Vulnerable Enough To Know the Difference, Strong Enough To Make a Difference

What does it mean to be Jewish in America?  What is our essential story and what are our responsibilities based on our story?

Are we strong?  Are we fragile?  Are we safe?  Are we vulnerable?

Is America essentially different for Jews than any other place where we have lived – are we significantly freer, significantly safer?

Or at the end of the day is it not so different?  Not so different from Spain, Germany, Iran – countries where we had really good runs for centuries before things changed.

I don’t have the tools to analyze how safe we are and even for those who do have the tools, it’s only speculation.

But I do have some tools, and much responsibility, for speaking about how our view of ourselves ought to impose a vision and a responsibility for how we respond to our nation and our world. 

So fasten your seatbelts and join me on a journey that will include, not in chronological order, father Abraham, two rabbis who lived around the time of Jesus, and, well – us.

 Abraham Arguing with God

Who are we American Jews and – in this complex, multi-cultural, seismically shifting country we live in - what exactly should we be doing based on who we are? 

In some ways we are fully integrated into American society – we have disproportionate  representation in universities and other realms of influence. 

In so many respects we feel at home here.  American culture is our culture – we claim a seat at many tables, we enjoy Broadway, Lincoln Center, Madison Square Garden.  We are on the giving and receiving ends of the gifts that these, and other venues, provide.

Yehuda Kurtzer, President of Shalom Hartman Institute of North America, gave a lecture recently in which he thoughtfully analyzed the self-assessment of American Jewry and its implications.  In his talk, which greatly shaped my thinking, he shared two stories - the first about a rabbi who felt quite comfortable in the surrounding culture.

He was known as Rabban Gamliel and he lived in Judea under the influence of Greco-Roman culture.  He was sitting in a bathhouse that had a statue of the Greek goddess, Aphrodite.  Along came a Greek philosopher and said, Doesn’t your Torah tell you not to associate with idols?  How can you be sitting here in a bathhouse containing this statue?

Rabban Gamliel ultimately answered, I did not come into her territory; she came into my territory.  They did not say when they built this place – let’s make a beautiful bathhouse for Aphrodite.  Rather, they said, let us make Aphrodite for the beauty of the bathhouse.  (Mishneh Avodah Zarah 3:4)

Fascinating story.  Rabban Gamliel, it seems, felt fully comfortable embracing certain aspects of the surrounding culture.  She came into my territory.  My bathhouse.  Read - My Lincoln Center.  My Harvard.  My America. 

In this story Rabban Gamliel represents those of us, or the part of each of us, that feels comfortable in our surroundings.  Capable of enjoying the culture, capable of engaging others in dialogue, capable of influencing the understanding of others.

But there’s another side, another story, another feeling.  Not of comfort and strength, but of displacement and vulnerability.

Yehuda Kurtzer shared another story about a rabbi from Roman times which has resonance for us right now.  (Brachot 61b)

Shortly after the Roman authorities declared that it was forbidden for the Jews to teach Torah, Rabbi Akiva defied the authorities and continued to teach. 

Someone found him teaching publicly and feared that Akiva was endangering himself and asked him – aren’t you afraid of the Roman government?

Akiva said, I’ll tell you a story.  Once a fox was walking next to the river, quite hungry, and he saw a group of fish swimming along.  He said to the fish, what are you swimming away from?  And they said, we’re trying to avoid the fishermen’s nets.

The fox said, I know of another stream where there are no fishermen.  Hop out of the river and I will carry you there to safety.

The fish said, nice try.  If we’re in danger here in the water, which is our home, how much more danger would we be in with you on dry land.

Rabbi Akiva said, so it is with us.  If we’re in danger while we study the Torah, which is the source of our life, how much more danger will we be in if we neglect the Torah.

This story has quite a different tone from the first.  Surely any Jew who has felt vulnerable feels the power of Akiva’s words.  It isn’t truly safe anywhere.  We are vulnerable everywhere.  The most important thing we can do is to cling to our tradition – without it, we cannot survive at all.

It’s November 19, 2016 and I want to say the following.   Some of us embrace more fully the mindset of Rabban Gamliel.  We are thoroughly comfortable in this land, embracing the culture, not terribly fearful for our safety, forthright in using our influence for good.  We say, America is different than any other place where Jews have lived. 

Some of us embrace more fully the mindset of Rabbi Akiva.  We feel vulnerable, at odds with the surrounding culture, not fully confident in our future.  We say, at the end of the day, maybe American is not so different.

Truly there is reason for the confidence and reason for the fear.  We are comfortable and influential.  And we are vulnerable.  

We should use both self-assessments to lead us to the same place – and that is the moral imperative to speak toward, and to work toward, justice for our people and for all people.

