November 2006 Archives

Rabbi Stern’s presentation of the issue of Jewish status as a question of genes vs. identity is right on the mark.

Judaism has been so hard to pin down for so many people because it’s not a religion--you can certainly be Jewish without believing in God or following any Jewish practices--nor is it a race or ethnic group, since you can’t convert into a race but you can become a Jew by choice.

More than 70 years ago, Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan first attempted to address this difficulty by proposing a new definition--one I think we can still learn from today. Kaplan said that Judaism was first and foremost a civilization, meaning a cohesive group identity that included shared history, culture, rituals, values, literature and, of course, religion. The shared element that held all Jews together wasn’t genes or religious practice--it was peoplehood, meaning Jews are linked to one another by a common identity, a shared sense of belonging, that transcends any single criterion.

How does any of this relate to the question of how we as Jews welcome prospective converts? Since being Jewish is not primarily a religious identity, I don’t believe that people who convert to Judaism should be forced to jump through this or that particular religious hoop.

I think it’s reprehensible to check up on converts to see if they’re keeping kosher or keeping shabbat as some rabbis do, when these are in no way defining criteria for being Jewish. What I do believe is that those wishing to convert need to affirm and formalize their commitment to having a Jewish identity and being part of a Jewish community, the Jewish story, and the Jewish people.

Does that mean that someone could simply decide to become Jewish without conversion? My answer is no: One person can be born American and exercise all the rights of that identity automatically but another person who had citizenship in another country must go through a process of becoming an American citizen--formally claiming that identity through study and appropriate administrative procedures--before enjoying those same rights.

Becoming Jewish means claiming citizenship in the Jewish people--formally taking on a new identity, culture, and civilization. And I certainly hope that we can be welcoming to anyone who wishes to make a commitment to do that.

In juxtaposing "blood and genetics," by which I presume he means those born of a Jewish mother, with those who "identify with the Jewish people and adopt a certain lifestyle," by which I presume he means those who self-identify as Jews by their feelings or actions, Rabbi Stern misses one critical component of Jewish identity: citizenship.

In the United States, citizenship is not the same as residency. People can live in this country for years and feel part of our culture, yet not be able to vote or hold office unless they go through the steps of becoming citizens. The same is true in Judaism.

I am sure Rabbi Stern would agree that, under Jewish law and history, a person can become a member of the Jewish people through two means: being born of a Jewish mother or converting to Judaism. Conversion is accomplished by study, commitment to the mitzvot (commandments), immersion in a mikveh (ritual pool), and for a male, brit milah (ritual circumcision), or tipat dam (taking a drop of blood if the male was already medically circumcised).

It is unfortunate that years ago the Reform Movement dropped these requirements for Jewish citizenship through their decision on patrilineal descent and the choice various Reform rabbis make to skip mikveh and milah as part of the conversion process. However, Reform Movement recently began to encourage conversions, as we have discussed here before. Perhaps that will also stimulate a further commitment to mikveh and milah as well.

As Rabbi Stern intimates, it is true that there is a move afoot in the organized Jewish community to broaden the definition of who is a Jew to include self-identity. This was a major issue around the National Jewish Population Survey. Such lack of distinctions does us no real good in the long term.

Throughout history, there have been many who truly loved Judaism and the Jewish people and lived their lives around the Jewish calendar. The Talmud refers to sabbatoi, Sabbath observers who clearly identified with the Jewish people, lived their lives as Jews, but had not yet officially converted. I have such people in my congregation. Some go on to convert; others do not for many diverse reasons. They are wonderful people who add much to my congregation. But they are not yet officially Jewish, even though they self-identify with our community, because they have chosen of their free will not to make the faith commitment to become officially Jewish.

There is nothing wrong with finding ways to welcome those who are not yet ready to embrace such a faith commitment while retaining our expectations for conversion (citizenship) and the distinctions between those who are citizens and those who are not. While citizenship is not a guarantee of Jewish continuity, i.e., having Jewish grandchildren, commitment certainly is one of many prerequisites.

Unlike Rabbi Stern, what I find so shocking about the decision of the Sephardic Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar to limit Jewish identity to those born of a Jewish mother is not the rejection of Reform and Conservative conversions (nothing new there) but also of Orthodox conversions. It is true that there are Sephardic precedents to reject converts, probably born of a long and painful history with Christian and Islamic powers who severely punished the individuals and communities accused of proselytizing. However, such fears certainly have no grounds in the Jewish State.

