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B'shalom,
Jonah

Refocusing the Conversation

http://jewschool.com/2011/06/20/26447/guest-post-refocusing-the-conversation/

by
Jonah Geffen, Rabbinical Student
Kelly Cohen, Jewish Educator

We are trapped in a discourse that has no logical end. It has been asserted that the knowledge and life experience of the current generation of Rabbinical students with regard to Israel is cause for great concern and fear. The deans and Presidents of Rabbinical schools have responded to the contrary, stating that though perhaps more willing to “wrestle” with Israel, these students are wise and committed. And yet, this entire conversation remains shallow and paternalistic. The debate has been devoted strictly to the students, their teachers and the methods by which they are chosen and taught. We believe this discourse to be fundamentally flawed. We note with dismay that this conversation about Diaspora Jews and our relationship to Israel has left out Israel, its choices and actions.

It is true, we do have a different relationship with Israel than our parents’ generation. How could we not? The nature of the situation in Israel today is so vastly different than it was forty years ago. The world changes, people’s perceptions change, reality changes and our generation has been raised to understand that we must work to build a better future for Israel and to appreciate but not dwell on its past. We have been raised in the American ideal, that no human being should live subject to tyranny, that every individual should be judged on her or his own merit and to seek out the personal interaction needed for true understanding. We are comfortable and confident Jews – and this reality is not a character flaw. We know what we see with our own eyes. We see injustices, religious and political, that need to end. This is true not only because we refuse to see all Palestinians as our enemies, but fundamentally because we refuse to blind ourselves to the fact that the reality that has been created is bad for the Jewish People as a whole. It hurts us as a people to exist in this reality and creating further divides amongst ourselves is not the answer. We cannot truly be am hofshi b’artzenu until everyone b’artzenu is free. As long as we are perpetuating these injustices, stoking fears and succumbing to anger - we will not achieve this deep collective wish, articulated so beautifully in Israel’s national anthem.

For so many of us who choose to come to Israel, or are sent to Israel to learn for the year, we are confronted with a reality very different from the one about which we have been taught, shown on our teen tour, or even shown to others as leaders of those tours. The authentic American Jewish life in all its manifestations all too often runs contrary to the reality experienced when spending time in Israel. We are often forced to confront the exclusion of our own Judaism. We were taught and feel that Israel is a homeland for all Jews, we experience the profound power of walking the land of our ancestors, marvel as the changes in season meld so seamlessly with the Jewish calendar, and smile proudly as we hear the language of our people used to express our greatest hopes and ideas.

Yes, we believe that Israel in its purest sense is a homeland for all Jews, but over time and with experience we have come to understand the caveats to that rule - it becomes quite clear that homeland is a subjective term. Israel is a homeland for all Jews, but don’t try to get married here, don’t try to pray at the Kotel in a way you find authentic, don’t try to get a student visa to learn Torah if your halachic status is not acceptable to the Rabbanut. It is extraordinarily painful to feel outside of something that is at the core of your identity.

Still, this lack of religious pluralism, while deeply distressing and ostracizing to so many of us aligned with liberal movements in America is only the tip of the iceberg. We have been raised to believe that every Israeli truly wants peace, and that all that stands in the way are just some political barriers. Yet, after living here we can say without question that many Jews and Palestinians say that they want peace, but the peace they describe is a a far cry from the shalom for which we pray. When we are confronted by the deep fear of the other and the ways in which that manifests itself into structural violence and racism, we are shocked and want to work to make it better. We, who were taught that the Israeli Army is the most moral army in the world, are thrown into disequilibrium when we see our own acting cruelly to innocent Palestinians at checkpoints. We stand witness in disbelief as the very land we were taught to love is overturned, as trees are uprooted and mountains are moved all to build a giant concrete wall in the name of security. When soldiers protect settlers as they throw rocks at Palestinians we cannot comprehend this information because it does not fit anywhere in the reality of Israel that we were taught.

The problem is not the students and young Rabbis, and it is not how Rabbincal Schools are educating them. The problem is the Jewish reality that they are being asked to stand by and defend. The call to serve the Jewish people is born out of a deep love and desire to work to actualize our people’s potential in the world. While we must always be engaged in making ourselves and our programs better, what we most need is a collective commitment to fixing the brokenness of our greatest project, The State of Israel, and with it the growing brokenness of the Jewish People. We must remember the words of Rebbe Nachman of Breslov, “If you believe you can break it, you have to believe you can fix it.” The answer to a seemingly strained relationship between future Jewish leadership and the State of Israel is not avoidance, re-branding or unquestioning allegiance, but meeting Israel where it is and working to help it improve.

