|
Welcome...Shalom...Hello...we're
glad you're here at
the best congregation west of the
Mississippi & east of West Locust Street in Dubuque, Iowa.
You are always welcome to our Shabbat and High Holy Day Services. |
|
475
West Locust St |
Dubuque, Iowa 52001 |
|
Voice
(563) 583-3483 |
FAX (563)
556-4131 |
|
|
|
|
|
Apathy – Sermon for Rosh
Hashanah, 2005. |
I walked into my classroom at the
Jewish High School in Cincinnati several weeks ago, expecting to
engage with teenagers in in-depth discussions of their Jewish
identity, current events and theology; topics which had interested
me so much when I was their age. I opened the discussion of what is
Jewish identity today in America by asking them what they thought of
their Judaism. Two of 15 children said that they have never nor
will they ever date and marry a Jew, two had little to no knowledge
of the Shoah, (The Holocaust) and another 3 said that the word
Israel never was discussed in their house. One child went so far as
to refer to the victims of the Holocaust as “the baked ones.”
The more I spoke to them, the more
perplexed I became
…
I wondered why were these children here? They were so
apathetic and spoke with such little energy about such topics as The
Holocaust, assimilation and understanding their own Jewish
identity.
At the turn of the 20th Century,
the biggest problem facing the Jewish people was Anti-Semitism. The
hopes rested with men such as Herzl who thought that the solution
would be in the establishment of the State of Israel. Today
Herzl’s dream of an autonomous Jewish State has for all intents and
purposes been fulfilled, yet anti-Semitism still remains. In
Europe, specifically France, there is news of increasing
anti-Semitic behavior from the French people toward the local Jewish
population. Last year Prime Minister Sharon called for the Jewish
people to move from France to Israel, because of the high rate of
Anti-Semitism. While I was still in Israel, I went to a lecture at
the Sachnut, the Jewish Agency, about this very problem. The
lecturer was an American and the audience was primarily Anglo. He
opened by stating that he never thought when he made Alyiah in 1982,
that in 2005 he would need to speak about Anti-Semitism as a
continuing problem. I must admit that I myself did not truly
understand what he meant, until I went to the Ukraine and felt for
the first time that anti-Semitism is still alive and well. Yet
instead of seeing a Jewish community hiding from anti-Semitism, I
saw a thriving, developing and growing community of committed
individuals who were interested in serving and developing the
community to what it was before WWII.
These people had a tremendous
amount of passion inside of them, they requested from me to further
that passion by teaching them more about their Judaism. They wanted
to know everything and questioned me to such an extent, it was truly
incredible.
What remains of that incredible
and changing experience is that I enjoyed so much the passion they
had for their religion and their people. It was this passion that
Ahad Haam described when he wrote that the center for Jewish life is
in Israel and that the circumference is in the Diaspora. He
believed that there was spiritual connection amongst the Jewish
people and that from this center, nourishment of our nation would
occur. Yet what I truly believe now is that Ahad Haam, like Herzl,
failed to recognize the power of assimilation. In his essay
“Imitation and Assimilation,” he writes of Reform Jews that we
imitate our Protestant German countrymen in prayer, yet we retain
our Jewishness. Haam does not retain an essentialist perspective,
and instead understands Judaism in generalist terms. This means
speaking Hebrew, to engaging in an active Jewish community and to
realizing that connections with their heritage will help preserve
Judaism. “The real cause (of the problem) is the original
self-effacement, which leads to Assimilation through the medium of
Imitation” (p.101). If we could route out the problem of
self-effacement, self hatred, then we could eliminate the problem of
Assimilation. Yet what Haam failed to estimate was the power and
allure that assimilation can hold over people. He was writing in a
time when Jews were still treated and recognized to be different
from the greater population. He believed that our light of Judaism
will never die, for Jews have always faced the allure of
assimilation. Think of Greek and Roman time. the rabbis in the
Talmud did not argue about whether they should speak in Hebrew or
not, if Hebrew was no longer being spoken. The language spoken
was Aramaic during the 2nd Temple period. Throughout history Jews
have faced the idea of assimilation. In fact, the prophets are
continuously rallying the people to stop engaging in activities and
worshipping “false” deities. I don’t believe they were saying that
to hear themselves speak. They were saying that because the people
were not praying only to Adonai. We have always faced this
problem. Though now I feel it is perhaps more pervasive.
