Jewish existence is built.”

As Jews sitting along the coast of America, the mandate in turn must be how we acknowledge and endorse the fundamental tensions in our lives and don’t reduce them to platitudes.

Complexity is not a vice. The tradition authentically articulates that this very struggle of identities is part of who we are as individuals, as a nation.

Chapter 53 portrays the wandering from place A to place B to place Z. And finally a chance to rest. It’s here we’re supposed to settle.

Yet it’s clearly more complicated than that, as well.

Let us not reduce our ideologies to black or white. We must live the paradox. Again, complexity is not a vice.

During this week of celebrating the country where we live, let us continue the conversation of defining the meaning of Judaism in a melting pot, one where we wear multiple hats of identity, where we pledge allegiance to more than one flag.

Indeed this is both the American dream and the Jewish vision for life, one of complexity, of depth. Of constant struggle not because of insecurity or angst.

But because living a tension is the authentic expression of our people.