Parasha VaYigash: "Jewish American -- Or American Jew?"

Are you an American Jew – or a Jewish American?

In a recent op-ed piece in the New York Times, the writer Mark Oppenheimer notes that Presidents from Reagan to Trump have assiduously avoided the use of the noun “Jew” and instead have used the adjective, “Jewish” when referring to members of our community. In his last Passover message, for example, President Obama referred to “Jewish families” twice, but never once used the word “Jew”. In closing his joint message for Passover and Easter this year, President Trump said he prayed for the day when “good people of all faiths, Christians and Muslims and Jewish and Hindu, can follow their hearts and worship according to their conscience.” A worthy  sentiment.  But notice that “Christians”, “Muslims” and “Hindus” are all nouns used to describe people – “Jewish” is the only adjective. To be grammatically correct, he should have referred to “Christians, Muslims, Jews and Hindus”.  But, like his predecessors in the Oval Office, he chose to use the word “Jewish” and avoided the word “Jew”.

When I was growing up, we referred to ourselves as “American Jews”. I have noticed that this has changed in the passing years. We more often now refer to ourselves as “Jewish Americans”. I think the change reflects the fact that being a Jew has become less central to our identity. Referring to ourselves as “American Jews” sets us apart from other Americans.  Understanding  ourselves as “Jewish Americans” feels more inclusive, less starkly different.  An “American Jew” is a Jewish person who happens to be American. A “Jewish American” is an American who happens to be Jewish too.  In preferring the term “Jewish American” we assert that we are just as American as our Catholic or Protestant neighbor.  We are just a different flavor of “American”, so to speak.  In the op-ed I cited above, Mark Oppenheimer advocates for the return of the word “Jew” to our vocabulary. He notes that there is something prouder, more confident and more assertive in describing oneself as “a Jew” than there is in describing oneself as “Jewish”.    Think “I am a Jew” versus “I am Jewish”.

It may come as a surprise to many of us that the Hebrew word for “Jew” – “Yehudi” -- is not found in the Torah. We are called Hebrews, we are called “Bnai Israel”, we are called “Yeshurun”, we are called “Yaakov”, and we are called “Ephraim” when the Bible refers to the Jewish people. The first use of the word “Yehudi” in Hebrew Scriptures comes rather late in our history. In the Scroll of Esther, Mordechai is referred to as an “ish yehudi” – which means either “a Jewish man” or “a man from Yehud”—“Yehud” being the Persian word for the Jewish homeland.  That means it took over a thousand years between Abraham and Mordechai for the term “Yehudi” to appear in writing. Still, we do not know whether this refers to a place or to a religion. It wasn’t until 1275 CE that the word “Jew” makes its appearance in English. It is spelled “G-Y-U”. It isn’t until 1775 that we find its first English spelling as “J-E-W”. Perhaps this explains why the letter written by the “Hebrew Congregation of Newport Rhode Island” (pointedly, not the “Jewish Congregation of RI”) to George Washington, only 15 years later in 1790, refers to the members of that community as “the stock of Abraham”.  President George Washington uses the same phrase in his letter in response.

Think:  “I am of the stock of Abraham” versus “I am Jewish”.

The word “Jew” has its origins in the Tribe of Judah, the largest of the tribes of ancient Israel. This tribe is named after Judah, the fourth son of Jacob by his wife Leah. The Torah itself says that this means “to give thanks”. Thus, a Jew is one who gives thanks to G-d. The Talmud derives the name Yehudah from the word “Hoda’ah” which means “to acknowledge”. Thus a Jew is someone who affirms that G-d is One and who submits to G-d’s authority through the practice of mitzvoth.

Judah, the person, figures prominently in our Torah portion this week, and indeed, throughout the story of Joseph. So much so that Rabbi Meir Soloveitchik has proposed that the story of Joseph might better be called the story of Judah. For although we may admire Joseph, writes Rabbi Soloveitchik, he is too flawless to serve as a model for us. He succeeds in everything he does. He never falters. He resists the temptations of Potiphar’s wife and forgives his brothers who have wronged him. Joseph survives every situation he encounters and comes out smelling like roses.

