 The shawl and the hood
We should all be relieved - a great disaster has been averted in the heart of Jerusalem. A woman was arrested yesterday for causing a heinous threat to public order. She was carrying a document so subversive that it has been suppressed and vilified for thousands of years. She also donned an item of ritual wear so provocative that if she had not been stopped by the authorities there might have been cataclysmic results. The criminal in question was a highly suspicious type, and she arrived in Jerusalem with the premeditated intention of engaging in Jewish prayer at the site of the Western Wall. As is well known, such intentions are roughly equivalent to obtaining uranium on the black market or releasing poisonous chemicals on the subway. The subversive book she was carrying was the Torah, and the offensive ritual item a prayer shawl. If the water level of the Sea of Galilee had risen as high as the tide of intolerance and extremism sweeping over contemporary Israel, all our water problems would be solved. The law under which Nofrat Frankel (the woman caught wearing a tallit with intention to deprave) was detained is intended to protect society from inflammatory or insulting religious activities, and we now seem to have reached the point where for a woman to wrap herself in a prayer shawl is considered an outrage. The real outrage, of course, is that anyone thinks this is an outrage. Take my advice: don't take my advice
A friend in North America has invited me to address a group of friends committed to Israel and also to a Liberal worldview. They are concerned about what they see as the disconnect between the pro-Israel stance offered by most in the Jewish establishment and the daily reality of alienation, frustration and growing apathy which they see around them. At the end of the letter he asks: should we establish a local J-Street (if any of my readers don't know what this organization is, you can Google them), put pressure on our government to work for the policies we support, renew our membership to Israeli peace organizations? Gaza and Goldstone, settlement activity, attitudes to the Other in Israeli society, the bizarre relationship between Religion and State - all these persuade my friend and his circle that they have to do something other than just mouth the usual platitudes. For the sake of variety, they want me to come and share my platitudes What should I say to such a group? And what's the idea behind having me and mixing my angst with theirs? There is in part a vestige here of the old authenticity dilemma: since you don't live in Israel, the old line goes, you don't really have the right to make a noise in the way you would really like to. Meanwhile many Israelis seem to have no problem decrying the excesses and stupidities of their government, so why not bask in their irreverence? There is something wrong with this picture. Jews in the Diaspora do not need to ask permission from anyone to express their views. It's a remnant of a moribund guilt complex, an urge to defer to those who realized Zionist nirvana and now pay their taxes to the Jewish State. Israelis have no right to tell Jews in the Diaspora what to do, who to marry, how to behave, just as my sister has no right to order me to clean my room. But if my sister stays in touch, shares in my triumphs and disasters, then she does indeed have the right to tell me that if I ever want to get on in life, I should clean up my room. There is a condition of mutuality - I have to be able to tell my sibling about her interior design disasters, and she has to be able to listen as well. How do you say pluralism in Hebrew?
Some fifteen years ago I was a serving as rabbi in the wonderful Leo Baeck Education Center in Haifa. The relationship between the City of Haifa and the Jewish community of Boston was just beginning to develop, and a delegation was sent out from the Middle East to the North East to discuss terms and details. I was in my office one day when I received a call from an acquaintance who was part of the Haifa group. I was surprised, since I knew he was in the States and it was the middle of the night over there. When I inquired as to the purpose of his apparently urgent call, he explained: "I have spent the day with representatives of the Boston CJP [the Federation equivalent]. All day long they have talked to me about their commitment to pluralism, and I have nodded furiously and agreed vociferously. "But tomorrow they want me to say something about our commitment to pluralism, and I realize I know nothing at all about the subject. Rabbi, you're both Reform and born in Britain, but you have been in Israel a while and seem OK. So tell me, what are they talking about when they say pluralism?" My nocturnal caller was not alone. Fifteen years ago the term "pluralism" was hardly used in Israeli discourse, and more often than not it emerged when an Anglophone philanthropist mentioned it as an interest or a priority. In Hebrew, our Movement's Israel Religious Action Center is called the Center for Pluralism, and I am informed that to this day they receive calls from would-be clients convinced they are talking to the Center for Floralism (in Hebrew it looks the same without the vowels). They still have to turn away orders for wreaths and bouquets. Jerusalem is a special cityJerusalem is a special city. If you ever doubt this, try staying away for a little while. True, many Israelis have become so practiced in the art of staying away from Jerusalem that this has been elevated from simple aversion to full-blown abhorrence. True, many of us who bring up children in this city know that our offspring are preparing to spring off and leave as soon as the opportunity presents itself. True, increasingly Jewish visitors from abroad are becoming inured to the blandishments of the holy city, and developing a marked preference for the lure of Tel Aviv (The Big Pineapple) or Haifa (The Bahai Chapel) or even Hadera (the Big Falafel), over Jerusalem - the Big Grapple. Reports of 'death' exaggerated