A recent sociological study done
by Dr. DELLAPERGOLA[1]
at Hebrew University revealed that 50% of marriages are
inter-marriages. Many of the children in those relationships end up
losing all religious values, since they are in-fact taught two
competing value systems. What is more alarming is the rate even at
HUC, a Jewish seminary, of student dating non-Jews. Less and less
people speak or can even read Hebrew; the level of Jewish literacy
is appallingly low in the broader Jewish community. As a student
rabbi, I must determine the answer to the question of will or won’t
I perform an inter-marriage. Fifty years ago it was very uncommon
for rabbis to think about this problem. Today it is one of the main
topics of discussion throughout CCAR. For me what this signifies is
a larger problem. Haam thought assimilation was caused by
self-effacement; I think instead it is caused by apathy. We are
apathetic toward the hard job of defining who we are, what we
believe and who can reside under our tent of Judaism. As liberal,
progressive open minded intellectual people we want the tent to hold
everyone, from the intermarried, the atheist to the ultra-Orthodox.
This cannot be. It is apathy that prevents us from truly caring
enough about who we believe to be Jewish, toward expanding our
knowledge and from developing ourselves and Jewish identity
further.
I would like to offer up to you
several different views of Judaism. This is what these Jews value
and I would like you to please think about it. If you are not
Jewish, perhaps you could speak about it to your Jewish partner.
In the Ukraine, people used their
Judaism to rebel against the soviet regime. They believe that they
can truly make the world a better place through tikun olam, marching
for human rights, or by protesting oppression of all people.
Torah is central for other Jews,
Eric Yoffe, the president of the URJ, believes that Judaism is the
link we have in a chain of our heritage; he said that "...above all
else, I was present at Sinai, and when the Torah was given on that
mountain, my DNA was to be found in the crowd... It is the covenant
at Sinai that links all Jews, including nonobservant ones, in a bond
of shared responsibility."
Philosophers have yet another
view, for Abraham Joshua Heschel, it is the action which holds the
high importance, and meaning will certainly follow. Martin Buber
believes in an I-Thou relationship, one which attempts to find the
Divine inside of the other person. But don’t worry, he says,
because just as soon as you are coming close to that relationship,
you are not and must begin again. Secular Israelis, connect with
other secular Israelis by speaking Hebrew and living in a Jewish
country.
But this laundry list indicates
only the diversity of opinion of what Judaism can be for them; and
does not necessarily answer the question I struggle with when faced
with a classroom of apathetic teenagers, knowing that they will
become apathetic adults possibly lured away from Judaism toward
assimilation with a larger culture. What will be their purpose for
remaining Jewish?
That question is a personal
question, one which the list above answered for those thinkers,
philosophers and leaders. The meaning that they found was the
connection that they made to Judaism and how they viewed and
interpreted the religion. If one views themselves at Sinai, then
they are not only witness but feel the relevancy of Revelation in
their own life.
As a political and social activist
there is a relationship between doing good for another person and
finding meaning in your own life. The beauty in Judaism is the
large number of text which the Reform movement has taken up as
proofs for Tikun Olam. The Reform movement has developed this
concept into a modern tenet of Judaism. Buber’s approach can
clearly been seen in his establishment of Brit Shalom, an
organization still in existence today that is dedicated to the work
of establishing peace in Israel between Israelis and Palestinians.
Heschel’s approach of understanding Jewish life is reflected in his
belief of action. He marched with Martin Luther King for social
justice, and he found meaning again in action. Yet how do I expose
this approach for understanding the diversity of meaning inherent in
Judaism and make this applicable to an apathetic audience? As a
rabbi, I find that most people are faced with such meaning when they
deal with challenges in their lives, whether through life cycle
events, losses, or simply feeling isolated and trapped in the daily
mantra of their lives. It is at this time they can find meaning.
But what makes them chose to look for a rabbi?
When Daniel Pearl died two years
ago, the Islamic terrorist kidnappers who took him asked what a
secular humanist might think in life. He responded in depth by
stating that he was Jewish. One of his colleagues at the New York
Times wrote in his obituary “When Daniel Pearl hovered in limbo,
missing but presumably alive, his wife and colleagues and friends
emphasized what a universalist he was, as if that might spare him
death. In death, however, the meaning of Daniel Pearl changed, or, I
might say, it grew complete. He lived as a universalist, but he died
as a tribalist, inescapably Jewish. While some of what Pearl said
was probably coerced...it is impossible to avoid in his words the
sense of some agency, some autonomy, some principled
self-determination.” His feelings of connection with Judaism, when
as a whole he lived a secular humanist life, was only on his death
bed. His quote became a rallying cry for the Jewish community. I
believe that Ehad Haam was correct in his assessment that there is
something inside of us which makes us Jewish. We have a gift, it is
what connects one to the other, that when faced with the most
perilous situations we still gravitate toward our tribalism. We
reach toward our families and with them find comfort.
How do we access that gift of
feeling Judaism inside of us, how do I inspire others to strive to
find this deep and empowering meaning in their lives? Most
Israeli’s I know search out religion and meaning in their lives by
traveling to Thailand or India. They hunger for the answer to the
question…what is the meaning of my life in the greater picture? I
can stand and point out many places where the rabbis’ struggled with
that very question, yet I am faced with the old adage of “you can
bring a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink” .
May it be God’s will.
|
|