As an educator and rabbinical student, we have been tasked with caring deeply for the intellectual and spiritual needs of our students and congregants. We are taught that we are responsible for their achievement and behavior. If a student is having difficulty, do we simply tell her that she is doing fine? If a congregant is in crisis and doing damage to himself, do we tell his family to cheer him on? The State of Israel deserves, at the very least, the level of respect and care we have for our own students and congregants. We have no choice but to view ourselves as responsible for Israel’s achievement and behavior. If we see that either of these are not living up to the highest ideals of our tradition, then it is on us to do everything that we are able to help it to improve. Such improvement can only be realized through deep relationship and commitment. We are not afraid that if we look the bright light of Israel’s reality in the face we will have to turn away. We understand that concern, but know that for us, and for so many of our friends and colleagues who have chosen to devote their lives to serving the Jewish people, turning away is not an option. We are in this, we are committed, and we are here to stay. Israel is not a piece of our identity that we can take or leave, it is a deep part of who we are as members of the Jewish people, it is a part of our Rabbinate, of our classrooms, of our lives. We are not going to walk away, and we are not going to be pushed away. We have cast our lot with the Jewish people, with all of its projects, successes and failures.

We refuse to let this debate continue to be about us. To focus on us is to miss the point - so many of our brothers and sisters are suffering, and inflicting so much suffering on others. We refuse to sit by and watch as our family melts down, cultivates fear rather than courage, anger rather than compassion. The conversation should not be about us; it should be about Israel.

It is Sunday night May 8th, and I am in Jerusalem.  Sunset marks the beginning of Yom Hazikaron, the day this state has set aside to remember all those who have been killed - soldiers and victims of terror - since the state came into being.  It is a day devoted to suffering, to a collective experience, to feeling pain and sorrow.

Its just now hitting me that Yom Hazikaron is here.  I havent given it enough attention I guess, life pushing forward as it does.  But right now, my thoughts are with all those who lost their lives because of this conflict.  With those souls lost to anger and violence, drawn into the unnatural state of war.  With those who were not actively fighting, those who died simply by living in a conflict zone.

I lost a cousin recently who I barely knew.  He was in the Army because that what young Israelis do, and died by accident.  A casualty of being placed in a situation where one is constantly surrounded by things designed to kill.  His family, like so many others here mourns twice a year here.  Once for his Yartzheit, and once more today.

Today I join a nation in mourning, and pray that next Yom Hazikaron the number of those who have lost their lives to this conflict is the same as it is today.  I pray that this suffering brings with it healing, that this collective day of Shiva brings with it the comfort that sitting in mourning with family can bring.  And that comfort begins to allow us to move forward, to rise up from the dust of mourning and face the rest of our lives with courage and compassion.  I pray that we are able to experience this pain of ours, so profound, and steel ourselves with the determination to end suffering - all suffering.

הִתְנַעֲרִי מֵעָפָר קוּמִי

If only my problems would just dissapear...

HaRav Ovadia Yosef is no stranger to saying thing that cause many of us to cringe.  The latest:

"Abu Mazen and all these evil people should perish from this world," Rabbi Ovadia was quoted as saying during his weekly sermon at a synagogue near his Jerusalem home. "God should strike them with a plague, them and these Palestinians." 

I read these words and feel for this man.  A man who's brain is like a computer program.  He has memorized pretty much every important Jewish text of the last 2500 years.  And believe it or not, on many issues where other Haredi Rabbis like him have ruled in confusingly harsh ways, he has proven moderate (again, in a certain context).  And yet, he speaks about an entire people and wishes for their wholesale destruction.  He wishes upon them what many for thousands of years have wished upon our people.  He wishes upon them what the Nazis almost succeeded in doing. 

But I want to dig a little deeper here.  Because it seems to me his words are an example of a universal human truth.  We all look at our lives, look at our problems, at those people, places, ideas, etc. that are causing us anguish - and wish that they would just dissapear.  We allow ourselves to become stuck in one place spinning our wheels, because the cause of all our problems is one thing.  

If I only had a million dollars, I would be happy.

If only my daughter would sleep through the night, I would be kinder and more productive.

My neighbor keeps playing his music too loud, if only he would move all would be well.

Rav Yosef believes that if there were no Palestinians around, all his problems would be gone.  His people could settle the entire Biblical land of Israel and no one would care.  There would be no war, nothing to preoccupy us from creating a wonderful Haredi state in the land of Israel.

