We Are Family

Two colleagues and I arrived in Israel last Thursday morning for a week with the Hartman Institute.  We were headed to Jerusalem to meet the rest of our colleagues.  There was a line of cabs waiting at the airport.  My colleague headed toward a particular cab.  As he was starting to put his suitcases in the trunk (and on the roof of the cab), I noticed what was inside the cab.  Piles of books, plates, the remains of a few peppers.  I’m not a neat freak, but the pepper rinds on the passenger seat up front were a bit much for me.  I motioned to my friend, maybe we want to take another cab.  Meanwhile, his stuff was already in the trunk and the driver, a woman named Rachel, was saying, rega, rega – wait a minute, as she picked the pepper carcasses off the passenger seat.  And we got in and away we went.

                                My colleagues and I (back right) at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem

Along the way, she’s asking us questions, where are we from, what are we doing in Israel, she’s schmoozing and schmoozing.  About her family, about her trip to New York, how she hopes to get to the pool by 10 o’clock – she doesn’t swim for pleasure but for therapeutic reasons, she’s facing some economic challenges, etc.

By the time we were on the main highway to Jerusalem I knew a whole lot about her.

The endless conversation, the sharing of good and bad, the few remaining pepper seeds that I discovered underneath me, her pointing out of the shkeydiya – you see, she said, the almond tree blossoms really do bloom on Tu Bishvat - reinforced one thing for me.  That I was with family. 

The week I spent in Israel with over 20 rabbis at the Hartman institute was devoted to Jewish identity in Israel and in the US.  We discussed lots of challenges that face both communities which are in many ways very different from each other; Israeli Judaism by and large is becoming more nationalistic, more tribal, less open; American Judaism is becoming more assimilated, more universal, more open.

But one theme which emerged for me in Israel, which has repercussions in the US, is family. 

What does it mean to be with mishpacha?  The good, the bad, the beautiful, the ugly – what does it mean?

I’m going to share three scenes from my week in Israel as a kind of rumination on what it means to be part of the Jewish family and I promise, before I’m done, to take us back to Sinai, which we read about this morning, and somehow to take Sinai with us today.

Scene 1.  A few colleagues and I decided that on Shabbat morning, we were going to pray in the Syrian Synagogue in Nachlaot, a neighborhood in Jerusalem that has hundreds of synagogues – Ashkenazi, Sephardi, Mizrachi.

During the night, the synagogue had bakashot, prayers that were offered from 1 to 5 am.

We didn’t show up for those.

We came at 9 am, when they were at the beginning of Shaharit.  It was already quite full.  One older gentleman, whom we later discovered was one of the rabbis, stood up as we walked in and motioned to a portion of the congregation to make room for us.  The person leading the service had a beautiful voice, the congregation joined in for pizmonim, for certain liturgical choruses.  At a certain point one of my colleagues said to me, look closely at his siddur.  I got closer.  It was braile.  The person leading, the shaliach tzibur, was blind.  During the birkat kohanim, all of the fathers placed their hands on the heads of their sons.  The father of the leader put his hands on his son’s head. When the leader finished, a few people tenderly held on to him and guided him from the bimah to his seat. 

The rabbi gave his sermon and everyone was talking during it.

Kedusha was amazing – a beautiful confluence of voices – but not singing in unison in the Western style.  It was different than what I usually hear, and very powerful.

After the service, we started chatting with one of the participants – he told us that he grew up in France, that his parents came to France from Tunisia and then made aliya with their children when he was 5 years old.  We spoke about Anti-Semitism in France – he told us it’s OK to stay in America but maybe we shouldn’t get TOO comfortable.  He invited us to lunch which we politely declined because we were meeting the rest of our group.

My colleagues and I are not Syrian.  We’re not Tunisian.  We grew up in America, all of our parents were born in America.

And yet for the entire service, and the schmoozing afterward, we felt like we were with family.

Now family can be supportive and family can be a pain in the neck.

What’s fascinating to see is how both dimensions of family impact not just Israeli life, but Israeli policy.

Scene 2.  In one of our sessions, we took a look at Israeli Supreme Court cases having to do with competing claims from two segments of the population.

One had to do with a request to put the English, Gregorian calendar dates on gravestones in Jewish cemeteries.  Some rabbinic authorities opposed the use of non-Hebrew letters or numbers.

The judge who authored the majority opinion ruled that ultimately, the use of non-Hebrew letters and numbers should be allowed.

But before he got there, he spoke about the relative rights of the family of the deceased and the families of those whose graves were near that grave, weighing the emotional dimension on both sides.  He also identified what his limits would be.  A symbol from another faith would not be ok to be displayed in the cemetery.

