Ma zeh "Distancing"? Framing the Israeli-American Jewish Debates

A presentation delivered at the Wexner Alumni Summit April 2016, Rabbi Mishael Zion 

“What is American Jews’ relationship to Israel?” is a topic of much debate, discussion and handwringing in recent year. Words like crises, distancing, occupation, religious freedom, BDS and assimilation often follow (though usually not from the same people).

Leaving the conversation at that question alone is a mistake. Two important questions must be engaged more seriously: the touchier “What is American Jews’ relationship to Israelis?” and the all-but-ignored question: “What is Israeli Jews’ relationship to American Jews?”

A few weeks ago I was asked to speak at the first Wexner Alumni Summit on the topic of Stronger Together: [Re] Imagining the Israel-North American Jewish Community Relationship. My (somewhat scary) job was to address these questions in front of a room of some of Israel’s top civil servants and North America’s leading lay leaders. The process helped me clarify in my own thinking how much these two communities have contradicted and undermined each other from day one, and how they also need each other and complement each other. I tried to pull apart the various debates and arguments about whether American Jews’ are distancing from Israel and Israelis, and to address head on the way Israelis never cared about American Jews’ and why this is changing today. I believe the tension between these two communities is an important asset in ensuring the survival – or perhaps even the flourishing: morally, spiritually, Jewishly - of these two strange and unique phenomenas of Jewish history.

As Israel celebrates its 68^th year of existence I share my remarks online, in a hope that some people still have patience to read something longer than 800 word op-eds.

Intro One: A Poem and a Seafaring metaphor

The poem was written some 600 years ago, by a French Jewish merchant who returned from from a business trip in Germany, and spent Shabbat among the German Jews of Alsace. Deeply disturbed by the type of Jews he met there, he eternalized his criticism in meter and rhyme, writing the following poem. See if you can follow the Biblical pun, which allows him to claim that “לא אלמן ישראל” - The Jews of Allemand are not part of Israel:

Anonymous (late Middle Ages?) The Day That I Went Out from France The day that I went out from France And towards German lands made my advance I found cruel people at first glance Like ostriches in the wild plain For Israel is not Alleman [=forsaken]  What has straw to do with grain? I had hoped to find salvation A day of rest and relaxation Yet their offerings lacked consideration My heart was cleft in twain For Israel is not forsaken What has straw to do with grain? I searched the breadth of all Alsace No man knew its worth I came across Oh, would that its ways were not such chaos — Overriding men, the women reign For Israel is not forsaken What has straw to do with grain? I’ve grown utterly sick of Ashkenazim For each one is fierce of face, I deem Even their beards like goats’ beards seem Heed not their words, all said in vain For Israel is not forsaken What has straw to do with grain?

משורר עלום שם יום מצרפת יצאתי   יוֹם מִצָּרְפַת יָצָאתִי אֶל אֶרֶץ אַשְׁכְּנַז יָרַדְתִּי וְעַם אַכְזָר מָצָאתִי כַּיְעֵנִים בַּמִּדְבָּר כִּי לֹא אַלְמָן יִשְׂרָאֵל מַה לַּתֶּבֶן אֶת הַבָּר?   צִפִּיתִי לִי לִישׁוּעָה יוֹם נֹפֶשׁ וּמַרְגוֹעַ וּמִנְחָתָם בְּלִי שָׁעָה לְבָבִי הָיָה נִשְׁבָּר כִּי לֹא אַלְמָן יִשְׂרָאֵל מַה לַּתֶּבֶן אֶת הַבָּר?   חִפַּשְׂתִּי אֶלְזוּשׂ אָרְכָּהּ וְלֹא יָדַע אֱנוֹשׁ עֶרְכָּהּ לוּלֵי שֶֹלֹא כְּדַרְכָּהּ הָאִשָּׁה עַל אִישׁ תִּגְבַּר כִּי לֹא אַלְמָן יִשְׂרָאֵל מַה לַּתֶּבֶן אֶת הַבָּר?   קַצְתִּי מְאֹד בְּאַשְׁכְּנַזִּים כִּי הֵם כֻּלָּם פָּנִים עַזִּים אַף זְקָנָם כְּמוֹ עִזִּים אַל תַּאֲמֵן לָהֶם דָּבָר! כִּי לֹא אַלְמָן יִשְׂרָאֵל מַה לַּתֶּבֶן אֶת הַבָּר?

Translation partly from "Soul and Gone"

Even more so than the Jews of France and Germany, we live in a time of two divergent Jewish communities. Can we envision a Jewish future which is diverse, yet deep, divergent yet in dialogue –

between American and Israeli Jews?

Our poet is one model, but when I think of a Jewish model for a healthy

Kovner's Sea of Halakha

relationship between two communities, I think of the Talmud’s “Nehotei”. In the Sea of Talmudic Halakha, the Nehotei (whose means literally “the descender”, or those who “get down”) were the way-farers, the bold travelers who went back and forth between Bavel and the Galilee, those two fabled centers of the Jewish Talmudic world. They always transmitted what was going on in the other community. If you follow their sayings closely, you realize their statements are usually game-changers. Until they walk in, the whole discussion goes one way, but once they’ve contributed their perspective, the debate goes in a whole new direction.

 In many ways, you – the alumni of the various Wexner leadership programs in Israel and North America, are a room of Nehotei – each bringing ideas back and forth between the two communities. What we’ve come together here to do is to become better Nehotei together.

Intro Two: Patience, and lack thereof

We’re here to study “Talmud המביא לידי מעשה –learning that brings about action.” My job is to offer some new frames for what we all already know, to give a shared language with which we can shorthand our conversations; and to frame some of the machloket – disagreements that perhaps exist in the room, and stir up the pot a bit so that we can bring the power of this room to bear…

One disclaimer: I’m not the expert in the room. People here have written books, led initiatives, organized mifgashim, work full time or during ungodly hours after work towards these issues – some of you have been doing this since before I was born. Instead my role here today is to provide a scaffolding upon which we can rest the coming two days of conversations.

Since I believe we learn best when we discuss ourselves and not just listen, I’ve structured the second half of our time together  around three hevrutot - 1:1 conversations with a pre-assigned partner, where we will ask three questions:

1. Who Cares? Assessing this moment in Israeli-North American Jewish relationship
2. What are “We”? Examining metaphors of connections between the communities
3. Going Beyond Mifgash: Lessons Learned and Best Practices

But before we launch into the conversation, wWe each have a story of how we became Nehotei – and I want to start by briefly sharing with you mine:

I was born in Jerusalem – but spent three years of elementary school in US public schools where I picked up a wonderful American accent. I now work in a community that bridges both communities, constantly going back and forth. But in preparation for this summit, I realized that one pivotal moment in my story determined where I am today.

Growing up in Israel, I saw the relationship between Israel and America as a one-way street. Americans were great, but I mostly met them as tourists in Israel, not in their home setting. Their job was to be the “good uncle from Amerika” - support Israel financially and politically, buy Israeli products and go home. Maybe their kids would make Aliyah (most would not), and that would make me happy, but only if they shed their accent and funny clothes and become “true Israelis.”

I come from a family that’s been going back and forth between Israel and America since before the creation of the state. My grandfather made Aliyah in 1947, and fought in the Hagana, before returning to serve as a rabbi in Minneapolis for 25 years (a story that I told in this ELI Talk called “A Tale of Two Zions”). My father made Aliyah after 1967, and has trained a generation of teachers and educators in both countries. Together we authored haggadot in Hebrew and in English that have changed the way Jews in both countries celebrate their Passover Seders, influenced how Jews in both countries tell their key identity stories.

Until I realized that the things I thought that Israeli society needed most could be learned from the American Jewish community, and vice versa. This happened to me on both a national and personal level.

I had wanted to study to become a Rabbi for a few years – but was displeased with the Israeli Orthodox training which only taught laws and not leadership and community skills. I heard about a new Yeshiva which had opened in New York – Chovevei Torah – and called up R Avi Weiss to ask if I could apply. He rejected me, saying they trained Rabbis for the American Jewish community, not the Israeli one. The rejection made me want to come even more. “Teach me how to be an American community Rabbi – I’ll already do the translating to the Israeli scene…” I said. My wife received a post-doc at Columbia University, and we were on our way

But really what was going on was a desire to shake off israeli cynicism that had set in; and a nagging feeling that encountering the American Jewish community could teach me something valuable about being Israeli.

