I want to talk this morning about loyalty and the Jewish people. Starting in the past, commenting on the present, and looking toward the future.
You may recall that Moses had a very instructive conversation with the two and a half of the tribes of Israel. They tell Moses they do not want to cross over the Jordan to the west with everyone else כי באה נחלתנו אלינו מעבר לירדן מזרחה kee ba’ah nahalateinu eleinu me’ever layarden va’hal’ah - because our portion is on the eastern part of the Jordan.
And Moses says to them: האחיכם יבואו למלחמה ואתם תשבו פה Ha’ahikhem yavo’u lamilhamah v’atem teshvu po? Will your brothers go off to fight while you stay here? Moreover, you will discourage the rest of the Israelites from passing over the Jordan.
How dare you act in such a way that denies your responsibilities to the rest of the people and actively discourages them?
Moses is angry. You could say that he is accusing these leaders of not being sufficiently loyal to the rest of the people. However, it doesn’t end there. The leaders say to him, we will settle our wives, children and livestock east of the Jordan. Then we will cross over and fight alongside the rest of the tribes as they conquer the land. Only after that effort has been successful will we return and fully settle down.
Moses is pleased with the response. Following his ardent critique, the two and a half tribes come up with a compromise solution which Moses accepts.
Here are three reasons why the Biblical exchange differs from recent events, reasons that I hope will be instructive for us as we navigate the current climate:
1. With Moses and the Israelites, it was an internal matter, not an assessment proffered by someone on the outside. It was among family. A request is made, a critique is offered, a counter-request is made that considers the critique, a resolution is reached. This is a family argument that reaches a family resolution.
2. Moses’s concern was not for his own benefit, it was for the entire people - what will your actions do to everyone else? By the time these tribes approached him, he already knew that he himself would not be the one leading the children of Israel into the land. So everything he is doing is with an eye toward trying to ensure the well-being of the children of Israel well beyond his own personal tenure.
3. Related to this, Moses was looking to the long-term future. How will we enter the land, and how will the tribes relate to one another following the entry. If any resentment would be established during the conquest - because a few tribes didn’t take part - it could last for generations. Moses isn’t just looking to the next news cycle; he’s looking to posterity.
On to the present. Last Tuesday, the President told reporters, “I think any Jewish people that vote for a Democrat — it shows either a total lack of knowledge or great disloyalty.”
“If you vote for a Democrat,” he added on Wednesday, “you’re being disloyal to Jewish people and you’re being very disloyal to Israel.”
The American Jewish Committee issued the following statement on Tuesday:
American Jewish Committee (AJC) is outraged by President Trump’s comments today criticizing American Jews who support and vote for Democratic candidates.
AJC CEO David Harris said the president’s comments are “shockingly divisive and unbecoming of the occupant of the highest elected office. American Jews – like all Americans – have a range of political views and policy priorities. His assessment of their knowledge or ‘loyalty,’ based on their party preference, is inappropriate, unwelcome, and downright dangerous.”
Israel’s President Rivlin said the following: “The relationship between the State of Israel and the United States is a link between peoples, which relies on historical ties, deep and strong friendships and shared values that are not dependent on the relationship with one particular party.”
The Jewish people have heard assessments of our loyalty from people outside of our community since the dawn of our existence. Often it was about whether we were good Germans or Russians or French or Iraqis or Iranians, but plenty of people were happy to offer their own opinions about whether we were being good Jews.
This was generally not done for our benefit (even if we were told it was for our benefit); it was done primarily, if not exclusively, for the benefit of the person speaking. Usually this was a leader or aspiring leader who wanted, and felt entitled to, a specific outcome from us.
There is no one way to be a loyal Jew and to be loyal to Israel. I don’t presume to know the loyalty of Jews to the right of me or Jews to the left of me and the Jewish people don’t need any political leader, Jewish or not, to tell us which ideology or voting pattern is more compatible with loyalty to Judaism or Israel.
There are Democrats who have unjustly opposed Jews and Israel and they should be called out. There are Republicans who have unjustly opposed Jews and Israel and they should be called out. There are people across the political spectrum who say and do things that are awful, criminal even, and they should be called out and brought to justice.
If you want to know the Jewish view on loyalty, here it is. We are loyal to God. We are loyalty to that which is just. We are loyal to the Jewish people but not afraid to be critical when Jews act unjustly. We call out those who act unjustly no matter their background or ideology or position of power.
In a few weeks, we will read the words, צדק צדק תרדוף tzedek, tzedek tir’dof - justice, justice shall you pursue.
Loyalty is important, in the service of God, in the service of justice. When a leader is acting unjustly, therefore, we are supposed to speak out and, if necessary, to resist. Lots of examples of that in our tradition. Let’s not forget that our ancestor Abraham - when he felt God was behaving unjustly - exclaimed, השופט כל הארץ לא יעשה משפט hashofet kol h’aretz lo ya’aseh mishpat - how will the judge of all the earth not act justly?
