Last Tuesday night I attended the IAJF (Iranian American Jewish Federation) annual gala where former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley spoke. It is a source of pride to TIGN that so many of our members are involved, including IAJF president Robert Kahen, president of IAJF.
Last Thursday, I attended the ADL’s Never Is Now conference where, among other things, Sascha Baron Cohen was given the International Leadership Award and British Parliament Member Joan Ryan spoke about her response to antisemitism in England. It is a source of pride to TIGN that so many of our members are involved, including, of course, CEO Jonathan Greenblatt.
On Wednesday night, I went to see an outstanding new production of Macbeth with my son Zach. The production was terrific and watching Macbeth again solidified for me how I would, in this little sermon, frame the week and, more broadly, the way that I believe we must respond to the enormous challenges that face us these days as Jews and as human beings.
We know it’s important to be strong in the face of antisemitism and bigotry. No one could convincingly argue, post-Shoah, and recently in the aftermath of the shootings in Pittsburgh and Poway and continued attacks of Jews on Brooklyn and just recently a stabbing of a Jew in Rockland County, that Jews should sit back passively. We need to be strong and we need allies to be strong on our behalf and we need to be strong on behalf of our allies.
We also need to remain sensitive. So that we can continue to feel what is natural to feel when we and those we know and those we don’t know are targeted with discrimination and violence. So that we have the resolve to fight to protect those who are vulnerable, including but not limited to ourselves. So that we can sense the difference between protective measures that are called for and protective measures that unfairly target the most vulnerable.
Strength and sensitivity are not mutually exclusive. In Jewish tradition they never were. They always went hand in hand. The Kabbalists speak of chesed/love/sensitivity on one side of a cosmic and human scheme and gevurah/resolve/strength on the other side and the idea is that in the world, and through us, they work together.
Starting with Macbeth.
Macbeth is motivated through his own ambition and the urging of his spouse to commit a murder that secures his political advancement. One murder leads to another and he becomes a serial murderer.
When Macduff discover that Macbeth is responsible for the murders of Macduff's wife and children, he takes a moment to take it in.
Malcolm, who should by rights be king, notices that Macduff is about to break down and says to him, “Dispute it like a man.” Macduff says, “I shall do so; but I must also feel it as a man.”
Macduff proceeds to break down in tears as the reality of the murders of his loved ones sets in.
The exchange in its context was probably in large measure about manliness - Malcolm says, dispute it like a man - suggesting, what is manly to do right now is to seek revenge - and Macduff says, it is also manly to feel, and I must allow myself to feel.
But we understand increasingly that the appropriate navigation of sensitivity and strength - feeling and disputing - transcends gender. Many women exemplify how to do it - and I will now reflect on the words and actions of three women and one man.
On Tuesday evening, Nikki Haley was interviewed about her role in the UN and her views on trenchant current issues. I believe that regardless of what one might think about her views on a range of issues, she deserves positive recognition for speaking and acting boldly and truthfully at the UN vis a vis unfair treatment of Israel.
Asked about her rationale for doing so, she spoke of the US’s longstanding relationship with Israel, Israel’s crucial role the the Middle East, and the importance of being loyal to friends, especially when your friends are being treated unfairly.
During the evening she referenced her own background as the child of Sikh immigrants from India which sensitized her to the dangers of bullying and helped solidify her resolve to protect those who are being bullied.
Sensitivity and strength - feeling and disputing - can work hand in hand.
One of several speakers who stood out for me at the ADL conference on Thursday is Joan Ryan, Member of the British House of Commons. She had belonged to the Labour Party and resigned from that party in protest of party leader Jeremy Corbyn’s failure to address antisemitism in the party and (I would add) in protest of Courban’s own actual antisemitism.
She spoke of her regard for the Jewish community and of the ways in which antisemitism erodes democracy by introducing falsehoods that put the entire nation at risk.
She was sensitive, strong and brilliant.
Sensitivity and strength - feeling and disputing - can work hand in hand.
You may have read a recent Times op-ed piece by Blake Flayton, a sophomore at George Washington University. Blake describes himself as a young, gay, progressive Jew and a proud Zionist - critical of Israel at times but fully supportive of Israel’s right to exist and thrive as a Jewish nation. He provides one anecdote after another about how he has felt attacked in progressive spaces - how, for example, he has been labeled as a “white supremacist” even though he of course is an ardent opponent of the white supremacist movement and a supporter of those very causes that white supremacists seek to undermine.