The summers of 2005-2006 were hard ones in Israel, The expulsion from Gush Katif, the second Lebanon war hitting the following summer, we felt it was hard to believe in big dreams anymore. My wife and I realized we wanted to travel to America to drink up some of the koolaid of American naiveté, of the belief in “Tikkun Olam”, seeking a place where we can dream again – but not as a turning of our backs on Israel, but as a way to return to Israel.

What we always found funny was how we were constantly asked to choose sides. “You’re coming back, right” – the bookseller at the second hand book store in Jerusalem demanded before taking my books. “So you’ve chosen Israel over us?” asked our friends at our Upper West Side synagogue when we left New York; “תגידו את האמת, איפה יותר טוב?” – “Tell me the truth, where is it better?” demanded that passport woman at Ben Gurion…

So before we go any further, I want – with your permission – to say a few things I have no patience for in this conversation: I have very little patience for the either/or mentality of Israel versus North America;  for the “where is it better” insecurities, for the competition to see “who will be the first to fail”. I have very little patience for the way people in both communities project unto the other one that everything is either “great” or “horrible” about the other community (or about their own ); I have very little patience for awkward “mifgashim”, for sticky talk of “peoplehood” and for “we are one” fluffiness, for the superiority complex of liberaler-than-thou Americans and the hubris of macho Israelis who know what “real” danger and sacrifice are like.

I could go on, but here are some things I do have patience for: I have patience for these two far-from-perfect communities, this dysfunctional family with a tendency for self-delusion, to develop their discord into the amazing machloket that it could be, to find the ways in which we can learn from each other and teach eachother – and make the most of this unique moment in Jewish history.

The “Jewish Normal” Living in Generations of Rapid change

Invite to the 8th Zionist Congress in the Hague, 1907

Just over 100 years ago, summer of 1907, in the tiny town of Eibergen (Dutch for Eggtown) a curious Manuel Zion, my great-grandfather, rides his horse and buggy from his small Dutch town to the Hague. He had heard that the 8th Zionist Congress was to take place in the city, and since he carried the unusual name of “Zion” he decided to find out what all this Zionisten thing was about.

When he returned home to Eibergen, excited if skeptical of the grand ideas and programs that were thrown back and forth in that room, he finds a letter: “You are hereby disinvited from the Jewish community’s dinner and dance – there will be no place in our community for Zionists.”

I think of this story often when I am looking for some context about how we got here and where we might be 100 years from now. Sometimes the best thing you can do is to get disinvited from the community dinner and dance on the way to a grander vision.

I’ll bet each one of us in this room has a “Manuel Zion’s story” of some kind in our ancestry, not too many generations back. These stories serve as a reminder that there is nothing “normal” about Jewish existence today. In fact, what i s so un-normal is how “normal” everything feels to those of us born into these realities. There is so much we take for granted which was not even imaginable for our ancestors.

1848 – 11 million Jews, of which less than 100,000 Jews live in Israel or America

1939 – 17 million Jews

1948 – Back at 11 million, but a Jewish state is founded by less than 7% of the Jewish people; meanwhile – a third of the Jewish people live in America;

2016 – 40% in each country, 20% in the rest of the world

2050 - projections of 8 million Jews in Israel, steady 6 million Jews in US?

So this is all very new. I say this to caution us against doomsday predictability scenarios, and also to inspire hope that paradigms shift and change, pendulums swing and social initiatives do matter (although perhaps not as much as social, economic and political factors).

Two Homes: Different, Contradictory or Complimentary?

There is one very important characteristic that is shared by the 2 communities that are the majorityof the Jewish people, and which differentiates us from the other 20% of World Jewry:  both communities are very much at home, both have arrived.

That in itself is not your “Jewish normal”. If the ongoing dichotomy of Jewish existence has been exile or redemption, we now face a third option: arrival. It is not quite the messianic redemption, but it definitely feels like a final destination. In both Israel and America, a majority of the Jewish people feel that they are “at home” in the country in which they reside. And I believe that fundamentally understanding how “at home” the Jewish people are in the two homes, their two “Zions”, is extremely important to reframing the work between the two communities. You might not agree with me on this point, or you might feel that this is exactly where the problem lies. But questioning the assumptions of various Jews on “where home is” is exactly the place where I believe the conversation should start, for our two homes are extremely different from eachother:

Lets count the ways:

1.  Languages: the two communities speak different languagues, Hebrew and English, ont only as their day-to-day language, but as their Jewish language. A person can be considered wholly literate without knowing much of the other communities literary cannon.

2.  They define their Jewish lives very differently – the two largest groups in each community define their Jewish lives very differently, even if their practice is relatively similar: Reform/Conservative in North America vs. Hiloni/Masorti in Israel; this also means that the Haredi and Dati/MO groups in both communities find it easier to be together than the other groups, and are more often those more concerned about the relationship.

3.  Political views are viewed very differently: a majority of US jews are left/liberal, majority of Israeli jews are center and right (left is a brand in severe crises in Israel); they view issues of settlements and attempt towards peace very differently;

4. The basic organizing ethic of the two communities is very different: Israel is based in a culture of obligation – מצווה, שוויוןי בנטל, אין ברירה while American Jewish community is voluntaristic – both as a practice and as an ethic. This is not a judgement, but an observation – it effects where power lies: think of the type of leadership in this room – civil servants vs. volunteer lay leaders…  The Wexner Foundation mode of identifying the core leadership in each country led to very different paths, because the power and prestige lies in two very different forms of service.

5. Separate base experiences are different: ongoing threat vs. prosperity and gratitude

a. Neighborhoods: Middle East/North America –  Jews in Israel aer the majority, but in their neighborhood they feel like the “Middle Eastern other” in a way that recapitulates us being the European “other” for so many centuries. But in the US, Jews are not the other, but in fact, mostly white and privileged. They are accepted as being part of the majority, yet have a self-understanding of themselves as a minority.

6. Most interestingly, Israeli and North American Jews view the threats to Israeli life very differently. 39% of Israelis think the most important long-term problem facing Israel is economic problems. American Jews – 1%. (Do any Americans recognize the name Guy Rolnik or read “The Marker”?)

Either way, it thus makes sense that the “relationship” between these two communities should be so fraught, simply because of the huge differences between them.  And yet we are not simply two “different” communities, we are actually two contradictory Jewish projects that by their very nature repudiate eachother:

a. The Israeli project is about creating a Jewish “State”; its underlying assumption is that  Jews will only be safe if living on their own land and organized politically. The project includes redefining what Jewish means – Judaism exists primarily in the public space; and for generation the project also included Judaism being super-ceded by Israeliness, weakening the tie to non-Israeli Jews. Its central challenge is that of being the majority. It’s blessing is also a cruse: the unique challenge of power being colored “Jewish”: maintaining a Jewish military, Jewish sovereignty, a Jewish foreign policy…

b. The North American project on the other hand has a very different kind of power. It’s central goal is proving that a prosperous Jewish Diaspora is possible, that we can be a safe and vibrant minority within a democracy which is truly welcoming of minorities. The success of North American Jews disproves Herzlian Zionism on a daily basis – Jews can indeed live safely while being a minority. The energy of the project seemingly is that of remaining Jewish – but really the project is that of being American, and ensuring the America is welcoming to minorities such as ourselves. Jews came to America and discovered they are not only good at becoming Americans, they are good at telling Americans what the American story actually is (and if Jewish helps that, great).

In these ways and others, these two projects undermine eachother, but perhaps they are also complimentary – perhaps each community is only possible because of the other community? perhaps ONLY POSSIBLE because of the other community?

Would Jews be allowed to live in Westchester NY if not for the Jewish state? Would Israel have American support if not for the organized Jewish community?

Can this implicit complementariness, played out in social and political currency, also become an overt one, in a mutual exchange of ideas?

