Jewish Identity

The Reconstructionist Volume 66, Number 1, Fall, 2001 Table of Contents 2 Letters 3 From the Editor Jewish Identity 7 Lawrence Rubin, Signposts of American Jewish Identity 17 Robert Goldenberg, Jewish Identity in the Ancient World 22 Leonard Gordon, The Multiple Identities of Rabbis and Other Jews 28 Lori Hope Lefkovitz, You Are Who You Aren’t: Closets, Cabinets and Jewish Identities 36 Seth Goldstein, Identity, Status and Rabbinic Leadership in Contemporary Judaism 44 Deborah Dash Moore, Intermarriage and the Politics of Identity 52 Michael Fessler, Adoption and Jewish Families: A Proposal 60 Barbara Hirsh, Healing, Health and Holiness, a review of Chaim I. Waxman’s Jewish Baby Boomers: A Communal Perspective and Steven M. Cohen and Arnold M. Eisen’s The Jew Within: Self, Family, and Community in America 67 Lawrence Bush, Thinking About Male Jewish Identity, a review of Jeffrey K. Salkin’s Searching for My Brothers: Jewish Men in a Gentile World and Kerry M. Olitzky’s From Your Father’s House . . . Reflections for Modern Jewish Men Viewpoint 70 Donald Menzi, The Sabbath Bride — and Groom — in Shabbat Evening Liturgy Book Reviews 80 Dennis C. Sasso, Touchstones for Jewish Living, a review of Harold M. Schulweis’ Finding Each Other in Judaism: Meditations on the Rites of Passage from Birth to Immortality 83 George Driesen, The Art of the Sermon, a review of Harold I. Saperstein’s Witness From the Pulpit: Topical Sermons 1933-1980 88 Dayle A. Friedman, Facing Death and Grieving, a review of Samuel A. Heilman’s When a Jew Dies Vintage Perspectives 95 Our Country At War, an editorial from December 26, 1941 Letters

Reconstructionist Halakhah tice. Not only have we used a modified, democratic halakhic process on the To the Editor: congregational level to develop our own I heartily endorse Daniel Cedar- guidelines around such core Jewish is- baum’s thesis in “The Role of Halakhah sues as Shabbat, tzedakah, tikkun olam in Reconstructionist Decision Making” and gemilut hasadim. , but we found that (Spring 2001 issue). Many in our the very process raised the level of movement tend to be too dismissive of knowledge and observance of the many halakhah, seeing it as a system that who participated in the process. stands in the way of progressive prin- I have long felt and argued in vari- ciples or as an irrelevant intellectual ous forums that our movement should exercise that remains the province of seek to guide such congregational the Orthodox community. halakhic processes on a national level. I would reference your readership to It would put our movement well ahead my earlier piece, “Reconstructionist of other streams of Jewish life in bring- Halakhah” (The Reconstructionist, ing Jewish observance into the 21st cen- Spring 1993). In it I talk of how a tury. It would also send a loud and clear halakhic process, implemented in con- message that we represent a good deal gregations, can serve as a vehicle for more than “do as you please” Judaism. community building. My experience in Rabbi Sid Schwarz two different Reconstructionist congre- Founder/President gations bears out the fact that wrestling The Washington Institute for with halakhic norms leads to serious Jewish Leadership and Values engagement with both Jewish learning Founding Rabbi, Adat Shalom and traditional Jewish norms and prac- Reconstructionist Congregation

2 • Fall 2001 The Reconstructionist FROM THE EDITOR

A Season of Losses

This issue of The Reconstructionist appears in a season of losses, following the tragic terror of September 11. In earlier days, when this journal appeared biweekly (and later on, monthly), editorials gave us the ability to respond rapidly to major events. (See “Vintage Perspectives” on page 95 for the reprint of the editorial following the attack on Pearl Harbor.) But if it was understandably difficult to respond to the events of Septem- ber 11 while standing in close proximity to them, it is not clear that the vantage point of several months later yields clarity. Perhaps the best we have are fragments of response to help us frame some of the issues that now confront us. Surely for Reconstructionists, we are not in search of easy theological answers that will somehow resolve the very real questions that we bring to this moment. We are, if anything, realists: we cannot invoke this as an act of God’s will, nor can we assuage our grief with easy assurances that heaven awaits those whose lives have ended. If Judaism is in fact the evolving religious civilization of the Jewish people, then all the alleged answers to ultimate questions are better understood as human responses instead of divine revelation. And as human responses, they are as good or as bad as the people who crafted them. And we find them more or less plausible depending on who we are. It was inevitable that we would hear many people speak of their escape from death as a miracle. Equally inevitable was the number of reports of people thanking God for sparing them: they missed the planes that were hijacked, they stopped for an extra cup of coffee before going to work in the World Trade Center, their train or subway was late getting them to the of- fice. We should not begrudge anyone the gratitude that comes with realizing how close one came to losing one’s life or being exposed to serious danger. We should not deny anyone the right to feel as if they have been the personal recipient of God’s benevolence. But many years ago, Rabbi Ira Eisenstein, z"l, taught that there is a profound difference between being “grateful for” and being “grateful to.” The human impulse in the wake of deliverance is to express gratitude. Having been raised, at least in the West, to believe that God’s hand lies behind history, it is natural to express that gratitude as gratitude “to” someone, specifi- cally, presumably, to God. A bit of reflection, however, makes it apparent that such gratitude carries

The Reconstructionist Fall 2001 • 3 within it a theological problem of no small significance. Because while God was presumably busy saving some people, other people were not so lucky. We would never ask a survivor of a tragedy who is thanking God why she or he thinks that others were not so lucky. We don’t believe people intend to be cruel or unkind when expressing gratitude. But Reconstructionists must approach the issue differently. We are more self-consciously grateful “for” than “grateful to,” yet we share with others appreciation for the gift of life. Life is no less precious for it being the luck of the draw than for it being the will of God. Perhaps we Reconstructionists have an advantage. Seeing God as a power or force working in and through us, but not as a personality acting upon us, we are not backed into those awkward theological problems that go by the technical term “theodicy.” In simple terms, “theodicy” means trying to explain how a good God can allow such bad things to happen. Asking how God as a power or force can “allow” things to happen is thus like asking how, for example, “gravity” allows things to happen. It is sort of a non- question. But we Reconstructionists also pay a price for our theological comfort. We have to acknowledge that the world is more or less random; that what happens may have an explanation — for example, that bridge fell down because of faulty engineering — but often doesn’t have a “Reason” — as in, “How could God let that bridge fall down?” There is no cosmic explanation why one person misses a plane that another person manages to get on. It is just what happens to happen. Rabbi Harold Kushner, in his popular book When Bad Things Happen to Good People, says: There are really only two kinds of people: those for whom any answer is better than no answer, and those for whom a bad answer is worse than no answer. Reconstructionists by and large fall into that second category. We take little comfort in the well-intentioned but often damaging traditional expla- nations of God’s ways with God’s world. We seek comfort not in explanation but in meaning: in the audacious human attempt to impose structure, narrative, poetry, art, esthetics, language and values on naked human experience. In short, we celebrate the human ability to create culture, to make, as Claude Levi-Strauss put it, the “cooked” out of the “raw.” The awareness that we impose meaning on reality does not diminish the value of the meaning that we create. If anything, it may make it more precious. The human drive to deny death and affirm meaning, about which the pages of this publication have spoken eloquently and elegantly for the past 65 years, manifests itself in many ways— not least in our determination to continue discussions of substance and consequence such as we address in this issue.

4 • Fall 2001 The Reconstructionist Remembering Ira Eisenstein

Rabbi Ira Eisenstein, Editor Emeritus of The Reconstructionist, died on June 28, 2001, at the age of 94. For many decades, Ira Eisenstein was the driving force behind this publication, writing many of the unsigned editorials and serving both as content and managing editor until 1982. The Reconstructionist was a primary place for Ira's essays, articles and reviews. Of course, Ira Eisenstein's importance to the Reconstructionist movement extended far beyond this journal. It was his determination to establish Reconstructionism as an independent denomination that eventually led to the founding of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in 1968, where Ira served as founding president until his retirement in 1981. It is often said that Mordecai Kaplan was a man of ideas, and Ira Eisenstein a man of institutions — that is, Kaplan was the ideologue, Eisenstein the pragmatist. It was at Ira's urging that in January of 1935 a magazine was launched devoted to developing what Kaplan had put forward a year earlier in Judaism as a Civilization. The Reconstructionist was indeed an “institution,” a publication; but more importantly, it was a vehicle for thinking creatively and critically and courageously about Judaism, the Jewish people and issues facing the Jewish world and the larger world. The editorials and pages of The Reconstructionist are not merely a history of the eventual emergence of a religious movement. They are documents of a community in search of a new way of understanding itself in a new world, a new time and a new place. And the voice and vision of Ira Eisenstein shaped those discussions. We will honor his memory as we continue to converse with openness, honesty and integrity, and with respect for a diversity of opinion, about the important issues that face us. Y'hi Zikhro Barukh — May his memory be a source of blessing.

Jewish Identity

The majority of articles in this issue examine aspects of Jewish identity, an increasingly complex and charged topic. Discussions of Jewish identity depart from different platforms: political, strategic, religious and sociologi- cal among them. The religious community thinks in terms of religious identity, focusing on such issues as patrilineal descent, conversion and adoption standards and boundaries of religious ritual. The Jewish agency community thinks in terms of group cohesion and continuity, Jewish political power and influence, coalition work and community relations and interfaith work. Many discussions of Jewish identity take place amidst a confusion of topics, feelings and statistics. Analyses, attitudes and assumptions bang into

The Reconstructionist Fall 2001 • 5 one another in forums and debates. That our Jewish community is passionate about issues of identity is apparent; we have yet to find a way to have such discussions in a productive way. Reconstructionist Judaism begins with the centrality of Jewish peoplehood — with the acknowledgment and affirmation of ethnic identification with a culture. In the 1920s and 1930s, when Kaplan was writing for and speaking to second-generation Jews, the assumptions of ethnicity were self-evident. Now, in the fourth and fifth and even sixth generations of American Jewry, the presumptions of peoplehood are no longer so clear. Contempo- rary studies of younger American Jews increasingly point to religious rather than ethnic affirmation. Will the current interest in “spirituality” be transformative or ephemeral? Will “Judaism as a religion” replace “Judaism as a civilization”? And what will the phrase “the Jewish people” come to signify in the decades ahead? The articles in this issue attempt to bring some coherence to the conversation.

Future Issues

Our next issue (Spring 2002) will focus on “Texts in Context” and will be devoted to examinations of the ways in which contemporary Judaism uses, reads and understands traditional texts. Fall 2002 will feature “In Dialogue With World Religions.” — Richard Hirsh

6 • Fall 2001 The Reconstructionist Signposts of American Jewish Identity

BY LAWRENCE RUBIN

n Friday, September 14, as quietly with their neighbors outside the sun was setting on New apartment buildings. Fire stations O York’s Upper West Side, a were transformed into shrines as long line of mostly young people flowers, candles and messages of sup- stretched around the block from West port and condolence were delivered 89th Street along Broadway. A pass- to express both gratitude and immea- erby was told that the people gath- surable grief at the loss of hundreds ered there were awaiting a third of what everyone called “New York’s Shabbat service that had been added Bravest.” Public monuments and city to the schedule at B’nai Jeshurun, a buildings became basilicas and cathe- landmark synagogue known for its drals of light reflecting the hundreds commitment to social action and also of devotional candles and prayerful as a place where young, mostly single notes left at them. Jewish New Yorkers could meet other young, mostly single Jewish New Seeking Connections Yorkers. In the wake of the terrorist attack Intense moments yield instinctive earlier that week resulting in the loss responses. And many Jews, in this of thousands of lives at the World moment of national tragedy, felt the Trade Center and the Pentagon, it impulse to reconnect with their tra- seemed fitting and reassuring that so dition and to connect with other many Jews would seek solace and Jews. Even as attendance at religious companionship at Shabbat services. services has trended downward in re- Indeed, New Yorkers generally cent years, the habit of looking to the looked for consolation, if not com- synagogue in moments of spiritual prehension, in the motifs and meta- need remains strong. phors of religion. Yet what are Jews seeking there? At dusk that day, thousands of Whether it is connection, safety, re- New Yorkers lit candles and stood assurance, memory or some combi-

Lawrence Rubin is a senior scholar at the Wilstein Institute of Jewish Policy Studies. He formerly served as executive vice chairman of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs.