Judah, on the other hand, betrays Joseph by selling him into slavery, then redeems himself through his offer to go into slavery in place of his brother Benjamin. Judah gets angry at his daughter-in-law, but has the courage to admit that he has wronged her. Judah gives in to temptation, then acknowledges that he did wrong. Judah sins, and Judah shows remorse and Judah asks forgiveness.

Judaism, writes Rabbi Soloveitchik, is really “Judah-ism”. In our faith we are asked to put ourselves in Judah’s place. Joseph is a static figure, perfect and pure from the beginning of the story to the end. Judah is flawed, like we all are, but Judah grows, like we are asked to do. Judah struggles to do the right thing, as our religion, Judaism, teaches us to do. In the end, Judah overcomes his limitations. Judah is an imperfect namesake who can serve as an inspiration to us all.

That is what it means to be a Jew.

Shabbat Shalom

Parasha Miketz: The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow

I began this sermon by playing the song below:

The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow from the play "Annie"

According to the Talmud, whether the sun would come out tomorrow was a real concern of the very first human being.  "When Adam, on the day of his creation, saw the setting of the sun he said, 'Alas, it is because I have sinned that the world around me is becoming dark; the universe will now become again void and without form - this then is the death to which I have been sentenced from Heaven for eating of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil'. So Adam sat up all night fasting and weeping and Eve was weeping opposite him.  When however dawn broke, he said, `I understand, “This is the usual course of the world.'"  (Avodah Zarah 8a)  

It is no coincidence that Chanukah is celebrated at the darkest time of the year.  It also is always celebrated around the time we read Parasah Miketz in our synagogues. In Parasha  Miketz we find Joseph in prison in Egypt for 12 long years. He was sold by his brothers into slavery when he was 17 years old – he is now a young man of 30. He dwells in the darkness of a prison cell. But Joseph never gives up hope. Placing his trust in G-d, he is suddenly freed and is thrust from darkness to light.

Perhaps the words left on another prison wall, of sorts, on a cellar wall in Cologne, Germany by Jews in hiding during the Holocaust, best expresses the thought.  "I believe in the sun even when it is not shining, I believe in love even when I am alone, I believe in God even when He is hiding."  When everything is dark, we can rely on our faith in G-d that the sun will shine again.  

The person who penned those words on the cellar wall would perhaps not be surprised to read that a few days ago  Berlin Mayor Michael Müller, German Justice Minister Heiko Maas and Israeli Ambassador to Germany Jeremy Issacharoff stood together to light the first candle of Europe's largest Hanukkah menorah at The Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. The Brandenburg Gate, which had once been used as a symbol by the Nazi party. The Brandenburg Gate, where West Germans had once gathered to protest the Soviet building of the Berlin Wall, the symbol of the iron curtain behind which millions were deprived of their freedom. The Brandenburg Gate, where President Reagan addressed these words in 1987 to the General Secretary of the Soviet Union, Mikhael Gorbachev, “If you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” Is there a more fitting place for the Menorah, the symbol of freedom, to be lit than at the Brandenburg Gate in Germany?

Each night of Chanukah we light one more candle on our Menorahs. Each night, the light grows and the darkness diminishes.  Chanukah is a holiday of hope – lighting the Menorah an expression of our faith that even in the darkest of times, the sun will come out tomorrow.

Parasha VaYeshev: O' Jerusalem!

Our parasha for this week continues the story of Jacob. Of all of our Biblical ancestors, with the exception of David, Jacob leads the most tumultuous life. He struggles with his brother in the womb, deceives his father, steals the blessing reserved for the first born and must flee his home to escape the anger of his brother who has threatened to kill him. He is in turn deceived by his father-in-law, Laban, into working three times longer for his wife Rachel as he had agreed. He marries two sisters who are rivals with one another for his affection, takes their maidservants as wives as well, and sires 12 sons and a daughter. His daughter is kidnapped and raped and his sons’ violent response to that event make him fear for his own life and the lives of his loved ones.

Our Torah reading opens with the words, “Jacob settled in the land”. From the use of the word, “settled” the rabbis deduce that Jacob finally believed that, after all his troubles, he had finally found peace and tranquility in his life. The midrash has G-d criticizing Jacob for asking for too much.  “Isn’t it enough to know that the righteous will have tranquility in Messianic times? You expect peace and tranquility in this world as well?”   In fact, no sooner does Jacob “settle down” than his favorite son Joseph is sold into slavery and his much sought after tranquility is shattered.