Returning to the Origins of the Relationship: The Blaustein-Ben Gurion Agreement

Ben Gurion, Blaustein and Golda Meir, 1950

Before we examine the various answers given in your applications to these questions, I’d like to return to one of  the seminal moments of the relationship between the two communities, as it shows that it was always a fraught one. On August 23, 1950, on invitation of Prime Minister David Ben Gurion, the President of the American Jewish Committee and US industrialist Jacob Blaustein visited Israel.The Prime Minister and Mr. Blaustein issued statements expressing their mutual understanding about the relationship. We must remember that at the time, Americans supplied about 30% of Israel’s GDP, so its not clear how beholden Ben Gurion felt to Blaustein:

David Ben Gurion: The Jews of the United States, as a community and as individuals, have only one political attachment and that is to the United States of America. They owe no political allegiance to Israel. The State of Israel represents and speaks only on behalf of its own citizens, and in no way presumes to represent or speak in the name of the Jews who are citizens of any other country. We, the people of Israel, have no desire and no intention to interfere in any way with the internal affairs of Jewish communities abroad. The Government and the people of Israel fully respect the right and integrity of the Jewish com munities in other countries to develop their own mode of life and their indigenous social, economic and cultural institutions in accordance with their own needs and aspirations.

Jacob Blaustein: We shall do all we can to increase further our share in the great historic task of helping Israel to solve its problems and develop as a free, independent and flourishing democracy… But Israel also has a responsibility in this situation — a responsibility in terms of not affecting adversely the sensibilities of Jews who are citizens of other states by what it says or does. American Jews vigorously repudiate any suggestion or implication that they are in exile. American Jews — young and old alike, Zionists and non-Zionists alike — are profoundly attached to America.
To American Jews, America is home. There, exist their thriving roots; there, is the country which they have helped to build; and there, they share its fruits and its destiny. They believe in the future of a democratic society in the United States under which all citizens, irrespective of creed or race, can live on terms of equality. They further believe that, if democracy should fail in America, there would be no future for democracy anywhere in the world, and that the very existence of an independent State of Israel would be problematic. Further, they feel that a world in which it would be possible for Jews to be driven by persecution from America would not be a world safe for Israel either; indeed it is hard to conceive how it would be a world safe for any human being.

Yet a few years after these statements, Ben Gurion was found back to his previopus antics, undermining the legitimacy of the North American Jewish community:

In his address to the World Zionist Congress in December 1960, Ben Gurion declared: “Since the day when the Jewish state was established and the gates of Israel were flung open to every Jew who wanted to come, every religious Jew has daily violated the precepts of Judaism and the Torah by remaining in the Diaspora. Whoever dwells outside the land of Israel is considered to have no God, the sages said… In several totalitarian and Moslem countries, Judaism is in danger of death by strangulation; in the free and prosperous countries it faces death by a kiss — a slow and imperceptible decline into the abyss of assimilation.”

The same tones heard today – a sense of mutual undermining, a threat of assimilation versus that of dual loyalty, a myth of possible distancing, declarations of co-dependency alongside “get off my turf”-ness, where there from the begininng.

Then why is there a current sense of crises, and where does it emanate from? Many of you wrote about a crises in your applications, but you disagreed on what the crises is. I’d like to share a few of the machlokot that exist in this room (and in the wider world):

Let's start with the North American perspective. Many claim that there is “Distancing” – that a younger generation doesn’t care about Israel as much as their parents did. If it exists, why? And is it a bad thing, or perhaps a good one?

1.       Seminal memories – the generational gap emanates from very different seminal memories:  not the Israel of 1967 which re-shaped the way in which American Jews saw themselves. Israel is experienced not as a confidence booster to American Jews, but as a liability.

2.       This in large part has to do with differing views over the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.

o   Majority of American Jews blame Israeli Policy for the current situation and resent Israeli leadership that is cynical about peace efforts. This generation doesn’t remember 1967 or 1994, but a local superpower fighting against guerilla warfare and local uprisings.

o   Israeli majority feels stalemated: it supports a two-state solution on paper but doesn’t believe it is possible to achieve. Israeli society is swerving to the right, with the left crumbling and the seminal memories of move people under 30 is of ongoing Intifada.

3.       An opposite reading – also heard loud and clear in the applications - sees the distancing of young people from Israel as the result of a campaign and a broad sentiment on college campuses, BDS initiatives and the bundling of various other progressive agendas with the anti-Israel cause.

4.       A different approach locates the challenge in the lack of religious Pluralism and freedom in Israel. In the American Jewish community, where the Reform movement makes up the largest denomination, and core American values are also seen as core Jewish values – pluralism, religious tolerance and freedom of religion –it is hard to get excited about an Israel in which women can be arrested for reading Torah at the Kotel or where their Judaism is not recognized.

5.       The flip side of this argument can be seen in the claim that it is the rampant assimilation in America which is the problem and the greatest threat to the relationship. The “vanishing American Jew” that has also disconnected from values of Jewish solidarity and obligation is eroding the bond between Israel and America

But this has been from an America-centric perspective. What happens when we look at distancing of Israeli Jews from American Jews? Not a myth of a better time, but an understanding that Israelis never quite knew what to do with American Jews.

Hebrew identity – erasing previous identity; Negation of the Diaspora – AB Yehoshua as a paradigm: diaspora is a neurosis, an unhealthy split personality; only way to be full Jew is in Israel.

What gets headlines in Israel is “Vanishing American Jews” – which fits the paradigm mentioned in Ben Gurion’s 1960 quote above. What Israelis think of Americans is: דוד מאמריקה (Uncle from America); Aipac supporters, רפורמים (“Reformim”) = “weird Jews”; תיירי תגלית (birthright tourists). They hardly ever get to encounter American Jews “at home” and thus never understand their ethos, communities and lives in context.

When do Israelis learn about Diaspora Judaism? In Poland! Israeli Education about Diaspora Judaism is state-sponsored Poland trips – and despite many exchanges, the over-arching frame of Auschwitz or IDF continues to be a powerful frame.

The challenge to my mind is that both communities seem to assume an Israel-centric frame.

What caused this frame is that while in 1948, American Jews like Blaustein perceived themselves to be at home in American, in 1967 Israel’s amazing feat allowed American Jews to feel more at home in America than ever before. As Boston’s CJP President Bary Schrage put it: Until 1967, I would often be called a “yellow, little Jew” on my way to school in Brooklyn. After June 1967, that never happened again. Israel saved American Jewish identity once in 1967, and in some people’s mind, its doing that again today, with Birthright.

Yet on the other hand, since 1977 Israel stopped being “David” and to some it became “Goliath”. Israel’s success as a modern economy and a “StartUpNation” meant that it mostly outgrew the need for financial aid from the American Jewish community. 

2015: Year of Realignment?

On a strategic level, over the last twenty years we’ve seen a significant shift in the way the relationship works. If in the past the expectation was that American Jews lend their financial capital to Israel, increasingly American Jews are using their political capital to get their government to support Israel.

This has met with much success, but recently was pushed to the limit when the PM of Israel expected to see both political and communal Jewish institutions bend their support against a sitting president. There are many ways to tell this story, but it represents a watershed moment, as it brings back the old challenge of Jacob Blaustein – that of dual loyalty.

At the same time, we’re seeing American Jews becoming more unabashedly interventionist in Israeli society. The most popular newspaper in Israel is owned by an American Jewish billionaire with a very clear political agenda. Organizations like the NIF on the left and Elad on the right raise US funds to further their vision for how Israel should look.

Most recently, the Federation system and the AJC have swung their support towards political endeavors relating to freedom of religion in Israel. On the other end, the minister of Diaspora Affairs has been seeking to lead a major initiative about the Jewish identity of North American Jews – and to overthrow the Jewish Agency’s power over Diaspora politics.

There are new trends, showing a tectonic shift that is not only of distancing, but of growing closeness and intervention in the other community.

-          Many young Americans are distancing from Israel at a rapid rate, while many other Americans want to celebrate their Symbolic Particularism in Israel. Yet by doing so they are undermining the liberal values that 70% of them believe in. as long as American Jews feel more at home in Israel than Arab citizens of Israel, we are weakening Israel as a democracy. The Law of Return seems to be getting in the way. On the other hand recently we’ve seen a rise in awareness of the American Jewish community: women of the wall, the Federations stepping up; issues of Jewish pluralism being tied to lending political support to Israel.

-          Many Israelis still need to believe it’s Auschwitz or Tel Aviv, not NYC. On the other hand, hundreds of thousands of Israelis are living or have lived in North America, and have a renwed appreciation of the value of American Jewish life.

So the dyanmics of the relationship are not as simple as one of “distancing”, and never have been. Rather, there is a distancing of some and an intervention and closeness on the other hand.

I order to better effect this relationship, and understand its effect on us, we must also examine the words and metaphors we use in reference to it.