The Reconstructionist Fall 2001 • 7 nation of all of these, it is most likely promise was not fully kept. that they are looking to encounter Jews studied hard but were ex- other Jews, men and women like cluded from certain top universities. themselves, members of their com- Jews worked hard but were barred munity (real or potential, temporary from certain areas of employment. or permanent). What they are not Jews made lots of money but were not likely to experience in synagogue is invited to join certain clubs or par- an encounter with the Lord.1 Emo- ticipate in certain civic activities. tional bonding, it seems, is more Therefore, Jews developed a “two- important than divine revelation. ness” about their identity: acknowl- In this desire for connection, Jews edged even if not accepted, involved are very much like other Americans. even if not intimate. They became The root of the American ideal is Americans even as they remained found in the national insistence on Jews. the uniqueness of each individual. Shared identity emerged from the Moreover, individual freedom consti- struggle in a common cause. The ear- tutes the precondition for examining lier generations of Jewish immi- our commonality, allowing us to nur- grants found their identity sustained ture a constellation of relationships by the communities in which they — with family, friends, colleagues, lived. Their neighborhood reminded neighbors, co-religionists, etc. As them that they were Jews. Frequently, Ralph Waldo Emerson and the other the shtetl from which they emi- Transcendentalists reminded us, the grated to America was recreated in sanctity of each individual frees him New York and other immigrant des- or her to explore the inner spark of tinations. divinity. Even as we define ourselves, The wooden shack, poorly heated, we describe our relationship with with occasional water and no plumb- others. ing, became the walk-up tenement with occasional water and a shared Immigrant Issues bathroom in the hall. Yiddish filled the streets and adorned shop win- Yet spiritual comfort and reflection dows. The family circle, comprised are not always an option. For the first of relatives and near-relatives from generation of immigrant Jews, find- the same town, provided material as ing transcendent meaning in one’s life well as moral support. Money was was decidedly less important than pooled to meet the necessities of life finding a job and making a living. as well as to start new businesses. While America promised everyone Abandoned children were taken in, who came to these shores a unique clothed, sent to school and placed in opportunity for full and unfettered appropriate jobs through an informal citizenship, the reality was often dif- network. The landsmanshaftn, too, ferent and chastening. The nation’s bought a burial site so that families

8 • Fall 2001 The Reconstructionist and towns could stay together even struggle beginning after World War in (or especially after) death. II, to the anti-Vietnam war movement, the fight for women’s rights, Support Systems and other important causes, Jews were the spokespeople, the activists, The importance of these support the funders. They voted in over- systems cannot be overestimated. whelming numbers for Democrats The communal systems in places like and played a major role in the New Brownsville or Williamsburg in Deal. They also were prominent on Brooklyn, the Lower East Side in Richard Nixon’s enemies list in the Manhattan, Philadelphia’s Strawberry post-Watergate break-in period. The Mansion and Chicago’s South Side American Jewish Committee’s former sustained the Jewish narrative. Liv- director of research, Milton Him- ing together in heavily populated melfarb, did not overstate when he neighborhoods allowed the story of described political activity as the the Jewish past to be told, and assured “messianism” of American Jews. that the qualities and virtues required Jews as a community moved force- for success would be transmitted. fully into the mainstream of Ameri- In Habits of the Heart, one of the can life. For the majority of Jews who landmark studies of American life, arrived on these shores between Robert Bellah observes that those 1880 and 1920, evidence of accul- who grow up in these sorts of com- turation for them and their families munities “not only hear the stories was positive; despite persistent that tell how the community came to hurdles, barriers to Jewish educa- be, what its hopes and fears are, and tional, professional and social ad- how its ideals are exemplified in out- vancement eroded steadily. Jews in- standing men and women; they also creasingly came to be seen at the top participate in the practices — ritual, of the learned professions and other aesthetic, ethical — that define the prestige stations in society. Jewish community as a way of life.”2 philanthropy and social service agencies became the envy of all oth- Jews in the Mainstream ers. Following the reestablishment of For many first-generation Jewish a Jewish state in 1948, Jewish self- leaders, the ideals to be exemplified esteem was enhanced through sup- and emulated were found in politics, port for Israel. The slogan “We Are not in the pulpit. Jews were dispro- One” described not merely the obli- portionately involved in the many gation to give but the desire to em- great social and political movements brace Israel as the modern-day em- of the 20th century. From the orga- bodiment of what it means to be Jew- nizing efforts of unions in the early ish. In sum, Jews by and large lived decades, through the civil rights together, socialized together, thought

The Reconstructionist Fall 2001 • 9 alike, voted the same way and (so it shunned by the rest of the commu- seemed) married one another. nity.

Integration and Assimilation Israel as Identifier

Given the extent and success of As implied above, for many, pas- Jewish involvement in the nation’s sion for Israel had come to replace public life, it is not surprising that love of Judaism as a sustaining char- Jews came to define themselves in acteristic of Jewish identity. It was activist terms. A landmark survey of easier and more satisfying to read American Jews conducted by the Los about Israel in the newspaper than to Angeles Times in 1988 discovered that read about ancient Israelites in the nearly half of all respondents cited “a Torah. However, the ardor and em- commitment to social justice” as the brace of Israel that accompanied its most important characteristic of their founding and flourished in the wake Jewishness. By contrast, only 17 per- of the terrifying Six-Day War of 1967 cent identified support for Israel as waned. the quality most important to their The first indication of American sense of Jewishness, and a similar Jewish restiveness was the election in small percentage said that religious Israel of a right-wing government in observance was the most important 1977. Shadowing almost symbi- characteristic. otically the Likud’s commitment to But even as Jews were describing a “Greater Israel,” there emerged a themselves as guardians of a just vigorous if minority politics whose (American) society, a deeper irony vision of Jewish entitlement in the was inescapable. The very openness Holy Land seemed fundamentalist, of America jeopardized the sense of and therefore alien to most Ameri- community that had launched Jew- can Jews. Finally, disenchantment ish acculturation and assimilation in with the slow progress toward peace, the first place. Indeed, for many and despair at the Palestinian resort years, thoughtful observers cited wor- to violence following setbacks to the rying data about the fissures that were Oslo peace process, contributed to a developing in the structure of the malaise in American Jewry concern- community. The mameloshn was left ing Israel. behind when Jews moved from their neighborhoods of first residence; so, Israel and Alienation too, were many of the elderly who had not succeeded materially. Syna- In roughly the same time frame, a gogue attendance dwindled. Housing major conflict erupted between Israel patterns became attenuated and, in- and diaspora Jewry, further attenu- creasingly, Jews married non-Jews ating the bonds that nourished the and either drifted away from or were communal identity and commit-

10 • Fall 2001 The Reconstructionist ments of American Jews. Largely for before 1965 had Jewish spouses, “[i]n political reasons, the government of recent years [i.e., since 1985] just Israel tried to amend the Law of Re- over half of Born Jews who married, turn so that the state would only rec- at any age, whether for the first time ognize conversions done according or not, chose a spouse who was born to strict Jewish law. The effect was a Gentile and has remained so. . . .”4 twofold: First, it invalidated conver- The response to these findings was sions by, and implicitly negated the flammable. authenticity of, Reform and Conser- The lamentation was exceeded vative rabbis. Second, it cast doubt only by the finger-pointing. Among on the Jewishness of the spouses, chil- the culprits accused of eroding Jew- dren and grandchildren of many ish life were the Reform, Conserva- American Jewish communal leaders. tive and Reconstructionist branches For men and women with decades of Judaism, which had strayed from of dedicated service to the Jewish accepted standards of Jewish practice community and Israel, who had con- and tradition. Conversely, Orthodox tributed generously to the building Judaism did not escape unscathed, of the Jewish state, it was infuriating criticized for exclusionism, rigidity to face the reality that Israel would and intolerance. refuse to accept their relatives as Jews The community relations field was because their conversions had not lambasted for preventing Jewish day been undertaken according to a sin- schools from receiving public dollars gular standard of what comprised and for implicitly encouraging inter- halakhic conversion. For American marriage by asserting that all people Jews, many of whom saw them- are equal. Federations were accused selves Jewishly only when they held of being boring and too indebted to a mirror up to Israel, this rejection wealthy donors, thereby driving away of their Jewish family, even if unin- younger and less-affluent Jews. And tended, was devastating as well as dis- America itself was blamed for its very tancing.3 openness, which, it was charged, provided opportunities for social integra- Changing Identity Patterns tion and upward mobility far more attractive than anything that the Jew- Soon after, Israel’s apparent dispar- ish community could offer. agement of the vitality and authen- Beyond the high-charged accusa- ticity of American Jewry seemed to tions, the NJPS findings unleashed a receive painful validation from the firestorm of reports, studies and rec- unlikeliest source, the Council of ommendations geared to assisting the Jewish Federations itself. The CJF’s community in stemming the inter- 1990 National Jewish Population marriage tide. Traditional as well as Survey discovered that, while 90 per- progressive rabbinic bodies passed cent of all Jews who were married resolutions restricting — or regard-

The Reconstructionist Fall 2001 • 11 ing — rabbis officiating at intermar- tradiction between their own Jew- riages; efforts were devised to increase ishness and the religion of their dramatically day school attendance; spouses or partners. Intermarriage as money was raised to encourage col- an insurmountable problem rarely lege students to visit Israel; campus appeared on any radar screen. Fur- Hillels received major infusions of thermore, younger Jews, who expe- dollars. “Continuity” became the rienced the miracle of Israel’s creation watchword in the organized Jewish as history and not memory, were community. shown to lack the same depth of feeling for the Jewish state as their par- Symptoms and Causes ents and grandparents.

Ironically, the vigorous response of Communal and the federations and other mainstream Individual Needs Jewish organizations to the steps proposed by Israel’s government served A major fault line seemed to have to create strains between the two opened up between the requirements major Jewish centers. At the same of Jewish institutions and the needs time, many adjudged the reaction to of individual Jews. Even as the com- the other pressing issues (intermar- munity struggled to find new and riage, lack of affiliation, etc.) as creative ways to engage Jews in com- anemic, sclerotic, elitist or simply munal life, it became increasingly wrongheaded. Rather than lament apparent that many Jews remain am- reality, some argued, the community bivalent with regard to organizational should seek ways to be more inclu- structures and time-tested systems.5 sive, to make participation in Jewish This does not mean, however, that life meaningful, to find many avenues they do not care. Jews continue to be for participation. The critics tended proud of their Jewishness and seek to see intermarriage as a symptom of opportunities to express those posi- larger issues at play in Jewish life, not tive feelings. as the cause of shrinkage in the com- A study by Amos: The National munity. Jewish Partnership for Social Justice For other, less engaged Jews, these (a new organization whose purpose issues didn't matter at all. They were is to provide training for Jewish experiencing the legacy of the ’80s groups in the social justice area) “me” generation, enjoying a lifestyle found that 94 percent of Jews inter- that extolled self-discovery, self-ex- viewed in a national sample agree that pression and self-improvement. For “social justice work by Jewish orga- many, voluntarism and charitable nizations makes me proud to be a activity was important; it made them Jew.”6 At the same time, federations feel good. In relationships, younger continue to see the social justice prin- men and women simply saw no con- ciple of tikkun olam, “the repair of

12 • Fall 2001 The Reconstructionist the world,” as part of their mission. serve institutional priorities, they are Despite the general high regard in looking for institutions that support which Jews hold the principle of so- their values. cial justice, an understanding of the On the other hand, Jewish federa- term is by no means universal. A tions and other mainstream institu- number of Jewish leaders (often, but tions are likely to feel mandated to not exclusively, Republican) as well focus on improving Jewish “society” as large-city federations have recently in the first instance. Tikkun olam may questioned the breadth of the orga- certainly fill a role in the organized nized Jewish community’s social jus- community’s values mix, but sup- tice activism. In 1999, the federation port for it is likely to be pursued of New York City urged the Jewish internally, by seeking participation Council for Public Affairs, the com- in community-based programs. munity relations umbrella for 122 Rightly or wrongly, this is often per- local and 13 national member agen- ceived as the institution asking that cies, “to narrow its focus to issues of its insular priorities be supported. For direct concern to the Jewish commu- many, the range of opportunities nity. . . .”7 provided by the organized community is often considered limited Turning Inward and inadequate. It ignores real issues (e.g, the environment, women’s is- The blurring of the definition of sues, gay and lesbian rights, inter- social justice creates a tension be- group relations) and fails to assure tween social activism and institu- requisite personal satisfaction. tional priorities. Steven M. Cohen Part of the reason for the limiting and Arnold M. Eisen found that Jews of agendas within mainstream Jew- “generally acknowledged a concep- ish organizations is the breakdown tual link between being Jewish and of the communal consensus. Even the special responsibility to improve as people are looking for creative out- society.”8 Yet individuals tend to ex- lets to pursue their search for mean- press that linkage differently than ing and to satisfy their spiritual organizations. Individuals find value longing, it is increasingly obvious in social justice not only as a means that the terrain of Jewish life has of improving their community (or become decidedly dialectical. What communities) but also as a compo- the communal model of earlier gen- nent of personal satisfaction (i.e., erations may have lacked in terms “meaning” or “spirituality”) in their of opportunities for spiritual own lives. To them, a desire for mean- growth, it made up for in terms of ingful Jewish involvement requires commonality. Generally speaking, outlets that meet their needs, chal- the agenda was clear, priorities were lenge their abilities and comport with agreed to and approaches were evi- their values. They are not looking to dent.

