Mount Herzl is Not Enough: The Next Israel Conversation

One. The Mountain of Memory

Jerusalem has not one, but two holy mountains: The Temple Mount in the east, and Har Herzl in the west. Har Herzl, or Har haZikaron, “the Mountain of Memory” has a very deliberate architecture:

On its highest point rests Herzl’s grave. It is surrounded by the graves of Israel’s presidents, prime ministers and leaders. On the slopes of the mountain is the national graveyard for fallen soldiers. Follow the path down the mountain to the west, and you’ve arrived at Yad VaShem, Israel’s Holocaust museum. Take the winding road down from the Yad VaShem museum, and you are at the bottom of the mountain in the “Valley of the Communities,” representing the exilic communities of the Diaspora that were destroyed in the Holocaust.

Topography is used to tell a story, embedding an ideology in the mountainside. When you hike this mountain, you are climbing the contours of an argument: from the depths of exilic reality, doomed to destruction, through the flames of anti-Semitic hatred, up past the sons and daughters of the nation who gave the ultimate sacrifice, and onwards to the top, where a visionary’s dream is enshrined in black marble: an autonomous Jewish state.

Two. Israel’s Holy Week

Herzl's grave at the top of Mt. Herzl

There are moments when the Jewish calendar opens the faceless ticking of time to reveal a beating heart at its center.  Secular life barely uses time in such a way – this approach is normally left to the religious and their holy times. But in Israel, the secular state created a “civil religion” with its own High Holy Days. Israel’s “Yamim Noraim” fall this week, the seven days betweenYom HaShoah, the Holocaust Memorial Day commemorated last Thursday, and Yom haZikaron and Yom HaAtzmaut, Israel’s eerie pair of Memorial for Fallen soldiers, which at nightfall becomes the Day of Independence, to be celebrated this Thursday.

While the way these days flow into each other was a kind of fluke of history, they create a powerful statement. There are seven days between Yom haShoah and Yom haAtzmaut, as if the entire country sits shiva, mourning the loss of the Holocaust, and then arises to be comforted by the existence of the State of Israel. Add Passover to the mix two weeks before, and you have a full ideology, as Prof. Don Handelman has shown, one that is often evoked in the speeches given by Israel’s President and Prime Minister on these days. As Israel’s Prime Minister, Levi Eshkol, put it in 1964:

"Holocaust memorial day falls between the ancient Festival of Freedom and the modern day of Israel’s Independence. The annals of our people are enfolded between these two events. With our exodus from the Egyptian bondage, we own our ancient freedom; now, with our ascent from the depths of the Holocaust, we live once again as an independent nation." (Prime Minister Levi Eshkol, Holocaust day Address, 1964)

Yom haZikaron begins with a blaring siren which is sounded across Israel at exactly 8pm, piercing walls and hearts, and a nation stands still to commemorate those who fell in its honor. It is the most powerful time to be in Israel’s public space: stores close, communities come together, and the radio plays the saddest Israeli songs. The nation turns from a collection of citizens into a family that together remembers their fallen.

Like the mountain, the chronology makes a powerful argument: the tragedy of the Holocaust has taught us that Jews need their own state in order to be free and to be safe. In order to achieve that independence we must be willing to make the ultimate sacrifice—our sons and daughters in exchange for independence. Only after that lesson has been engrained, can we celebrate our independence.

Three. Fissures

Of course, in reality, this clean narrative is riddled with question marks:

Is the Holocaust really to be owned and subsumed by the State of Israel? Zionism existed before the Holocaust and is more than simply a response to anti-Semitism. Perhaps the Shoah should not become a point in an ideological argument, but a historical memory that belongs to humanity as much as to one group of victims.

Yom haZikaron claims to turn the nation into a family, but soldiers of minorities struggle with the Jewish face of this day, and the country is increasingly facing the fact that a diminishing demographic is doing the work while Ultra Orthodox and Secular elites skip out.

Yom haZikaron opening ceremony at the Kotel, 2012

Yom haAtzmaut is challenged both on the left, by anti-Zionist Israelis who seek to release  Israel from its ethnocentric bias, and on the right, by religious groups, betrayed by the evacuation from Gaza, who see not the 1948 secular declaration of independence, but the 1967 unification of Jerusalem and greater Israel, as the high point of the narrative. This ideology subsumes Herzl’s mountain back under the Temple Mount.

Some feel threatened by these dissenting voices, which find issue with the argument put forward by the Memorial Mountain. I’d rather see in this the natural and healthy debates of a country that is trying to do many things at once. These voices should not be pushed out, but rather seriously engaged. We need to have this debate together, and the calendar and topography must be used to further this discourse.

Four. 50 Days

The timeline of Passover-Yom haShoah-Yom haZikaron-Yom haAtzamut needs to be extended to include one other holiday: Shavuot, the anniversary of the Jewish people coming together to become part of a covenant. The secular Zionist calendar loved Passover, renaming it the Festival of Freedom, but had no patience for the rabbinic Shavuot, the festival of Torah and its exilic progeny, Halakha. In the early days of the State, Shavuot was returned to its Biblical agricultural roots as a celebration of first fruits. Now that agriculture got sidelined in Israel all that is left for most Israelis is a consumerist celebration of dairy products.