Peace and tranquility is what the Jewish people have pursued for the longest of times. Israel was founded in 1948 with the hope that having a Jewish state for the Jewish people would normalize our condition and allow us to take our place among the family of nations.   We would abandon our status as “guests” in other people’s homelands and “settle down” in a home of our own – Israel. But like Jacob, our hoped for peace and tranquility has not materialized. In many parts of the world anti-Semitism – the irrational hatred of Jews – has simply been transformed into anti-Zionism – the irrational hatred of Israel.

That is not to say that there has not been progress made toward peace. In 1978 Israel signed a peace agreement with Anwar Sadat of Egypt. That peace turned out colder than had been hoped, but it constituted peace nonetheless, and it has held. In 1993 the Oslo accords were signed. Although the hoped for peace failed to fully materialize, the Oslo accords did lead to mutual recognition between Israel and the PLO. This constituted another historically important step.  A year later Jordan and Israel signed a peace treaty and each country opened its borders to the other. There were other serious efforts toward peace in 2000 and 2006, but the parties failed to reach an agreement.

One of the most contentious issues that is left “unsettled” is the status of Jerusalem. The UN partition plan of 1947 envisioned Jerusalem being a “corpus separatum”, Latin for “separated body”. This meant that Jerusalem would be placed under UN sovereignty as an international city. Ben Gurion and the provisional Jewish government accepted the plan – the Arabs, who rejected the idea of partitioning the land between a Jewish and an Arab state altogether – rejected the idea. After the War for Independence in 1948, Jordan ended up holding the Old City of Jerusalem. Israel ended up with the Western part of the city, which they declared their capital, with a “no-man’s land” dividing the Jordanian held side from the Israeli held side. Under Jordanian rule the Jewish population of the Old City, which at the time constituted a majority was expelled, synagogues in the Old City were blown up, Jewish sites desecrated, and Jews forbidden from entering.

Although the State of Israel declared the Western part of the city as their capital, the world never accepted it, holding to the UN Resolution that this area should be under international jurisdiction. That sentiment did not change when Israel captured the Old City in the 1967 war and declared the city as a united Jerusalem.

Still, in 1980 there were 13 countries with embassies in Jerusalem. They all fled Jerusalem for Tel Aviv when the Knesset, Israel’s Parliament, passed what is called a Basic Law which is equivalent in our country to a Constitutional Amendment.  The Basic Law stated that the city of Jerusalem would be the “complete and united capital of Israel”.  Today there are no foreign embassies in Jerusalem. The international consensus now is that the future status of Jerusalem needs to be decided upon by Israel and the Palestinians.

This is precisely why President Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital is so controversial. The United States has broken with precedent by seeming to decide on the status of Jerusalem outside of the framework of negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. And while it may be emotionally satisfying for some to see the United States ratify Israel’s position on the status of Jerusalem, it is unclear how this in and of itself contributes to peace in the region. At best it has no effect in that it offers no blueprint as to how we may proceed along the long road towards peace.  At worst it inflames the passions of Muslims around the world and makes that road all the more difficult. It makes it more difficult for the United States to appear like an honest broker for peace.  It is also hard to understand how it promotes our country’s interests in the region or around the world.

A few hours after the President’s announcement American rabbis, including myself, received an Anti-Defamation League Security Warning saying that the announcement “is engendering strong reaction in the Middle East and there is potential for extreme reaction on the ground in the United States as well.” How does this enhance our security here in the United States?  In many ways it seems that the announcement has a very small “upside” and a very big “downside”.

Many early Zionists, most of whom were secular Jews, were ambivalent about having the capital of a modern Israel in Jerusalem. Herzl envisioned building a capital in the area of Haifa. A young David Ben Gurion was uneasy about Jerusalem and the city’s fraught religious history. Many of us today are discomfited by the lack of separation of “Church and State” in Israel. This intertwining of religion and politics is mirrored in Jerusalem, which is both the political capital of Israel and the religious capital of Jews around the world. That makes things very, very complicated. Like Jacob of yore, we hope that someday things will “settle down” and Israel can live in peace, tranquility and security with her neighbors –not only in Messianic times, but in this world of ours as well.