Why do we often have such chutzpah as a people, and what is one of many reasons why I am such a proud Jew? Because we have a founding leader who believed that he was being more loyal to God’s ultimate goals by challenging God, than by following God blindly and blandly.
Following Moses’s conversation with the tribal leaders, most tribes inherited to the west of the Jordan, a few to the east. The word for physical inheritance is yerusha.
No less important is our spiritual inheritance, also called yerusha. Our spiritual yerusha includes patriarchs and matriarchs who were not afraid to challenge God and humanity in pursuit of justice. Moses who insisted that the people pursue justice. The rabbis whose vociferous debates strive to help create just societies. The founders of Israel whose declaration of independence sought to establish the newly-created state as a nation that would provide justice for all.
And so today, if anyone - a teacher or a rabbi or a priest or a police officer or a lawyer or doctor or a member of congress or the president of the United States - acts unjustly, we call it out and we insist on the pursuit of justice.
We take our cue from this spiritual inheritance. We value visionary leadership over expedient leadership, we value our own internal analysis and debate over the projections of others onto us. We keep an eye on the distant future more than the next news cycle.
I recently came upon a beautiful statement of what story we, Jews, can tell about ourselves. It was written as part of a larger statement by Ariel Burger, who wrote, “Witness: Lessons from Elie Wiesel’s classroom” and here it is:
"Here is one version of a story we might tell about ourselves: the only people of antiquity to survive antiquity, we were scattered around the world, and everywhere we went we held onto our defining values, we remembered our ancestors and the moments that made them who they were, and we worked – in spite of the lure of despair and fatigue – to choose life, to choose hope, to build families in an uncertain world, and we built communities, of learning, of growth, and of mutual caring and support, and we didn’t stop there: we looked outward at all the others and asked, “How can we help?”, and we did, we did help, in the form of many social movements towards freedom, equality, dignity, compassion, and justice, we were fierce, we cared for our own children, we supported our longed-for homeland when it finally arrived, we protected our lives and culture and knew it to be a moral and not a selfish act, and we also fought for friends and neighbors in other communities and cultures, we did all of this in spite of tremendous pressure and anxiety, regular outbreaks of verbal attacks and sometimes physical violence, and we did all of this as Jews, as beautiful, human Jews."
This strikes me as an appropriate, compelling, self-defining, story of the loyalty of a people.
Our story. We get to tell it. We must continue to tell it.
Originally shared with the Temple Israel of Great Neck community on August 24, 2019
You may recall that Moses had a very instructive conversation with the two and a half of the tribes of Israel. They tell Moses they do not want to cross over the Jordan to the west with everyone else כי באה נחלתנו אלינו מעבר לירדן מזרחה kee ba’ah nahalateinu eleinu me’ever layarden va’hal’ah - because our portion is on the eastern part of the Jordan.
And Moses says to them: האחיכם יבואו למלחמה ואתם תשבו פה Ha’ahikhem yavo’u lamilhamah v’atem teshvu po? Will your brothers go off to fight while you stay here? Moreover, you will discourage the rest of the Israelites from passing over the Jordan.
How dare you act in such a way that denies your responsibilities to the rest of the people and actively discourages them?
Moses is angry. You could say that he is accusing these leaders of not being sufficiently loyal to the rest of the people. However, it doesn’t end there. The leaders say to him, we will settle our wives, children and livestock east of the Jordan. Then we will cross over and fight alongside the rest of the tribes as they conquer the land. Only after that effort has been successful will we return and fully settle down.
Moses is pleased with the response. Following his ardent critique, the two and a half tribes come up with a compromise solution which Moses accepts.
Here are three reasons why the Biblical exchange differs from recent events, reasons that I hope will be instructive for us as we navigate the current climate:
1. With Moses and the Israelites, it was an internal matter, not an assessment proffered by someone on the outside. It was among family. A request is made, a critique is offered, a counter-request is made that considers the critique, a resolution is reached. This is a family argument that reaches a family resolution.
2. Moses’s concern was not for his own benefit, it was for the entire people - what will your actions do to everyone else? By the time these tribes approached him, he already knew that he himself would not be the one leading the children of Israel into the land. So everything he is doing is with an eye toward trying to ensure the well-being of the children of Israel well beyond his own personal tenure.
3. Related to this, Moses was looking to the long-term future. How will we enter the land, and how will the tribes relate to one another following the entry. If any resentment would be established during the conquest - because a few tribes didn’t take part - it could last for generations. Moses isn’t just looking to the next news cycle; he’s looking to posterity.
On to the present. Last Tuesday, the President told reporters, “I think any Jewish people that vote for a Democrat — it shows either a total lack of knowledge or great disloyalty.”
“If you vote for a Democrat,” he added on Wednesday, “you’re being disloyal to Jewish people and you’re being very disloyal to Israel.”
The American Jewish Committee issued the following statement on Tuesday:
American Jewish Committee (AJC) is outraged by President Trump’s comments today criticizing American Jews who support and vote for Democratic candidates.