But to me, Shavuot represents the day in which we get to discuss and decide what we want to do with our previously achieved freedom and independence. Sefirat haOmer, the quirky ritual of counting 50 days from Passover to Shavuot, represents exactly that process: the move from Freedom to Covenant, from childhood dreams to mature decision making.

Israeli independence, and the celebration of its achievement, is important. But it is not sufficient. We need to continue the process, counting up the days to the time where we discuss, agree and sign a covenant of what we – Israel’s stakeholders: citizens and diaspora Jews - want Israel’s existence to be about. Har Herzl is not enough, we must find Israel’s new Mt. Sinai so that this exciting project can take flight.

Rabbi Mishael Zion | Bronfman Fellowships | Tazria-Metzora / Yom haAtzmaut 2012 | Text and the City

Wicked: 20th Century Lessons from the Art of the Wicked Child

Otto Geismar, Germany 1927

Of the four children of the Haggadah, the Rasha, the Wicked one, stands out. His siblings are all described through intellectual categories: Wise, Simple, Doesn’t know to ask. The Wicked child alone is stamped with an ethical category. It is perhaps not incidental that the Wicked one also gets the most sympathy from modern readers. A liberal education is loath to label someone as wicked simply for questioning. Is the Haggadah making an important argument for the limits on questioning, or is it perhaps not the content of the question but rather the tone, the body language, and the stereotype already constructed in the parent’s head, which sways the interpretation in a certain way?

This is where the Art of the Four Children is the best commentary. The illustrator is forced to fill in the gaps, informing us not only of body language, but also of historical setting and ideological backdrop. But before art, let’s turn to the text, using (mostly) Nathan Englander’s new translation:

רָשָׁע מָה הוּא אוֹמֵר? "מָה הָעֲבֹדָה הַזֹּאת לָכֶם?" לָכֶם - וְלֹא לוֹ. וּלְפִי שֶׁהוֹצִיא אֶת עַצְמוֹ מִן הַכְּלָל כָּפַר בְּעִקָּר. וְאַף אַתָּה הַקְהֵה אֶת שִנָּיו וֶאֱמֹר לוֹ: "בַּעֲבוּר זֶה עָשָׂה יי לִי בְּצֵאתִי מִמִּצְרָיִם." לִי - וְלֹא לוֹ. אִילּוּ הָיָה שָׁם, לֹא הָיָה נִגְאָל.

The Wicked One, what does he say? “What does this type of practice mean to you?” ‘To you’, and not to him. And by divorcing himself from the community, he denies the very essence. Moreover, you must blunt the bite of his words, by telling him: “For this purpose the Lord labored on my behalf by taking me out of Egypt” For me, and not for him. Had he been there, he would stand undelivered.

Dick Codor's Marx Bros 4Sons

What is the wickedness of this child? The Haggadah editorializes: ‘To you’ and not to ‘him’ - the Wicked child sees no part for himself in the practices or values of his parents. He is questioning the premise of solidarity with family/people and this – says the Haggadah – is the sharpest of bites. The parent scorns his Wicked child: You would not have been liberated! The response echoes a midrash which claims that only 20% of the Israelites left Egypt during the Exodus. The other 80%, of little faith (in Moses and his God? in the idea of a better place?), decided to stay and become rank-and-file Egyptians. This child would have stayed with that majority, claims the Haggadah, not with the crazy matzah-eating fugitive slaves.

Reading this text in light of the Jewish-European 20^th Century, though, forces one to revisit the role of the Rasha, for the 20^th century was the century of “Wicked” Children, who left the Egypt of their parents. As Yuri Slezkine writes, there were not two , but three great Jewish migrations in the twentieth century from the Pale of Settlement, each one a rebellious liberation movement that was based on a “patricide” of the traditional Jewish home: Nationalism (the Zionist migration to Palestine), Liberalism (the Capitalist/Professionalist migration to America), and Communism (the Political Socialist migration to Moscow). Each migration had its own ideology, its own vision of a Promised Land, its own theory of how to liberate Jewish existence from being "strangers in Egypt": The Universalistic Socialist Promised Land of early Communism, in which Jews flourished; the Capitalist vision of nontribal statehood, a “nation of strangers held together by a common celebration of separateness (individualism) and rootlessness (immigration).” And the Zionist "indigenous land" where strangers could turn into natives.

Artistic renderings of the Four Children throughout that century constantly wrestle with these three promised lands, at time portraying the new Zionist/Capitalist/Communist Jew as Wise or Wicked according to the views of the illustrator:

In early American Haggadot, the wicked child was the “assimilated American”, who leaves the paths of his parents in favor of a path of prosperity and acceptance by the wider community. The ways of old are relevant “To you, and not to him”. This seemingly one-sided story is told by one of the earliest American haggadot, published in 1879 in Chicago:

Chicago Haggadah, 1879

The Wicked child, his body arrogantly deflecting away from the table, is dressed in modern clothes, smoking (as any civilized gentleman would do), and pontificating, waving his hand dismissively at his traditional parents.