Shabbat Shalom

Parasha Vayishlakh: When Men Behave Badly

I knew what I would speak about this evening when I emerged from my office at noon on Wednesday and was greeted by Dorothy with the following words, “The rest of my day has been ruined.” At first I wondered If my presence had elicited that response, but she quickly followed her remark  that Garrison Keeler  of Prairie Home Companion had been accused of sexually harassing a co-worker and had been fired from his position at American Public Radio.  I am sure that those feelings were shared by many in our country. If Garrison Keeler, who has portrayed himself as the most wholesome man in America , now is  facing serious accusations of sexual harassment,  no wonder our faith in people  we look up to is been severely shaken.   By now a very long list of journalists, actors and politicians, of both parties, have been accused of sexual misconduct.                

I know this is a difficult subject for all of us to talk about.  The multiplicity of issues raised are ones many of us would not even want to hear, let alone talk about. But silence is not an option, silence is not conducive to healing, and silence is precisely one of the ways in which we collude in keeping these insidious actions occurring and reoccurring in all spheres of our lives, public and private. These accusations bring up difficult moral questions for us. When we read about the behavior of these men we feel, disgusted, we feel revolted, we feel repelled. Their behavior is rightly condemned.  But   I have no doubt that many of us are confused, many of us have contradictory feelings.  What if I our political positions are close to Al Franken’s?  What if we feel torn because we vehemently condemn his inappropriate behaviors but value his experience and record as a Senator?   Or, let’s place ourselves in the position of an Alabama voter who now needs to make an important decision about voting for a man against whom serious accusations have been leveled by multiple people. Do they vote for Roy Moore, about whom they may now have serious reservations, or do they vote for a Democrat and thereby make it almost impossible to pass the Conservative agenda in the Senate?

   

Do we I now watch “House of Cards” with a clear conscience with the  now disgraced Kevin Spacey in the lead role? How do we  now feel about watching television or movies starring the disgraced comedian Louis C.K.? Does Leon Wieseltier’s appalling behavior with women detract from his insightful writing or brilliant analysis? And what, in heavens name, do we do with the accusation of the woman who claims that Elie Wiesel, of blessed memory, groped her when she was 19 years old? To add to the complexities, we know that even among those who engage in what is broadly defined as inappropriate behavior with women, there are different grades of inappropriateness. Do we treat everyone the same?  

Before the internet it was well known in certain circles that the great Rabbi and song writer, Shlomo Carlebach, sexually abused women over the 40 years of his rabbinate. In the Spring of 1998 Lillith, a Jewish, feminist magazine, published an article entitled “Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach’s Shadow Side” which revealed to the public what only a few knew had been happening in private. We can condemn him—but should we still sing his melodies that he set to our prayers at our services?

This type of moral confusion, this ethical disorientation is also found in our parasha for this week. Dinah, the daughter of Jacob and Leah, is kidnapped and raped by a local Canaanite prince. He claims he loves her, and sends word to Jacob, her father, that he wants to marry her. The family agrees, on the condition that all the men of the town the prince rules circumcise themselves. The men agree and circumcise themselves. After they do so Dinah’s brothers Simeon and Levi steal into town, kill all of the men who are now too weakened to fight back, kill the prince and rescue Dinah. The other brothers descend on the town, plunder it, and take all the women and children as war booty.

What is Jacob’s reaction to this episode of cunning and brutality? Does he reprimand his sons for breaking their word to the Prince, for violating an agreement that was entered into in good faith? Does he scold them for their excessive violence? Jacob says none of this. Jacob only worries about the effect of his sons’ actions on his own reputation. He worries that when the other Canaanites in the land hear about what happened, they will unite and destroy him. To which his sons respond, “Should our sister be treated like a harlot?” And Jacob is silent. Notice how silence here points to an alarming component of the abusive dynamic since Biblical times.

Only years later, when Jacob is lying on his deathbed, does he unambiguously condemn the violence of his sons Levi and Simeon. This, perhaps, speaks to the years that it may take to sort out the sordid revelations about some of our beloved cultural and important political figures. The world is by and large not black and white, but many shades of grey. These revelations about sexual abuse in the workplace raise moral and ethical issues that we will struggle with for many years to come as a nation, as communities, as individuals. A major part of the struggle is to voice it, to name it, is to discuss it.  Above all, we must not be silent.

Shabbat Shalom