It’s a very smart, very well-written article.
Blake was at the ADL conference - he was acknowledged in a forum and when I saw him sitting and chatting with someone, I went up to him with Avi Siegel and we spoke to him for awhile.
He told us that since he wrote this article, he has been blacklisted by certain groups on campus and he received hateful responses from fellow students.
He told us that it’s scary, and that he needed to get away from campus for awhile, but that he will go back, and he will figure out how to navigate in this difficult terrain.
Blake wrote about the antisemitism he has encountered on the left. One of several points emphasized at the ADL conference is that we need to be mindful of antisemitism whether it comes from the left or the right.
Not just in writing, but in person, Blake comes across articulate, sensitive, principled and strong.
Sensitivity and strength - feeling and disputing - can work hand in hand.
When Abraham sends his servant back to the “old country” to find a wife for Isaac, he tells the servant that the woman who provides water, not just for him but for his camels - that woman is the proper spouse for Isaac.
Rebecca in the Biblical story displays sensitivity and strength. She will provide hospitality for Abraham’s servant and his camels and, moreover, she will go on to direct family affairs in a way that demonstrates insight and resolve.
Sensitivity and strength - feeling and disputing - can work hand in hand.
Our sensitivity gives us the resolve to say and do what we need to do.
God help us if we stop feeling. God help us if we read about a Jewish man being stabbed in Monsey or a woman being sexually assaulted or children being separated from their parents at our border and we don’t feel anything.
Feeling is human. To the extent that we inure ourselves to our innate sense of empathy and identification we will move further and further from our basic humanity.
Chesed leads to gevurah - our sensitivity leads to our strength - and our strength, in turn, helps create the secure spaces, communally and societally, that allow all of us to live with greater sensitivity.
Malcolm may have been talking to Macduff man to man - actually straight white Christian man to straight white Christian man, to be more precise.
However, in this dance of sensitivity and strength, we are inspired by people of all races, all creeds, all gender identities and sexual orientations.
In protecting our people, in protecting all people, let us feel what we need to feel. So that we dispute what we need to dispute.
Originally delivered at Temple Israel of Great Neck on November 23, 2019
Last Thursday, I attended the ADL’s Never Is Now conference where, among other things, Sascha Baron Cohen was given the International Leadership Award and British Parliament Member Joan Ryan spoke about her response to antisemitism in England. It is a source of pride to TIGN that so many of our members are involved, including, of course, CEO Jonathan Greenblatt.
On Wednesday night, I went to see an outstanding new production of Macbeth with my son Zach. The production was terrific and watching Macbeth again solidified for me how I would, in this little sermon, frame the week and, more broadly, the way that I believe we must respond to the enormous challenges that face us these days as Jews and as human beings.
We know it’s important to be strong in the face of antisemitism and bigotry. No one could convincingly argue, post-Shoah, and recently in the aftermath of the shootings in Pittsburgh and Poway and continued attacks of Jews on Brooklyn and just recently a stabbing of a Jew in Rockland County, that Jews should sit back passively. We need to be strong and we need allies to be strong on our behalf and we need to be strong on behalf of our allies.
We also need to remain sensitive. So that we can continue to feel what is natural to feel when we and those we know and those we don’t know are targeted with discrimination and violence. So that we have the resolve to fight to protect those who are vulnerable, including but not limited to ourselves. So that we can sense the difference between protective measures that are called for and protective measures that unfairly target the most vulnerable.
Strength and sensitivity are not mutually exclusive. In Jewish tradition they never were. They always went hand in hand. The Kabbalists speak of chesed/love/sensitivity on one side of a cosmic and human scheme and gevurah/resolve/strength on the other side and the idea is that in the world, and through us, they work together.
Starting with Macbeth.
Macbeth is motivated through his own ambition and the urging of his spouse to commit a murder that secures his political advancement. One murder leads to another and he becomes a serial murderer.
When Macduff discover that Macbeth is responsible for the murders of Macduff's wife and children, he takes a moment to take it in.
Malcolm, who should by rights be king, notices that Macduff is about to break down and says to him, “Dispute it like a man.” Macduff says, “I shall do so; but I must also feel it as a man.”
