8 Tammuz 8 5765, July 15, 2005 Gary Wainer
Shalom Alechem
In a recent edition of the B’nai Brith Magazine a group of Jewish notables were asked what they thought Judaism would look like in 350 years.
Rabbi David Wolpe said that he thinks that “…we will still avoid the plague of unity. I hope our ancestors will never suffer the stultifying effects of universal agreement….Each Jewish stream…will be willing to do only intellectual battle.”
Blu Greenberg said “We will have learned to celebrate each other’s differences and distinctiveness without compromising our own strong beliefs.”
And Francine Klagsburn believes that “Jews will still be fighting with each other as they have for thousands of years.”
Those were only some of the thoughts contained in the essays but you can see the drift.
Jews like to argue.
Three Jews and four opinions- so what’s new about that? By the way, I would highly recommend reading that article. Dennis Prager, who I normally don’t think of as a funny guy, has a hilarious section on the 17 Jewish sects that will have been founded 350 years from now and how they find it necessary to ague about kosher water.
But in any event, for the past five thousand, and according to these folks, the next 350 years, our tradition has been, and will continue to be, one of argument.
Argument with each other and argument with God. In Genesis 32:28 Jacob wrestles with the angel at the crossing of the Jabbok and is renamed Israel, because: “you have striven with beings divine and human, and have prevailed.” So we certainly appear to have ancient hard wired genetics that not only allow us, but probably compel us to argue with one another and with God. But this hard wiring also defines us, Israel, as that people who wrestle with one another in an attempt to continually define our nature.
You have to know that wrestling with anyone for me is difficult. I gave up wrestling with my brother Brad when he turned 14 and got bigger than me, and in intellectual wrestling, being the good doctor that I am, I want to be the peacemaker and have people like me. That is really hard when you need to hold on to a position that is contrary to others and sparks debate.
Mark and I took up our “Open Spaces” project because we both identified the need for open dialogue and argument and at least the perceived lack of it here at the congregation. That problem was repeatedly identified in our long range planning committee, as well as by multiple individuals throughout the community, including me. I and others felt that certain topics had become taboo.
When as a Board member years ago I suggested that we withhold a portion of our Israel Bond money to express displeasure with the then developing settlements in the occupied territories the idea was summarily dismissed. What concerned me was not the outcome, because I truly now believe that would have been a bad idea, but rather the lack of conversation and discussion around the idea. No discussion, it was out of bounds, and not even a rational argument as to why. No one even tried to convince me; it was just a non-issue.
As we proceeded along our “Open Spaces” project this spring, we also began to identify, sometimes in parallel, sometimes in conjunction, that this element of inability to openly disagree really takes on broader perspectives.
During my tenure as President, I identified the fact that one of our Exec Committee members had very different set of political and social views than the rest of us around the table; He did not believe in the Reform perspective on gun control or abortion, and disagreed on many other social issues on which we as Reform Jews pride ourselves as being somewhat left of center. But at the same time I realized that his “conservative” ideas were dismissed out of hand, and there was no real forum or even context within which he could express his dissent. He too was shut off and dismissed because his views were right of center and did not conform to so called normative Reform Judaism.
Believe it or not, there are congregants, who like our Exec Committee friend, don’t believe in gun control, those who oppose abortion and even those who think homosexuals should keep to themselves. And yes, there are even congregants who believe in financial divestiture from Israel and a single Israeli state with full citizenship for the Arab and Palestinian populations. There are congregants who think that we should proceed to become more observant and learn more Torah. And then there are congregants who cringe every time they see a kippah and Tallit.
Yet we all seem to be here; only we are not talking about those differences and why we believe in them. Our conversations have become sanitized.
In the world of addiction and recovery medicine we frequently deal with dysfunctional family systems. There is a saying that many of you have heard, that there is an elephant in the room and no one will talk about it. The unhealthy family will step around it, step under it, avoid it, but no one will talk about it. That elephant here in our family is our differences; in an attempt to assimilate and become like our secular neighbors, we have lost the ability to talk about those differences that make us Jews; we have become Jewish Vanilla and dare I say, white bread and mayo !!
What I propose to you tonight is that we need to rejoice in those differences that make us liberal Jews, those differences that make us conservative Jews,
Those differences that make us financially conservative, those differences that make us fiscal liberals,
Those differences that make us rejoice at even the thought of Israel so that it can do no wrong, and those differences that make us cringe every time an Israeli politician speaks.
And so on and so on.
As Mark and I became closer, and I have to tell you that if nothing else comes from this project, if not one ounce of change occurs here in our community, this will still have been a success for us in the formation of our relationship and understanding of each other and each other’s views. And needless to say we don’t generally live on the same side of the political spectrum.