Many of you mentioned the need for a new covenant, a new paradigm. Words like partnership, non-utilitarian relationship, family, and “we need to decide to be one people.”

Metaphors have power. Each metaphor is a theory of change, it’s a strategy, implies an ethic. Being mindful of these metaphors is important.

I leave you with four questions:

1.       How do we build a mutually generative relationship between two “arrived” communities that have divergent and contradictory Jewish experiences?

2.       What are the tipping points, pressure points, bridges, disruptors and translators needed for such a relationship?

3.       What method should be embraced: popular connection, leadership to leadership, peer to peer?

4.       What are the current assets, challenges and future trends that should be taken into account?

Ending: Jewish People in Bundles

There is often much talk of a need for unity, yet I believe, like Yishayahu Leibowitz, that “No good idea ever came out of a call for unity”. Rather, a rigorous debate, an awareness of our differences, and the ability to leverage those differences in order to strengthen the connections between us, is what we aer called to do. The following Midrash displays this tension with a unqie metaphor. Do we want to build one ship, or do we want to tie many small boats together?

"ויהי בישרון מלך בהתאסף ראשי עם יחד שבטי ישראל" (דברים לג:ה) כשהם עשוים אגודה אחת , ולא כשהם עשוים אגודות אגודות וכן הוא אומר "הבונה בשמים מעלותיו ואגודתו על ארץ יסדה" (עמוס ט:ו). רבי שמעון בן יוחי אומר: משל לאחד שהביא שתי ספינות וקשרם בהוגנים ובעשתות והעמידן בלב הים ובנה עליהם פלטרין כל זמן שהספינות קשורות זו בזו פלטרין קיימים פרשו ספינות אין פלטרין קיימים כך ישראל כשעושים רצונו של מקום בונה עליותיו בשמים וכשאין עושים רצונו כביכול אגודתו על ארץ יסדה.

“The LORD became king in Israel--when the leaders of the people assembled, when the tribes of Israel gathered as one” (Deutoronomy 33:5) – When they are gathered as one bundle, and not when they are divided into bundles and bundles, and so says the verse: “He who builds his upper chambers in the heavens and founds His bundle upon the earth” (Amos 9:6). Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai says: This is like a person who brought two ships and anchored them together and placed them in the middle of the sea and built upon them a palace. As long as the ships are tied to eachother – the palace exists. Once the ships separate from eachother – the palaces cannot exist. So are Israel – when they are fulfilling the will of the Omnipresent – “He who builds his upper chambers in the heavens”, and when they are not fulfilling his will – it is as if “His bundle is upon the earth”.

As the seafaring “Nehotei” that we are, we each ride very different ships. Trying to turn them into one boat would be a bad idea. Rather, if we can – like Shimon Bar Yochai suggests – tie many boats together, then we will find ourselves living within a much richer – and stronger – two communities. The waters are treacherous, lets hope this way we can ride out the current storms… and perhaps kick up some new ones.

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[1] T. Carmi, The Penguin Book of Hebrew Verse, 2006 | Translation: SoulandGone.com

[2] Jeremiah 51:5

[3] Jeremiah 23:28

[4] Genesis 4:5 – God ignores Cain’s offering

Hard Conversations: Playing Chess Esther Style

Rabbi Mishael Zion | Text and the City | Purim 2016

Anyone who has initiated a difficult conversation knows that moment just before, hand hovering above the doorknob, trying to discern what exactly should be said to gain the desired outcome. Rehearsed lines feel empty, and a chasm yawns between what we know must be said and the zone in which we don’t know what will happen next. It is this moment that is captured in the crucial conversation of Megillat Esther.

The scroll of Esther loves conversations. There are sixteen of them in the scroll (twelve of which are with the king), and each one lasts for no more than two or three exchanges. These exchanges resemble less dialogues and more moves on a Chess board, deft strategic movements in a longer campaign. Fittingly, the game of Chess came to us through Persia, the Persian "Shāh Māt!” - Persian for "the king is helpless" - is our “Check Mate”. Like chess, in the Game of Esther the king is weak, the queen versatile, and the early moves end up determining how the end game is played out. In the crucial campaign, a pawn named Harvona makes a fateful move, while and the opponent is caught trying to capture the queen…

The longest conversation of the book is the exchange between Mordechai and Esther which takes up the bulk of Chapter Four. Mordechai begins in commanding mode, forcing Esther out a defensive position and into engagement. Esther pushes back, fortifying her protective stance. Mordechai then plays his trump card, getting Esther to switch from passive defensiveness to full offense. But when she does enter play, it is on Esther’s own terms. The chapter ends with Mordechai doing “as Esther commanded” (read the full dialogue here).

As someone who hates playing chess but loves reading the chess column in the newspaper, I’d dare to summarize the five-part conversation into three crucial moves. One leitmotif recurs in them, evoking the key theme of the Megillah.

Move 1: “And Mordechai Knew”

The Chapter opens with Mordechai “knowing”:

And Mordechai knew all that was done. Mordechai ripped his clothes, and put on sackcloth with ashes. He went out into the midst of the city, and cried with a loud and a bitter cry (Esther 4:1)

וּמָרְדֳּכַי, יָדַע אֶת-כָּל-אֲשֶׁר נַעֲשָׂה, וַיִּקְרַע מָרְדֳּכַי אֶת-בְּגָדָיו, וַיִּלְבַּשׁ שַׂק וָאֵפֶר; וַיֵּצֵא בְּתוֹךְ הָעִיר, וַיִּזְעַק זְעָקָה גְדוֹלָה וּמָרָה. (אסתר ד:א)

Like God at the beginning of Exodus, Mordechai knows. Now he is in search of his Moses to redeem the people from their oppressor. We later find out he has a copy of the edict itself, and perhaps even some inside information from the corridors of power regarding how this decision was made. We’re not surprised: Mordechai is, after all, the epitome of the court Jew, the insider. Just as he knew before that two of the King’s guards plan on assassinating him, so now he “knows” when it is his nation that is about to be killed.

Mordechai’s response s intense: he dresses in sackcloth, paints his face in black ash, and lunges straight for the palace square – a place which is a second home to him, but in which it is well known court protocol that one many not enter in such provocative and dishonorable garb.

What is Mordechai thinking? Is this a political move of demonstration in the public square to appeal to the ruler to change his verdict? Is this a religious act, fasting and mourning, appealing to the King of Kings to do what he did in Egypt so many generations ago? Or is this perhaps a mortified Mordechai who realized that his own stubborn insistence to not bow down before the King’s new darling vizier has now doomed his entire people. Is proud Mordechai now penitent?? We don’t know, but Mordechai does.

One person, however, doesn’t know. Esther. Hidden in her harem, shielded from the news and masked from any association with the Jewish people, she’s described as enveloped in a world of courtesans and eunuchs, oblivious of the world around her. International headlines and backroom politicking are beyond her, but Shushan fashion and court protocol make their way to her room instantly. When reports of Mordechai’s severe break of protocol (or civil disobedience) reach her, she is hysterical (to be read with full Freudian and critical feminist evocation), and immediately demands to know “what is this and on what this is?” Her reaction suggests that perhaps Mordechai was not trying to impress neither King nor King of Kings, but rather was aiming at his niece, the Queen. He knew, and he knew she didn’t want to know, so he found the best way to grab her attention. But now that he has it, well, now what??

Move 2: “Everybody Knows!”

Mordechai commands Esther to go to the king and beg to him on behalf of her people. He is asking the world of Esther – to reveal that which she has sought to hide, to interfere in the matters of the court, to turn from a pretty face into an advocate of a minority whose execution has just been ordered. But Esther’s response does not dwell on these issues. They key words in her response to Mordechai’s knowledge is another sort of knowledge:

“All the king’s servants, and the people of the king’s provinces, know, that whosoever, man or woman, shall come unto the king into the inner court, who is not called, there is one law for him, that he be put to death…” (Esther 4:11)

כָּל-עַבְדֵי הַמֶּלֶךְ וְעַם-מְדִינוֹת הַמֶּלֶךְ יֹדְעִים, אֲשֶׁר כָּל-אִישׁ וְאִשָּׁה אֲשֶׁר יָבוֹא-אֶל-הַמֶּלֶךְ אֶל-הֶחָצֵר הַפְּנִימִית אֲשֶׁר לֹא-יִקָּרֵא אַחַת דָּתוֹ לְהָמִית, לְבַד מֵאֲשֶׁר יוֹשִׁיט-לוֹ הַמֶּלֶךְ אֶת-שַׁרְבִיט הַזָּהָב, וְחָיָה; וַאֲנִי, לֹא נִקְרֵאתִי לָבוֹא אֶל-הַמֶּלֶךְ--זֶה, שְׁלוֹשִׁים יוֹם... (אסתר ד:יא)

Mordechai might know something about his people, but in the process he forgot what “everybody knows”. Even Herodotus knew that about the Persian King (Herodotus I 99). Did Mordechai not notice that this empire works on adherence to strict protocol? Does he not recall that Vashti was killed because of her disobedience? Esther sees no point in getting killed in the process.

