A few weeks ago, a group of young, enthusiastic Jews arrived in Israel on a birthright trip. They landed, got their bags, and walked through the doors of the arrival area in Ben Gurion airport. They started dancing and singing עם ישראל חי am yisra’el chai.
Nothing unusual, except that all of the participants are black and come from Uganda. This was the first Birthright trip for the Jewish community of Uganda known as Abayudaha, the Lugandan word for “people of Judah.”
Today there are over 2000 members of the community. Their spiritual leader is Rabbi Gershom Sizomu, who received his ordination at the Ziegler Rabbinical School of American Jewish University.
Recently Israel’s Interior Ministry, based on a ruling of the Chief Rabbinate, determined that the Abuyadaya were not to be considered Jewish for the purpose of immigration and a member of the community was recently denied a visa for the purpose of studying in Jerusalem.
Rabbi Andrew Sacks, a Masorti Rabbi who has worked with the Abuyadaya, said the following about the Interior Ministry’s decision:
“There’s clearly a pattern of discrimination here,” Sacks said. “Some might say that there’s a racial component, but that’s difficult to prove. But despite the Supreme Court ruling that local communities can handle their own conversions, the Interior Ministry is constantly searching for barriers and technicalities leading to the rejection of conversions by legitimate batei din [rabbinical courts] from our movement — particularly in developing countries where their skin is not white.”
What should our reaction be? How should we think about this?
This morning’s Torah reading features the statement that Israelites were to make once entering the land, after reaping the first fruits. We know the statement well because it appears in the Passover Haggadah. Here is a summary of the statement:
My father was a wandering Aramean. He down to Egypt. He became a great nation. The Egyptians enslaved us. We cried out to God. God heard us. God took us out of Egypt, brought us to this land, and now I am bringing the first fruits of the land which God gave me. (Deuteronomy 26)
Who gets to say that? I mean, well and good that the Israelites whose ancestors went down to Egypt, were enslaved in Egypt and left Egypt tell the story. But what if you want to join the group? What if it wasn’t literally your ancestors who went down to Egypt and left and journeyed to the promised land? Can their story ever become your story?
Enter the brilliant medieval philosopher, physician and rabbi, Moses Maimonides. Ovadya, a convert to Judaism, asked him the following question:
When I am praying, asked Ovadya, and I come to the words, eloheinu veylohei avoteinu - our God, and the God of our ancestors. May I say those words? Maimonides responded in writing:
“Yes, you may say all this in the prescribed order and not change it in the least. In the same way as every Jew by birth says his blessing and prayer, you, too, shall bless and pray alike, whether you are alone or pray in the congregation. The reason for this is, that Abraham our Father taught the people, opened their minds, and revealed to them the true faith and the unity of God; he rejected the idols and abolished their adoration… Ever since then whoever adopts Judaism and confesses the unity of the Divine Name, as it is prescribed in the Torah, is counted among the disciples of Abraham our Father, peace be with him.
“Therefore you shall pray, “Our God” and “God of our fathers,” because Abraham, peace be with him, is your father.” (Maimonides, "Letter to Obadiah the Proselyte," ed. Twersky, 1972)
Maimonides goes on to write that if Ovadya wishes, he can change the words about Egypt and miracles, saying they were done for Israel, rather than for him. But if he doesn’t change those words, that’s just fine. Why? Maimonides writes as follows:
“Since you have come under the wings of the Divine Presence and confessed the Lord, no difference exists between you and us, and all miracles done to us have been done as it were to us and to you.”
Rosh Hashanah is next week and why mince words?
How dare anyone question the Jewish-ness of those who have sincerely sought to make their story part of the Jewish story and who have gone through an appropriate halakhic process in order to make it official?
Do we want to claim that we are being more pious, more protective, more careful than Maimonides?
Maimonides’ letter to Ovadya teaches us that people who take the appropriate steps to join their stories with the story of the Jewish people should be welcomed fully. Abraham and Sarah become their father and mother, the miracles of the children of Israel become their miracles, along with the suffering, I would add. Here it is worth noting that the Abuyadaya suffered under Idi Amin during the 1980’s because they identified as Jews.
I want to broaden the conversation. For centuries, some have regarded the Jewish people as an exclusive club that you can’t really enter even if you want to. It’s about blood. It’s about lineage.