The Reconstructionist Fall 2001 • 13 Consensus Weakens New Realities

In today’s highly individuated Of course, none of these argu- reality, the community is perhaps ments is new; only the context and more easily defined by differences the timing has changed. However, than by agreements. For example, as when we are seeking to define the suggested above, the Israeli effort nature of Jewish identity today it is to modify the Law of Return un- crucial that we recognize a couple of leashed sharp divisions in this realities. country between the Orthodox First, as noted above, the quest for and non-Orthodox streams of Juda- Jewish identity and authenticity has ism.9 become an individual journey, rooted Secondly, there is evidence that in a desire for some kind of spiritual some traditionally held public policy connection to Judaism and Jewish principles in the area of church-state community. There are as many paths separation are under attack in certain on the journey as there are Jews en- quarters. The effort to support Jew- gaged in spiritual sojourning. It is ish day schools, for instance, has clear that no single approach will suf- emboldened some to question the fice. organized community’s traditional Second, Jewish identity will be opposition to private school vouch- found and nourished in many places ers. and in many ways: through obser- At the same time, President Bush’s vance, culture, social action, study, interest in providing funding to family, voluntarism, Israel experience “faith-based” organizations (read: — to name only a few. The variety churches, synagogues and mosques) of journeys, stories and needs has im- to expand the delivery of direct ser- plications for the kinds of institu- vices stimulates interest among some tions, programs and services that are federations that are looking for new required to accommodate the rich di- channels of support for financially versity of Jewish life. strapped service agencies. Finally, Perhaps we need to think small, there are those who argue that the not big. One interesting development community’s priorities today are so has been the burgeoning of smaller pressing that we cannot afford the and fiscally leaner “boutique” Jewish luxury of expending significant en- organizations that are able to provide ergy or resources outwardly. Unques- greater participant satisfaction pre- tionably, it is said, Jews must con- cisely because they are unencumbered tinue to be integrated in the broader by the competing forces inherent in community, yet we have an obliga- today’s megastructures. Some, like tion to meet our own internal needs Barry Shrage, president of the Bos- first. ton federation, argue that smaller structures, rooted in a commitment

14 • Fall 2001 The Reconstructionist to entrepreneurship and partnering, Integration into America does not are better able to encourage creativ- necessarily lead to the loss of Jewish ity and innovation.10 distinctiveness. In America, we are no Third, and perhaps most impor- different than anyone else under law, tant, is to acknowledge the unique yet we are also free to unfettered as- nature of American Jewish life. sertion, practice and celebration of Whether we call ourselves (as I our faith. Shortcomings in American prefer) American Jews or Jewish Jewish life result not from the open- Americans, the terms are inexorably ness of American society but from linked. When we speak of Jewish failures within our community. And identity in America, it is understood America is unique among the nations that we are discussing American Jew- of the world in providing the politi- ish identity. cal freedom that allows us to address these challenges. Jewish Identity in America The nature of the American-Jew- ish experience renders the Liebman There are those who look at argument unrecognizable to most American and Jewish identities and American Jews. For an overwhelm- see dissonance, not harmony. For ex- ing majority, Jewish identity is wed ample, the American-born Israeli po- to American destiny. Our Jewish litical scientist Charles Liebman as- roots are nourished in American soil. serts, “The American Jew is torn [un- The tradition, history and values of consciously] between two sets of val- our faith are expressed in the lan- ues — those of integration and ac- guage of our nation. Even as the com- ceptance into American society and munity comes to grips with the those of Jewish group survival. These struggle to find meaningful Jewish values appear to me to be incompat- identity, we must recognize that we ible.”11 are articulating our American selves Liebman’s argument is self-defeat- as well. ing. It is a prescription for Jewish di- saster to wring one's hands and view ______Jewish and American values in opposition. Even on the most pragmatic 1. In their important 1998 study, The Jew level, it must be understood that Within (The Wilstein Institute of Jew- without the political values of Ameri- ish Policy Studies, 29), Steven M. Cohen can society it would be impossible to and Arnold M. Eisen observe that the moderately affiliated Jews they inter- sustain a secure Jewish community. viewed “go to synagogue . . . in order to No amount of day school education, experience community, connect with in-marriage, synagogue attendance or Jewish tradition and enjoy moments of Jewish literacy will assure Jewish personal reflection, but do not expect or survival where democracy is threat- experience any special connection to ened. God there.”

The Reconstructionist Fall 2001 • 15 2. Robert N. Bellah, et al. Habits of the them, demonstrated enduring ambiva- Heart (Berkeley: University of Califor- lence towards the organizations, institu- nia Press, 1985), 154. tions, commitments and norms which 3. This sense of rejection by Israel, the constitute Jewish life. . .” [6]. acknowledged “center” of world Jewry, 6. Julie Wiener, Jewish Telegraphic was only magnified in the early ’90s Agency, May 2001. when Yossi Beilin, the outspoken leader 7. Idem. of the Labor Party, asserted that Israel 8. The Jew Within, op.cit., 33. no longer needed philanthropic dona- 9. A thorough discussion of these issues tions from the diaspora. Whatever his can be found in Samuel G. Freedman's intentions, Beilin’s comments were read Jew vs. Jew: The Struggle for the Soul of among American Jewish leaders as cast- American Jewry (New York: Simon and ing aside the single most important Schuster, 2000). act — charitable donations — by which 10. Creating a New Vision for the Ameri- American Jews signaled their “oneness” can Jewish Community: The Challenge of with the Jewish state — and, through it, Developing Leaders and Storytellers for the Jewish people and its destiny. Our Future, Combined Jewish Philan- 4. Highlights of the CJF 1990 National thropies website. Jewish Population Survey (Council of 11. Cited in David Arnow, "Toward a Jewish Federations, 1991), 14. Psychology of Jewish Identity," Journal 5. Cohen and Eisen report in The Jew of Jewish Communal Service, (Fall 1994), Within that “almost all our subjects, in- 33. cluding the most committed among

16 • Fall 2001 The Reconstructionist Jewish Identity in the Ancient World

BY ROBERT GOLDENBERG

ne of the peculiar features of of the Bible. It appears that the earli- Jewish identity is that it est Israelites were culturally rather O blends ethnic and religious like their neighbors: They ate simi- elements. Identity as a Jew is widely lar foods, they wore similar garments, viewed (in the modern world, at they earned their living in similar least) as compatible with having no ways. They even had similar religious religion at all, but people who claim beliefs. The idea that every people to be Jews while practicing some has a national god who protects it other religion than Judaism often and in return expects its loyalty was arouse resistance or rejection. Simi- widespread in the ancient Near East. larly, people who claim to be prac- This idea, of course, lies behind the ticing Judaism but deny belonging to central biblical notion of covenant. the Jewish people are often perceived As the so-called biblical period as not quite understanding how Jew- drew to a close, however, the Israel- ishness works. Jewish ethnic identity ites began to differ from other groups and Jewish religious identity are not in important ways. The idea of cov- completely identical, but they’re not enant began to demand not merely fully separate either. loyalty toward the national god but This is not true of other groups. exclusive loyalty. It was no longer Thinking only of Europe, we all enough to worship the God of Israel know that Irish people can be either along with others: The ancestral God Catholic or Protestant, and we all began to demand that those who know that Catholics can be Irish or worship Him must worship Him Italian or German. But when Jews try alone. Members of the covenant to mix and match in this way, things (whom we can now call “Judaeans,” go wrong: How did this happen? or Jews, after their ancestral territory) began refusing to add any other di- Similar and Different vine being to their religious lives. Their god became the sole God in The answer starts back in the days heaven and on earth.

Robert Goldenberg is professor of Jewish studies at the State University of New York at Stonybrook.

The Reconstructionist Fall 2001 • 17 This change did not take place logical reflection but a reflection of a overnight. It was strenuously opposed certain nation’s way of life. In Recon- by those who thought it foolish to structionist language, Judaism, risk the anger of all the other gods in monotheism and all, was the religious order to gratify the jealousy of one: dimension of a full-blown civiliza- Had not those other gods already tion. showed their displeasure and their But that raised a question. Grant- power by evicting the jealous God of ed that Jews were obliged by their Israel from His only sanctuary and own national covenant to avoid the sending His people into exile? Nev- worship of foreign divinities, what ertheless, under the prophets’ relent- about the foreign nations themselves? less urging, the notion of monothe- Was it all right for others to main- ism began to spread among the tain their own respective religious tra- people. The Judaeans became known ditions, just as Israel so insistently as a people who would worship no clung to the teachings of Moses? Jews other god than their own. naturally turned to their Scriptures, where the teachings of Moses could Diaspora and Identity be found, to learn the answer to this question, but they discovered that no The other important change that single lesson emerged from the sacred affected Jewish identity was the pages. steady expansion of the Jewish diaspora: A growing number of people Israel and the Nations lived outside of Judaea who continued to identify with Judaean nation- The Bible is not a book but an an- hood and maintained the wish to live thology, and its component elements according to Judaean ancestral law. were written over a period spanning Immigrant communities could be a thousand years. They reflect a vari- found in many great cities of the ety of political regimes, some inde- Greco-Roman world, and many of pendent and some under foreign rule. them tried to preserve the ways of They were written in widely sepa- their ancestors. In the case of the rated countries and in more than one Jews, however, this wish involved a language. It would be astonishing if refusal to worship the other gods of such a diverse literature would have the cities and kingdoms where Jews the same thing to say about every came to settle: This religious pecu- imaginable question, and indeed that liarity became one of the most famil- is not the case. On one question, iar characteristics of Jewish life every- however — whether Jews may wor- where. ship deities other than the God of This “peculiarity” was seen (by Abraham, Isaac and Jacob — the Jews and others alike) as part of Ju- Bible speaks with fierce uniformity. daean culture, not the fruit of theo- On everything else the reader of