Move 3: “Who Knows?”

Mordechai’s final move on the chess board is a fascinating one. If he’s read his Bible well, he knows that prophets and messengers in the Bible never accept the mantle of leadership and action lightly. Moses, Jeremiah, Gideon, Ezekiel – they all pushed back when God told them to step up. God’s response is always to invoke his own knowledge (“Before you were born I knew you”, or “here is the sign that you shall know that I am with you”). But Mordechai takes a different approach. Something has changed. From acting out of a place of certainty (“Mordechai… commanded her to go to the King…”) he invokes a place of doubt and uncertainty:

“Who knows if for a moment like this you reached greatness” (Esther 4:14)

וּמִי יוֹדֵעַ--אִם-לְעֵת כָּזֹאת, הִגַּעַתְּ לַמַּלְכוּת

Who knows indeed. Mordechai’s words can be accepted by Esther when he offers not knowledge and certainty, but rather recognizes the uncertainty. There is no clear calling, there is no pre-destiny. Who knows. Once that is embraced, action can be taken.

Mordechai’s winning move on the chess board is an indecisive one, and in that lies its power. From here on in Esther takes over the board, leading a complex strategy that only she understands, thinking four steps in advance and setting into motion a play that will lure Haman into a trap that will end with his demise. Who knows if she would have succeeded if other things hadn’t happen by chance (or covert miracle). What is clear at the end of the chapter is that by surrendering herself to the uncertainty, and being willing to accept the worst case scenario of her actions, she can eventually prove that indeed, there was a calling to her rise to greatness.

“Who knows” מי יודע remains the cri de coeur of the Book of Esther. It is the modus vivendi for life in exile. Not necessarily the exile of the Jewish people, rather, it is a world in which God is in exile, certainty is in exile. Knowing is not enough. Accepting the fact that all our actions are “who knows” moments is the one that can allow us to reclaim agency and change the status quo. We might even find out why we reached greatness after all…

Esther Now: A Call to Read the Megillah, 2016

Rabbi Mishael Zion | Text and the City | Purim 2016

Chapter Four. A man walks through the city streets, wearing sack cloth and ashes. His entire people have just been sentenced to death by the Grand Vizier. They are to be killed in a day of public violence - in an empire that prides itself on its multiculturalism. And in a twisted way, it is his fault. A long, bitter scream emits from his mouth.

Chapters Eight & Nine. The same man walks through the city streets, dressed in blue sash and organdy, himself having become the Grand Vizier. He is celebrated by all, much loved and appreciated. This time it is his people who will be performing the public violence, killing all those who sought to destroy them. 

And we celebrate all this in two days of costumes and noisemakers. No wonder Martin Luther declared that Jews “love the book of Esther, which so well fits their bloodthirsty, vengeful, murderous greed and hope.” (“On the Jews and Their Lies” 1543)

Luther’s anti-Semitic criticism of Esther and of us, her people, is ridiculous and chilling, precisely because Esther is a tale of power and powerlessness writ large. Esther is unafraid to play out two pathologies of power: the pathology of total disempowerment of a minority vulnerable to violence in Chapter 4, and the pathology of total power turned into minority-inflicted violence in Chapter 9 (thank you Yehuda Kurtzer for this succinct distillation). These two chapters make battle in our public discourse constantly: are we living in Chapter 4, the year is 1939, and an Iranian Haman is out to get us while world leaders are busy getting drunk? Or, alternatively, are we living through a new version of Chapter 9, with Jewish power reigning like never before both in our majority-land and our minority-empire, allowing us to get away with questionable moral actions in the name of self-defense?

And just like that, this silly children’s fable has pulled us into dealing face to face with our deepest, darkest fears. Be it violence, power, exile, sex, gender, drink – Esther lures us in with its fancy costumes and silly pranks until we find ourselves talking about the most pivotal issues. As I am in the process of writing a cultural commentary about the Scroll of Esther, its becomes increasingly clear to: Esther Now.

Esther Now

More than the grand tale of leaving Egypt, more than the human moments of Abraham and Sarah, more than the grand visions and rebukes of the Prophets, it is Esther that is the most relevant book of the Bible.

Esther Now because it is the book of Jewish power and politics, and of Diaspora and disempowerment. It is the book of getting a seat at the table – and the prices we’re willing, or unwilling, to pay for that seat. It’s the book where the personal is the political and the political is the physical. It’s the book of gender, identity, political violence, sexual violence, success, individualism and calling. It is also the book of unknowing (but that’s for next week’s essay).

Esther Now because hers is the last book of the Bible, conceptually and chronologically; the scroll that bridges between the God-infused world of the Bible and the God-vacant world of our reality. No wonder the Rabbis read it as a “second Sinai”. It is the closest Biblical book to our contemporary reality. “We are all servants of Ahasuerus now” (Talmud Arakhin).You are free to read God into the tale if you want, seeing providence and prayer and calling as real agents in the world, but even then, you are a servant of Ahasuerus.

Esther Now because we are living through the tale of the greatest Jewish Diaspora to ever exist, in an empire of 50 states with its political pageants and Jewish courtesans. That other Jewish Diaspora, with its 127 states, places a funhouse mirror through which we can reassess ourselves.

Esther Now because the story is a farce, a parody, a carnivalesque fast paced streaming series of beltway politics of the type that has become so popular of late. But it is through farce that elephants in the room can be unveiled.

Who will Esther 2016 Be?

Arthur Szyk drawing himself with Haman

Each year, Purim invites the pundits to compare the current political reality to the story of the megillah. Last year it was all about Iran, with its Persian echoes. This year its going to be the Presidential Candidates (although I’d love to see a thoughtful comparison to the Supreme Court, contrasting Shushan’s farcical court of seven advisers who “know all rules and regulations” and who step in when a dispute arises between the bodies of power in the Capital to the nine wise-people of DC (oops, eight…)).

Theoretically, DC couldn’t be further afield from Shushan. If anything, DC is Shushan after Mordechai’s rise to power. Of the four (current) front runners in the presidential campaigns, one is Jewish, the other sees zealous support of Israel as a central tenant of his faith, and two have Jewish sons in law. We’ve never been closer to the king, who himself celebrates Jewish rituals in his home.

On the flip-side, we’ve also sensed how a surprising candidate out of left field, touting ego, money and race-baiting can turn a whole empire on its head. We’ve felt the chilling realization that it can happen here too (but not in Canada). Perhaps as minorities, our situation is more precarious than we are willing to admit to ourselves. Maybe Chapter 4 is not just history, perhaps it is a most probable future, if not to our minority than to those around us.

On the flippity flip side, perhaps it is in our unprecedented and quite sudden power that the greatest threat resides. Not the threat to the Jews, but the threat of us as Jews, or our brethren, using power to make others cower, bow and prostrate.

Flip side again, perhaps this attempt to translate a 2000 year old political metaphor into contemporary reality is a futile experiment.  Let’s stick to a close textual reading, and see what we can make out it. It is those close readings that remain real in the long run, even as the political envelope keeps going topsy turvy.

All this should be sufficient to say that Esther merits a close reading this year, one which I hope to share with you in the coming weeks. To be continued…

Finding the Authority Within or How to Survive Advice from your Father in Law

Rabbi Mishael Zion | Text and the City | Yitro 2016

“I need not expand on the importance of the theme of authority. Few are the educated people who can exist without depending on others, or develop a truly independent opinion. One cannot overestimate the power of people’s lack of internal decision making and their craving for external authority. The incredible rise in frequency of neurosis we see around us since the power of religion has been decimated serves as a measure of this.” (Sigmund Freud, Opening Lecture at the Second Psychoanalytic Conference, 1910)

This week’s Torah portion is all about authority. Its second half tells the quintessential moment of Jewish authority: the giving of the Torah at Sinai. It’s a hierarchical model of authority if ever there was one – with the Law given from up high and forced on the nation. The Israelites accept wholeheartedly, bowing their heads to Divine Authority, saying: נעשה ונשמע - We will perform and we will hearken. That’s at least how one strand of our tradition tells it. For Freud, it is the moment of the inhibiting Super-ego being crowned over the id and ego, a heteronomous power which if internalized properly will bring out the healthy and productive individual. It is a tale of human yearning for external authority.