But this illustration is far from embracing of the Wise child and deeply ambivalent about his parents, who seem frozen in time next to their dynamic “Americaner” son. The wise son is dressed like his parents, but is lost to the world, engrossed in his book. Most significantly, the two younger siblings are eyeing their younger brother enviously, imitating the way he waves his hand about. One can only imagine how many families in the Mid-West and on the East coast, saw this scene unfold at their own seder tables. The reader is left with a question whether the sympathies of the artist lay with the glassy eyed father or with the flamboyant son.

Lola, Leon David Israel, 1920

30 years later, in the Lower East Side, the scene has changed significantly. From the proud German Jewish Americans of industrial Chicago, we turn to the shmutzy alleys of the Eastern European immigrants of Spring Street.  In a Haggadah from 1920 illustrated by Yiddish cartoonist Lola the wicked child is a boxer. This is a tribute both to the golden days of Jewish boxing (like Battling Levinsky, lightweight champion of the world 1916-1920), and to Max Nordau’s 1900 call for a Muscular Judaism. Our buff boxer seems willing to take on his dorky brother (who by now has no problem dressing like a modern American, but is still engrossed in his book). Again, one wonders if the Jewish boxer is the villain or the hero.

Siegmund Forst, USA 1959

The presence of Jewish Communism is also well attested in haggadot. Communist Haggadot abounded in the 30’s and 40’s, including my favorite modern re-working of the Avadim Hayeenu, “We Were Slaves” Haggadah passage:

We were slaves to Capital, until the October Revolution [of 1917] "redeemed us with a strong hand" from the land of slavery. If it weren't for the October Revolution, then we and our children and our children's children would still be slaves to Capital. Today the revolution is only here, next year = a world revolution. (The Red Haggadah, 1927)

For Moscow’s Jewish intelligentsia, and for many American Jews, being a communist was being the wise child, liberated not only from Capital but also from Ethnicity. Yet many American Haggadahs of the 50’s and 60’s save the Wicked child’s place to the communist cousin. In one portrayal, the Wicked child is a  “flaming commie,” threatening to set fire to the world. In another, he the is spitting image of Leon Trotsky, holding an enormous ax poised at splitting through the Ten Commandments (meanwhile the assimilated American Jew has been demoted to the Simple child, in his flannel shirt and racing results).

Tzvi Livni, Tel Aviv 1955

Finally, we come to the third, and smallest, Jewish European exodus of the early 20^th century: Zionism. In Zionist renderings of the four children, like the one by Tzvi Livni here from 1952, the muscular Jew is the Wise one, holding a (closed) book, wearing a Zionist youth movement shirt, ready for action. The Wicked child is the financier-speculator in the shirt and tie, dollar bills creeping out of his shirt (Israeli prime ministers only started wearing ties in the 1990’s, a sure sign of the decline of ideological Israel…). This Wicked child points at the work of Zionist inhabitation of the land, and says: “What is this avodah, this practice, to you?” The religious Jew is not missing, though. Usually given primacy of place as the Wise child, for Secular Zionists the ultra-orthodox are the “child who does not know how to ask.”

But many Secular Zionists took pride in being the Wicked child of the Haggadah. A rebellious secular movement, Zionism incorporated the criticism of the wicked child: “What does this old Jewish practice, which leaves you emasculated in your decrepit eastern European exile, mean to you?”

The 1927 Shomer HaTza’ir anthem captures this spirit exactly:

The Song of the Son David Shimoni, 1927 Anthem of the Shomer HaTzair Do not listen son, to the morality of your father And to the teachings of your mother pay no heed For father’s morals are “line on line” And mother’s Torah is “Slowly, slowly” But the Spring storm says but one: Listen, man, to the song of the son! To the song of the son, and the great-grand-son, Which comes from beyond a deep fog… And break out a new path, leaving the Way which the father took, For why shall you sin towards the generation, A future full of illumination? On a cold night, a night of Adar, Whilst the mother sleeps, the father is down, Will you hear, the song of the wind abounds, The song of the son, a song of joy and battle? On a cold night, a night of Adar, Hearken, how the spring sings…

The original Hebrew text of the anthem above was copied in the font usually reserved for Torah scrolls, and was carried in the pockets of movement members like a religious amulet. Secular Zionists sought to replace the tradition, to rewrite the holy Scriptures, replacing the tunes of traditionalism with the song of rebellion.

At the end of the day, these three Jewish liberation movements, which might have been classified as “Wicked” in their times, force us to re-evaluate our relationship to rebelliousness in Modern Jewry.

For me, as a parent, a Zionist and a Jew, the lesson of the Zionist child rings in my ear: that rebellion should not be interpreted as betrayal, and that we must be very humble in our assumptions about what is right for the next generation. At least one, if not two of the 20^th century rebellious Jewish liberation movements succeeded in creating a vibrant Jewish culture and eventually a better world for all. We must seek out the rebellious questions of the next generation, cultivate them, all the while supporting that they, like those rebellious Zionists of old, continue to use the language and stories of their inheritance as they march into a new spring.