18 • Fall 2001 The Reconstructionist Scripture must choose among mul- destiny to bring all nations to the tiple possibilities. Here are some not- worship of the one true God. And entirely-random quotations: they were on their own in deciding how to proceed: The Bible itself Do you not hold what Chemosh could not help them, because it con- your god has given you? So too tained all these verses with no guid- we hold what the Lord our God ance as to sorting them out. has given us. (Judges 11: 24) A Range of Responses The gods of the peoples are idols, but the Lord made the These circumstances produced a heavens. (1 Chronicles 16:26) wide variety of Jewish responses to neighboring peoples and neighboring I will make the peoples pure of ways of life. Some Jews wanted noth- speech, so that they all invoke ing more than to be left alone, and the Lord by name and serve him were entirely willing to leave others with one accord. (Zephaniah alone in exchange: The rabbis of the 3:9) Talmud fell pretty much into that category. Other Jews (most famously I am the first and I am the last, the noted Alexandrian author Philo) and there is no God but me. immersed themselves fully in the cul- (Isaiah 44:6) ture of the Greco-Roman world. Some Jews were filled with con- Each of the nations walks in the tempt for a way of life they consid- name of its own god, and we ered degraded beyond measure, while shall walk in the name of the others seemed to accept the idea that Lord our God forever. (Micah a gentile could be as righteous as any- 4:5) one else. It wasn't always easy to predict what individuals would think. Jews reading Scripture could be Philo had received the best Greek guided by any of these verses, or by education available and lived in a any combination of them. They great Hellenistic city: He had great could read Judges and decide that respect for Greek philosophy but only every nation had its own protective disdain for the religious traditions of deity, or they could read Chronicles his neighbors. In his opinion, the and decide that other nations great advantage of Judaism was that thought they had their own gods but it gave ordinary people the same level were deluded. They could read Micah of divine insight through the “teach- and decide that every nation was ings of Moses” that only a handful of called to remain loyal to its own heri- intellectual giants had achieved tage, or they could read Zephaniah among the Greeks. The rest of the and decide it was their own Jewish Greeks were little better than barbar-

The Reconstructionist Fall 2001 • 19 ians, and the Egyptians among whom (Avodah Zarah, chapter 2) goes to the he lived were barbarians. heart of this problem. These rules Attitudes toward gentile religions forbid a Jew to visit a non-Jewish and gentile ways of life were matched barber unless a third party is present, by attitudes toward non-Jews as peo- apparently on the assumption that ple. Surviving evidence suggests that any non-Jew, given the opportunity, many Jews moved very comfortably would readily slit a Jew’s (maybe any- among their neighbors while others one’s) throat. They forbid a Jew, male apparently shunned them. Many Jews or female, to be alone with a non- engaged in commercial dealings with Jew, or even to place livestock in gen- others: They bought and sold, they tile care overnight, apparently on the borrowed and lent, they entered into assumption that the sexual drive of partnerships and other sorts of joint non-Jews cannot be trusted. venture. Such Jews, of course, ac- What was the basis of these lurid cepted that non-Jews were basically fears? Moviegoers are familiar enough honest people with whom one could with Greek and Roman debauchery, do business. (There were always law but can you learn history from the courts for dealing with the excep- movies? Did most ordinary people tions, though in many places judges really indulge their worst inclinations were no more likely to be honest than so freely as to justify such legislation, anyone else.) In general, Jews man- and how do these rules fit with the aged to preserve ordinary relations other rabbinic laws that take com- with their neighbors, and that is pre- mercial dealings between Jews and cisely what one would expect: Most others as an ordinary, everyday real- people, most of the time, get along ity? And who observed these rules in with the people among whom they the first place? Just as the fears may live. have been imaginary, so too it may be no more than an illusion to think Multiple Perspectives that anyone ever really lived this way. on Gentiles Balancing Experiences On the other hand, rabbinic texts imply that Jewish men found non- It seems the ancient rabbis were Jewish women a constant temptation, torn between a desire to keep away so that rabbis struggled to limit op- from others as much as possible out portunities for social contact between of fear and mistrust, and an oppos- Jews and others: The evidence does ing realization that most people were not clearly indicate whether such really quite decent — so that one temptation was a real factor in the could do business with them to mu- everyday life of ordinary Jews or more tual benefit most of the time. In cer- of a rabbinic fantasy to start with. tain ways, this was a conflict between A series of rules in the Mishnah the everyday experience that things

20 • Fall 2001 The Reconstructionist were all right and the equally com- and political and social systems, over pelling awareness that things could a period of almost five hundred years. go catastrophically bad without We modern Jews who try to learn warning. Both, after all, were true. from the sages who rescued and re- It was also a conflict born of the shaped their (our) ancient heritage, knowledge that some people are ex- find ourselves in exactly the same tremely dangerous while most people situation those ancient worthies en- are not, and that strangers cannot al- countered when they sought to de- ways tell who is which: Rabbis were rive lessons from Scripture. Like perhaps more inclined to have faith them, we find too many lessons in in their fellow Jews because they our past and are forced to choose could more easily read the signals and among them on our own. We, no less know which individual Jews could than the sages, are influenced by di- not be trusted. Different situations verse environments, by changes in and different questions drew differ- the local situation, by our own dif- ent responses, and everything got references of temperament and charac- corded in the sacred texts we have ter. Recognizing the difficulty of the today. challenge can only increase our ad- The teachers whom we often lump miration for the magnitude of their together as “the rabbis” lived in two accomplishment. It also gives hope different countries, under two differ- that we, too, will ultimately find our ent empires, with two different legal way.

The Reconstructionist Fall 2001 • 21 The Multiple Identities of Rabbis and Other Jews

BY LEONARD GORDON

abbis are particularly con- days and times during the holidays, scious of roles and role play- and still function as one community, R ing, of the ways in which we even as one congregational family. aren’t who we are. The very lives of Today, the Reconstructionist Rab- rabbis are built around such opposi- binical Association includes rabbis tions as that between our private and who serve in nondenominational, public selves. And the contraries mul- trans-denominational, renewal, Con- tiply from there: As public figures, servative, Reform and Reconstruc- rabbis imagine themselves to be either tionist-affiliated settings. Yet all the leaders or facilitators, role models or members are connected by virtue of fellow seekers. Congregational dis- a common commitment to the Re- cussions focus on inreach vs. out- constructionist vision and by a de- reach, the role of Jews and non-Jews sire to support the dissemination of in congregational life, the sanctifica- that vision throughout the world Jew- tion of gay and straight marriages. In ish community. Israel, our communities try to locate I might conclude that boundaries themselves in the divide between re- are not what they used to be, but evi- ligious and secular identities. dently boundaries never were what they used to be. From biblical times Maintaining Identity to the present, it seems that all of our Amidst Diversity neatly bounded identities are (and have been) continually in play, cre- Recently, the Conservative congre- ating for rabbis and for our commu- gation that I serve agreed that a con- nities no small amount of discomfort stituent minyan of the congregation and tension. could be affiliated with the Recon- structionist movement. The commu- Unstable Nature of Identity nity has learned to accept that we can pray out of different prayer books, In fact, the Jewish people in par- observe Yizkor at not fewer than four ticular have exemplified in our bod- different services held at different ies and identities the ever-shifting

Leonard Gordon is the rabbi of the Germantown Jewish Centre in Philadelphia.

22 • Fall 2001 The Reconstructionist and unstable nature of identity. To sented God’s protective presence on outsiders, Jew have stood at the earth. For the Jewish followers of Jesus, blurred boundary between racial and it represented a symbol of the corrup- gender divides. We have failed to fit tion of religious life into a series of into neat characterizations of group business transactions and mechanical identity as being either racial or eth- rituals. For the Qumran sectarians, the nic, national or religious. Among Temple was the site of their alienation. ourselves, we have promoted mar- For Philo, writing in Alexandria, the riage within the tribe, and then we Temple in Jerusalem was simply the have valorized the Moabite Ruth as visible model for the cosmic Temple the archetypal convert. We care that was God’s true home. For zealots, deeply about yichus (ancestry) and the Temple represented the nation’s po- then we assign the founding position litical independence. in the history of rabbinic Judaism to Jews coexisted, or divided, around two Jews by choice, Shemaiah and a central symbol, permitting them- Abtalion. Over thousands of years, selves for perhaps a century or more we set up our rules, and then we un- to live without shared dogma or dercut them in our narratives, pre- ritual, without shared institutions, serving both traditions side by side and even without a single shared cal- without noting the contradiction. endar. The apparent end of this era Think about some of the most pro- came with the destruction of the nounced identity questions of our Temple in 70 CE, and with the end own moment: Who is a Jew? What of the Jewish polity in Judea some 65 is sacred territory, and who has au- years later, when Rome crushed the thority over it? What are the defin- Bar Kokhba rebellion and the center ing standards of Jewish observance? of gravity moved from Jerusalem to With whom can we do what? What the Galilee. does “Jewish” mean, anyway? Forming a Coalition Common Focus, Multiple Viewpoints In the aftermath of these catastro- phes, the task the early rabbis gave If we are interested in identity cri- themselves can be summarized in ses, we should cast our eyes in the simple terms: How can we preserve direction of late second Temple the broadest possible coalition of Jew- times, when Jews functioned in a ish identities in the emerging com- complex set of interrelating commu- munity — without permitting our nities, without clear boundaries, differences to permanently divide us? united only by their common rela- Without the Temple as an imposing tionship to the Temple in Jerusalem. symbol of our unity, we would now To speak in appropriate generalities, have to find in Judaism itself, in the for Sadducees, the Temple repre- rituals of prayer and study, the force

The Reconstructionist Fall 2001 • 23 for supporting a unity that transcends Mishnah Ketubot 4:12 acknowl- our diverse identities. edges that the ketubah came in dif- When the Mishnah was published ferent versions, the people of Jerusa- during the early 3rd century, the lem and the people of Galilee writ- synagogue was a meeting place for ing different texts with distinctive Jews with a wide range of theologi- clauses. Regional differences need to cal beliefs. Rabbis and priests, mes- be negotiated. Judaism does not sianic Jews (including followers of speak in one voice over space, any Jesus of Nazareth) mingled with po- more than it remains unchanging litical zealots and hekhalot mystics. over time. And even within the Land In Mishnah Berakhot 8:8, we are told of Israel, difference could be ac- that we answer “Amen” after an Isra- knowledged. elite makes a blessing, but if the one In our own time, Reconstruction- saying the blessing was from a fringe ist communities take on different community, we listen carefully and characters in different areas, and even wait for the prayer to be over before within one area. Some organize saying “Amen.” (See Appendix for themselves around social action, Mishnah texts cited in this article.) other around study, yet others around I use the term “fringe community” the education of youth. Our policies purposefully here, in the meaning on the liturgical role of non-Jews or given the term by Arthur Waskow, the boundaries of ceremonies of kid- who has called on us to see in tzitzit dushin vary widely. We need not a model for creating an inclusive Ju- evaluate each other’s choices from a daism with many connections. The place that seeks a common ethical im- fringes can be included because we perative for our entire movement. can say “Amen” to the prayers of oth- Each community has its defining ers, even if their understanding of the character and we should expect and ritual differs from our own. value diversity.