Discussions of the trouble with external authority abound. But the story of Sinai is prefaced by another tale of authority; one which puts a spotlight on our relationship to our own, internal authority. The juxtaposition makes a claim: before we establish the role of external authority, one’s own sense of internal authority must be met face to face . This psychological exercise is played out by the quintessential underminer of authority: the parent-in-law.

Yitro, Moses’ father in law and Priest of Midian, comes to visit his son-in-law’s band of runaway slaves in their desert abode. Before leaving, the seasoned priest teaches his entrepreneuring young son-in-law a lesson in systems. Seeing Moses overburdened “from daybreak until sunset” by those seeking the ear of the leader, he advises him to create a multi-tiered human justice system which can transmit God’s word to the people without over-burdening the sole prophet. It’s a lesson in the move from charismatic leadership to bureaucratic leadership, as Max Weber will call it centuries later. But what is actually going on is Yitro calling Moses out for not recognizing his own authority, and not recognizing that the “locus of control” to his situation resides in himself.

This is how the little family spat is described in Exodus 18:

Now it was on the morrow: Moshe sat to judge the people, And the people stood before Moshe from daybreak until sunset. When Moshe’s father-in-law saw all that he had to do for the people, He said: What are you doing to the people! Why do you sit alone, while the entire people must stand before you from daybreak until sunset? Moshe said to his father-in-law: It’s the people who come to me to inquire of God! Whenever they have some legal-matter, it comes to me – I judge between a man and his fellow And make known God’s laws and his instructions. Then Moshe’s father-in-law said to him: Not good is this matter, as you do it! You will become worn out, yes, worn out, Not only you, but also the people that are with you, For this matter is too heavy for you, You cannot do it alone! Rather, listen to my advice… (Exodus 18:13-24)

וַיְהִי, מִמָּחֳרָת, וַיֵּשֶׁב מֹשֶׁה, לִשְׁפֹּט אֶת-הָעָם; וַיַּעֲמֹד הָעָם עַל-מֹשֶׁה, מִן-הַבֹּקֶר עַד-הָעָרֶב. וַיַּרְא חֹתֵן מֹשֶׁה, אֵת כָּל-אֲשֶׁר-הוּא עֹשֶׂה לָעָם; וַיֹּאמֶר: מָה-הַדָּבָר הַזֶּה אֲשֶׁר אַתָּה עֹשֶׂה לָעָם?? מַדּוּעַ אַתָּה יוֹשֵׁב לְבַדֶּךָ, וְכָל-הָעָם נִצָּב עָלֶיךָ מִן-בֹּקֶר עַד-עָרֶב. וַיֹּאמֶר מֹשֶׁה, לְחֹתְנוֹ: כִּי-יָבֹא אֵלַי הָעָם, לִדְרֹשׁ אֱלֹהִים. כִּי-יִהְיֶה לָהֶם דָּבָר, בָּא אֵלַי, וְשָׁפַטְתִּי, בֵּין אִישׁ וּבֵין רֵעֵהוּ; וְהוֹדַעְתִּי אֶת-חֻקֵּי הָאֱלֹהִים, וְאֶת-תּוֹרֹתָיו. וַיֹּאמֶר חֹתֵן מֹשֶׁה, אֵלָיו:  לֹא-טוֹב, הַדָּבָר, אֲשֶׁר אַתָּה, עֹשֶׂה. נָבֹל תִּבֹּל--גַּם-אַתָּה, גַּם-הָעָם הַזֶּה אֲשֶׁר עִמָּךְ: כִּי-כָבֵד מִמְּךָ הַדָּבָר, לֹא-תוּכַל עֲשֹׂהוּ לְבַדֶּךָ! עַתָּה שְׁמַע בְּקֹלִי, אִיעָצְךָ... (שמות יח יג-כב)

One is enticed to read Yitro as the stereotypical conniving father-in-law: first, he spies on his son-in-law at work. Then he takes license to criticize his practices: “What are you doing?? Why are you doing it alone, and causing all these people to wait for hours??” When Moses gets all defensive (“I didn’t ask for this, they started it…”), Yitro turns to outright criticism, and finally to the sharpest weapon of the in-law: Let me give you some advice…

This is how Rabbi Hayyim Ben Attar, one of the most attuned readers of dialogues in the Torah, reads the discussion between them: “Moses heard in Yitro’s words a criticism, as if he is forcing them to only adhere to his judgement, and not to others” (Or haChayim Exodus 18:16).

Of course, the contentious reading of Yitro and Moses’ relationship is not necessarily so. We’ll never know what tones (and undertones) filled their conversation. But as the experienced High Priest teaches Moses how to run an organized religion, he also names something about Moses’ insecurities.

A basic adage of organizational psychology claims that if a dysfunction in a system is perpetualized, it’s probably because it serves a need for all parties involved. As we view the long line of Israelites waiting on Moses’ word from morning to night, it is clear what need this is serving: like New Yorkers who love to wait in line for the “best food in town”, Moses is the only authority in their eyes, the all-powerful savior from Pharaoh, and they want to receive truth, leadership and guidance from his mouth only. But what need is this burdensome dysfunctional system serving for Moses? Why does he need an external review in order to change the dysfunctional system he allowed the Israelites to create around him?

I’d suggest that Moses doesn’t change the authority structure not because he actually enjoys being the sole authority, but because he feels deeply equivocal about the authority invested in him. He doesn’t feel empowered to hand it to others because he can barely admit that he is holding it himself. True, he’s exhausted, but this too serves a need: His loudly portrayed exhaustion shields him from having to take action beyond that which is already on his plate. (Thank you to David Levin Kruss for this point. I would have thought of it myself but have simply been too exhausted and overworked this week to do so…).

The dysfunctional system created around Moses allows him to continue to locate the “locus of control” in his life outside himself. First it resides with God, then with the Israelites; never with Moses. He doesn’t see himself as holding any authority, but simply serving external referents. That is a sure way to achieve exhaustion, but also to avoid recognizing one’s own power and responsibility, one’s internal sense of authority. Yitro supplies Moses with the wake up call that forces him to take the reigns.

I find Moses’ discomfort with his new found authority very relatable. The stage of life between 30-45 or so (or 80 in biblical terms) shoves us into all kinds of new authority roles which are not simple to embrace (even as we crave them). A parent who disciplines their child, the employer who fires and hires, the supervisor sending others on complicated and risky task. Truly recognizing and wielding the “authority vested in us” is no simple task, as it forces us to come to terms both with the burden of power and with the recognition of its boundaries  Often, it requires an external event - a conflict or failure or critical voice to bring us to terms with how much authority we actually do wield. Many people hold an unjustifiably inflated sense of their own power and authority, but equally pernicious are those who hold an unjustifiably deflated sense of their authority.  As the Prophet Samuel says to King Saul, before firing him: “Although you were once small in your own eyes, did you not become the head of the tribes of Israel!?” Saul’s inability to recognize the burden of his own authority causes his downfall. Perhaps it is the fact that Samuel was no Yitro…

A big part of coming to terms with our own authority is recognizing what is actually being asked of us in our new role, and the mixture of projections and actual needs that people bring to us. The brilliance in Yitro’s advice to Moses is not in the judicial structure he suggests, but in the way he allows Moses to see what he, Moses, brings to the table, and in that way come to terms with his authority:

Listen to my advice, so that God may be-there with you: Be-there, yourself, for the people in relation to God. You yourself should have the matters come to God; You should make clear to them the laws and the instructions,You should make known to them the way they should go, and the deeds that they should do; But you – you are to have the vision to select from all the people: men of caliber, holding God in awe, men of truth, hating gain; You should set them over the people as chiefs of thousands, chiefs of hundreds, chiefs of fifties, and chiefs of tens, so that they may judge that people at all times. So shall it be: Every great matter they shall bring before you,But every small matter they shall judge by themselves. Make it light upon you, and let them bear it with you.If you do thus in this matter, when God commands you further, you will be able to stand, and also this people will come to its place in peace. Moshe hearkened to the voice of his father-in-law, he did it all as he had said. (Exodus 18:19-24)