Pesach Sameach!

Mishael

p.s. I can’t resist one more 4 children, the 21^st century rendition of the illustrator of my own Haggadah, A Night to Remember: The Haggadah of Contemporary Voices, Michel Kichka. For a comprehensive essay  on the art of the Four Children.

Michel Kichka, Israel 2006

Rabbi Mishael Zion | Bronfman Fellowships | Tzav / Pesach 2012 | Text and the City

Between Afghanistan and Toulouse: VaYikra as Dorian Gray

It’s been a tough fortnight: Last week, a US soldier, SSgt Bales, sent to Afghanistan by my country, cold bloodedly massacred 16 Afghanis in their homes. This week a French Al Qaeda supporter cold bloodedly killed 4 of my people, of them 3 children. These two acts sear the mind and break the heart. Horror, shame, grief and fear have been coursing through the heart this week. Out of those emotions, though, ethical questions are raised: Do I bear a modicum of responsibility for the actions of SSgt Bales? Do the deaths of French citizens I have never met relate to me more than other deaths this week?

Cast largely, these events raise the basic questions of solidarity and collectivity:

Towards whom do I owe collective responsibility? Regarding whom do I feel collective grief? In other words: who is my we?

Turning to the Parasha to serve as a sounding board for these questions, one might be disheartened: it is the opening of the book of VaYikra (Leviticus), that antiquated collection of priestly laws. But “Blessed is the Lord who gave us Torah, and who gave us Scholars to interpret it”, for Prof. Jacob Milgrom, the pre-eminent scholar of Leviticus, comes to the rescue. As a teenager in Jerusalem, I used to fix Prof. Milgrom’s Commodore 64 computer. He in exchange would teach me VaYikra.

For Milgrom:

Values are what Leviticus is all about. They pervade every chapter and almost every verse. Underlying the rituals, the careful reader will find an intricate web of values that purports to model how we should relate to God and to one another.

Anthropology has taught us that when a society wishes to express and preserve its basic values, it ensconces them in rituals. How logical! Words fall from our lips like the dead leaves of autumn, but rituals endure with repetition. They are visual and participatory. They embed themselves in memory at a young age, reinforced with each enactment. (Introduction to Leviticus: A Continental Commentary)

Using our knowledge of Mesopotamian religion, Milgrom contrasts Leviticus’ Priestly theology with the basic tenets of pagan religion:

Israel’s neighbors believed that impurity polluted the sanctuary. For them the source of the impurity was demonic. Therefore, their priests devised rituals and incantations to immunize their temples against demonic penetration. Israel, however, in the wake of its monotheistic revolution, abolished the world of demonic divinities. Only a single being capable of demonic acts remained – the human being. […] Endowed with free will, human power is greater than any attributed to humans by pagan society. Not only can one defy God but, in Priestly imagery, one can drive God out of his sanctuary. In this respect, humans have replaced demons.

Milgrom unpacks the ritual of the Purification offering (קורבן חטאת, described in Vayikra 4) in which “purging blood” is sprinkled, not on the sinner, but rather on the sanctuary altar. Milgrom contends that:

The rationale of the purification [חטאת] offering [is that] the violation of a commandment generates impurity and, if severe enough, pollutes the sanctuary from afar. This imagery portrays the Priestly Picture of Dorian Gray. It declares that while sin may not scar the face of the sinner, it does scar the face of the sanctuary. In the Priestly scheme, the sanctuary is polluted (read: society is corrupted) by brazen sins (read: the rapacity of the leaders) and also by inadvertent sins (read: the acquiescence of the “silent majority”), with the result that God is driven out of his sanctuary (read: the nation is destroyed). [Leviticus: A Continental Commentary, pg. 31-32]

Milgrom and Leviticus offer us powerful imagery, laden with value-assumptions, with which to reframe the question of collective responsibility. A “priestly reading” of this week’s news would suggest that SSgt Bales’ actions polluted the American sanctuary, thus implying our collective responsibility towards his act. An obligation ensues for myself and my fellow American to contribute towards purging the altar.

In discussing this question, a Bronfman alumna reminded me this week that we must be careful in discuss our blame and shame of Bales’ actions. In questioning our share of the responsibility for his actions, we must neither clearing SSgt Bales of his own responsibility, nor fall to stereotypes of “unhinged” servicemen. The act of purging for Bales’ deeds might include increasing support for the families of US soldiers and support for Veterans (through lobbying and philanthropy), as well as celebrating the daily courageous acts of soldiers, not just their rare shameful ones.

The confluence of the murders in France and Afghanistan served as a reminder that as opposed to the Israelites in the desert, camped around the sanctuary, we live in a world of complex interlocking and competing identities. Each identity asserts a different communal “we”. We don’t have just one sanctuary towards which we are bound, and which collects our polluting and purging acts. We have many: personally I have a Jewish sanctuary, an Israeli one, an American one, a human one, a male one, and on and on. To some I feel strongly connected, donating my half-shekel loyalty tax annually and going on pilgrimages that strengthen my connection to it. Others I struggle with, only remembering that I am connected to them when acts of extreme shame or pride occur.

