Choosing to Squeeze the Trigger

Yesterday was a difficult day.  As Daniel Gordis described it: A yom kasheh - a tough day. It’s irrelevant if the decisions of the Israeli government regarding the flotilla were right or wrong.  There are as many articles being published in Israel by fathers and mothers of Israeli soldiers calling the operation a debacle as there are hailing the bravery of our Israeli boys and nefariousness of the so-called “peace activists” (see the Gordis piece above). And now government ministers are protesting that they were not included in the decision.  I’m not sure we’ll ever really know the truth of what happened, but what concerns me is something different:  What has this conflict done to our sense of humanity and how  will it impact on what we teach the next generation.

I’m an old-time Zionist whose pride in Israel was shaped by the events of June 1967.  But as I grew, my belief in the righteousness of Jewish nationalism was enhanced by another Jewish value:  “That which is hateful to you, don’t do to another.” As a Jewish educator, I try to teach that the value of Tzedek – Justice, is a fundamental component of Jewish living, especially expressed in the context of the Jewish State. It is for this reason that I am repulsed by Golda Meir’s statement of how difficult it will be for Israel to forgive Arab leaders for “forcing us to kill their children.”  You see, it’s us, the Jews/Zionists/Israelis who are choosing to squeeze the trigger.  Yes, it is in self defense, but I can’t help but wonder if there could be another way.

Zionism is not a movement to create a country that’s just like others, like Thailand or Russia.  Its mission is to create a Jewish state – a place where Jewish values thrive.  Kedoshim Tehee’yoo – You shall be Holy.  These words are from the book of Leviticus, in Parashat Kedoshim.  Kadosh means special, distinct. Not like everyone else.  It means that we need to take the extra step towards imitating God, in whose image we were created.   This belief informs how I approach what happens in Israel, which I consider my homeland, from which I live in exile. I don’t know how to reconcile a blockade of 1.4 million people with holiness.  And Hamas be damned - we are talking about human beings.  Kids.  Old people. They are suffering.  Hamas is forcing us to do this?  We are squeezing the trigger. How is this holy behavior? In the name of self-defense can one put striving towards holiness on hold?  How do I explain this to a 7^th grader?

Yes we are at war, and we need to defend ourselves.  But, are we doing it the right way, the just way?  How do we teach this to our kids?  I don’t know.  That’s what’s scaring me and made yesterday a yom kasheh.

What's the Point?

One of the hardest things I do is try to figure out what to teach my students, whether they are supremely unmotivated 8th graders or the teaching staff at the religious school I direct or my daughters. I find myself getting caught up in what I want them to learn, what I want them to know, and I forget that maybe I need to think about what they are ready to learn, what they are ready to know. If I start from where they are, I may make more progress.

This week in the twitterverse a fascinating question was raised: Is there such a thing as a universal Jewish curriculum? I translate that to mean “what are Jewish basic skills? What does a person need to know to be a member of the tribe?” Prayer? Which nusach, Ashkenazi or S’faradi? Keeping Kosher? Which heksher, OU or Star K? Affinity to Israel? Which ideology, Jstreet or ZOA? My point is best articulated by Jay Michaelson in his recent piece in The Forward called “The Myth of Authenticity” (www.forward.com/articles/121663) in which he exposes the idolatrous nature of Jewish-ideological-correctness. Once we understand that the concept of Jewish Absolute Truth is not at all clear-cut, we can begin to create a standardized Jewish curriculum.

What are the Jewish big ideas (or enduring understandings if you prefer) we want to pass on to the next generation? As I mulled this over, Rambam’s 13 Articles of Faith popped into my head. These are the 13 things (http://www.mesora.org/13principles.html) that Jews are supposed to believe, according to the 12th century Maimonides. They are summarized in the siddur in the prayer called the Yigdal. Are they, as written, still relevant to the 21st century Jewish world? Do you, as an educator or 21st century Jew, accept these 800 year old statements as core values in your faith? For instance, do you believe in the physical resurrection of the dead? How about the assertion that the Torah was actually given to Moses at Sinai? Do you believe in the messiah as an actual person who will be descended from the House of David? If we tried to create a curriculum based on these tenets, would our students accept them? Would they be relevant to them at all? I’m not sure.