I have been absent from this column for months, working hard to deal with the challenges facing my institution, which is struggling along with just about every other institution in the world in the current economic atmosphere. What might have sparked me back into life in the blogosphere were the reported comments of Rabbi Norman Lamm, predicting the imminent demise of the Reform and Conservative streams of Judaism. I have no idea, incidentally, if the very venerable Rabbi Lamm really said the things attributed to him in the Jerusalem Post article. Whoever did concoct the notion that non-Orthodox Judaism is on its last legs is guilty of an extreme case of wishful thinking. The truth is that there is ample and powerful evidence that a Judaism of meaning aimed at those for whom Orthodoxy is untenable, unpalatable or impossible is more urgently in demand today than ever before. Whose Hannukah is it anyway?Both of my regular readers will have noticed that I have been silent for the last couple of months. I have not been away, nor has there been a shortage of events worthy of comment. In fact, the problem has been mine: I have been struck by the uneasy sense that nothing I write can make any difference. No difference to the inhabitants of Sderot and the settlements closest to the Gaza Strip. No difference to the drivers of Israel as we engage in our relentless cull of pedestrians and passengers. No difference to the recipients of hundreds of millions of philanthropic dollars which have been lost in the greatest con trick in the history of Wall Street. No difference to the confused voters of Israel, caught between mediocrity and demagoguery, platitude and posturing. Reform's 'tude' problems
In June an article about Reform Judaism was published in Commentary Magazine. Those interested in Prof. Jack Wertheimer's analysis in all its glory would do well to locate the original. I'll give you the short version - he suggests that Reform Judaism is a failure. As a Reform insider, I'm here to tell you that Prof. Wertheimer is right. The more you know about a religious denomination, the more reason you should have to be concerned about its omissions and disasters, about the gulf between what it avers and what it achieves. Reform is a failure, and I hope it continues to be so in the future. I want to outline some of our major problems, and then I want to tell you why I'm happy to stick around and grapple with these failures, rather than go off in search of a whole set of new ones. I also want to suggest that most of the traditional claims against Reform Judaism are misguided or mean. If you're looking for the real failures and challenges of our movement, you might consider sticking with an insider for the real scoop. The picture of air-headed ignoramuses misleading the masses is a fake, and if that picture titillates you, you may need help. The real story is a little more complex. So here goes: Reform Judaism should not enter Israeli politicsElections are in the air. The Israeli public is reeling from the bad odor emanating from the Prime Minister's good cigars, and we are all wondering how he will manage to conduct his defense while conducting affairs of state. His key political opponents, perhaps incensed at the thought that Olmert will reserve the best first-class seat on the next flight, are working on their impersonation of righteous indignation. Observers of the geopolitical scene from Left and Right are wondering how Israel's interests can be well served when a negotiation on territorial compromise is taking place in between plea bargains and legal consultations. Remembering and forgetting
Last Shabbat I was in Vienna. The Shabbat before I was in New York. It is a great relief and a great distress to be back home in Jerusalem. The relief is understandable: this is where the people I love most in the world live, and in any case I regard it as a rare privilege to be part of this city and this country. The distress, of course, is a direct result of the horrific events Jerusalem has witnessed in the last few days. In New York there were only two subjects on everyone's lips, and between them they managed to push Obama/Clinton into a distant third place. The first issue is the state of the American economy, the sense of an impending recession, perhaps even a crash. The second is of a quite different nature. It relates to the spectacular decline of the Governor of the State of New York, a man who until a few days was a paragon of virtue, a fearless legislator devoted to rooting out corruption and prostitution. Shas - all shook up
Members of the Shas Party have contributed much to understanding and tolerance over the last few weeks in Israel. Two weeks ago it was Nissim Ze'ev, who likened the prevalence of homosexuality in Israel to the phenomenon of Avian Flu, and suggested that only radical action similar to the mass culling of chickens could help root out this abomination. Last week it was Shlomo Benizri, who has suggested that the most efficient way for the government to protect against the threat of earthquakes would be to abolish homosexual practices, since it is a well-known scientific fact that homosexuality causes earthquakes. Now there is an important difference between these two learned contributions to the public debate on sexual orientation and public health. The reference to bird flu is certainly an original insight of MK Zeev, who certainly deserves all the credit for this breakthrough in immunology. This is not the case with regards to MK Benizri, who has not been slow to point out that he has done nothing more than quote our sacred sources. |
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