“Words fall from our lips like the dead leaves of autumn, but rituals endure with repetition.” Today we have no sanctuary rituals. All we have are the images and metaphors that our texts have bequeathed us, and our repetitive reading of them. In those texts, we can find powerful vessels through with to test our ethical behavior, and the way in which we identify with others. The image of the sanctuary accumulating our collective misdeeds reminds me that life is not just about surviving the “news cycle”, but about creating a holy community.

It is traditional to end Divrei Torah with a touch of redemption. I’m tempted to call for the messianic rebuilding of the sanctuary, but more relevant would be the traditional verse said at the end of the week of shiva mourning:

“Death shall be destroyed forever; and the Lord God will wipe away the tears from all faces…” (Isaiah 25:8)

בִּלַּע הַמָּוֶת לָנֶצַח, וּמָחָה אֲדֹנָי ה' דִּמְעָה מֵעַל כָּל-פָּנִים

Dedicated to the memory of Jonathan Sandler; Aryeh son of Jonathan Sandler, Gavriel son of Jonathan Sandler; Miriam Montsengo; as well as (as reported online): Mohamed Dawood son of Abdullah; Khudaydad son of Mohamed Juma; Nazar Mohamed; Payendo; Robeena; Shatarina daughter of Sultan Mohamed; Zahra daughter of Abdul Hamid; Nazia daughter of Dost Mohamed; Masooma daughter of Mohamed Wazir; Farida daughter of Mohamed Wazir; Palwasha daughter of Mohamed Wazir; Nabia daughter of Mohamed Wazir; Esmatullah daughter of Mohamed Wazir; Faizullah son of Mohamed Wazir; Essa Mohamed son of Mohamed Hussain; Akhtar Mohamed son of Murrad Ali. 

Rabbi Mishael Zion | Bronfman Fellowships | VaYikra 2012 | Text and the City

Yearning as Constant Becoming: A Guest for Shabbat

A guest entered a house and asked the head of the house: "From what do you make a living?"
"I don't have a fixed livelihood at home," the host replied, "but the world provides me with what I need to live."The guest asked: "What do you study?"
The host answered, and they continued talking together until they spoke in real earnest, heart to heart. The host began to feel a tremendous yearning to know how to reach a certain level of holiness.
"I will study with you," said the guest. ...
The host escorted him outside. All of a sudden he seized him and started to fly with him.

Thus starts Reb Nachman of Breslov’s story, “The Guest”. I shared this story with our 2011 Bronfman Fellows this week at our closing seminar: Over three days in NYC, we explored with them “New Voices in American Judaism”, and revisited the lessons and defining moments they experienced during their summer in Israel. In some ways their involvement with the Bronfman Community is only beginning, but there was a palpable sense of parting in the air. It was a proper context in which to discuss yearning.

Yearning is the driver of this short story. The ability of the guest to turn a random encounter (“from what do you make a living?”) into a moment of “real earnest” and then of “tremendous yearning” is what allows the host to learn how to fly. It is a powerful reminder of the importance of hosting such guests in our life: the people and moments that take us out of our mundane interactions and awaken a desire for something beyond: yearning.

For Reb Nachman yearning is the most human and the most holy of emotions. When you peel away all the imperfect actions and the rambling thoughts, it is yearning that is left. And it is Shabbat which epitomizes the move from mundane existence to a sense of yearning.

Vayakhel-Pekudei, this week’s parsha, opens with a description of the Shabbat:

For six days is work to be made, but on the seventh day there is to be holiness for you, Shabbat, Shabbat-ceasing, for God; Exodus 35:2

שֵׁשֶׁת יָמִים, תֵּעָשֶׂה מְלָאכָה, וּבַיּוֹם הַשְּׁבִיעִי יִהְיֶה לָכֶם קֹדֶשׁ שַׁבַּת שַׁבָּתוֹן, לַה'. שמות לה:ב

Perhaps the most mystifying part of Shabbat is that transition from work week secularity to Shabbat holiness. It is a hard transition to create, so we use various rituals to guide us through it. Some light candles, others leave the house for a synagogue. My family drinks single malt whiskey.

The Talmud (Beitzah 16) describes the transition from “six days of work” to holiness as a moment when a person cracks open and cries out “Oy Vay! Where has my soul been all week?” [The Rabbis are playfully interpreting the Biblical verse שָׁבַת וַיִּנָּפַשׁ “Shabbat VaYinafash” (Exodus 31:17). They pun “Shabbat? Vay-Nefesh!”]. Shabbat becomes the moment when a person catches themselves and suddenly realizes: “Where have I been all week? How can I collect myself now and become present in my life?”