We use our sense of vulnerability – as Jews and as human beings – as a source of empathy and understanding that animates our march toward equality and justice

And we use our awareness of our own influence – economic, political, intellectual – to move the needle away from discrimination toward equality and justice.

Some very recent examples of the confluence of vulnerability and strength in the service of justice:

The Anti-Defamation League held a conference entitled "Never Is Now" this past Thursday.  In his opening comments, CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said the following:

“During this political season, we saw white supremacists use a triple parentheses to target Jews online and simultaneously, relentlessly harass and intimidate Jewish journalists on social media with anti-Semitic tropes and horrific images of the Holocaust.

“In short, the American Jewish community has not seen this level of anti-Semitism in mainstream political and public discourse since the 1930s.

Sadly, it is only being matched with escalating levels of hate toward other minorities, too, including Latinos, the disabled, Muslims, African-Americans, and the LGBT community.

In the days since the election, reports of possible hate crimes such as physical attacks, vandalism and harassment have flooded ADL’s local offices and streamed into the news.”

Jonathan Greenblatt went on to list a number of such hate crimes, including a black doll  hanging from a rope in an elevator of a freshman dorm in Buffalo, taunts of “build that wall” yelled at Latino students in Michigan, and swastikas scrawled in a Jewish cemetery in New York and on a public school in Maryland. 

The ADL’s approach includes a profound public critique of Steve Bannon as the choice for White House chief strategist and a call to president-elect Trump to, as Jonathan Greenblatt put it in an interview, make some decisions about what kind of America he wants to create and to lead.

It includes a sustained effort to call out all manifestations of intolerance and discrimination both on-line and face-to-face. 

I believe the approach of the ADL stems from a sense of our vulnerability and our influence as American Jews.  We use our own experience of vulnerability to sensitize us to the vulnerability of others.  Because it’s right.  And because it’s actually self-preserving. 

After all - how long is it before those who discriminate against people of color, women, LGBT, immigrants – discriminate against Jews.  And let’s not forget that many Jews are women, LBGT, immigrants, people of color – so they may be targets for multiple reasons. 

And.  We use our strength and our influence to give us the gravitas to oppose discrimination and to advocate for justice, whoever the perpetrators are and whoever the victims are.

This past Wednesday night, the IAJF/Iranian American Jewish Federation held their annual gala and program raising substantial funds for a variety of important organizations.

It featured a video dedicated to the legacy of Shimon Peres and a speech by Ambassador Ron Dermer.  The organizations that are being funded help groups that include indigent Holocaust survivors, Ethiopian immigrants, soldiers facing post-traumtic stress disorder, and people, especially children, with disabilities. 

Here is an organization that is recognizing leaders across the political spectrum and helping people across racial lines, socio-economic lines, across Jewish-ethnic lines and across the lines that are more fragile than we think that separate ability from disability.

The wide-ranging support comes from a sense of vulnerability – that Jews feel in particular feel, and that all human beings feel.  Whatever challenges we experience personally sensitize us, if we allow them to sensitize us, to the challenges of others.

And it comes from strength – from the resources and influence that the Iranian American Jewish Federation members have, and are choosing to use, to make the world better. 

In an exquisite moment of Chutzpah, Abraham challenges what he perceives to be God’s injustice.  God, it appears, is about to destroy two cities and Abraham says – האך תספה צדיק עם רשע ha’ah tispeh tzadik im rasha – how can you sweep away the righteous with the wicked?

Collective punishment is unjust – and Abraham says, השופט כל הארץ לא יעשה משפט hashofet kol ha’aretz lo ya’ase mishpat  Will the judge of all the earth not do justice?

Where did Abraham’s chutzpah come from?

I would argue -  from his strength AND his vulnerability.

Abraham is a big shot.  He has lots of property, he has notoriety among the locals.  And that gives him influence, courage – to face even the Holy One.

Abraham is also vulnerable. There are multiple times during his life – famine, family disagreement – when he feels vulnerable. After his subsequent confrontation with God, when he binds his son to the altar, he surely must appreciate the fragility and unpredictability of life.

What does it mean to be Jewish in America?  We are Rabban Gamliel – comfortable in our surroundings.  And we are Rabbi Akiva – vulnerable in our surroundings

We are Abraham who has accomplished a great deal and is highly regarded by others and Abraham who feels vulnerable in connection with his people, and simply as a human being.

Let us, in this great land, deny neither our vulnerability nor our strength.  Let us draw upon both to speak out, to reach out, so that tzedek umishpat – justice and righteousness – govern the land and impact the lives of every human being.

We are vulnerable enough to know the difference.  We are strong enough to make a difference. 

Originally delivered at Temple Israel of Great Neck on November 19, 2016