Who Are We?

Identity in general is supremely complex.  It’s likely that our gender, our profession, our sexuality, our color, our nationality, our religion and our politics are all part of our identity.  And all of these factors interact in complicated ways. 

For example – years ago, a Jewish woman who covers her head out of modesty told a story, in a public forum that I was part of, about how she was once in an airport and struck up a conversation with a Muslim woman who also covers her head out of modesty.   She said that following that conversation, she felt a strong identification with that woman, stronger than she feels with many Jewish women.

A liberal-minded Jew may at times identify more strongly with a liberal-minded Christian than with conservative-minded Jews.  The reverse may also be true.  And sometimes – the religious commonality will trump everything else and create the strongest identification.

I want to challenge all of us to ask ourselves, “what are the different parts of our identity?  And how does religion figure in?"

I also want to challenge us to consider our parents and to ask ourselves, "in what ways are our politics different from theirs?  Our approach to gender?  Our approach to religion?"

In no way will I resolve these issues for us, but I’ll be satisfied if I at least can give us a framework for understanding how we might confront them.

I could say that for the first time ever we are facing these complex questions of identity, but we’re not.  It’s not the first time.  It’s always been complex.  If we want to look for precedent for engaging issues of identity in a multicultural world, we can look at Abraham, whose life we've been encountering as the book of Genesis unfolds before us once again.

Abraham was a man of the world.  His evolution in terms of his own identity can offer us some useful guidelines in grappling with our own identities. 

So I’d like to make a few points about Abraham and explore how they might apply to us.

First, Abraham straddled multiple cultures.  If we take the Torah’s narrative more or less at face value, he had first-hand experience of Mesopotamia (modern Iraq), the Fertile Crescent (modern Syria), Canaan and Egypt.  He negotiated treaties, navigated politics.  Sometimes he navigated virtuously, sometimes not.

Second, Abraham left home.  As the medieval commentator, Rashi puts it, he distanced himself – hit’rachek – from his house of origin.  Abraham established himself as distinct from his parents – God’s command of “lech lecha,” get yourself going – was a command for him to leave the comfort of his parents’ house and strike out on his own.

Finally, Abraham is pictured as struggling with moral issues.  He will ask God how it’s possible that the judge of all the earth can behave unjustly.  You can see Abraham wondering – who is this God I have started following and what’s God's deal?

So here we are in the 21st century.  For Jews, identity remains complex and I want to briefly explore the three elements I identified with Abraham as they apply to us.  We straddle multiple cultures.  We bring the language and culture of Europe, Iraq and Iran, as well as the interface between Judaism and the surrounding cultures in these places and others.

What does it mean to be an Iraqi American Jew?  A Persian American Jew?  An Ashkenazi American Jew?

I’m going to speak personally for a minute, but I think it’s instructive.  My grandparents came from Eastern Europe.  My parents spoke Yiddish and while I speak a little bit, I’m not fluent at all, and most of my contemporaries aren’t either. 

As we’ve spent time in this country, our identity with Eastern European culture has diminished.  Our Jewish identity contains some small elements of Eastern European culture but it’s morphing – it involves Hebrew, Israel, American pluralism and social action in greater proportions than it involves Eastern European culture.

Children undeniably diverge from their parents, and over the course of two generations, the gap is even greater.  What are our priorities in terms of what we wish to maintain?

The third element has to do with morality.  As Abraham wondered if God was acting justly, we have generations of Jews (and I know this is true of Christians and Muslims as well) who are wondering if the traditions they are being taught make moral and ethical sense. 

The answer “this is what Jews do” is not good enough – it shouldn’t be good enough.  For good reason, Jews a generation ago started asking questions about gender equality. 

For good reason, Jews have asked what should be done when traditional approaches to Jewish law violate the spirit of equality. 

Part of the Jewish identities of many younger Jews is the desire that Judaism help them act justly in the world. 

Today, we are commemorating Global Hunger Shabbat, an initiative introduced by American Jewish World Services. 

AJWS has received significant support from college-age Jews and recent graduates who believe, whether they have intensive backgrounds in Jewish tradition or not, that as Jews, they should help alleviate suffering and improve the world.

If we think that identity is simple, we’re wrong.  It never has been and it certainly isn’t now.  Jews, as an example, have always juggled multiple cultures, a sense of themselves in relation to subsequent generations, and the interface between religion and morality.

I want to offer a concrete suggestion, which is that we engage in these conversations in an ongoing way.

Last month, Rabbi Adelson and I met with a group of parents of Nitzanim, kindergartners in our religious school.  We all talked a bit about goals for raising Jewish children.  As we talked, it became clear that issues of identity need to be addressed. 

Parents spoke about the challenges of being Jewish and transmitting Judaism, about the crossroads between ethnicity and religion, about the values they'd like to see emerge from their Judaism and that of their children.

When God told Abraham to start walking without giving the exact destination, it was, according to one understanding, so that Abraham could be given credit for each step he took.

I think we need to get credit for every step we take in the complex morass of our contrapuntal identities – but we need more than credit.

We need support.  We need to be able to turn to each other and ask questions like:
“What should I do about my kids and Halloween?”
“How should I get involved with my grandchildren’s religious identity in a way that’s not unhelpfully intrusive, if both parents are Jewish and if both parents are not Jewish?” 
"How do I handle myself in college when I am surrounded by smart, interesting people who are diverse in race, ethnicity and religion?”

Increasingly, we need to find ways to encourage those questions and the conversations that they engender so they embrace people at all ages and stages of their lives.

Balancing cultures, defining ourselves in relationship to parents and grandparents, figuring out how all this stuff refines us and the world - that's the cluster of challenges that we face.

So imagine a young man, about to go off to college who sits with me, as his brother is preparing to become bar mitzvah.  And he says something like, “I’m thinking about coming back to this congregation as a father one day.”

And I say to him, “That’s amazing.”  And now I want to say the following to him and his family and to all of us:  In between now and then, and beyond then, it’s going to be one heck of a ride – because that’s our nature, and that’s the nature of life.

With our complex selves on board, with our multiple moving parts, we embark on that ride together.

Originally delivered on November 5, 2011, at Temple Israel of Great Neck