Legitimating Differences Indeterminancy of Normalcy

Our communities include Jews Even casual readers of early rab- who see themselves as traditionalists binic literature are immediately alongside Jews committed to revital- struck by the inclusion of discordant izing the language of prayer through voices in the text. We read in passage spontaneous liturgical expression. after passage of statements by au- Such prayers often include names for thorities that we know will be re- God some of us find compelling and jected. Mishnah Eduyyot (1:3-6) is others find idolatrously anthropo- concerned with justifying the inclu- morphic. Mishnah Berakhot reminds sion of rejected opinions, and teaches us to listen with care and make judg- that we keep minority voices alive to ments with an eye toward inclusion. acknowledge two deep realities:

24 • Fall 2001 The Reconstructionist People should and do change their with individuals who challenge minds; and, over time and in differ- simple characterization. The Jewish ent places, Jewish communities make community the Mishnah knows in- different choices. As a result, today’s cludes a full and complex array of minority position may become the genders, netinim and Jews by choice, accepted view in the future. freed slaves and concubines, disquali- When we reject a prayer, a ritual, fied priests and scholars of no spe- a text, a political or moral argument, cial lineage. Each has his or her own we can do so from a place of mod- rules for bed and table. Each repre- esty, unsure whether or not that per- sents a different variety of an end- spective might find a new place in lessly complex Israel. some future time. In my experience, the history of mikveh is the most Performance and Role Playing compelling example of how rituals find new and unexpected life. In the In these texts and many others like 1970s it would have been hard to them, I find a model for our commu- imagine the many uses we make of nal work in this new world. We recog- mikveh rituals today, let alone the nize not only our rabbinic work as per- current proliferation of mikvaot un- formance, but our Jewish and gender der the auspices of the liberal de- identities as role-playing as well. We nominations. recognize that doing Judaism in the context of fluid boundaries is not a Boundaries and Chaos modern problem; it is central to the Jewish/human condition, and it has Finally, the Mishnah itself has been been with us in a profound sense read as a sustained essay on the prob- throughout the history of Judaism. lem of ambiguity, of how to create Our Judaism today is an improvi- boundaries in the face of a chaotic sation, as Judaism always has been. world. Much of early rabbinic law When the Temple was destroyed, a concerns the land of Syria (is it Israel great debate ensued in which Rabban or diaspora?), the eve of Sabbath (sa- Yohanan ben Zakkai wanted to sound cred time or ordinary time?), and the the shofar at Yavneh on Rosh Ha- tumtum and androgynous (are they shanah when it fell on Shabbat. The male or female?). Mishnah Bikkurim rabbinic leadership rejected his pro- 1:5 wants to know whether someone posal, holding fast to the idea that of doubtful or double sex may bring the shofar could only be sounded the First Fruits to Jerusalem and, once under such circumstances in the it is decided that they can, what words Temple courts. In a piece of unpar- they can recite during the offering. alleled theater, he asked permission Being Jewish is not, and never has to sound it this one Rosh Hashanah been, a simple question of birth or in Yavneh, and they granted him his conversion. The Mishnah abounds exemption. After the holiday, they

The Reconstructionist Fall 2001 • 25 reopened the issue, and Rabbi Yoha- mask and he will tell you the truth.” nan replied, “there is nothing left to But evidently the secrets are the debate, we already have the prece- selves; beneath each mask lies another dent.” So much for halakhic process. one. Identity — whether Jewish, The model of the early rabbis sexual, racial, ethnic, national or rab- shows us a way of being flexible and binic — is now and always has been inclusive without being boundary- a performance. The trick is how to less. We pray with others while not make it good. So on with the show. always saying “Amen,” listening to other voices while being aware that Appendix they may one day move from margin I. “Inclusion does not always mean say- to mainstream; we recognize that our ing: Amen.” Mishnah Berakhot 8:8 political and religious sensibilities aaaA. If wine is brought after the food may reflect our local communities and there is but one cup, the House of and not an absolute value; we know Shammai say: The benediction is said that those who cross boundaries may over the wine, and then over the food. teach us something important about And the House of Hillel says: The benediction is said over the food and then who we are; and every once in a over the wine. while, we put on a bit of theater to aaaB. They may answer, “Amen” after make our point. an Israelite who says a benediction, but not after a Samaritan until they have Religion and Theater heard the whole benediction. II. “Grounding decision-making in lo- Or better, perhaps, we recognize cal reality, not in absolutes.” Mishnah the extent to which it is all always Ketu-bot 4:12 aaaA. (If her husband has not written theater. Our consciousness that all for her) “You shall dwell in my house and the world’s a stage is evident when receive maintenance from my goods as we think about our costuming (Yes long as you remain a widow in my to a tie? No to a tie? Pants? Or should house,” he is still liable, since this is a it be a skirt? Short or long?); when condition enjoined by the court. aaaB. Thus used the people of Jerusalem we coach the supporting players to write; (“Children, please, please don’t lead aaaC. And the people of the Galilee used the pack running in the halls”; “Lori, to write after the same fashion as the this week, could you show up — on people of Jerusalem. time?”); when we modulate our aaaD. But the people of Judea used to tones, shift from judgmental preacher write, “ . . . until such time as the heirs are minded to give you your ketubah.” to balanced teacher to open-minded aaaE. Therefore, if the heirs were so counselor; when we doubt our sin- minded they could pay her her ketubah cerity, when we re-record for the and let her go. twelfth time the message on the of- III. “Including marginal voices: Deci- fice answering machine. sions are made to be changed.” Mishnah Oscar Wilde said, “Give a man a Eduyyot [1:3]

26 • Fall 2001 The Reconstructionist aaaA. Hillel says, “One full hin . . .” [1:5] A. And why do they record the aaaB. And Shammai says, “Nine kabs opinion of an individual against that of . . .”aaa a majority, since the established law al- aaaC. And the Sages say, “(The law) does ways follows the opinion of the major- not follow either of these opinions. ity? Rather (the law goes according to the aaaB. So that if another/a later] court following precedent): When two weav- should favor the view presented by the ers came from the Dung Gate in Jerusa- individual, it may depend on it . . . lem and testified in the name of Shemai- IV. “Boundary-crossing cases help us de- ah and Abtalion that three logs . . . the fine our commonalties.” Mishnah Bik- sages accepted their words.” kurim 1:5 [1:4] A. And why do they (the editors of aaaA. Rabbi Eliezer ben Jacob says a the Mishnah) record the opinions of woman who is the child of converts Shammai and Hillel for no practical pur- may not marry into a priestly family pose? (They record it) to teach genera- unless her mother was an Israelite (by tions that come afterward that no one birth).aa should persist in his or her own opinion, aaaB. A guardian, an agent, a bond- for “the founders of the world” (Hillel man, a woman, one of doubtful sex, or and Shammai) did not persist in their an androgynous, may bring the First own opinions (since they accepted the Fruits, but they may not make the dec- opinion of the Sages). laration, since they cannot say, “Which you, God, have given me.”

The Reconstructionist Fall 2001 • 27 You Are Who You Aren't: Closets, Cabinets and Jewish Identities

BY LORI HOPE LEFKOVITZ

he prevailing myth: Once were devised to accommodate this upon a time, and for thou- new, breathtaking reality. Tsands of years, at least we knew who we were. From our tribal Era of Identity-Passing identity through the ghettos that bound us together, being Jewish may Well and good for the 20th cen- have had its burdens, but you knew tury, perhaps, but what of the 21st, who you were. You knew, at least, when two civilizations hardly de- how to behave, what the rules were, scribe a single household, with mul- whom to marry, how to raise kids, tiples of everything from ethnicities how to be yourself. to sexualities, masculinities, femi- Democracy, mobility, melting ninities, discourses and knowledges, pots, blended families, denomina- everything from gender roles and sex tionalisms, and the blessings of free- roles to family roles and power dy- dom and opportunity carried the namics? Moreover, we live in an era sorry consequences of confusion, as- of identity-passing, when the bound- similation, and myriad other signs of aries between claims to identity and identity trouble. It was onto this actual identities are not clear. A few scene that Mordecai Kaplan entered, years ago, the Village Voice reprinted offering his brilliant articulation of a short article from Lingua Franca the struggle to live effectively in two under the headline: “Gay in the evolving civilizations, one Jewish, the Streets, Straight in the Sheets” about other American. Strategies from the the “fad” of passing as gay. Racial community center (with its shul, pool and ethnic passing are slightly older and school) to an adaptable liturgy stories. And when one passes perma-

Lori Hope Lefkovitz is the Sadie Gottesman and Arlene Gottesman Reff Kolot Professor of Gender and Judaism and academic director of Kolot: The Center for Jewish Women’s and Gender Studies at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College. Her most recent book, co-edited with Julia Epstein, is Shaping Losses: Cultural Memory and the Holocaust.

28 • Fall 2001 The Reconstructionist nently to another identity, is it still “double vision that came from racial passing? middleness,” an experience of mar- I had a philosophy professor once ginality vis-à-vis whiteness and an ex- who told us a bad joke designed to perience of white belonging vis-à-vis illustrate a point about the limits of blackness.1 identity confusion: Two white guys The Fall 1999 issue of The Bulle- and a black guy lived together. One tin of the History of Medicine includes of the white guys asked his room- an article by John L. Beusterien en- mates to wake him earlier than usual titled, “Jewish Male Menstruation in the next morning because he was Seventeenth-Century Spain.” The ar- starting a new job. As a gag, these ticle documents that male Jews were roommates darkened his face while commonly assumed to menstruate, a he slept and woke him at the last fact demonstrated by the most minute. Catching a glimpse of him- prominent physicians of the king. self in the mirror as he rushed out The feminized Jewish male beside the door, he grumbled in frustration: his stronger, more athletic brothers, “Dumb *bleep* woke up the wrong from the biblical Isaac and Jacob guy!” The point of the story, of through Woody Allen, is a recogniz- course, is that whatever your identity able boundary-crosser between the confusions, there is a sense in which sexes. there is no mistaking who you are. And most of us would go even fur- Performative Identity ther and claim that we would unfail- ingly recognize a lifelong beloved or Jewish sexual, ethnic and racial a well-loved and constantly present identities have no stable definition child. over time. Identity is, in the final Is there no mistaking who you are? analysis, performative, serious play, Did former Secretary of State admittedly for high stakes, but mas- Madeleine Albright know who she querade at its very best and worst. was, Christian grandchild of four You are who you aren’t. Moreover, we Jewish grandparents? Did Isaac know always were who we weren’t. on whom he bestowed the blessing Identity performance is central to when Jacob pretended to be Esau? the myths of the Hebrew patriarchy What is the racial identity of the Jews and matriarchy, both in biblical nar- or the sexual identity of Jewish (so- rative and in the narrative traditions called) men? Karen Brodkin, in her that elaborate on Hebrew Scriptures. book How Jews Became White Folks, Adam and Eve lie to God about the explains that only relatively recently mortals that they have become; Sa- in America were Jews assigned a white rah and Rebecca both pull themselves racial identity. Until the 1950s, Jews off as their husbands’ sisters; Jacob, belonged to, in Brodkin’s words, “an with apparent success, pretends to be off white race” and developed a Esau, and with fitting narrative ret-

The Reconstructionist Fall 2001 • 29 ribution, Leah pretends to be Rachel She seems ambitious on Jacob’s be- on her wedding night. Joseph behalf and her response would, in later comes an Egyptian courtier so trans- generations, sound stereotypical of formed that his brothers do not know the Jewish Mother whose controlling him; Moses is passed off as Pharaoh’s behavior at once promotes her sons grandson, and Esther, too, is a clos- and compromises their masculinity: eted queen. Ruth, no less than Ta- She says, in effect, “Don’t worry, I’ll mar, begins the Messianic line with a take the blame.” political bed trick. If you pull the Although Jacob identifies himself thread of identity deception in the as his brother, Isaac registers some sus- Bible, the whole text is likely to un- picion. When Jacob presents a mater- ravel. nal stew made from a domesticated The biblical episode of Jacob mas- beast as if it were the hunted game, querading as Esau is one origin story Isaac says he is surprised by how quickly of Jewish gender ambiguity and Esau has returned. Before giving Jacob performative masculinity.2 This small the best blessing, Isaac again signals episode can be read as an instance of his own suspicion by remarking that Jacob acquiring the narrative future his son feels and smells like Esau but by successfully passing as a man. In has the voice of Jacob. Genesis 27, Jacob, who will become the last of the three patriarchs, re- Identity Caricatures ceives his father Isaac’s best blessing by successfully passing himself off This is a familiar caricature of the as his older twin, Esau. It is a queer, Jewish family: a manipulative moth- campy sort of masquerade: Jacob er, a blind (read castrated) father and covers his neck and arms in animal the son whose confused identity skins so that when touched by his emerges out of this family dynamic. old, blind father, he may feel like his Like other stories of the Hebrew pa- hirsute brother. Their mother, Rebec- triarchy, we also see the victory of the ca, who has been eavesdropping on more feminine domestic son over his her husband and elder son, knows more masculine rival brethren. The that Isaac has sent Esau to hunt and son who inherits the narrative future prepare fresh game so that he may is younger, less hairy and less wild, bless Esau sated from this meal, and and has features that would in later it is Rebecca who then dresses Jacob generations — the 19th century, in in Esau’s finest clothing so that Jacob particular — be identified as femi- will carry Esau’s scent. Jacob himself nine, contributing to the anti-Semitic expresses some reluctance to go characterization of the Jews as a femi- through with this plan, afraid that his nized people. father will recognize him. But Rebec- If the brothers divide gendered ca, acting with a conviction that sug- traits between them, then Jacob’s gests divine sanction, urges Jacob on. putting on of animal skins is a kind