If you believe that there’s no real way in for those not born on the inside - then I want you to think about the following. The next time you pray for the Messiah to come, the next time you pray for a descendant of King David to usher in harmony and peace, the next time you sing “mashiach, mashiach, mashiach!” remember David’s great-grandmother Ruth, who was not born an Israelite, who joined the children of Israel by saying עמך עמי ואלהיך אלהי ameikh ami veylohayikh elohai - your people shall be my people, your God my God. Without Ruth, there would be no David, no Messiah.
One of the participants on the birthright trip, a young man named Yonatan, described the thrill of being in Israel and praying at the Kotel, but he also addressed the rejection of the Interior Ministry and the Chief Rabbinate:
“Even though we were not born here, according to the Bible all the Jews belong to Israel, but it [the rejection] doesn’t weaken us in believing in God, because my community has been in existence for almost 100 years and we have not been coming here but we have been practicing Judaism, so that will not change us from being Jewish.
“I would like them to treat my community like they treat other [Jewish] communities, because it is God who can judge someone’s faith. Not a human being. That’s why we are always very strong because we know they are not God, this is just a political game.” (Jerusalem Post, August 27, 2018)
If you haven’t yet, I urge you to watch some of the videos of the birthright trip of our Abayudaya brothers and sisters. Watch the video below of the group carrying a Torah scroll to the egalitarian platform at the Kotel joined by members of the Masorti community. Watch it and tell me if you doubt their sincerity and their right to be accepted as full members of benei yisra’el, even as you consider Yonatan's statement that the most important opinion is God's.
On the holiest day of the year, Yom Kippur, we will say the following words repeatedly - פתח לנו שער petah lanu sha’ar. Open the gates for us. The gates of salvation. The gates of justice. The gates of repentance.
I leave us with a question which has multiple applications, some of which we’ve explored and some which we will continue to explore:
How do we ask for gates to be opened for us and then slam them shut in the faces of others?
Why not do what we can to help open gates for others, as we would want others to help open them for us?
How glorious it would be for all of us to enter the gates together.
Originally shared with the Temple Israel of Great Neck community on September 1, 2018
Jews from the Abayudaya community reading Torah at the Kotel
The Abayudaya began their history over a century ago when a leader of a small community adopted Jewish practices. Over the next decades the group adopted more and more Jewish practices In the early 2000’s, approximately 400 individuals went through the conversion process under Conservative/Masorti auspices and more did so during subsequent years. In 2015, several of the inhabitants of one of the villages were converted by (Orthodox) Rabbi Shlomo Riskin.
Today there are over 2000 members of the community. Their spiritual leader is Rabbi Gershom Sizomu, who received his ordination at the Ziegler Rabbinical School of American Jewish University.
Recently Israel’s Interior Ministry, based on a ruling of the Chief Rabbinate, determined that the Abuyadaya were not to be considered Jewish for the purpose of immigration and a member of the community was recently denied a visa for the purpose of studying in Jerusalem.
Rabbi Andrew Sacks, a Masorti Rabbi who has worked with the Abuyadaya, said the following about the Interior Ministry’s decision:
“There’s clearly a pattern of discrimination here,” Sacks said. “Some might say that there’s a racial component, but that’s difficult to prove. But despite the Supreme Court ruling that local communities can handle their own conversions, the Interior Ministry is constantly searching for barriers and technicalities leading to the rejection of conversions by legitimate batei din [rabbinical courts] from our movement — particularly in developing countries where their skin is not white.”
What should our reaction be? How should we think about this?
This morning’s Torah reading features the statement that Israelites were to make once entering the land, after reaping the first fruits. We know the statement well because it appears in the Passover Haggadah. Here is a summary of the statement:
My father was a wandering Aramean. He down to Egypt. He became a great nation. The Egyptians enslaved us. We cried out to God. God heard us. God took us out of Egypt, brought us to this land, and now I am bringing the first fruits of the land which God gave me. (Deuteronomy 26)
Who gets to say that? I mean, well and good that the Israelites whose ancestors went down to Egypt, were enslaved in Egypt and left Egypt tell the story. But what if you want to join the group? What if it wasn’t literally your ancestors who went down to Egypt and left and journeyed to the promised land? Can their story ever become your story?
