Rabbi Joshua Waxman: April 2006 Archives

I recently attended a talk where Rabbi Mordechai Liebling discussed his visit to Sudan as part of an interfaith delegation. He commented wryly that this was one time where anti-Semitism worked in his favor: all of the Sudanese officials with whom he met genuinely assumed that a rabbi had great influence over both media and finance and bent over backward to accommodate him!

Throughout many parts of the world–including many of our own parts–there is a widespread assumption that Jews either "control" or have "undue influence over" (depending how sophisticated your anti-Semitism is) the media. (Hey, you’re reading this blog, so you know it’s true!) In fact, there is a widespread perception that Jews have great power to affect a wide range of issues, especially in the realm of U.S. foreign policy. So let’s begin by acknowledging two incontrovertible facts:

1. The organized Jewish community in America is very politically active.
2. There are many Jews in positions of responsibility and decision-making in both finance and media.

Now, let me explain why these two facts do not add up to a conspiracy except for those who are inclined to go looking for one out of their own personal or political agendas.

As I said, the organized Jewish community in America is very politically active, and there is also no question that some of this activism focuses on Israel. But this position is simply an extension of Jews standing up to injustice in a wide range of areas that have nothing to do with Israel, from taking the lead on behalf of Kosovar Albanians in the 1990’s to the current Jewish leadership on humanitarian intervention in Darfur, where more than one-third of the Save Darfur coalition members are explicitly Jewish groups.

In fact, Jews are active in a wide range of issues from the environment to workers’ rights to debt relief for the developing world. This is an extension of the high value our tradition places on social justice and on engaging society’s problems rather than walking away from them or leaving them for someone else to solve.

For the second point: Certainly, as a group, Jews have done very well in this country; many have risen to prominent positions. But the fact that so many Jews have reached positions of prominence and power is in no way part of some sort of coordinated plan to promote particular ideas or positions–a charge that smacks of paranoia and anti-Semitism.

Rather, when Jewish immigrants arrived on these shores, they brought with them, as every immigrant group does, a deep desire to succeed in this new land. That desire, coupled with the traditional value placed on education in Jewish homes, helped propel Jews to successful and prominent positions. But each success story was just that–the story of an individual person or family. The presence of Jews in prominent positions doesn’t indicate a "Jewish conspiracy" any more than the presence of five Catholics on the Supreme Court indicates a "Catholic conspiracy." In each case, conspiracy theorists start looking for dots to connect into a picture that exists only in their own heads, not in reality.

The combination of broad Jewish involvement and activism together with the presence of Jews in prominent positions may provide fodder for those who are inclined to see a broad Jewish conspiracy, from John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt in the London Review of Books to Osama bin Laden. But the reality is that such theories tell us less about the world than about those who spend time dreaming them up.

This April 25 we observe Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day. The date chosen for this observance is 27 Nissan in the Jewish calendar, associated with the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of 1943 in which 13,000 Jews perished in resisting Nazi extermination.

Of all the unspeakable and senseless tragedies that took place during this darkest hour of human history, why was the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising singled out as the date on which to commemorate Yom ha-Shoah? The reason is that in its earliest years, Israel sought to deemphasize the victimization of Jews, of those who went "helplessly like sheep to the slaughter," and instead wished to celebrate the courage of those who resisted valiantly even when hopelessly outnumbered and outgunned.

Strange to say, but Ben Gurion and other leaders of the new Jewish state were ashamed at the "weakness" of those who went quietly to meet their fate; as Israel began its life surrounded by hostile neighbors, strength and heroism were the watchwords of the moment, and so the Holocaust commemoration came to be associated with the uprising.

With the perspective of history, it is easy to see that there was no shame at all in meeting with quiet dignity the inevitable fate that awaited millions of Jews and other victims of Nazi atrocities, nor the slightest shame in scrambling to survive at any costs in the darkest of circumstances that one group of people could inflict on another. The shame does not lie with the victims; the shame lies with those who stood by and watched and let it happen.

Today, another genocide is unfolding before our eyes, in the Darfur region of western Sudan. Since 2003, the Janjaweed militia has systematically murdered 400,000 men women and children and driven another two million into refugee camps where they cannot be protected by the vastly insufficient number of African Union troops in place on the ground. Ninety percent of African villages in the Darfur region have been destroyed in this racially motivated abomination perpetrated with the complicity of the Arab-based government in Khartoum.