30 • Fall 2001 The Reconstructionist of cross-dressing. Allied with the competing brothers, can represent a maternal and in the feminized posi- split self-projection of a father anx- tion in the family romance, Jacob ious about his masculine identity. goes to his father in drag. But since And just as God apparently conspires he presumably is a man, Jacob — and with Rebecca on Jacob’s behalf, so, in so performing, he acts like his fa- too, God had told Abraham to “lis- ther Isaac before him and like his son ten to Sarah” when she wants to ban- Joseph after him — is a man in drag ish Ishmael. Because of the divine al- enacting masculinity. The patriarchy liance with the matriarchs, the hu- itself is thus built on the foundation man father is twice the loser in adul- of radically destabilized identity cat- terous and Oedipal triangles: first, to egories. God and wife, and second, to wife In “Imitation and Gender Insub- and the younger son who is Oedipal ordination,” Judith Butler writes that victor. The fantasy of independent “[d]rag constitutes the mundane way masculinity is then self-incorporated in which genders are appropriated, in this son who becomes a patriarch theatricalized, worn, and done; it as his brother/double/twin fades out implies that all gendering is a kind of the narrative future. Life has de- of impersonation and approxima- feated the boy Isaac’s effort to grow tion.”3 If we go further with Butler to independent manhood (indepen- that “compulsory heterosexual iden- dence from women must remain a tities, those ontologically consoli- wish), as this child succeeds only dated phantasms of ‘man’ and ‘wom- through what may be experienced as an,’ are theatrically produced effects the shameful, and even shaming, that posture as grounds, origins, the ruses of his mother. normative measure of the real,” then In Isaac’s childhood, his mother both Jacob’s passing as Esau and He- Sarah had insisted on banishing her brew heroines passing as harlots bondwoman and son because she sees (whose masquerades result in mascu- Ishmael “playing with Isaac.” Because line-style political and military vic- Isaac’s name in Hebrew (Yitzchak — tories) yield a legacy of gender con- literally, “he will laugh”) derives from fusions. We can never be sure: This the verb that means “laugh, play or man may be Jew or queer; this wom- mock,” if we preserve the Hebrew an may be man. By passing, Jews re- word play, Ishmael can be said to mind us of the falseness and fragility “isaac Isaac.” Among the alternative of political power. In the presence of rabbinic-midrashic interpretations of the Jew and the queer, we feel the this activity is that Ishmael’s play is anxiety of the Hegelian master. homoerotic, and Sarah is therefore justified in protecting her young son; Anxiety and Identity another reading is that in “isaacing” Isaac, Ishmael is pretending to be The sons of the patriarchs, the Isaac, dramatically enacting Isaac’s

The Reconstructionist Fall 2001 • 31 role as future patriarch. Reading ret- is in Jacob’s effort to fulfill his father’s rospectively from Jacob’s successful fantasy that the patriarchy’s feminin- identity masquerade vis-à-vis his ity takes on the political character of brother, Sarah may have good reason gender-masquerade or drag. for concern that the rehearsal she All dressed up in animal skins and catches might ultimately lead to a carrying his brother’s wild scent, performance that could threaten her Jacob’s success works like queerness son’s position as inheritor. in the sense that Moe Meyer offers when he writes that: “What ‘queer’ Do Clothes Make the Man? signals is an ontological challenge that displaces bourgeois notions of In the case of the twins of the next the Self as unique, abiding, and con- generation, the mother’s choosing tinuous while substituting instead a one over the other has historically concept of the Self as performative, commanded more explicit interpre- improvisational, discontinuous, and tation (both being equally hers). processually constituted by repetitive Philo reads these twins as complete and stylized acts.”5 opposites (except in their arms); Biblical women also masquerade, Rashi reads them as closely similar. enacting a false and heightened femi- (The distinctiveness of Jacob’s voice ninity or harlotry; “passing as a is so subtle that it is not surprising woman,” she too acquires subversive that Isaac doubts his hearing.) Some political power analogous to the pa- medieval readings of Jacob’s masquer- triarchal power that Isaac, Jacob, Jo- ade as Esau suggest that Jacob does seph (and later Moses) acquire when become Esau when he tries on the they “pass as men.” Like Jacob’s don- role. This interpretation is consistent ning of animality, exaggerated femi- with the medieval belief that clothes ninity is also drag as Tamar, Yael, De- literally make the man. A woman lilah, Judith, Esther and even Ruth who dares dress as a knight and strap all acquire political power — in some a sword around her middle might cases, deadly political power — by awaken to find herself literally trans- enacting a heightened and false femi- formed. Avivah Zornberg imagines ninity that conforms to Joan Riviere’s Jacob acquiring and assimilating the turn-of-the century description of Esau persona of wild complexity and femininity as masquerade or drag.6 sexuality into his own smooth identity as a necessary step in earning the The Political and the Sexual blessing and making himself fit for the patriarchy.4 Many biblical passing narratives Once blind and old himself, Isaac are explicitly political, and in these, has his own fantasy of authority ex- the political and sexual often over- pressed in his thwarted wish to con- lap. Joseph, also a younger favored fer the preferred blessing on Esau. It son, is a boastful dreamer who flaunts

32 • Fall 2001 The Reconstructionist the garment of favoritism. Once sold secretary has a secret, is passing, then into slavery, he declines to be seduced any secretary could be passing, could by his master’s wife, and these details be Jewish or queer. As in the film lead some medieval commentators to Europa, Europa, the Holocaust story characterize Joseph as queer: a drag is full of episodes of passing, leaving queen, a cross-dresser. He also be- open the question of how many born comes an Egyptian and rises to a po- Jews passed permanently into non- sition something like Secretary of Jewishness. Those who spoke Ger- State. When his brothers come to man could mimic the language of plead for food, he is so changed as to dominance and stood a better chance be unrecognizable to them. It is a of successful passing. threshold moment: They appear and That never coming back out of request food. Had they never ap- non-Jewishness threatens the classi- peared, Joseph could presumably fication system in ways that leave us have lived out his years without ever anxious is suggested by the strength recovering the identity of his youth. of public reaction to the revelation He could have chosen not to out that Madeleine Albright is the daugh- himself as a Hebrew. But the com- ter of born Jews who lost their own fort of the text lies in the implica- parents because of the deadly Jewish tion that he has no choice. identity. The Albright narrative re- Similarly, Queen Esther is queen writes the biblical stories of sexual of the realm when her people of ori- and power politics and passing as ex- gin come under a death sentence. She emplified by Joseph and Queen is told that she can reveal her Jewish Esther, both of whom are compelled identity to the king as part of the by the plots in which they figure to plan to save her people or someone pass back and thereby reassure us of else will have to save the Jews. Per- the clarity of identity. Finally, her forming as sex object, she chooses in story suggests that some family se- this guise to out herself as a Jew. crets (perhaps even your own) are There, too, is a threshold moment never exposed and may pass on out when Esther can (and yet clearly can- of the world. I suppose that her fami- not) choose to keep her identity clos- ly’s having not passed back and Al- eted. bright herself having not bothered to Moses raised in Pharaoh’s court is carefully read and interpret her fam- the most reluctant spokesman for the ily history as yet another identity Hebrews, but he is also compelled to story of lifesaving Jewish passing was “be himself,” that is, to “be” true to felt to be so transgressive because this some birth identity that demands secretary's secrets, like Isaac standing that he lead the people out of Egypt. before his son, invite a terrifying Joseph and Moses, who both spend question: How can one know the part of their lives passing as Egyp- identity of even one’s most intimate tians, bracket the Egypt story. If this relations?

The Reconstructionist Fall 2001 • 33 In these stories, the principle lo- sualizes power. Mimicry is also cation of self-defining difference is the sign of the inappropriate, ultimately within the self. Although however, a difference or recal- Jacob’s trickery is oft-discussed, it is citrance which . . . poses an rarely commented on that the ruse is immanent threat to both “nor- so odd as to be parodic. This returns malized” knowledges and dis- me to an earlier question: how could ciplinary powers.7 even an old, blind patriarch mistake animal hair for the human arms of Passing as Success his child? We can read this episode as a gender performance in which no Jacob mimics masculinity as other one is really fooled. There is, of Hebrews (his son Joseph, later, course, ample evidence that Isaac is Moses) will mimic political power. In not entirely fooled. He twice ques- these Jewish stories, drag and pass- tions the identity of his son and, being are overlapping strategies of mim- fore giving Jacob Esau’s blessing, Isaac ing power that leave a gap within the observes that his son feels and smells self, the very space that enables self- like Esau but has the voice of Jacob. deception. Passing is about thresh- Our attention is directed to the sen- olds, and thresholds are places sual basis of all efforts to know some- marked by anxiety. In the Exodus one else. If the favorite son can be narrative, the threshold is marked by smelled, touched and listened to and blood so that the angel of death will still be misrecognized, indeed, how know the unknowable, that here is a can we know even our most intimate Jew and he should therefore escape relations? death. In Judges 19, the dead body This moment, like the Albright of a rape victim lies draped over the family story, raises the fundamental threshold. Passing is the opposite of epistemological question: What does failing; a rite of passage is a success, it mean to know? Alternatively, how the crossing of a boundary. “To pass” does the self split for purposes of self- is to get away with pretending to be deception? Jacob’s pretending to be who you are not. Esau conforms as well to aspects of But we are who we are not. Was Homi K. Bhabha’s description of co- Esther not herself when she was se- lonial “mimicry” of dominant cul- ducing the king? Were Moses and ture. Mimicry is “almost but not Joseph not themselves as court Jews? quite” (the scent and feel, perhaps, Harry Brod makes this important but not the voice); mimicry is a point in his analysis of Superman as “double articulation”: a Jewish story.8 Invented by two Jew- ish boys during the Depression, Su- a complex strategy of reform, perman and Clark Kent (Esau and regulation, and discipline which Jacob?) are one man. Actually, Super- “appropriates” the Other as it vi- man, the resident alien, is the real

34 • Fall 2001 The Reconstructionist person; Clark Kent the disguise. Lois Lane loves Superman. Clark Kent loves Lois Lane. But there is a gap in 1. Brodkin, Karen, How Jews Became White Folks and What That Says About the narrative logic: If Superman is Race in America (New Brunswick: Rut- Clark Kent, then Lois Lane and Clark gers University Press, 1998), 2. Kent love each other. But they don’t. 2. A selection of what follows is included And why does Superman (presum- in “Passing as a Man: Narratives of Jew- ably, the real self) require Lois to love ish Gender Performance,” in Narrative the Clark Kent (the Jacob or the Jew- (January 2002) and is reproduced here with permission of the Ohio State Uni- ish) persona? versity Press. To pull the thematic thread of de- 3. Butler in The Lesbian and Gay Studies ception and lifesaving lies from bib- Reader edited by Abelove, Henry, Michele lical narrative through contemporary Aina Barale and David M. Halperin (New stereotypes of Jews in popular culture York: Routledge, 1993), 313. 4. Zornberg, Avivah Gottlieb, Genesis: is to discover stories of sexual and The Beginning of Desire (Philadelphia: political passing or masquerade run- The Jewish Publication Society, 1995), ning continuously throughout the 171-79. fabric of the myth of Jewishness in 5. Meyer, Moe, ed. The Politics and Po- both the textual tradition and the etics of Camp (New York: Routledge, representation of Jewish history. 1994), 2-3. 6. Riviere, Joan, “Womanliness as a Mas- Bringing contemporary theories of querade,” International Journal of Psycho- drag and camp to the subject of Jew- analysis, 10, 1929): 303-13. ish ethnicity suggests that Jewishness 7. Bhabha, Homi K, The Location of is always already sexualized and with- Culture (New York: Routledge, 1994) 86. out positive content, a projective 8. Brod, Harry, “Of Mice and Supermen: Images of Jewish Masculinity,” in T. M. anxiety of heterosexual gentility Rudavsky, ed., Gender and Judaism: The about psychic reality and the positive Transformation of Tradition (New York: content of subjectivity. We may be New York University Press, 1995), 279- reassured: We always were who we 293. were not.