In his "Likkutei Moharan", Reb Nachman ties this moment to the idea of yearning, placing yearning as the most important act of the human psyche:

עִקַּר הִתְהַוּוּת הַנֶּפֶשׁ, הוּא עַל - יְדֵי הַהִשְׁתּוֹקְקוּת וְהַכִּסּוּפִין שֶׁל אִישׁ יִשְׂרָאֵל אַחַר הַשֵּׁם יִתְבָּרַךְ. כָּל אֶחָד לְפִי מַדְרֵגָתוֹ שֶׁהוּא נִכְסָף וּמִשְׁתּוֹקֵק וּמִתְגַּעְגֵּעַ לְהַגִּיעַ אֶל מַדְרֵגָה לְמַעְלָה מִמֶּנָּה, עַל - יְדֵי הַכִּסּוּפִין אֵלּוּ נַעֲשֶׂה נֶפֶשׁ. כְּמוֹ שֶׁכָּתוּב (תְּהִלִּים פ"ד): "נִכְסְפָה וְגַם כָּלְתָה נַפְשִׁי", הַיְנוּ מַה שֶּׁאֲנִי נִכְסָף וְכָלֶה אַחַר הַשֵּׁם יִתְבָּרַךְ, מִזֶּה בְּעַצְמוֹ נַעֲשֶׂה נַפְשִׁי. וְזֶה שֶׁאָמְרוּ רַבּוֹתֵינוּ, זִכְרוֹנָם לִבְרָכָה (בֵּיצָה ט"ז.): "וַיִּנָּפַשׁ" 'כֵּיוָן שֶׁשָּׁבַת וַי אָבְדָה נֶפֶשׁ'. הַיְנוּ שֶׁבִּתְחִלַּת הַשַּׁבָּת שֶׁצָּרִיךְ לְקַבֵּל נֶפֶשׁ יְתֵרָה אָנוּ זוֹכְרִין מֵאֲבֵדַת הַנֶּפֶשׁ בְּחֹל, וְאוֹמְרִים: "וַיִּנָּפַשׁ", וַי אָבְדָה נֶפֶשׁ, וּמַתְחִילִין לְהִתְגַּעְגֵּעַ אַחֲרֶיהָ. וְעַל - יְדֵי - זֶה בְּעַצְמוֹ שֶׁאָנוּ מִתְגַּעְגְּעִין אַחַר הַנֶּפֶשׁ, מִזֶּה בְּעַצְמוֹ נִתְהַוֶּה הַנֶּפֶשׁ הַיְתֵרָה: ליקוטי מוהר"ן קמא סימן לא

According to the degree to which one yearns, aches, or pines to achieve a higher self, through that yearning itself the self comes into being. As it is written: “My being longed, even languished for the courts of the Lord” (Psalm 84:2). In other words, in my act of longing and languishing for God, in that act itself the self is created. Similarly, when Shabbat begins one is awakened to seek a sense of “added self”. At that moment we recall how we’ve lost our sense of self during the days of the week, and we say: Vay! I have lost my “self”! At that exact moment, when we begin to long for our sense of self – the “added spirit” of Shabbat comes into being. Likkutei Moharan I:39

Without longing, there is no sense of self. Without having some “otherness” to desire for, some alternative reality, the self cannot take hold (Shabbat, holiness, the idea of God, are all simply ideas that point in that direction). Constructed this way, a sense of self is not a barrier to holiness/meaningful-life. As Reb Nachman says elsewhere, a self based in the yearning to achieve a higher personhood (more moral, more compassionate, more holy) is in itself the “world to come”.

Back to our Bronfman fellows. As I gazed at our wide-eyed 17 year old fellows this week, I saw the yearning in their eyes – to achieve a higher personhood, to be the good people they want to be, to create the better world they yearn for. I also sensed a fear (in them, in myself?) of the speed with which that yearning can be lost. In a world of external achievement (academic, financial, social), compounded by the desire to “win” and the threat of cynicism towards self and society that seems to be an integral part of adulthood (at least mine) – the yearning is quickly set aside.

This is where the guests come in. Be they mentors, old friends, memories or “palaces in time”, we need those friends to come and redeem us from small talk to earnestness, form cynical sleep to heart-throbbing yearning, from being grounded in the game to taking flight.

Shabbat Shalom,

Mishael

p.s. To read the entire short story “The Guest”, by Reb Nachman, click here.

Rabbi Mishael Zion | Bronfman Fellowships | Vayakhel-Pekudey 2012 | Text and the City

Preparing for Purim: Uniforms, Costumes and Alter Egos

This summer our Israeli Bronfman Fellows (Amitim) were asked to show up one night dressed as their “alter-egos”. That night, the room filled with secular girls in modest dresses, religious kids without kippot, tough-guys, cross-dressers, a young man who dressed “straight” and two geeky computer nerds (perhaps in a desperate claim that in real life they weren't nerds…). It was a moving educational exercise on identity. Some of the Amitim confessed to yearning to become their alter-ego, while others were expressing the dark doppelganger of their identity, someone they fear they could easily become if they did not walk the straight and narrow. It was a stirring reminder to how clothes are one of the most powerful conduits of identity.

Clothes are the stars of this week’s Jewish texts and rituals: This week’s portion, Tetzave, introduces the Priests uniforms, and this Wednesday night is Purim, the holiday of reversal, parody and costumes. The story of Esther is a tale of changing clothes and changing identities, and ever since Jews started wearing costumes on Purim, it has become a day of exploring the boundaries of clothes and identity. The Hebrew language conveys a deep suspicion of clothes in the designated word: begged, which simultaneously means both clothes and betrayal. But are clothes necessarily a betrayal?