Enter the brilliant medieval philosopher, physician and rabbi, Moses Maimonides. Ovadya, a convert to Judaism, asked him the following question:
When I am praying, asked Ovadya, and I come to the words, eloheinu veylohei avoteinu - our God, and the God of our ancestors. May I say those words? Maimonides responded in writing:
“Yes, you may say all this in the prescribed order and not change it in the least. In the same way as every Jew by birth says his blessing and prayer, you, too, shall bless and pray alike, whether you are alone or pray in the congregation. The reason for this is, that Abraham our Father taught the people, opened their minds, and revealed to them the true faith and the unity of God; he rejected the idols and abolished their adoration… Ever since then whoever adopts Judaism and confesses the unity of the Divine Name, as it is prescribed in the Torah, is counted among the disciples of Abraham our Father, peace be with him.
“Therefore you shall pray, “Our God” and “God of our fathers,” because Abraham, peace be with him, is your father.” (Maimonides, "Letter to Obadiah the Proselyte," ed. Twersky, 1972)
Maimonides goes on to write that if Ovadya wishes, he can change the words about Egypt and miracles, saying they were done for Israel, rather than for him. But if he doesn’t change those words, that’s just fine. Why? Maimonides writes as follows:
“Since you have come under the wings of the Divine Presence and confessed the Lord, no difference exists between you and us, and all miracles done to us have been done as it were to us and to you.”
Rosh Hashanah is next week and why mince words?
How dare anyone question the Jewish-ness of those who have sincerely sought to make their story part of the Jewish story and who have gone through an appropriate halakhic process in order to make it official?
Do we want to claim that we are being more pious, more protective, more careful than Maimonides?
Maimonides’ letter to Ovadya teaches us that people who take the appropriate steps to join their stories with the story of the Jewish people should be welcomed fully. Abraham and Sarah become their father and mother, the miracles of the children of Israel become their miracles, along with the suffering, I would add. Here it is worth noting that the Abuyadaya suffered under Idi Amin during the 1980’s because they identified as Jews.
I want to broaden the conversation. For centuries, some have regarded the Jewish people as an exclusive club that you can’t really enter even if you want to. It’s about blood. It’s about lineage.
If you believe that there’s no real way in for those not born on the inside - then I want you to think about the following. The next time you pray for the Messiah to come, the next time you pray for a descendant of King David to usher in harmony and peace, the next time you sing “mashiach, mashiach, mashiach!” remember David’s great-grandmother Ruth, who was not born an Israelite, who joined the children of Israel by saying עמך עמי ואלהיך אלהי ameikh ami veylohayikh elohai - your people shall be my people, your God my God. Without Ruth, there would be no David, no Messiah.
One of the participants on the birthright trip, a young man named Yonatan, described the thrill of being in Israel and praying at the Kotel, but he also addressed the rejection of the Interior Ministry and the Chief Rabbinate:
“Even though we were not born here, according to the Bible all the Jews belong to Israel, but it [the rejection] doesn’t weaken us in believing in God, because my community has been in existence for almost 100 years and we have not been coming here but we have been practicing Judaism, so that will not change us from being Jewish.
“I would like them to treat my community like they treat other [Jewish] communities, because it is God who can judge someone’s faith. Not a human being. That’s why we are always very strong because we know they are not God, this is just a political game.” (Jerusalem Post, August 27, 2018)
If you haven’t yet, I urge you to watch some of the videos of the birthright trip of our Abayudaya brothers and sisters. Watch the video below of the group carrying a Torah scroll to the egalitarian platform at the Kotel joined by members of the Masorti community. Watch it and tell me if you doubt their sincerity and their right to be accepted as full members of benei yisra’el, even as you consider Yonatan's statement that the most important opinion is God's.
On the holiest day of the year, Yom Kippur, we will say the following words repeatedly - פתח לנו שער petah lanu sha’ar. Open the gates for us. The gates of salvation. The gates of justice. The gates of repentance.
I leave us with a question which has multiple applications, some of which we’ve explored and some which we will continue to explore:
How do we ask for gates to be opened for us and then slam them shut in the faces of others?
Why not do what we can to help open gates for others, as we would want others to help open them for us?
How glorious it would be for all of us to enter the gates together.
Originally shared with the Temple Israel of Great Neck community on September 1, 2018
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