Macduff proceeds to break down in tears as the reality of the murders of his loved ones sets in.
The exchange in its context was probably in large measure about manliness - Malcolm says, dispute it like a man - suggesting, what is manly to do right now is to seek revenge - and Macduff says, it is also manly to feel, and I must allow myself to feel.
But we understand increasingly that the appropriate navigation of sensitivity and strength - feeling and disputing - transcends gender. Many women exemplify how to do it - and I will now reflect on the words and actions of three women and one man.
On Tuesday evening, Nikki Haley was interviewed about her role in the UN and her views on trenchant current issues. I believe that regardless of what one might think about her views on a range of issues, she deserves positive recognition for speaking and acting boldly and truthfully at the UN vis a vis unfair treatment of Israel.
Asked about her rationale for doing so, she spoke of the US’s longstanding relationship with Israel, Israel’s crucial role the the Middle East, and the importance of being loyal to friends, especially when your friends are being treated unfairly.
During the evening she referenced her own background as the child of Sikh immigrants from India which sensitized her to the dangers of bullying and helped solidify her resolve to protect those who are being bullied.
Sensitivity and strength - feeling and disputing - can work hand in hand.
One of several speakers who stood out for me at the ADL conference on Thursday is Joan Ryan, Member of the British House of Commons. She had belonged to the Labour Party and resigned from that party in protest of party leader Jeremy Corbyn’s failure to address antisemitism in the party and (I would add) in protest of Courban’s own actual antisemitism.
She spoke of her regard for the Jewish community and of the ways in which antisemitism erodes democracy by introducing falsehoods that put the entire nation at risk.
She was sensitive, strong and brilliant.
Sensitivity and strength - feeling and disputing - can work hand in hand.
You may have read a recent Times op-ed piece by Blake Flayton, a sophomore at George Washington University. Blake describes himself as a young, gay, progressive Jew and a proud Zionist - critical of Israel at times but fully supportive of Israel’s right to exist and thrive as a Jewish nation. He provides one anecdote after another about how he has felt attacked in progressive spaces - how, for example, he has been labeled as a “white supremacist” even though he of course is an ardent opponent of the white supremacist movement and a supporter of those very causes that white supremacists seek to undermine.
It’s a very smart, very well-written article.
Blake was at the ADL conference - he was acknowledged in a forum and when I saw him sitting and chatting with someone, I went up to him with Avi Siegel and we spoke to him for awhile.
He told us that since he wrote this article, he has been blacklisted by certain groups on campus and he received hateful responses from fellow students.
He told us that it’s scary, and that he needed to get away from campus for awhile, but that he will go back, and he will figure out how to navigate in this difficult terrain.
Blake wrote about the antisemitism he has encountered on the left. One of several points emphasized at the ADL conference is that we need to be mindful of antisemitism whether it comes from the left or the right.
Not just in writing, but in person, Blake comes across articulate, sensitive, principled and strong.
Sensitivity and strength - feeling and disputing - can work hand in hand.
When Abraham sends his servant back to the “old country” to find a wife for Isaac, he tells the servant that the woman who provides water, not just for him but for his camels - that woman is the proper spouse for Isaac.
Rebecca in the Biblical story displays sensitivity and strength. She will provide hospitality for Abraham’s servant and his camels and, moreover, she will go on to direct family affairs in a way that demonstrates insight and resolve.
Sensitivity and strength - feeling and disputing - can work hand in hand.
Our sensitivity gives us the resolve to say and do what we need to do.
God help us if we stop feeling. God help us if we read about a Jewish man being stabbed in Monsey or a woman being sexually assaulted or children being separated from their parents at our border and we don’t feel anything.
Feeling is human. To the extent that we inure ourselves to our innate sense of empathy and identification we will move further and further from our basic humanity.
Chesed leads to gevurah - our sensitivity leads to our strength - and our strength, in turn, helps create the secure spaces, communally and societally, that allow all of us to live with greater sensitivity.
Malcolm may have been talking to Macduff man to man - actually straight white Christian man to straight white Christian man, to be more precise.
However, in this dance of sensitivity and strength, we are inspired by people of all races, all creeds, all gender identities and sexual orientations.
In protecting our people, in protecting all people, let us feel what we need to feel. So that we dispute what we need to dispute.
Originally delivered at Temple Israel of Great Neck on November 23, 2019
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