But as Mark and I became closer we also realized that there was a built in forum in our tradition for these discussions and arguments that we as a community do not use as readily as we should. That forum is what you have come to tonight; that forum is to use Shabbat services as community time. To use Shabbat services as a true place of community and a place where as Francine Klagsburn would note that we could continue to argue for another thousand years.
You may not like services, you may not believe in God ( and yes, we have those Jews also), and you may find the seats uncomfortable, but where else, other than in the House of God , the house of your family, can you come and safely wrestle with your community and wrestle with God ? Certainly not on the soccer fields and not in Scoville Square; those all take on different perspectives. Here it should be safe; we have a single understanding of one another, and the ability to talk about the elephant.
And we do need to talk about that huge gray thing until it is gone, diminished or reshaped into something less foreboding, something less obtrusive. We hope that this evening’s attendance is reflective of a yearning to interact and converse and disagree and argue; and to leave the Oneg arm in arm as family.
We hope that this presence here tonight will be recreated in the week’s to come. And if you want, we will also announce more controversial topics just to entice you in.
Some of those D’variim could be dovetailed with our next volume of “Open Spaces” which we will probably get together sometime after High Holidays. Some topics we have been talking about are such things as “Your belief in God”, “the nature of observance-how far should Reform Jews go ?”, “Public Prayer-should Jews participate ?” and my recent favorite- “Should the public display of the Ten Commandments be written in Hebrew as they were intended to be ?” (All right, I know someone will say they were actually in Aramaic- so OK, we can have two editions-one about Aramaic and one about Hebrew).
In this week’s parsha, Balak, we are told about the inability of Balak to obtain a curse for the Israelites from Balaam, a prophet of God. Every time he is instructed by Balak to curse Israel, God instructs Balaam to bless them.
Blessings and curses seem to be another of our hard wired chromosomes but that is for another D’Var. But one of the commentaries also notes that this is the first time that Israel is called “am”, “a people”. It is the first time that they are identified as a single group who possess genetic, cultural, and social bonds that unify them. It is those bonds that unite us and it is those bonds that allow us to disagree and wrestle with one another. We have an opportunity here this evening and going forward at Oak Park Temple to bless ourselves, bless our ancestors, and bless our house by living up to our God given and historical nature of argument.
And with that would like to leave you with a blessing tonight:
Hinei mah tov uma nayim, shevet achim gam yachad. Behold how good it is and how pleasant when brethren live together in unity. Shabbat Shalom
Shalom Alechem
In a recent edition of the B’nai Brith Magazine a group of Jewish notables were asked what they thought Judaism would look like in 350 years.
Rabbi David Wolpe said that he thinks that “…we will still avoid the plague of unity. I hope our ancestors will never suffer the stultifying effects of universal agreement….Each Jewish stream…will be willing to do only intellectual battle.”
Blu Greenberg said “We will have learned to celebrate each other’s differences and distinctiveness without compromising our own strong beliefs.”
And Francine Klagsburn believes that “Jews will still be fighting with each other as they have for thousands of years.”
Those were only some of the thoughts contained in the essays but you can see the drift.
Jews like to argue.
Three Jews and four opinions- so what’s new about that? By the way, I would highly recommend reading that article. Dennis Prager, who I normally don’t think of as a funny guy, has a hilarious section on the 17 Jewish sects that will have been founded 350 years from now and how they find it necessary to ague about kosher water.
But in any event, for the past five thousand, and according to these folks, the next 350 years, our tradition has been, and will continue to be, one of argument.
Argument with each other and argument with God. In Genesis 32:28 Jacob wrestles with the angel at the crossing of the Jabbok and is renamed Israel, because: “you have striven with beings divine and human, and have prevailed.” So we certainly appear to have ancient hard wired genetics that not only allow us, but probably compel us to argue with one another and with God. But this hard wiring also defines us, Israel, as that people who wrestle with one another in an attempt to continually define our nature.
You have to know that wrestling with anyone for me is difficult. I gave up wrestling with my brother Brad when he turned 14 and got bigger than me, and in intellectual wrestling, being the good doctor that I am, I want to be the peacemaker and have people like me. That is really hard when you need to hold on to a position that is contrary to others and sparks debate.
Mark and I took up our “Open Spaces” project because we both identified the need for open dialogue and argument and at least the perceived lack of it here at the congregation. That problem was repeatedly identified in our long range planning committee, as well as by multiple individuals throughout the community, including me. I and others felt that certain topics had become taboo.
When as a Board member years ago I suggested that we withhold a portion of our Israel Bond money to express displeasure with the then developing settlements in the occupied territories the idea was summarily dismissed. What concerned me was not the outcome, because I truly now believe that would have been a bad idea, but rather the lack of conversation and discussion around the idea. No discussion, it was out of bounds, and not even a rational argument as to why. No one even tried to convince me; it was just a non-issue.