This Yom HaShoah, we have the opportunity and responsibility to stand up to genocide, to show that strength comes in standing with the victims, to casting aside the shame of inaction. We can begin by visiting the American Jewish World Service website to send a message to President Bush urging American involvement in this deepening crisis, and then join the rally planned for April 30 in Washington D.C. to end genocide in Darfur. We can call our representatives in Congress to express our concern, send donations to either of the organizations mentioned above, and write letters to local papers, and add our prayers on behalf of those who suffering. And we can commit ourselves to saying "Never Again" will the world know the shame of standing by while its children bleed.

In our house, the experience of Passover always comes early, with the preparations. As we shop, put away, clean, dust, scrub, vacuum, and scrub some more, the transformation our house undergoes slowly begins to pervade our consciousness as well, as if by some alchemical process. And slowly, gradually as we transform our environment by putting away the old and bringing out the new, we look at the world with radically transformed eyes.

There was the moment when I unpacked the first of our Passover dishes–normally stored down in the basement, brought out to see the light of day for only eight days a year. These dishes are kept hidden away so not a speck of chametz--leaven--will come near, so they will remain pure and uncontaminated.

Sitting on our freshly scoured shelf, out in the open, the dish seemed so vulnerable–exposed to whatever might come its way. And there was such a beauty in that vulnerability, like something delicate, something exquisite that risks opening itself up to the world: the first hopeful blossoms of spring, frost extending across a window in a jagged lattice, the paper-thin wings of a butterfly. How much easier when you are so fragile to stay hidden away, to protect your soft and defenseless places! How much braver and grander to share this fragile beauty with the world, all the more beautiful because of its fragility.

This is the experience of the slave’s freedom, of dizzying, rushing, surging release from the place of bondage and constraint. This is what it means to rush boldly ahead, damaged places and all, willing to chance whatever the world may bring to you. It is heady stuff; and the temptation is to bottle it, preserve it, keep it safe for a rainy day.

The paradox of freedom is that this approach can never work. For freedom only exists when let out in the open, when it risks the bruises and scrapes of encounters with the real world. Freedom challenges us to love it so deeply that we are willing to risk it by letting it out and not keep it behind the fences and barricades that protect and stifle.

The trick, then, is to transform the world to make it hospitable for this fragile and beautiful impulse. Passover dishes brought into a kitchen that was not properly cleaned would soon be ruined, and freedom brought into a world of cruelty and violence will inevitably succumb to those who prey on the very fragility that makes it so vital.

This Passover, may we begin to transform our own corners of the world–to scrub ourselves free of hatred, callousness, and indifference so we may extend the blessing of freedom to those who huddle in dark, hopeless places, so we may truly say: “This year we are slaves, next year we will be free.”

It’s a not-so-well kept secret that recently many Jews–many Americans, in fact–have come to find traditional, frontal services where congregants sit quietly in pews to be off-putting and, dare I say it, boring.

For a certain generation raised with a different set of attitudes toward institutions and authority, this may have been the way to go. But the hallmark of any healthy system that meaningfully engages people in their own lives–Judaism, of course, being no exception–is that it continues to adapt and evolve to remain relevant to changing times.

This is not, of course, to say that the baby should be thrown out with the bathwater: the core teachings and values of Judaism–forming covenanted communities, cultivating awareness of the blessings in our lives, celebrating Shabbat and holidays as a way of acknowledging sacred time, connection to Jewish peoplehood and Israel–always need to be at the center. But reexamining and rearticulating them for our own times can in fact be ways to reinvigorate them, have them speak to today’s Jews in new and exciting ways.

Across the country, synagogues have been experimenting with different formats to bring in Jews who haven’t connected to Jewish life. And while some of these attempts may be nothing more than gimmicks–kabbalah dating for Jewish singles?–it’s important to make the effort to reach out at a time when synagogues, like so many other traditional institutions, are stagnating.

One way to do this is to make programming at synagogues more interesting and engaging, offering programs of interest like Torah Yoga and kosher wine tastings. Services themselves can be more informal and interactive; at my own synagogue, rabbi-led discussions have long replaced frontal sermons and there is an informal atmosphere where congregants feel welcome to jump in with their own thoughts, ideas, and questions. Another way to expand the reach of synagogue is to go out into the community–hold programs in the libraries, coffeehouses, and other places where you may find Jews who wouldn’t ordinarily step foot in a synagogue. This, in fact, is a model of outreach that Chabad–with its emphasis on people over brick-and-mortar institutions–has been using successfully for years.

This isn’t by any stretch to say that we should abandon synagogues. We still need places we can come together to pray, learn, celebrate, and grieve in community. The synagogue can and should still be the central address for the Jewish community, but should do so by offering a wide range of programming and services that will engage newcomers rather than simply meeting the needs of those who are already there.

For some, change can be disconcerting or threatening, and it’s hard to say how Judaism will be practiced and lived 50 years from now. But I look forward to being along for the ride.