So as we discuss Jewish big ideas, we need to make sure that they have meaning to the modern mind. If we start teaching about values that have no connection to the belief system of our students, we will be so totally out of their frame of reference we will ultimately be teaching to empty classrooms.

The strength of Judaism is its ability to evolve. Back in the days of the Mishnah, Pharisees , Sadducees and Essenes were arguing over the definition of authentic Judaism. Should Torah interpretation be permitted? Is there life after death? What about free will and angels? Today’s arguments over the role of women, the centrality of the State of Israel, matrilineal vs. patrilineal descent need to inform whatever curriculum we create. If anything is authentically Jewish, it is the dynamic nature of pluralistic Jewish spiritual and ideological development. Maybe that’s the big idea, the enduring understanding with which we begin: The glory of Jewish diversity.

Halloween, and other Scary Monsters

I’m running out of candy.

And they keep ringing my doorbell.

So I’m sitting here, wearing my “Scream” face (you know – the demon with the BIG mouth from the movie) and my“Cat In The Hat” hat on my head, waiting for the inevitable.

I really wasn’t planning on blogging about Halloween. I mean I think it’s amusing that there are folks who think it’s a terrible holiday because of its pagan roots. I even got yelled at because I called this week’s Junior Congregation “Spooky Shabbat”. I figured we would tell stories like the Witch of Endor (II Samuel) or about vampires (Sefer Chassidim) or about the Golem (the Maharal). I can’t say I was surprised, though. We have a lot of censorship in the Jewish community.

I think that’s really what I want to blog about. That’s what’s been keeping from posting for the past 6 weeks.

You see, I’ve wanted to write about Israel, but I was worried that what I would write would be too controversial. It would challenge the mainstream view of the heroic Jewish state. I launched a trial balloon about contemporary Diaspora connections to “The State” on Twitter at #jed21, but they were ignored. Quoting Gomer Pyle – “Surprise, surprise, surprise”.

And then there was J.Street (http://jstreet.org). I’ve been a supporter since it began. I believe that one’s support of, or opposition to, settlements in the West Bank should not be a measure of one’s support of Israel. But, in America, it seems that folks are so paranoid that if you make a public statement opposing current Likud policy you are branded a self-hating Jew. This, despite the fact that the same views are held by many Israelis, including Israeli parliament members representing main stream Zionist parties, like the Labor party and segments of Kadima. That pisses me off, because I love Israel. I love being Jewish. And I oppose settlement expansion. I’ve been a supporter and participant of Shalom Achsav (Peace Now – the mainstream Israeli peace movement) since it’s inception in 1978 and took part in anti-war demonstrations while I served in the IDF as a combat medic in the West Bank. Does that make me anti-Israel? I dare you to tell me so.

The Zionist movement has always been democratic. My god, there were folks (including Theodore Herzl) who were in favor of creating “Altneuland” in…Uganda. Can you imagine what that would mean? Making aliya to Kampala? So to say that J.street is not pro-Israel because it opposes current Israeli government policy is an expression of one’s (how do I say this?) ignorance of things Zionist. Can you say "Swift-boating"?

J.street is the embodiment of our people’s struggle with the idea of “Der Judenstaat”. What is the nature of creating a Jewish state? How do we deal with the OTHER inhabitants of The Land? More to the point, what is Diaspora Judaism’s role in this process? I think that is an incredibly important question. We don’t live in Israel. Our kids aren’t drafted to the IDF. So do we have a right to an opinion? If we don’t does that mean that we should we stop giving money to Israeli organizations that promote a political agenda, such as American Friends of Ateret Cohanim or American Friends of the Likud that support continued settlement growth in the West Bank, or American Friends of Peace Now or B’tselem, that don’t? What are our roles, in the Galut, the Diaspora, when it comes to Israel and policy?

I’m going to ask it again: Do we have a right to an opinion? If we don’t, what does this say about the state of Zionism, a movement that was created to link Galut with Eretz Yisrael?

If we don’t have a right to an opinion, what does this say about our relationship to Israel?