Let’s start with a positive reading of clothes: Clothes, so much more than simple physical protection, in fact perform a magical act of belonging. By dressing in a certain way one can embody something beyond the physical body. We use clothes to convey social status, to attribute ourselves to a certain category, or to express psychological and socioeconomic statements.  Clothes are a second chance, an opportunity to transcend our body, to become “other”, to embrace something larger than ourselves.

This is brought to an extreme in uniforms (uni-form), in which a person is redeemed from their individuality and becomes unified with something larger. The Priestly garments represent this union:

You are to make garments of holiness for Aharon your brother,

for glory and for splendor. (Exodus 28:2)

וְעָשִׂיתָ בִגְדֵי-קֹדֶשׁ לְאַהֲרֹן אָחִיךָ לְכָבוֹד וּלְתִפְאָרֶת. (שמות כח:ב)

The term “glory”, kavod is otherwise only used in the Bible to describe God. By wearing those clothes, the priests are no longer mere human, but rather receive something of the Divine Kavod. This does not occur through lineage, it occurs through clothes, as the midrash puts it:

While in their vestments, their priesthood is vested in them. Not in their vestments, their priesthood is not vested in them. Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 73b

בזמן שבגדיהם עליהם – כהונתם עליהם; אין בגדיהם עליהם – אין כהונתם עליהם. (סנהדרין פג:)

It is the “clothes that make the priest”. This very positive interpretation of the role of clothes and uniforms is based on an assumption about the human state. The great Classical Reform German commentator Benno Jacob describes clothes in this vein, employing not only the priestly garments, but also an interesting interpretation of the Garden of Eden story which sets clothes as the height of Divine Creation:

Clothing constitutes the necessary distinguishing mark of human society. In the moral consciousness of man it serves to set him higher than the beast. The status and glory of man are reflected in the character of his attire. Just to be clothed already lends dignity to man, thus the priests were given special garments “for glory and for splendor”.

Benno Jacob (1862-1945)

Clothing is a symbol of human dignity, nakedness the essence of the beast. The nakedness of man symbolizes his mortality. The fact that the Lord himself gave Adam and Eve garments and clothed them indicates that clothing is not just a social convention but an extension of the work of creation, a kind of second skin given to man, a nobler material encasement. (Benno Jacob on Genesis 3:21)

For Benno Jacob, dignified clothing is a mitzvah, the obligation to be a dignified German mentsch. This was an important troupe in German Judaism (and early American Judaism) of the time: Jews should dress like dignified priests, not like those schleppers from the shtetls of Eastern Europe. In the dirty industrializing world, dignified clothes served to redeem a person from mortality, giving a “second skin, a nobler material encasement”.

The days of 19^th century clothed dignity were strewn aside in the 1960’s, when a  suspicious reading of clothes was embraced: clothes represent a concealment of the “true self”. Uniforms are the height of a loss of individualism, while nakedness is purity and holiness. Our bare skin is our priestly garment. This naturalist narrative can also employ a reading of the Garden of Eden, in which the focus is on the fact that God created clothes only after Adam and Eve ate from the tree. Clothes are only needed once the “fall of man” has occurred, for wearing clothes is an act of post-sin concealment, a sign of culture’s betrayal.

Amid this great debate about clothes and humanity, Purim presents an interesting perspective: realizing that there is no way to overcome the fact that clothes simultaneously reveal and conceal our “true self”, we must become playful: wearing the “uniforms of life” which elevate us, but always with a grain of salt, refusing to be boxed in by our clothes (colorful striped socks under the formal suit, anyone?).  

More radically, Purim invites us to set aside a time in which we completely reverse our wardrobe, which in turn reverses our identity. It is an invitation to cross dress, but not only to cross genders (the classic Purim costume, mentioned in many collections of Rabbinic customs), but to cross and reverse all the other dichotomies and uniforms of our lives as well. On Purim we are using clothes against themselves, to deny their power to box us in, and simultaneously to redeem us from needing redemption. At its scariest hours, Purim, like the good carnival that it is, makes us wonder if there is an "authentic self" at all, or whether it is all just endless masks upon masks.

My three year old this year declared that she is getting dressed up as a baby. What she is probably reminding us is that she is no longer a baby (but would still sometimes like to be allowed to be one!). I haven’t decided what I will dress up as this Purim, and whether it will be one of the alter-egos that I sometimes yearn to be, or to ridicule one of the doppelgängers I fear. Either way, I hope to take the playfulness with me this year, not to upend my belief in a search for authenticity, but to remind myself that there are many ways to find it.

Purim Sameach!

Mishael

p.s. Quoted in the name of the Baal Shem Tov is an amazing interpretation of costumes as a pivotal cross-dressing across socio-economic status, which allows a new vision of society (i.e. a “true” fulfillment of the mitzvah of tzedakah):

“It is a mitzva [commandment] to obey and to dress up on Purim” - Indeed, it is a great mitzva, because in this way one cannot tell the noble man from the poor. And therefore they [the rabbis] instituted the mitzvah of gifts to the poor on Purim, because when people dress up, the mitzvah of tzedakah may be performed in its most appropriate manner [כתיקונה]. One does not know then to whom they give, and the one who receives does not know from whom they receive, and thus no one is embarrassed to appear needy and dependent on human kindness. This is the best manner of anonymous giving, when one gives while in costume to someone else in costume.