The Reconstructionist Fall 2001 • 35 Identity, Status and Rabbinic Leadership in Contemporary Judaism

BY SETH GOLDSTEIN

or any group to survive, To be a member of the Jewish com- boundaries are needed. These munity requires the desire to be a part F boundaries need to be firm of that community. enough for the group to maintain identity, yet porous enough to allow Who and What Is a Jew? flow in and out. If the boundaries are too rigid, the group cannot grow. As communal leaders invested with If the boundaries are too loose, the the inheritance and transmission of group will lack cohesion. The Jewish the Jewish tradition, rabbis are often people is a group that requires boun- the ones who maintain the group daries, and the boundary mainte- boundaries, answering the “what” nance of the Jewish community is and “who” questions. In dealing with centered around the questions of these issues, the rabbi may play a key “What is a Jew?” and “Who is a Jew?” role on two different levels, the dis- At the same time, in order for the tinction between which is of key im- group to survive, it needs people who portance. Very often, the term “Jew- identify positively with that group, ish identity” can be and is used in two who want to be counted as members. different senses: as self-identifying They need to have a strong identity as Jewish but also as others identifying as group members or else they will people as Jews. It is necessary, there- find another group of which to be a fore, to clarify terms. Rather than part. This aspect is especially impor- speaking of Jewish identity as a whole, tant for Jews, since we are living in a we should speak about “Jewish iden- post-Emancipation age in which tity” and “Jewish status.” At the risk Jews have freedom of social mobility of sounding reductionistic, we might within the societies in which they say that identity is from the bottom- live. up, while status is from the top-

Seth Goldstein is a fourth-year student at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College.

36 • Fall 2001 The Reconstructionist down. Jewish by Birth ? On the one hand, rabbis help people in their (potentially ongoing) The normative halakhah in deter- quest for Jewish identity. A wide mining Jewishness by birth is that the range of factors may contribute to a child follows the mother — if a per- person’s identity formation, and ul- son is born of a Jewish mother, the timately a person will define how child is Jewish, and if a child is born s/he identifies him/herself (what of a non-Jewish mother, the child is Stephen Cohen and Arnold Eisen, in not Jewish. The matrilineal principle their recent book, The Jew Within in cases of mixed marriage is estab- [Indiana University Press, 2000], call lished in Mishnah Kiddushin 3:12: “the sovereign self”). The content of this question is more fluid (what ele- And any woman who does not ments help this person define her/ have the potential for a valid himself as a Jew?). A rabbi who is in- marriage either with this man volved in a person’s identity forma- or with other men, the offspring tion does so with the understanding is like her. And what is this: This that the person is an individual. is the offspring of a slave woman On the other hand, rabbis also play or gentile woman. a role in determining Jewish status. Questions of status are more direct: The other side (i.e., a Jewish wom- Is this person Jewish? Can s/he be an and a non-Jewish man) is spelled counted in a minyan? Can s/he be out in Mishnah Yevamot 7:5 and the married under Jewish auspices? Ulti- Babylonian Talmud (Kiddushin 68b), mately someone with recognized au- in which the child is declared Jew- thority will make a decision. A rabbi ish, but is considered a mamzer (ille- who is involved in making status de- gitimate). This is subsequently codi- cisions does so with the understand- fied in later Jewish literature. ing that the person is a member of a This, however, is a break with bib- community. lical tradition (which appears to be Numerous factors, both passive patrilineal), which raises an impor- and active, are at work in the devel- tant question for the contemporary opment of status and identity, includ- interpreter of Jewish tradition: How ing one’s lineage and one’s personal much of a role does historic infor- choices. Identity and status are re- mation and reasoning (or lack there- lated, since the conferring or with- of) inform our decision-making holding of status may affect a person’s process? Within a strictly halakhic identity. However, these two concepts framework, none, since the law is should be seen as separate. How they the law and the halakhah creates its differ and how they interact are made own reality and mechanisms for clear in the contemporary discussions change. around patrilineality.

The Reconstructionist Fall 2001 • 37 Adapting Halakhah children born of one Jewish parent also need to be raised and educated On the other hand, the liberal as Jews, as well as undergo public acts movements understand halakhah to of identification in ishut-moments be contextually bound. For Recon- (personal life-cycle events) under structionists especially, Judaism is Jewish auspices. viewed as the continuously evolving The Reconstructionist movement religious civilization of the Jews. His- is, unfortunately, not as clear on the torical and cultural context is of great issue. The Reconstructionist Rab- importance in understanding the de- binical Association’s 1979 “Guide- velopment of Judaism. It is under- lines on Conversion” does not require stood that halakhah is not an inde- education and affirmation in addi- pendent organic body but rather the tion to having one Jewish parent. But creative output of the Jewish people the 1968 and 1984 resolutions on (as interpreted by halakhic authori- intermarriage of the Jewish Recon- ties). Thus, new social realities may structionist Federation require both. force a change in the halakhah. However, with the importance Leniency and Stringency given to the sources, the process by which we change that which has been It is important to note that all of handed down must be taken with these resolutions deal with the situa- great care and deliberation. The tion in which one parent is Jewish, weight of history and the 4000-year and do not distinguish whether it is development of the Jewish people are the mother or the father. Thus, even too great to be pushed aside lightly. the traditional understanding that The question then becomes: Do so- being born of a Jewish mother trans- cial realities outweigh tradition in the mits Jewish status is called into ques- discussion of lineality? tion. The Reform and Reconstructionist These positions are, ironically, movements say yes and have accepted both a kula (leniency) and a humrah. patrilineality — a person is consid- (stringency). On the one hand, they ered Jewish if he or she has one Jew- open the possibility of granting Jew- ish parent. However, since it is a ish status to a large number of people break with normative halakhah, do who, while they may claim a Jewish we accept patrilineal Jews with quali- identity, have been previously denied fications? Do we affirm patrilineal Jewish status. On the other hand, Jews as Jews only after they have ful- they open the possibility for the de- filled certain requirements? nial of Jewish status to a large num- Both the Reform and Reconstruc- ber of people who have previously tionist movements’ positions address been assumed to be Jewish by virtue this issue. The Reform movement’s of the halakhic criterion of matri- 1983 rabbinic resolution holds that lineality! So while the Reform and

38 • Fall 2001 The Reconstructionist Reconstructionist movements may son publicly declares (or has declared accept as a Jew a person rejected as on her/his behalf) his or her Jewish such by the Conservative and Ortho- status before the community, and the dox, the Reform and Reconstruction- community recognizes the person’s ist movements may (in theory, if not Jewish status. in practice) deny as a Jew a person Each such moment marks a differ- accepted as such by the Conservative ent development of that status. With and Orthodox. brit milah and girls’ brit ceremonies, The question of qualifications a Jewish child is recognized as a mem- highlights the distinction between ber of the brit, of the community. At status and identity. Status is some- bar/bat mitzvah, the child is recog- thing that can be externally con- nized as an adult and culminates a ferred, while identity is something Jewish education. At a wedding, the that one must internally create. Add- individual enters a covenant with ing qualifications to the determina- another and begins to create a new tion of status of a person born of a Jewish home and family. Jewish father and non-Jewish mother At the same time, each of these makes status contingent on identity. moments marks an opportunity for That is, Jewish status is conferred a person’s individual Jewish identity upon a person if the person has a Jew- to be strengthened and affirmed. ish identity. Each serves to instill in a person a With the recognition of matri- connection that can aid in his or her lineality without qualification (the positive identification with Judaism normative halakhic position), status and the Jewish people. By marking and identity are separate. That is, each ishut-moment Jewishly, the in- Jewish status is conferred in the pres- dividual is making a public declara- ence or absence of Jewish identity. tion of attachment to Judaism and For the conservative movements, sta- the Jewish people. S/he declares tus comes before identity. For the lib- identity as a Jew as well as status as a eral movements, identity comes be- Jew. It is in ishut-moments that ques- fore status. tions of status and identity come to the fore, when a person’s previously Imposing Qualifications unclear status may need to be clari- on Identity fied and a person’s previously ambiguous or ambivalent identity can Yet the qualifications serve both be strengthened or weakened. the identity and status questions. The Reform and Reconstructionist posi- Impact of the Individual tions require a person to “establish” on the Community his or her Jewish status by marking certain Jewish ishut-moments. By This dichotomy is reflected in a participating in such rituals, a per- ruling recorded in the code literature

The Reconstructionist Fall 2001 • 39 that states that if people are observ- ties, yet we still wish to maintain the ing Jewish ritual and performing liberty to chart our own life’s path. mitzvot (i.e., identifying as Jews) they The balance between the two im- are assumed to be converts even if pulses is constantly being tested and there are no witnesses to testify to the correct way to maintain this bal- that fact. However, if they want to ance is a subject of political theory. join the community and marry, the marriage cannot take place unless Rights and Obligations witnesses to the conversion are brought forward or the person un- After the Enlightenment, when dergoes ritual immersion (i.e., veri- Jews were given the same rights as fication of status). other Western citizens, this question In other words, one’s identity is entered Jewish thought as well. It is not questioned so long as it is an in- possibly most apparent in American dividual expression. Once it begins Judaism. American Jews live within to intersect with and potentially af- two communities, one of which puts fect the nature of the community, emphasis on individual rights (Amer- questions need to be asked and de- ica) and the other on identification terminations need to be made. To with the collective (Judaism). apply a metaphor from the American In keeping with this paradigm, in experience: One can live in the contemporary Jewish society, a rul- United States and identify oneself as ing of status that conflicts with one’s an American. One can attend Fourth identity could be seen as an infringe- of July parades, pledge allegiance to ment of one’s personal rights. That the flag or eat turkey on Thanksgiv- is, people have the right to identify ing. But if one tries to vote, one will themselves as they wish, and it is an be turned away unless one holds the infringement of rights to challenge proper status as “citizen.” While such identification. However, a per- one’s identity can be understood as a son also has a responsibility to the personal affair, a question of status group, and just as the individual has can have wider implications. the right to identify, the group also Conflict may thus arise when one’s has the right to make determinations personal identity and public status as to who can be considered a mem- are different. This question ulti- ber. mately points to a larger tension in Groups can decide who can and contemporary Jewish life — the in- cannot be a member in consideration dividual versus the community. We of a person’s personal identity, but live our lives as individuals, but we not necessarily because of it. If sta- also necessarily form bonds with oth- tus and identity conflict, the commu- ers to form partnerships, families and nity has the right to exclude the in- communities. To these communities dividual — the community is under we have obligations and responsibili- no obligation to bend its definition

40 • Fall 2001 The Reconstructionist of status to include a person’s iden- they are responsible to the greater tity. If through some legitimate pro- community, and they are responsible cess the group’s leadership, or a to the individuals within that com- majority of its members, wish to munity. Rabbis need to be the main- change the definition, that may be a tainers of group boundaries, making possibility. decisions about who is in and who is It is also possible for one whose out, as well as who can get in and status is questioned to either leave how. And rabbis need to be the nur- the group and find another, or work turers of individual journeys, both to alter his or her status so it is fit- to Judaism and within Judaism; they ting with the group definition. Ulti- have the power to affect deeply a per- mately, though, for an individual son’s attachment to Judaism and her within a community, both status and or his Jewish identity. The role the identity are important. One can have rabbi plays in ishut-moments can identity without status, and status produce profound meaning for a per- without identity. A full participant son and a community. in a community, however, would The language of affirmation is have both. most welcome when status and identity are in conflict — when there are Exploring Affirmation discrepancies between how individuals identify themselves and how With the increased influence of groups identify individuals. Affirma- the American paradigm (rights and tion works toward affirming a per- autonomy) as well as the continued son’s identity through ritual rather breakdown of ethnic, religious and than changing his or her status. social boundaries between groups, While the rituals involved may affect the issues of status and identity have both, affirmation focuses on identity become extremely important to the rather than status. In some situations, American Jewish community. How telling people who think they are do we bridge the gap between status members of a group that they are per- and identity? The traditional means haps not may push them even fur- of changing one’s status in Judaism ther away. Affirmation is helpful beis through conversion. However, cause it comes from a positive place there is a vast arena whose Jewish lan- (“you are this, let’s confirm it”) rather guage and ritual needs to be devel- than a negative place (“you are not oped — that of affirmation. this, let’s make you this”). As mentioned above, each Jewish ishut-moment is both a confirmation Dual Meanings of status and a shaper of identity, and rabbis have an important role to play The rituals of conversion have the in both. same dual meaning as brit ceremo- Rabbis have a dual responsibility: nies, b’nai mitzvah and weddings. On