Yet here is the thing.  Hes wrong.  What we think is the end all be all of our problems rarely is.  We are much too complicated, much too interconnected to work this way.  And God did not create such a world.  Even though God keeps promising the Children of Israel that their enemies will be destroyed and they will live happily ever after, that never happens.  Its as if God wants us to strive for perfection, but places obstacles in our way to remind us that there is always work to do. 

I don't know for sure, but I doubt given the chance Rav Yosef would slaughter millions of Palestinians.  I think he just wishes his problems were gone, because he is too weak or too scared to actually confront them.  He even says as much, "God should strike them with a plague, them and these Palestinians." Not, "we should just nuke the bastards."  He wants his problems gone, and for them just to disappear.  He wont take any action to get them to go away.  And therein lies the rub.  Because action would get them to go away.  Were he to decide to work for peace, he is one of the few who could actually speak with the leaders of Hamas - because under it all these are similar people.  People who practice their faith in similar ways, who speak the same language, and who call on God to do away with their problems without appreciating that it is God who put them there in the first place.  

Rav Yosef is all of us.  No matter how much we denounce him, we should all keep in mind that we all go where he has gone...

Shanah Tovah

A stay of execution

A stay of execution is no victory. It is up to all of us to keep the pressure on. This bill must die. And if you are curious why:

"The bill's controversial third clause states that anyone who “entered” Israel as a non-Jew (and did not have a father, grandparents or spouse who was Jewish and therefore was not eligible for Israeli citizenship under the Law of Return) and converted to Judaism at some later date, whether in Israel or abroad, would not be eligible for automatic citizenship."

So if someone went to Israel, fell in love with Judaism and decided to convert, but happens to believe that Halacha dictates an equality of the sexes in Synagogues and so converts Conservative - they are going to be DENIED Israeli citizenship.

And if any Orthodox people think this is not their argument, the same is true for their converts as well. Any convert will be scrutinized, and I can assure you that Modern Orthodox conversions will be declared null as well.

Hell, the chief rabbinate could just decide not to recognize the conversion of anyone outside of Israel who had had the poor judgment to visit Israel as a Gentile.

Folks this bill speaks to a deeper flaw in modern Israel. The power of the chief rabbinate must be abolished altogether. Judaism of all types should be recognized without state coercion. Power has corrupted the Haredi/Dati Israeli rabbinate - it needs to end. Separate our beautiful faith from the trappings of the state...and watch it flourish.

Flotilla Thoughts...

I am troubled by the proliferation of (facebook) postings of Fox News clips from people I know consider Fox News to be something short of journalism. My friends we must ask ourselves some tough questions. Fox comes at every issue from the same point, they don't change. We have to ask ourselves, why do we only agree with Fox when it comes to Israel? How could it be that they get everything else wrong, but get this one right. Or maybe we are not viewing Israel with the same eyes we use to see the rest of the world...

Do we hold our own to a different standard than we hold the rest of the world? I mean, if Fox is right about Israel maybe they are right about America? Right about Iraq? This is the network of Hannity and Beck people, don't forget that. And if you, as I, find yourselves nodding in agreement with either of those two...get up and walk to the closest mirror and look deeply into your own eyes, into your own soul. Are you still being true to yourself? To your beliefs? To your people?

Sending love and prayers to all those around the world who are feeling such pain over this incident. May this be a restful and healing Shabbat.

Don't be fooled...

In case you have been swayed by the recent "Sholom Rubashkin" did no wrong movement...

"A former underage worker cried Monday while testifying she was exposed to harsh chemicals at an Iowa slaughterhouse where she and other teens worked 12 hours a day, six days a week. Yesenia Cordero Mendoza, now 18, was one of two former underage workers to testify against former manager Sholom Rubashkin, who faces 83 child labor violation charges stemming from a May 2008 raid at the plant in which 389 illegal immigrants, including 31 children, were detained."

How can you be outraged at his sentence but not at his actions? How can you try to act like what went on in Iowa was not wrong? This is not a case of people out to get us, this is a case of us forgetting ourselves. When I ate meat I mindlessly ate Rubashkins meat. I feel ill now because I am convinced that the meat I ate then was not Kosher. I didn't know, but I supported this.

We must be more mindful. We must infuse all aspects of our lives with Torah if we are going to avoid this ever happening again. This was Jewish industry that sold to Jewish people, and it had 16 year olds working 12 hour days for pennies. This plant was not Torah True.