BOO!!!

Buddy, Can You Spare A Dime?

San Francisco - an incredible city. I just returned from what I thought would be a 5 day respite from my “real world”. I explored, what was for me, a new corner of the globe. The food, the climate, and the tourist attractions – all were unforgettable. And so was the real world I crashed into - the homeless denizens of the Bay Area: that community of rootless individuals living in doorways, panhandling, living their lives – if that’s what you can call it – the best they can. I kept asking myself “Why?”

While on my vacation, I kept up, as best I could, with my on-line life (much to my wife’s chagrin!) A theme that popped up was about the individualistic nature of today’s Jewish young people. They, it seems, want to know what Judaism and the Jewish community can do for them as individuals. What can the “we” do for “me”? Okay, in the context of the American ethos of hyper-individualism (sort of an extension of Ayn Rand’s concept of selfishness as a virtue), American Jews seem to strive for individual fulfillment in their Jewish identity. How does this inform the work we do as Jewish educators? How do we teach that “us” matters?

We’ve been mulling over the apparent failure of contemporary Jewish education. We’ve been trying to figure out how to make being a Jew in the 21^st century meaningful to the individual. Maybe we are focusing on the wrong thing. I’m not sure if the Jews of the future who are growing up today hear God the way we or our parents do: through ritual, B’nai Mitzvah, Hebrew, Israel. We need to find new hearing aids.

The lost souls of San Francisco’s Tenderloin district got me thinking about how holiness and community can be found by supporting the fallen, raising them from the doorways that are their beds. Perhaps creating Jewish schools of conscience, schools where mitzvot bein adam l'chavero – obligations relating to human interactions - are taught as being the essence of Jewish community, is a direction that we can take to help students hear God again. Maybe through teaching that together we can make a difference in the world, we would be providing the key that would help the one student join with the many, creating a compelling reason to be part of something larger. Conceivably, the concept of Klal Yisrael may need to be redefined as the Jewish path that starts with study, leads to action, and ends with a new and different world. Jewish, because inherent in this old-new Halacha is the word tzedek – justice.

Who knows? Maybe our children will find God living on Market Street.

Jewish Bifocals

My kid, the youngest, Keren, is going to college tomorrow. I’ve spent the day helping her pack, buying last minute electronics (how can she NOT have a good speaker system hooked up to her MacBook?) and printer cartridges. I’m doing what I can to get her ready for the next chapter.

And I wonder – does she have the tools she will need to make choices about the world? Through which lenses will she observe and judge what is happening? How will she meet the future?

It got me thinking about how other kids are prepared to deal with the vicissitudes of society. What do we teach them, especially in religious/Hebrew school? What kids learn in many Jewish congregational schools today seems to be linked to religion. God. Holidays. Thou shall and Thou shall not. I’m not sure that’s what Judaism is all about. I think it’s more about how we live our lives. What we do. These are the lenses through which we see the world. Our job as Jewish parents and educators is to teach our kids how to see what goes on in the world from a Jewish perspective. Jewish bifocals if you will.

We need to find ways of teaching that acting Jewish doesn’t end with kashrut, or t’fillin, going to services or wearing kippot. These are the means. The ritual we teach, the way we celebrate and mourn; all serve as spiritual signposts pointing the way towards having a positive impact on the world. I call that Jewish Attitudinal Learning: Teaching Jewish values that touch our students’ lives today. Copping a Jewish attitude to help us decide how live. We need to supply our kids with the skills to confront the issues of the future.

As I drive the SUV we’re renting with all the boxes and refrigerator we’re putting in her dorm room, I’ll think about the choices she’ll be making. What will she do with the Jewish knowledge she’s garnered over the years? I’m hoping she’ll make the right choices – whatever those are. If you are into Harry Potter, you’ll recognize the image of portraits of wizards past, looking benignly upon the students of Hogwarts. I’m hoping that the images looking upon Keren and all our students are Jewish wizards who’ve laid the foundation for a future based on Jewish vision.

We Jewish educators – teachers and parents – are our children’s ophthalmologists. Hopefully we diagnosed correctly and wrote the right prescription.