Another case which dealt with competing claims had to do with a street in a neighborhood that became increasingly ultra-Orthodox.  The ultra-Orthodox wanted the street closed on Shabbat; the secular Jews living in that neighborhood were inconvenienced by the closing and requested that the street be open so they could come and go.  The author of the case identified the beauty and meaning of Shabbat, but also the rights of people to have free movement, and he came up with a compromise – the street would be open during services, when the observant Jews weren’t walking around, and even then, only to residents who would need to get a special sticker.

A third case dealt with the Gay Pride parade in Jerusalem.  The organizers of the parade were willing to march in a more subdued way than they had done in Tel Aviv.  There were complaints by some of the more traditional residents of Jerusalem.  The Supreme Court justice actually proposed a parade route that would respect the rights of the marchers but would impose less on the neighborhoods of the traditional residents.

I was in disbelief reading these cases.  I said to the instructor, Tal Becker, who has a doctorate in political science and has been involved in negotiations with the Palestinians, it seems so strange that Supreme Court justices would be suggesting details about parade routes and grave sites and street openings and closings and he said, all of this is because they see Israeli society as mishpacha.  Uncle Shmuel needs this, Uncle Shimon needs that, we’re going to find a way to ensure shalom bayit, where, and here’s my riff, everyone gives a little and therefore, everyone is a little happy and a little unhappy.

These cases would play out differently in the US for a lot of reasons, but the element of family in determining Israeli policy and even law is noteworthy.

In a country of family, the supreme court justice says, let’s open the road a little bit, please march here and not there, boychik – you’ll be ok if you have to pass by a grave that has English letters on it.

Scene 3.  The Knesset.  We met with three members of the Knesset.  One right of center, one left of center, one reasonably centrist.  I want to focus on our meeting with one which I found particularly interesting.

Dr. Aliza Lavie – member of Yesh Atid, a party that brings religious and non-religious members together - has advocated for expanding opportunities for women to study Torah and for making the process of receiving a divorce, a get, more hospitable to women.

She is an Orthodox woman and when some of us challenged her on why she hasn’t advocated for more equality for non-Orthodox Jews, she switched from English to Hebrew – I’m not sure why she didn’t just address us in Hebrew at the outset – and she got much more passionate.

She said, ‘look.  If I advocate for legitimacy for non-Orthodox Judaism I lose my legitimacy and I can’t successfully fight the battles that I need to fight.'  And she told us how hard it is, and how lonely she feels, and about how Aryeh Deri, the head of the Shas party, publicy in front of the Knesset got up and said to her, את לא דתיה at lo datiya.  You are NOT religious.

One of my colleagues criticized her approach to us and I raised my hand and said three things.

First, I hear how lonely she feels.  I mentioned the end of a poem by Bialik which describes his loneliness – embraced neither to the right nor to the left.

Second, I said to her, the First Lady of the United States recently invoked an image that I think is powerful.  When you manage to get through the door, don’t forget the people behind you who still need to get in.

Third, while I don’t know Aryeh Deri personally, I have a sense that if you’re looking to find friendship, you’re more likely to find it in this room than with Aryeh Deri.

She thanked me for my comment and she said, by the way – I gave it to Deri.  I went up to him afterward and said, you have some chuptzah, you who were arrested and jailed for corruption charges, getting up and telling me I’m not religious?  And she said that he apologized.

Mishpacha.  Family.  How often do people seek love from those who aren’t prepared to give it and ignore those who are? 

The Israelites encamped at the base of Sinai before God’s revelation to them - ויחן שם ישראל נגד ההר  vayichan sham yisra’el neged ha’har.  Rashi quotes an earlier source, the mechilta, which says כאיש אחד בלב אחד k’ish echad b’lev echad.  As one person, with one heart.

Beautiful.  They were united.  Beautiful.  But the Mechilta goes on to say, unlike all the other times they were camped out, when there were תרעומות ומחלקות tar’umot um’achlacot – animosities and arguments.

That’s family – occasionally united, at least as often disagreeing.

I left Israel, as I often do, with a mixture of frustration and hope.  This land of arguing, of synagogues where people pray fervently and talk through the rabbi’s sermon, this land of flowering almond trees by the side of the road and left-over pepper seeds on the passenger seat – this land, and this people, are family.  And though we argue and pray and cajole and offend and apologize, we often try to make it work.  And we appreciate the moments, rare though they may be, when we realize that we are k’am e’chad b’lev echad – like one person, with one heart.  

Originally delivered at Temple Israel of Great Neck on February 7, 2015, Parashat Yitro, following my return from a week with the Hartman Institute in Jerusalem