Quoted in S. Tudor,"ההסוואה וההתחפשות" מחניים קד (1966) 33

Holiness in the Living Room: The Creation of a Holy-Shrine

It is the last place in the world you’d expect to find holiness: in the living room of octogenarian Moroccan immigrants to Israel, on the ground floor of an enormous concrete communist-style apartment complex. True, it is in the city of Tsfat, which became holy in the 16^th century thanks to its resident Kabbalists and the Talmudic Rabbis purported to be buried in its environs – but it is not in the mystical old city. Located in the charmless, modern part of town built hastily in the 1950’s and 60’s to house the many immigrants from North Africa: Shikun Canaan, it is called.

Avraham Ben Hayyim in his home in Tsfat

And yet it is here that the holy-man miracle-maker, Rabbi David uMoshe, decided to relocate, in 1973. Mind you, he’s been dead for some 300 years. But in 1973 he appeared in a dream to Avraham ben Hayim, a forestry worker who grew up near David uMoshe’s shrine in Morocco’s Atlas mountains. “I’ve decided to move to your house” said the deceased Tzaddik in Ben Hayim’s dream. Following a series of such dreams, Ben Hayyim erected a small shrine in his living room in honor of Rabbi David uMoshe’s relocation. Since then, it has become a popular – if bizzare – pilgrimage site for hundreds who seek blessings, miracles and a shot of holiness in their lives.

I think of Rabbi David uMoshe whenever the Torah portion of Teruma rolls around. Teruma is the opening scene of the last act of the book of Shemot, which focuses on the construction of the Mishkan (Tabernacle), that mobile Holy-Shrine that the Israelites erect in the desert and that represents God’s dwelling place among. The very existence of the Mishkan is a cause for vehement debate among latter commentators: Did God intend for the Israelites to create such a shrine with its sacrificial work from the very beginning, or is it only a response to the Israelites human weaknesses (be it the sin of the Golden Calf, their need for a concrete religious worship, or simply their immersion in the religious language of the time, which called for temples and sacrifices). There are various hints in the text that wink this way or that, but the most ambiguous line appears in the opening of our portion:

ועשו לי מקדש ושכנתי בתוכם  (שמות כה:ח)

Let them make me a Holy-Shrine, and I shall dwell among them. (Exodus 25:8)

The desire for a God that dwells among us, in the midst of the people, is a unique take on the idea of Holiness. On one hand Holiness is to represent the “Wholly Other”, in Rudolph Otto’s terms, and indeed no one is to enter the Holy-Shrine without permission or cleansing, on pain of death. On the other hand, Holiness dwells in the midst of the people, and it is constructed from the donations of the people (the Teruma = donation). This dance between “Wholly Other” – transcendent, emanating from above – and “Dwell Among” –emanating from within – is one of the paradoxes that makes holiness so fascinating, and so powerful. It also opens up the question: is this a human-induced holiness or a divinely-proscribed one?

It is this same tension that one can find in the Shrine of Rabbi David uMoshe. On the one hand, it is a response to the very human needs of a dislocated individual: Like many immigrants to Israel, Ben Hayim expected the “Holy Land”, only to find a harsh, unredeemed secular environment. Prof. Yoram Bilu of Hebrew U, who has written extensively on such sites, suggests that perhaps that is why in the very midst of the holy sites of Tsfat, Ben Hayim harkened back to the familiar power of his Moroccan miracle-man, and why his site became so popular in the following decades. But on the other hand, the site is a testament to the fickle (divine?) nature of Holiness: once a Holy-Shrine has been erected, something transcendent does seem to “dwell among them”. For the “true believer”, is there a difference between the Kotel and the Ben Hayim living room?

For some the “House of Rabbi David uMoshe” is a holy site, for others idolatry and superstition at its worst. As a religious person, I vote for the latter (and yes, very different from the Kotel), but as an observer of the phenomena, I find it to be deliciously ridiculous, an oh-so-human reminder of our own ridiculous behaviors, and the way a search for “holiness”, “transcendence” or (a more secular) “meaning” permeates our lives, demanding to be found in the most unexpected places. Perhaps the most apt interpretation of the verse above doesn’t relate to “place” at all, rather to people:

The verse doesn’t read “and I shall dwell among it” but rather “dwell among them”, signifying that divine presence rests in the Holy-Shrine not on account of the Holy-Shrine itself, but account of the people, for they are the dwelling place of God. (Zedah laDerekh)

לא אמר ושכנתי בתוכו אלא "בתוכם" להורות שאין השכינה שורה במקדש מחמת המקדש כי אם מחמת ישראל, כי היכל ה' המה. (צידה לדרך על אתר)

Rabbi Mishael Zion | Bronfman Fellowships | Teruma 2012 | Text and the City