עַתָּה שְׁמַע בְּקֹלִי, אִיעָצְךָ, וִיהִי אֱלֹהִים, עִמָּךְ; הֱיֵה אַתָּה לָעָם, מוּל הָאֱלֹהִים, וְהֵבֵאתָ אַתָּה אֶת-הַדְּבָרִים, אֶל-הָאֱלֹהִים וְהִזְהַרְתָּה אֶתְהֶם, אֶת-הַחֻקִּים וְאֶת-הַתּוֹרֹת; וְהוֹדַעְתָּ לָהֶם, אֶת-הַדֶּרֶךְ יֵלְכוּ בָהּ, וְאֶת-הַמַּעֲשֶׂה, אֲשֶׁר יַעֲשׂוּן. וְאַתָּה תֶחֱזֶה מִכָּל-הָעָם אַנְשֵׁי-חַיִל יִרְאֵי אֱלֹהִים, אַנְשֵׁי אֱמֶת--שֹׂנְאֵי בָצַע; וְשַׂמְתָּ עֲלֵהֶם, שָׂרֵי אֲלָפִים שָׂרֵי מֵאוֹת, שָׂרֵי חֲמִשִּׁים, וְשָׂרֵי עֲשָׂרֹת, וְשָׁפְטוּ אֶת-הָעָם, בְּכָל-עֵת. וְהָיָה כָּל-הַדָּבָר הַגָּדֹל יָבִיאוּ אֵלֶיךָ, וְכָל-הַדָּבָר הַקָּטֹן יִשְׁפְּטוּ-הֵם; וְהָקֵל מֵעָלֶיךָ, וְנָשְׂאוּ אִתָּךְ.  אִם אֶת-הַדָּבָר הַזֶּה, תַּעֲשֶׂה, וְצִוְּךָ אֱלֹהִים, וְיָכָלְתָּ עֲמֹד; וְגַם כָּל-הָעָם הַזֶּה, עַל-מְקֹמוֹ יָבֹא בְשָׁלוֹם וַיִּשְׁמַע מֹשֶׁה, לְקוֹל חֹתְנוֹ; וַיַּעַשׂ, כֹּל אֲשֶׁר אָמָר.

Yitro helps Moses differentiate between what only he can give, and what other fine people can do. He helps name the values and traits needed to do some aspects of Moses’ job (caliber, awe, truth, hating gain), so that they can be delegated to others, while highlighting the ways in which Moses is irreplaceable, the things that only he can provide: “the matters that come from God”.

We often undervalue the very things we are best at, those skills and powers that come to us most naturally. This makes sense, since that which comes naturally to me requires very little effort –and therefor I underestimate or overlook its value. It is in all the ways in which we fall short, all the skills that require enormous effort and concentration that we attribute a high value to, thus making the half empty glass of our skills feel much more important.

Yitro helps Moses recognize that it is him that they are seeking, not just God; he helps him see his own voice and importance in the system, helps him make that which is projected on him and his own internal self assessment more congruent. He thus allow Moses to loosen his grip on the untenable system that he allowed the Children of Israel to create around him. Once Moses can come to terms with his own internal authority, he can begin the work of truly bringing God’s matters to the people.

The fact that the people weren’t really ready for it, well, that’s a whole different Torah portion…

Reclaiming the Brotherhood: Facing Homegrown Misanthropy

Rabbi Mishael Zion | Text and the City | VaYechi 2015

For a few weeks now I’ve been meaning to write about my ancestor, Levi. The mythical father of my own tribe of Levites, he’s been rearing his head a lot lately. Together with his brother, Shimon, Levi is the first Child of Monotheism who unsheathed the indiscriminate sword of vengeance. In the killing of all the men of Shechem, Levi is the mascot of twisting the demand for justice and security into an isolationist and vengeful approach. He trademarked the claim, in avenging the rape of his sister Dina, that deceit and butchery are justified in the name of brotherly solidarity (“Should our sister then be treated like a whore?”). Together, Levi and Shimon hold the patent on turning Abraham’s covenant into a veil for violence.

And they’ve been accruing quite a lot of royalties lately. Each week Levi’s fingerprints appear on more and more news stories: in the religiously justified violence and extremism from various children of Abraham, but also in the increasingly isolationist approach of populist politicians. You know it’s a Levite isolationism when it condones butchering in distant camps while keeping the home camp closed and pure… Finally, for those following the latest wedding fashions in extreme-right-wing Israel, in the appalling – but not unfamiliar – call for revenge and violence from my own relatives.

As I’ve been trying to figure out what I can do amid this tidal wave, I’ve been thinking about Levi’s father, Jacob. Grandpa Jack’s weak response to his children’s misconducts is infamous. First, his lack of response upon Dina’s rape by Shechem, then his tacit approval of Levi and Shimon’s request that all of Shechem’s town circumcise themselves, and finally his repudiation of their actions, which is focused on the political ramifications with would-be allies and neighbors (“You make me reek among the settled-folk of this land!”), and not confronting the actual violence and lying involved.

At the end of his life, from the safety of his deathbed, he returns to Levi and Shimon’s actions. In the midst of this week’s Torah portions blessings to all his other children, Jacob issues the following curse:

Shimon and Levi - such brothers.
  Wronging weapons are their ties-of-kinship!
To their council may my being never come,
  In their intimacy may my person never unite!
For in their anger they kill men,
  In their self-will they maim bulls.
Damned be their anger, that it is so fierce!
  Their fury, that is so harsh!
I will split them up among Jacob,
  I will scatter them throughout Israel. (Genesis 49:5-7)

שִׁמְעוֹן וְלֵוִי – אַחִים! כְּלֵי חָמָס מְכֵרֹתֵיהֶם. בְּסֹדָם אַל תָּבֹא נַפְשִׁי, בִּקְהָלָם אַל תֵּחַד כְּבֹדִי. כִּי בְאַפָּם הָרְגוּ אִישׁ, וּבִרְצֹנָם עִקְּרוּ שׁוֹר. אָרוּר אַפָּם כִּי עָז! וְעֶבְרָתָם כִּי קָשָׁתָה! אֲחַלְּקֵם בְּיַעֲקֹב וַאֲפִיצֵם בְּיִשְׂרָאֵל:

A Star of David and the Hebrew word ‘Revenge’ are spray-painted on the walls of a Palestinian home which was burned down by arsonists on July 31, 2015 in the Palestinian village of Duma, near Nablus (Zacahria Sadeh/Rabbis for Human Rights)

Nachmanides explains that Jacob’s resounding curse functionally cuts them out of Abraham’s inheritance, giving Shimon and Levi no independent share in the land of Israel (probably reflecting the fact that neither tribe had their own land in Biblical Israel). They are to be kept scattered among their brothers due to their “fierce anger”, “harsh fury”, and their “Hamas”-like ways (“Hamas” חמס in Hebrew, “deceitful wronging”, is the same verb used to describe the crimes of the generation of the Flood). For they “caused the name of God himself to be desecrated as people will claim that a prophet of God caused such hamas and robbery”.

But Nachmanides also zeroes in on the first word of the curse: Brothers. אחים:

“Simon and Levi – Brothers” – Some understood this as Jacob at first seemingly giving them credit, describing them as brothers to the core, believers in fraternity. For their hearts were passionate over the fate of their sister.

I imagine Shimon and Levi’s ears perking up as they hear their father honor them with the title which they self-identify with so strongly. “Yes, we are brothers indeed. In a family where solidarity fell apart time and again – we were the loyal ones, weren’t we?” But then his compliment turns into repudiation: if that is brotherhood, may my legacy have nothing to do with it; may my being never become associated with this version of fraternal intimacy.

Today, I hear Jacob’s curse as a desperate plea. Please, may these powers that I have unleashed into the world not take over what the name of Jacob/Israel will become. May the family that I fathered not become smothered in brotherly fundamentalism. May such “Brotherhood” (Islamic, Jewish, Christian, GOP, DNC) not become synonymous with the project of Abraham. Jacob’s curse is not a prescribed destiny, it is a charge to the rest of his children: make sure that Levi and Shimon’s ways do not come to define what being a Child of Israel means. In a twist, he turns the fraternal charge from one of violent protectionism and vengeance into one of watchful moderation, engaged repudiation, brotherly intervention to mediate the fury and anger when they arise.