On one hand, Rabbi Amar is flattening the playing field between all three movements. On the other, his decision points to the dangerous narrowing of the definition of acceptable Jewish life and community under the right wing rabbinate in Israel as they continue to tighten their boundaries of who they consider is Jewish.

Certainly in Israel, such actions and attitudes by the rabbinate serve only to distance Jewish citizens, those born of Jewish mothers who live in Israel, from their Judaism, which they see as coercive and discriminatory. This, perhaps more than anything else, threatens Jewish continuity and commitment in the Jewish State.

--Posted by Rabbi Susan Grossman

There have always been two sides to the "Who is a Jew?" question. There are those who identify Jews primarily through blood and genetics, and those who see being a Jew as being more about choosing to identify with the Jewish people and adopt a certain lifestyle.

With an intermarriage rate hovering around 50 percent, Diaspora Jewry has for the most part adopted choice and lifestyle as their determining criteria for who is a Jew. On the other hand, the Israeli chief rabbinate continues to privilege blood and genetics, rejecting Reform, Conservative, and even many Orthodox conversions.

This past week, the chief rabbinate's blood-and-genetics position was put on display.
After years of political negotiations, historical research, and genetic testing, Israel welcomed the Bnei Menashe. The Indian group, which claims to be descended from one of the 10 lost tribes, was allowed entry into the country under the Law of Return. At the same time, however, that the chief rabbinate was opening it arms, Sephardic Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar proposed denying the Law of Return to anyone not born of a Jewish mother. Only Jews born Jewish would be eligible for automatic citizenship; all others would have to apply through the regular channels.

Many in Israel laughed at the whole Bnei Menashe episode. One commentator in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz described the story of these long-lost Jews as comparable to fables such as "Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf, or...Snow White's Seven Dwarfs."

But these commentators' criticisms are misplaced. Their issue should not be the absurdity of the Bnei Menashe story, but rather with a system that continues to privilege a form of identity that Jews worldwide are increasing moving away from. While the chief rabbinate continues to stress blood, Diaspora Jews are increasingly seeing Judaism as being about a way of life (and not about one's DNA).

How telling are the wise words of Rabbi Waxman. Though Judaism always privileged the tzaddik, the ultra-pious human being, its texts from the Bible on through the Talmud highlight just how flawed and full of failure leadership can be. Just think of King David: Here is one of God's greatest kings sleeping with a married woman and then ensuring that her husband die in war.

However, many will not admit that David sinned. The thing is that most people don't want to see clergy as human. In some sense, it's much easier for people to put their priests and rabbis up on an ethical and moral pedestal. By seeing them as angels, people absolve themselves of ever having to listen to them or trying to live up to their words.

In some ways they see their synagogue membership fee as a way of outsourcing their religious obligations. They say to themselves, "The rabbi keeps up Judaism, and I keep to myself." People want to believe that their clergy are saints because they think they are covered so long as someone is embodying piety on their behalf.

The bottom line is that while clergy are expected to live up to a higher moral standard than their flock, they are no different than any one else: They have passions, needs, desires, and lusts. They sin, repent, love, and hate in the same way that every human being does.

So if you are banking on them to get you to heaven by outsourcing your religious life, you better think again.

I agree wholeheartedly with Rabbi Waxman that clergy, of any faith, must be careful to see themselves, and allow themselves to be seen, as real human beings with human weaknesses and flaws. As Henri Nouwen so eloquently writes in his book, "The Wounded Healer," this ability to identify others’ suffering with the suffering in our own hearts, rather than maintain a role of aloofness, is a prerequisite for true ministering to the needy.

Judaism has always treated its clergy in this way to a degree, in the sense that a rabbi is supposed to marry and have children, be responsible to his or her parents, and is expected to be human enough to struggle with the same temptations that other people face. The difference, I would caution, is that as rabbis (or any clergy) we have a special obligation to strive for and surmount temptation and thereby model correct ethical behavior even in our most intimate and familial relations.

When we fail to follow even a basic modicum of morality, as did Ted Haggard, we should be held accountable for falling from a higher standard, as he has been. He does a disservice not only to those he personally hurt, but to the trust all people place in their clergy.

