Are There Limits to Freedom of Speech?

Not all Parashas, that is, the weekly Torah portions, are equally welcomed by Rabbis – or by congregants!  One could say these are to Parashas that we love to hate.  Bar mitzvah boys and bat mitzvah girls cringe in horror when they find out they need to write a D’var Toah on this week’s Torah portion, whose subject matter is skin diseases and emissions of fluids, both natural and pathological, from various orifices of the body.  I suspect that their parents wish they had been savvy enough to check ahead of time to find out the subject matter of this week’s Torah reading before scheduling their child’s big day. For this is the week when this most obtuse of subjects is read from our holy Torah in synagogues across the world. Believe me, even we Rabbis struggle to find meaning, to find significance, to come up with interpretations to teach our congregants.  Most of us fall back on the ancient Midrash that connects the word “Metzora” – the title of this week’s portion --with the similarly sounding words “Motzi Shem Rah”. The word “Metzora” could be translated as leper.  The three words, “Motzi Shem Rah” mean slander. The ancient Rabbis thus reason that Metzora is the punishment for slander or gossip. In this there is much grist for a sermon.

Fortunately, both for rabbis, (and congregants) around the world, there is something else we can give a sermon on this week.   As you know, this past Wednesday marked Yom HaZikaron, Israel’s Memorial Day. This was followed on Thursday by Yom Ha-Atzmaut, Israel Independence Day. On Wednesday Israel remembered the 23,320 soldiers, including over 1500 victims of terror who have died since its founding in 1948.  Our JUF representative in Jerusalem, Mr. Ofer Bavli, describes the solemn occasion with these words:

“[On Wednesday] morning we will go to work and in most workplaces and in all official offices there will be memorial ceremonies. Many will wear white shirts, as is the custom. Thousands will go to the military cemeteries to stand next to their loved ones, next to their friends at 11 as a two-minute siren will sound all over Israel. We will stand next to the grave that bears a name, a birth date, an age at the time of death. ages will usually be between 18 and 21. Those are the ages of the fallen soldiers. On Mount Herzl, at the military section of the cemetery, there are thousands of graves, in row after row after row. They are all the same. All as uniform as the clothes worn by our fallen soldiers. All identical, but bearing different names. We will be there, and we will see the family of the fallen soldier in the grave to the right and the family of the fallen soldier in the grave to the left. The families that we see every year, as a matter of ritual. The families that get older each year while the tomb of their loved ones remains as fresh as it was so many years ago……….”

Military Cemetery at Mount Herzl, Jerusalem

The following day, the national mood changes from somber to joyous, as Israel celebrates the 67^th anniversary of its founding as a modern state. For me, the founding of the Jewish State and its continued well being should be at the core of one’s Jewish identity.  I wish every Jewish person in our country would have as one of their goals in life to visit Israel at least one time.  Yet, in a survey conducted last year by the Pew Research Center, when Jews were asked what is essential to being Jewish, 73% of them responded, “Remembering the Holocaust”. Only 43% of them responded, “Caring about Israel”. This was only 1% higher than those who responded that “Having a good sense of humor” was an essential part of their Jewish identity.

Red Buttons, born Aaron Chwatt, is one of many Jewish comedians that contributed to American Humor in the 20th century. 

Peninnah Schram, author of
the story collection One 
Generation Tells Another --
one of my favorite books.

Yet, “Caring about Israel” ought to be an essential element of our Jewish identity, particularly in the times we live. The American-Jewish teacher and author Peninnah Schram tells of the time when she had completed graduate school in 1960 and wanted to travel to Europe for the summer. She wanted to visit Buckingham Palace, the Louvre, the Roman Coliseum and all of the churches and historic cities of England and France and Italy. Her father suggested she visit Israel instead. “Peninah,” he said, “Israel is like your mother. There are mothers who are more fashionably dressed than your mother. There are mothers who are better educated than your mother. There are mothers who speak without an accent, like your mother does. But your mama is your mama. So, too, there are countries that have more beautiful museums than Israel. There are countries that have older universities than Israel. There are countries that have much more magnificent architecture and art than Israel. But Israel is like your mother.”

Did Benjamin Netanyahu run as a bigot as
Joe Klein claims? 

“Israel is like your mother”. I think that is a beautiful sentiment, and one that all Jews should consider when talking publicly about Israel. That is why I was particularly pained when a Chicago rabbi that I know and like, in commenting on the recent elections in Israel, casually opined, on a television news program, that Benjamin Netanyahu made “racist statements” in trying to get out the vote for his party. But that was mild compared to the words of Harold Meyerson, an American Jewish journalist, who, in a column in the Washington Post, compared Neyanyahu to George Wallace and suggested he and his party might want to open an “Institute for the Prevention of Dark Skinned People from Voting”.  Joe Klein, the American Jewish columnist for Time Magazine, wrote that Netanyahu won the elections because he ran as a bigot and that “A great many Jews have come to regard Arabs as the rest of the world traditionally regarded Jews.”

 So, it seems, after all, I was unable to get away from the Torah portion of the week, Metzorah.  I remind you that the rabbis said that this particular skin affliction was punishment for “Motzi Shem Rah” – literally, “Bringing forth, or drawing out, a bad name”.  In other words – slander.  It is instructive, in this context, to recall the words of Peninah Schram’s father when she wanted to visit Europe as a young woman – “Israel is like your mother”. Jewish Law does not attempt to legislate feelings toward ones mother.  It does not instruct us to love her or to admire her. Rather, it instructs us to treat her with respect. Similarly we cannot tell Jews that they have to love or admire Israel. Some, perhaps many, clearly do not. But we could say that a fellow Jew ought to speak or write about Israel with some modicum of respect and understanding. Respect and understanding for the sacrifices that have been made to create and to defend her; respect and understanding for the particular difficulties that she needs to negotiate, sunrise to sunset, Shabbat to Shabbat, year in and year out.

Shabbat Shalom