AJC CEO David Harris said the president’s comments are “shockingly divisive and unbecoming of the occupant of the highest elected office. American Jews – like all Americans – have a range of political views and policy priorities. His assessment of their knowledge or ‘loyalty,’ based on their party preference, is inappropriate, unwelcome, and downright dangerous.”
Israel’s President Rivlin said the following: “The relationship between the State of Israel and the United States is a link between peoples, which relies on historical ties, deep and strong friendships and shared values that are not dependent on the relationship with one particular party.”
The Jewish people have heard assessments of our loyalty from people outside of our community since the dawn of our existence. Often it was about whether we were good Germans or Russians or French or Iraqis or Iranians, but plenty of people were happy to offer their own opinions about whether we were being good Jews.
This was generally not done for our benefit (even if we were told it was for our benefit); it was done primarily, if not exclusively, for the benefit of the person speaking. Usually this was a leader or aspiring leader who wanted, and felt entitled to, a specific outcome from us.
There is no one way to be a loyal Jew and to be loyal to Israel. I don’t presume to know the loyalty of Jews to the right of me or Jews to the left of me and the Jewish people don’t need any political leader, Jewish or not, to tell us which ideology or voting pattern is more compatible with loyalty to Judaism or Israel.
There are Democrats who have unjustly opposed Jews and Israel and they should be called out. There are Republicans who have unjustly opposed Jews and Israel and they should be called out. There are people across the political spectrum who say and do things that are awful, criminal even, and they should be called out and brought to justice.
If you want to know the Jewish view on loyalty, here it is. We are loyal to God. We are loyalty to that which is just. We are loyal to the Jewish people but not afraid to be critical when Jews act unjustly. We call out those who act unjustly no matter their background or ideology or position of power.
In a few weeks, we will read the words, צדק צדק תרדוף tzedek, tzedek tir’dof - justice, justice shall you pursue.
Loyalty is important, in the service of God, in the service of justice. When a leader is acting unjustly, therefore, we are supposed to speak out and, if necessary, to resist. Lots of examples of that in our tradition. Let’s not forget that our ancestor Abraham - when he felt God was behaving unjustly - exclaimed, השופט כל הארץ לא יעשה משפט hashofet kol h’aretz lo ya’aseh mishpat - how will the judge of all the earth not act justly?
Why do we often have such chutzpah as a people, and what is one of many reasons why I am such a proud Jew? Because we have a founding leader who believed that he was being more loyal to God’s ultimate goals by challenging God, than by following God blindly and blandly.
Following Moses’s conversation with the tribal leaders, most tribes inherited to the west of the Jordan, a few to the east. The word for physical inheritance is yerusha.
No less important is our spiritual inheritance, also called yerusha. Our spiritual yerusha includes patriarchs and matriarchs who were not afraid to challenge God and humanity in pursuit of justice. Moses who insisted that the people pursue justice. The rabbis whose vociferous debates strive to help create just societies. The founders of Israel whose declaration of independence sought to establish the newly-created state as a nation that would provide justice for all.
And so today, if anyone - a teacher or a rabbi or a priest or a police officer or a lawyer or doctor or a member of congress or the president of the United States - acts unjustly, we call it out and we insist on the pursuit of justice.
We take our cue from this spiritual inheritance. We value visionary leadership over expedient leadership, we value our own internal analysis and debate over the projections of others onto us. We keep an eye on the distant future more than the next news cycle.
I recently came upon a beautiful statement of what story we, Jews, can tell about ourselves. It was written as part of a larger statement by Ariel Burger, who wrote, “Witness: Lessons from Elie Wiesel’s classroom” and here it is:
"Here is one version of a story we might tell about ourselves: the only people of antiquity to survive antiquity, we were scattered around the world, and everywhere we went we held onto our defining values, we remembered our ancestors and the moments that made them who they were, and we worked – in spite of the lure of despair and fatigue – to choose life, to choose hope, to build families in an uncertain world, and we built communities, of learning, of growth, and of mutual caring and support, and we didn’t stop there: we looked outward at all the others and asked, “How can we help?”, and we did, we did help, in the form of many social movements towards freedom, equality, dignity, compassion, and justice, we were fierce, we cared for our own children, we supported our longed-for homeland when it finally arrived, we protected our lives and culture and knew it to be a moral and not a selfish act, and we also fought for friends and neighbors in other communities and cultures, we did all of this in spite of tremendous pressure and anxiety, regular outbreaks of verbal attacks and sometimes physical violence, and we did all of this as Jews, as beautiful, human Jews."
This strikes me as an appropriate, compelling, self-defining, story of the loyalty of a people.
Our story. We get to tell it. We must continue to tell it.
Originally shared with the Temple Israel of Great Neck community on August 24, 2019
Enjoyed your words, as usual. As with so many things this president has done, is this a first? Have we ever been called out as not being loyal enough to our own people and our ancestral homeland? Aren't we usually called out for not being loyal enough to our adopted homeland? Scratching my head. Danny Sykora, Ra'anana, Israel
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