There is a debate in Judaism's Conservative movement about whether rabbis should be just like everyone else or whether we should strive to be symbolic exemplars, according to Rabbi Jack Bloom, author of "The Rabbi as Symbolic Exemplar." While I embrace Nouwen’s approach, I also embrace Bloom’s. For example, I can meet a congregant in the gym and share the challenges of sticking to our exercise routines, and then find that the next encounter with that congregant places me in a pastoral role, conferring on a problem.

For years, I tried to go incognito, particularly while on vacation. Invariably, we would meet someone high up on a trail in a national park, when I certainly did not look very rabbinic, who recognized me and wanted to talk. I realized that being a rabbi has less to do with what we are wearing and where we are standing and everything to do with having an open heart while living in the presence of God.

This is the burden and the blessing of the rabbinate. We are always rabbis, just like doctors are always doctors. It is a part of who we are, and to deny, or hide, or try to escape it does no one any good.

What we and our congregants need is our ability to synthesize everything we are as part of our rabbinic identity. That my rabbinate includes my ability to share my own wounds and challenges empowers my congregants and opens my own heart to them. I also share my efforts to strive to constantly walk in God’s ways and do God’s will, as our tradition understands it.

I agree with Rabbi Waxman: I hope my congregants know enough not to place me on a pedestal, but I also hope my actions in God’s service engender their respect not of me in particular but of Judaism as a way of life worthy of their allegiance.

--Posted by Rabbi Susan Grossman

At the very beginning of my rabbinical studies, one of my teachers gave me a sage piece of advice: "Don’t let your congregants put you on a pedestal. Then they’ll spend all their time trying to knock you off of...

There are two great poles in religious existence: redemption and thankfulness. Redemption constantly calls on us to make our lives and the world around us better and more holy. Thankfulness forces us to be content with what we have been...

The AJC Thanksgiving Reader Rabbi Grossman mentions is in many ways rooted in the thought of Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan, founder of Reconstructionist Judaism. Kaplan claimed that Jews in America lived in two civilizations–one American and one Jewish, and that each...

After Passover and Hanukkah, Thanksgiving is perhaps the holiday most observed by American Jews. It makes sense for a number of reasons, and not only because we Jews can't pass up an excuse for a good meal. Thanksgiving, as...

Apparently, the planned gay-pride parade through Jerusalem has been cancelled as a result of threats of violence. I agree with Rabbi Grossman that this is a shame: Capitulating to threats only emboldens those who seek to use intimidation as a...

So the gay community has called off their march scheduled for this weeken, averting a showdown with a violent haredi (extreme Orthodox) community. This should not be seen as a form of capitulation, but rather the maturity of the gay...

Life takes precedence under Jewish law, and the gay-rights advocates cannot be faulted for bowing to security concerns and canceling the gay rights parade slated for Jerusalem this weekend. But the State of Israel did wrong in letting it come...

Ohhh please...Rabbi Grossman’s position is a caricature of just the kind of simplistic, clichéd liberal thinking that has got us into this mess to begin with.Firstly, I just want to be clear: If one haredi lifts up a hand to...

Who does Jerusalem belong to?At some level, that’s the question at the heart of the conflict between participants in Friday’s planned gay pride parade and haredi (ultra-Orthodox) Jewish protestors. An ad campaign planned by the Orthodox Agudath Israel group proclaims,...

Is Rabbi Stern saying that the gay-rights activists should have known better than to plan their march in Jerusalem, or is he saying that the gay-rights parade organizers should have shown more consideration to the ultra-Orthodox, by not planning their...

The gay pride parade planned to take place in Jerusalem on Friday has created a fierce debate over the limits of freedom of expression in Israel. Israel's extreme haredi (ultra-Orthodox) groups are threatening violence--they've been staging violent demonstrations for weeks...

Rabbi Stern suggests a 1-10 ratio of those who lionized Archie Bunker vs. the majority who laughed at him. I have no idea if the ratio is accurate but I think the more important analogy is that those who laughed...

Rabbi Grossman and some of our respondents worry that the character of Borat will be taken as anti-Kazakh, which in turn triggers a mind-numbing satiric chain to untangle: a Jew mocking Kazakhs mocking Jews…In fact, one of the most salient...

I think Rabbi Grossman's analogy to Archie Bunker is excellent!Did many white 50-year-old men identify with Archie, thereby creating a racist cultural icon? Sure they did, but for every 50-year-old white racist bigot laughing along with Archie there were 10...