As we proceeded along our “Open Spaces” project this spring, we also began to identify, sometimes in parallel, sometimes in conjunction, that this element of inability to openly disagree really takes on broader perspectives.
During my tenure as President, I identified the fact that one of our Exec Committee members had very different set of political and social views than the rest of us around the table; He did not believe in the Reform perspective on gun control or abortion, and disagreed on many other social issues on which we as Reform Jews pride ourselves as being somewhat left of center. But at the same time I realized that his “conservative” ideas were dismissed out of hand, and there was no real forum or even context within which he could express his dissent. He too was shut off and dismissed because his views were right of center and did not conform to so called normative Reform Judaism.
Believe it or not, there are congregants, who like our Exec Committee friend, don’t believe in gun control, those who oppose abortion and even those who think homosexuals should keep to themselves. And yes, there are even congregants who believe in financial divestiture from Israel and a single Israeli state with full citizenship for the Arab and Palestinian populations. There are congregants who think that we should proceed to become more observant and learn more Torah. And then there are congregants who cringe every time they see a kippah and Tallit.
Yet we all seem to be here; only we are not talking about those differences and why we believe in them. Our conversations have become sanitized.
In the world of addiction and recovery medicine we frequently deal with dysfunctional family systems. There is a saying that many of you have heard, that there is an elephant in the room and no one will talk about it. The unhealthy family will step around it, step under it, avoid it, but no one will talk about it. That elephant here in our family is our differences; in an attempt to assimilate and become like our secular neighbors, we have lost the ability to talk about those differences that make us Jews; we have become Jewish Vanilla and dare I say, white bread and mayo !!
What I propose to you tonight is that we need to rejoice in those differences that make us liberal Jews, those differences that make us conservative Jews,
Those differences that make us financially conservative, those differences that make us fiscal liberals,
Those differences that make us rejoice at even the thought of Israel so that it can do no wrong, and those differences that make us cringe every time an Israeli politician speaks.
And so on and so on.
As Mark and I became closer, and I have to tell you that if nothing else comes from this project, if not one ounce of change occurs here in our community, this will still have been a success for us in the formation of our relationship and understanding of each other and each other’s views. And needless to say we don’t generally live on the same side of the political spectrum.
But as Mark and I became closer we also realized that there was a built in forum in our tradition for these discussions and arguments that we as a community do not use as readily as we should. That forum is what you have come to tonight; that forum is to use Shabbat services as community time. To use Shabbat services as a true place of community and a place where as Francine Klagsburn would note that we could continue to argue for another thousand years.
You may not like services, you may not believe in God ( and yes, we have those Jews also), and you may find the seats uncomfortable, but where else, other than in the House of God , the house of your family, can you come and safely wrestle with your community and wrestle with God ? Certainly not on the soccer fields and not in Scoville Square; those all take on different perspectives. Here it should be safe; we have a single understanding of one another, and the ability to talk about the elephant.
And we do need to talk about that huge gray thing until it is gone, diminished or reshaped into something less foreboding, something less obtrusive. We hope that this evening’s attendance is reflective of a yearning to interact and converse and disagree and argue; and to leave the Oneg arm in arm as family.
We hope that this presence here tonight will be recreated in the week’s to come. And if you want, we will also announce more controversial topics just to entice you in.
Some of those D’variim could be dovetailed with our next volume of “Open Spaces” which we will probably get together sometime after High Holidays. Some topics we have been talking about are such things as “Your belief in God”, “the nature of observance-how far should Reform Jews go ?”, “Public Prayer-should Jews participate ?” and my recent favorite- “Should the public display of the Ten Commandments be written in Hebrew as they were intended to be ?” (All right, I know someone will say they were actually in Aramaic- so OK, we can have two editions-one about Aramaic and one about Hebrew).
In this week’s parsha, Balak, we are told about the inability of Balak to obtain a curse for the Israelites from Balaam, a prophet of God. Every time he is instructed by Balak to curse Israel, God instructs Balaam to bless them.
Blessings and curses seem to be another of our hard wired chromosomes but that is for another D’Var. But one of the commentaries also notes that this is the first time that Israel is called “am”, “a people”. It is the first time that they are identified as a single group who possess genetic, cultural, and social bonds that unify them. It is those bonds that unite us and it is those bonds that allow us to disagree and wrestle with one another. We have an opportunity here this evening and going forward at Oak Park Temple to bless ourselves, bless our ancestors, and bless our house by living up to our God given and historical nature of argument.
And with that would like to leave you with a blessing tonight:
Hinei mah tov uma nayim, shevet achim gam yachad. Behold how good it is and how pleasant when brethren live together in unity. Shabbat Shalom
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