Why do I return to Levi in confronting these dangerous, disgusting and disheartening trends? Precisely because Levi is my relative, he’s my backyard, the symbol of homegrown extremism. Framing this violence as coming from my own family is a way of taking responsibility for it. Not liability, but responsibility. Levi symbolizes the challenge of confronting homegrown hatred and homegrown violence.

I do so in repudiation of the fact that so much of the discourse in response to recent events has focused on othering those we disagree with, distancing ourselves from any relationship with those who take the name of our religion/nation/story in vain and desecration, and ignoring the fact that there are values at the core of this hatred that must be engaged and countered. Hiding behind words such as “radicalization”, “fundamentalism” or “populism” is a way of creating a chasm between ourselves and those “others”, and in so doing washing our own hands from any association. Levi reminds me that what we must repudiate while engaging. Study the motivations and implications, then truly rival their ideology, from up close and personal. Not let them claim the values, dreams and names which are actually our inheritance. Not let them define what Jacob’s path is in our eyes.

As one Bronfman Fellow said to me this week at the end of our joint Mifgash Shabbaton of Israeli and American Bronfmanim: This weekend I understood how  for my parents and grandparents the mission statement of the Jewish People was “I am seeking for my brothers”. In response to the Holocaust, the plight of Soviet Jewry, the insecurity of Israel, they felt that fraternity called upon them to fight for Jews against their joint enemies. But today we live in the opposite reality, not of Jewish disempowerment, but in deep Jewish privilege and power. For me, she said, “I am seeking my brothers” means that I must not be silent - for my brothers faces have changed. I must seek them out and call them out – and I must do it first, for they are my brothers. 

Thankful for My Portion: Thoughts on Entering, Exiting and the portion of the Bronfmanim Community

Rabbi Nehunya ben HaKanah would pray when he entered the Beit Midrash (=House of Study) and when he left, a brief prayer.They said to him: What is the nature of this prayer?He answered: Upon my entrance, I pray that no mishaps should occur because of me; and upon my departure, I offer thanksgiving for my portion. (Mishna Berakhot 4:2)

Rabbi Nehunya has been on my mind. In the last three weeks, I’ve been doing a lot of entering and exiting and everywhere I went, I taught this text. Three weeks ago at our Ten Hour Israeli alumni seminar in Tel Aviv. Two weeks ago with our North American Alumni Board members in Boston. Last week in Arizona, Becky and I got to study it with Adam Bronfman (and our tireless board president, Dana Raucher). Last night – already back in Jerusalem – it was with my virtual journal group of 2015 Bronfmanim. In each place, the teaching resonated differently, but the questions were the same. I feel so thankful to be a part of this varied and spread out community and to be able to study Torah with people united by their thirst for learning, for intentionality and for community.

As a Thanksgiving gift, I wanted to share with you some thoughts about this text (here it is in a sourcesheet format, in case you dare share it at your table). And as my own personal moment of Thanksgiving, I want to share some unabashedly promotional snapshots from the Bronfmanim community which have inspired me these last few weeks. As Paris and Brussels, Jerusalem and Gush Etzion, New Haven and Chicago, become ever more complicated places, I return to the power of the Bronfman community to serve as an antidote to polarization, a breath of inspiration amid cynicism, a model for a community of nuance amid disagreement.

***

On any given day, we find ourselves entering and exiting a variety of locations and contexts. In each place we have a different role to play, a specific responsibility, a different amount of power we can wield. We might even hold different names in each context (friend, father, boss, student, employee, client, daughter…). We move between these contexts constantly, and sometimes - like a whisper only we can hear - the context is switched and our role becomes entirely different than the one before it. In this decade of smartphones, our contexts keep switching and overlapping in faster and faster succession. We are constantly entering and exiting.

But then Nehunia ben haKanah stands at the doorway, and pauses for a brief prayer. “What is the nature of your prayer?” they challenge him. “Upon my entrance, I pray that no mishaps should occur because of me; and upon my departure, I offer thanksgiving for my portion.”

I’d suggest Nehunia’s prayer is a call to intentionality as we enter and exit our various contexts. He’s warning us about the detriments of not noticing the context that we’re in, not being aware of the role, responsibility, and power that we wield; of the name we must answer to. His solution for himself was to create short moments of intentionality, kavana, and tefilla. He allows his hands to shake a bit, before entering a role of power and responsibility. Let no mishap happen because of me. Then, upon exiting, he brings his hands together in thanksgiving and appreciation, ensuring that next time he enters, he recalls the goodness and not just the trepidation.

Nehunia’s personal prayer is metonymic of the entire project of Mishna Berakhot, the tractate from which this aphorism is taken. Berakhot is a calling to live intentionally in the world, and it offers a unique formula, which one could call “The Secret Structure of Jewish prayer”, but I prefer to call it: The Art of Sandwich making.

 Berakhot encourages us to sandwich our experiences, trials and tribulations with brief prayers. “Before one enters a city, say one prayer. As you leave the city, say one prayer”. We are called to say a blessing before eating, and four blessings after. So too with waking and sleeping, with learning, with seeing an old friend. We even say blessings before we say blessings, and say blessings after we’ve said blessings. Sandwich upon sandwich upon sandwich.

Yet before it became a ritual murmuring, it was a call to intentionality. A note to self: be wary of the power you wield. A reminder: be thankful for our portion. I’d like to enter all my contexts the way Nehunia enters the Beit Midrash.

Learning, Service and Reciprocal Kindness

The last two words of Nehunia’s prayer deserve an extra focus. He gives thanks, acknowledgement – a noble and universal sentiment – but not for his destiny, or calling. Rather, for his portion. As he leaves, he demarcates an area which is “his portion”. The language is interesting: “portion” acknowledges that what he has is part of something larger than himself, that he is simply a part, a portion, of a grander scheme. Yet on the other hand, it is undoubtedly his. “My portion”. May my portion be among those that are thankful for their portion. merely my portion, yet it is mine nontheless. Even if I never get to see the whole.

This past month I’ve been lucky to experience many such moments of thanksgiving; of seeing that portion that we at the Bronfman Fellowships have received in the world. They are the outcome of the hard work of our amazing team; of the trust, thirst and care that you - our community - invest in it, and of the fruition of Edgar's vision which Becky and I have been lucky to call our portion. And it feels both entirely new and as old as the most cliched Mishna in our tradition.  Our portion stands on three things. 

When eighty busy Israeli Bronfmanim in their twenties and thirties take two days out of their lives to re-immerse in deep face to face conversations, or when fifty college students cram into a room at ten o’clock on a Friday night because of a thirst to engage in a kind of study too rare on their campuses – our portion is one of true learning, Torah Lishma.

When ten friends drive three hours in the desert to console a Bronfman alum they hadn’t seen in years as she buries her estranged father surrounded by strangers – our portion is one of Gemillut Hasadim, reciprocal kindness and support.

When Israeli and North American alumni board members come together across time zones and language barriers to discuss with seriousness and enthusiasm how to allocate money that you entrusted in their hands, and to discuss whether to support projects in communities distant from them geographically and ideologically, yet that they care about deeply, our portion is one of Avodah, service and social responsibility.

As I exit this month of Bronfman busyness, I pray that these moments illuminate something on your end as they have in mine. In a world of many mishaps, I give thanks for a community that helps me regain faith in learning, service and communal support. As clichéd as that sounds, sometimes faith in clichés is what the world needs more of. 

Happy Thanksgiving

Mishael

רַבִּי נְחוּנְיָא בֶּן הַקָּנֶה הָיָה מִתְפַּלֵּל בִּכְנִיסָתוֹ לְבֵית הַמִּדְרָשׁ, וּבִיצִיאָתוֹ תְּפִלָּה קְצָרָה.

אָמְרוּ לוֹ: מַה מָקוֹם לִתְפִלָּה זוֹ?

אָמַר לָהֶם:בִּכְנִיסָתִי - אֲנִי מִתְפַּלֵּל שֶׁלֹּא תְּאַרַע תַּקָּלָה עַל יָדִי. וּבִיצִיאָתִי - אֲנִי נוֹתֵן הוֹדָאָה עַל חֶלְקִי.