Rabbi Susan Grossman: October 2006 Archives

Maybe I am dating myself, but when I hear one of Borat’s tirades, I immediately think of Archie Bunker of "All in the Family." That TV show broke ground a few decades ago because it exposed in humorous fashion the commonality of stereotyping and discrimination. Unfortunately, not as much had changed in the world as we may have hoped for when "All in the Family" first aired. (It is now on reruns and still surprisingly relevant.)

So I don’t have a problem with Borat, but I understand why the Khazakhs do, because he exposes the ugly side of otherwise respectful society in high contrast, much as Archie Bunker did a generation back.

Even the best of us carry stereotypes around in our heads, and not only in our heads. A visit to the Simon Weisenthal Center’s Museum of Tolerance is one eye-opener about the degree to which stereotyping is part of everyone’s assumptions and interactions. No one is immune. That is perhaps the dark secret Borat uncovers and why his humor is so funny on one hand and so disquieting on the other.

Rabbi Stern, who’s Orthodox bashing? I also believe having a large Jewish family is a mitzvah. If you can afford the extra room, great. And if you can fix up your home and stay in the neighborhood near family, even better, as I wrote.

The problem of McMansions is not a denominational one. There are plenty of suburban Conservative and Reforms Jews who live in McMansions. McMansions are an American Jewish problem. It's a reflection of how we prioritize our personal spending and what we believe is most important. And it affects how we subsequently fail to adequately share our wealth with the needy, with our movements in Israel and Europe, and with our communal agencies, which are consistently underfunded and thereby hobbled in their efforts to provide sufficient and compelling educational, social-service, and outreach programs.

I see them everywhere, in new suburban developments and in urban neighborhoods: gigantic homes that could house a tribe, let alone an average family, and sometimes contain such perks as indoor pools. Labeled McMansions in the 1980s, Jews are building them and moving into them in droves.

There is a positive and a negative to these Jewish McMansions, at least as I have seen it play out in my old neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York, and in suburban neighborhoods around the country.

In our old neighborhood of Midwood, Brooklyn, the McMansion-building craze means that families desirous of larger or more comfortable space are remaining in the neighborhood instead of moving to the suburbs. This is good for the Jews and for the city.

Particularly in the Syrian Jewish community focused around Ocean Parkway, McMansions are a sign that families are making a commitment to remain within walking distance of each other. Grandchildren grow up with their grandparents and cousins around the corner or a short bike ride away. They can spend Shabbat and holidays together, helping to cement traditional observance down through the generations. It also means that the social ties that support neighborhood institutions like synagogues and the community center remain strong.

Such stability is also good for the larger neighborhood. While it is true many of the children in these homes attend private Jewish day schools, McMansions mitigate white flight, helping to sustain an integrated neighborhood.

The down side, of course, is conspicuous consumption. McMansions represent big money. The owners are more than successful; they are wealthy (in an upper-middle-class sort of way). If our immigrant grandparents (or great grandparents) did not find America’s streets paved with gold, we, at least, can tile our bathrooms in marble accented by gold fixtures.

That is why, when I see a McMansion, I wonder how much tzedakah (charity) the family gives. In the suburbs, I also wonder what it would be like if the builder had built within the same fascade a multi-family dwelling that looked as good but provides affordable middle-class housing for the hard-working teachers, civil-service, health-care, and office workers who are being priced out of the county in which I now live by the proliferation of such McMansions.

The affordable-housing folks in my community tell me it is possible for the builders to make the same profit; all that is lacking is a commitment to try. That also used to be part of the Jewish American dream: to try to see that everyone could have the same chance to live comfortably and safely by working hard.

I hope it still is part of our dream.

Rabbi Stern points out the distinct irony of Israeli President Moshe Katzav refusing to acknowledge the legitimacy of Conservative and Reform rabbis on the basis of Orthodox law as interpreted by Israel’s Religious Ministry while engaging in personal behavior that, if found to be true, is morally and religiously reprehensible.

I think there is a bigger problem here, however.

When Israel’s founding Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion dreamed that Israel would someday be like the other nations of the world, I doubt he had in mind that a prominent Israeli leader would face a sex-abuse scandal at the same time as an American congressman. The analogy to Florida Republican Mark Foley is apt in too many ways.

If the rape and sexual misconduct charges against Katzav are true, I have to wonder how many people, by their silence or acquiesce, enabled Katzav in his offenses, just as the Republican leadership enabled Foley in his misdeeds. (A report in this week’s Newsweek magazine cover story traces evidence of such knowledge back to at least 2002.)

Of course, the good old boys club mentality that facilitates and protects such egregious misbehavior (whether the victims are women or teenaged boys) is particularly disgusting when the individuals and parties in question claim to represent religious morals, whether of Jewish Orthodoxy or Christian conservativism. Under Jewish law, at least, someone who knows of a danger and does nothing about removing it can also be held liable for it.

But the Katzav affair reminds me of how the Orthodox Jewish political establishment also fails vulnerable women and children in another way, as corrupt religious courts force women to remain in abusive relationships, lose custody of their children to abusive fathers, be blackmailed and, by denying them a get (a religious divorce), languish as agunot--grass widows--unable to remarry.

While there is a significant number of Orthodox rabbis who try to help agunot, the reality is that the problem only exists because of a lack of will within the Orthodox establishment to correct it. The Conservative movement years ago found a way to annul a marriage where the husband refuses to give his wife a get.

While some might say solving the agunah issue is more complex than or unrelated to either the Katzav or Foley sex-abuse scandal, these women and children share something in common with Katzav’s and Foley’s alleged victims: They are endangered every day because politically powerful men do nothing to help them.

I don’t share Rabbi Waxman’s ambivalence about whether kissing the Torah smacks of the very idolatry Judaism has always been so vigilant against. I think of it more like kissing a love letter: a physical expression of a passion for the writer, in this case God.

Idolatry is when something takes the place of God as Number One on our priority list. We may have many idolatrous relationships in our lives: with our credit cards, our stock portfolios, our jobs, our looks, our electronic toys, all sorts of things we give higher priority to in our lives than to God. But when we show reverence for the Torah, we are directing our attention to the One who is the reason why we are here as Jews in the first place.

That is why kissing the Torah is not idolatry in my book: because the Torah is not a substitute for God. It is what God has left us with. Therefore, it represents the closest most of us can come to “hearing” God’s voice in our lives.

If you have ever lost a loved one, you may know what I mean. There is power in my holding the sweater my late mother wore and breathing in her perfume one more time, or seeing her handwriting on a letter she sent me. Touching these things brings her closer to me. L’havdil (to make a distinction), this is how kissing and hugging the Torah works for me: it is an expression of my love for God. All we can do is hold what God has left us, this Scroll with its ancient words, dressed in a way that shows our respect and reverence. That is also why hugging the Torah and dancing with it this weekend on Simhat Torah is such an act of true spirituality and piety.

Perhaps we would be a stronger Jewish community if more of us made an effort to leave our credit cards and computers alone one day of the week and made more of an effort to kiss the Torah more regularly.