The Reconstructionist Fall 2001 • 41 the one hand, they affect a change in did not deal with the issue of iden- status on the part of the individual. tity — it was not a social category in On the other, they have the power to the same way status was. However, affirm a person’s identity. Which we are in an age in which identity meaning is stressed is a matter of per- takes on utmost importance, and we spective. In reexamining conversion, cannot ignore the implications for rituals can have the trappings of the identity in the decisions we make on traditional conversion ritual, but can these issues. We are not dealing solely be put in terms of affirmation. The with legality, or solely with questions ritual thus acts on many levels at of status. How do people identify once. If done well, most questions of themselves vis-à-vis the group, what the person’s status should be laid to parts of the tradition do they affirm rest (s/he will have undergone con- and deny, how does living in multiple version) and the person’s identity civilizations affect the values people would be stronger (s/he will have af- hold, and how do they view them- firmed identity through ritual). Simi- selves — these are all questions that lar rituals of affirmation can be used are part of contemporary discourse. in a variety of other situations, including born Jews who convert out The Roles of Leaders to another religion and then want to rejoin the Jewish people or those who This is of extreme importance for have “self-converted.” the modern liberal rabbinate and In the contemporary period, the leadership. Contemporary Jewish Jewish community is faced with a leaders have a multiplicity of roles, situation in which belonging to the responsible to both the individual community is voluntary, boundaries and the community. Rabbis can rule are in flux and the best way to draw on questions of Jewish status, but those boundaries and draw people they also need to be responsive to is- into the community is the subject of sues of Jewish identity, the final de- dispute. However, the basic assump- cision on which is out of their hands. tions upon which these discussions And because of the direct relation- are premised have changed. Previ- ship between status and identity, rab- ously, discussion has focused solely bis need to be cognizant of the con- around issues of status. Status is a sequences of these decisions. purely “legal” question that may be Since every ishut-moment raises divorced from social context. Now, questions of both status and identity, however, we are increasingly con- when rabbis rule on status questions cerned with questions of identity. they will have an impact on that Identity is not a “legal” question and person’s identity. A wedding, for ex- is dependent on social context. ample, could be a Jewish identity- Granted, the ancient rabbis who building experience. Even if a person made the initial halakhic decisions has not had much contact with the

42 • Fall 2001 The Reconstructionist Jewish community previously, the To meet the status-identity chal- fact that he or she is coming to a lenge, we need to think creatively. We rabbi for a wedding is a potentially need to explore new language in re- positive step in identity formation. lation to old ritual. We need to con- And, indeed, a positive experience sider seriously creating and using with a rabbi could plant the seed in rituals of affirmation — rituals to af- people’s minds about Judaism and firm and solidify people’s Jewish the possibility of keeping a Jewish identity. And while these rituals may home and raising a Jewish family. If relate to changes in status, this is not they are not treated well by their their primary focus. Contemporary rabbi of if they are turned away, they Jewish leaders need to be more con- may be disinclined to pursue future cerned with questions of identity involvement in Judaism as a couple than with questions of status. or as a family.

The Reconstructionist Fall 2001 • 43 Intermarriage and the Politics of Identity

BY DEBORAH DASH MOORE

eminist scholarship teaches us should add that I have also elected the importance of social loca- to live only a few miles from where I F tion. Where you stand, or in grew up. My decision to remain in contemporary lingo, where you’re com- New York City reflects a subjective ing from, illuminates what you stand commitment to the viability of Amer- for or where you’re going. Social loca- ican Jewish life and undoubtedly in- tion does not predict point of view, but fluences how I interpret the Ameri- contemplating one’s position invites a can ethos. New York offers a pecu- measure of self-reflection. liar perspective on both the United Given the currently controversial States and the Jewish world. As a city topic of intermarriage, I think that it that has lacked a majority popula- is crucial to indicate my own subjec- tion and included large numbers of tive position. I speak about intermar- immigrants and their children, New riage as a long-term insider — having York reinforces my historical pro- made a decision to intermarry more clivities to examine qualitative is- than thirty years ago. As an historian, I sues. am inclined to seek out the unique, to I should point out as well that the craft narratives that balance change few miles between Manhattan’s with continuity and to avoid temp- northern tip and its downtown Chel- tations to predict the future based on sea neighborhood that separate my past patterns. I will argue that inter- current home from my childhood marriage today occupies center stage one do not represent some great psy- as a surrogate for more difficult ques- chological or cultural distance. tions that American Jews are reluctant Where I live now differs only slightly to face. But first, my own social loca- from where I was raised. For example, tion. the local Spanish speakers today are more likely to come from the Do- A Subjective Position minican Republic than from Puerto Rico. Having said that I chose to inter- Not only did my husband and I marry some thirty-odd years ago, I choose to raise our sons in the city,

Deborah Dash Moore is professor of religion at Vassar College and co-author of Cityscapes, A History of New York in Images (Columbia University Press, 2001).

44 • Fall 2001 The Reconstructionist we also opted for other markers of identity concern power. At stake, it continuity with my childhood: pub- appears, are sizable sums. Who lic school educations, supplementary should allocate these resources and Jewish education through high who should receive them has fueled school, public transit for traveling a struggle over how to define the around the city, affiliation with a Re- boundaries of the Jewish community. constructionist congregation, regular Sabbath eve dinners as well as holi- Communal Rhetoric day observances and, of course, bar mitzvah. Many of those inside Jewish orga- As an historian who is interested nizations desire to enhance their in the past and attuned to the qual- power by identifying an enemy. Since ity of a Jewish life freely chosen, I American society no longer produces understandably frame my account of enough influential anti-Semites and these activities as continuities. Blood anti-Semitic movements (Pat Bu- is not what counts. There were, of chanan and Louis Farrakhan just course, discontinuities. An academic don’t frighten Jews enough, and with gets to live abroad if she wishes, and good reason), Jewish leaders have I did. So my family enjoyed a year of trained their rhetorical guns on in- living in Israel, unlike the brief sum- termarriage and what they claim are mer visit I knew as a child. its attendant ills. These include a threat of demographic decline with Intermarriage in Context the corresponding loss of political clout, the destruction of a unified I mention these to contextualize the Jewish people who can no longer intermarriage: Mine was not a rebel- marry within the group due to divi- lion, a rejection of parental values and sions over patrilineal descent, and mores, an act of conscious assimila- the weakening of Jewish religious tra- tion away from Judaism to American ditions and resulting assimilation. society. My husband, on the other Other substantial changes in hand, experienced radical disjunc- American Jewish life don’t bother tures between the life he knew as a boy Jewish leaders as much. No one, for and the one he lives as a Jewish adult. example, seems to bemoan the loss Although I am an insider to inter- of a left-wing, radical, secular, dias- marriage, my biography places me on porist Jewish community, or the dis- the outside of most debates on the appearance of a large urban Jewish politics of identity. In fact, some of working class and union movement. the leading figures in these debates The rubric of “continuity” covers would bar me from any position of much of what leaders worry about, influence as a bad role model for though the real issues of continuity, other American Jews. As in all poli- which involve what we teach our tics, current conflicts over Jewish children, get discussed far less often.

The Reconstructionist Fall 2001 • 45 Folk and Elite Norms folk-religious dictum. However, we know that these rates started to in- More than twenty-five years ago, crease in the mid-1960s and Ameri- Charles Liebman wrote about “the can Jews did not begin to get visibly ambivalent American Jew”1 who exercised about intermarriage until wanted to assimilate into American the 1990s. This would suggest that a society and yet remain distinctively confluence of other changes encour- Jewish at the same time. Liebman aged American Jews to pay attention pointed out that American Jews held to what was happening before their onto a Jewish ethnic exclusivism even noses. as they discarded Jewish religious tra- ditionalism. “Why is intermarriage Changing Contexts any more horrendous than violation of the Sabbath?” he asked. “In the Ten years ago, dramatic political catalog of ritual Jewish sins, there is events radically altered how we hardly anything worse than desecra- thought about our world. The col- tion of the Sabbath. But obviously in lapse of the Soviet Union shifted the the catalog of Jewish communal balance of power in the Middle East sins,” he pointed out, “there is noth- even as it sent hundreds of thousands ing worse than intermarriage.” of Soviet Jews to Israel. One of the American Jews thus cheerfully sent mainstays of Jewish political mobili- their sons and daughters off to col- zation on behalf of Jews overseas lege, not with warnings to observe the rapidly disappeared. As Israel ben- Sabbath, which Judaism values most efited from the new world order, its highly, but with admonitions not to strength and prosperity weakened a date and fall in love with gentiles, second focus of Jewish political ac- something much lower down on tivism. Judaism’s scale of proper ritual behav- Peace negotiations with the Pales- iors. The former, Liebman noted, re- tinians, a peace treaty with Jordan, flected the norms of an elite religious and even the rescinding of the noto- tradition; the latter expressed the rious “Zionism is Racism” resolution concerns of a folk religion. at the United Nations, all signaled So here we are, several decades a less-besieged Jewish world. Al- later, focused on American Jewish though the Holocaust remained as a folk religion’s requirements that Jews viable forum for Jewish politics, it not intermarry, now championed less could not sustain single-handedly by the folk than by the elite. How American Jews’ commitment to Jew- did we get to this point? ish life. Common wisdom would propose In this context, intermarriage sta- that rising intermarriage rates tistics generated a crisis of conscience, brought us to pay so much attention introduced a beleaguered mood with to the widespread violation of this some leaders talking of another “si-

46 • Fall 2001 The Reconstructionist lent holocaust,” and sparked a vigor- authorize or legalize any marriage ous politics of identity among Ameri- between any White person and a can Jews. Negro or a descendant of a Negro.” The Supreme Court noted in Loving Social Change that because the Virginia statute “pro- hibits only interracial marriages in- In addition, a number of domes- volving white persons” it was “de- tic changes contributed to the rise of signed to maintain White Suprema- intermarriage as a cause célèbre. A cy.” new generation of leaders ascended As American attitudes rejected to positions of prominence in Ameri- white supremacy as racist, a new can Jewish organizations. Schooled in moral consensus emerged. By the Jewish denominationalism, they re- 1990s Americans accepted the no- jected consensus politics as part of an tion that individuals should be free outmoded Cold War heritage. Born to marry as a constitutional right and after the establishment of the State that laws preventing “different” of Israel, they learned its political les- people from marrying were racist and sons of partisanship. Too young to unconstitutional. have struggled for civil rights and civil liberties in the United States, Evolving Attitudes they came of age during the early movements of identity politics, pro- Jewish attitudes similarly evolved. test against the Vietnam war and the Although American Jews refused to backlash against liberalism promoted define Jews as a race, many undoubt- by radicals on the left and right. edly felt increasingly uncomfortable Finally, attitudes toward intermar- arguing against the intermarriage of riage in the United States gradually Jews and gentiles in the face of an underwent revision following the American consensus that freedom to Supreme Court’s 1967 decision in marry was a constitutional right. By Loving v. Virginia. The court held emphasizing that Judaism was a reli- that anti-miscegenation laws were a gion to which conversion was pos- form of invidious racial discrimina- sible, opponents of intermarriage tion prohibited by the Constitution could justify their endogamous com- and that marriage was a fundamen- mitments as democratic. By down- tal right. Anti-miscegenation statutes playing the ethnic component of con- in the United States usually prohib- version that involves acquiring a new ited whites from marrying blacks, lineage in Abraham and Sarah, liter- though occasionally Asian-white ally a new mother and father, Jewish marriages were barred. leaders could stress Judaism’s western To this day, the Alabama state con- attributes. How different was Juda- stitution contains a clause forbidding ism, in this comparison, from the the legislature to “pass any law to Catholic church, which also opposed

The Reconstructionist Fall 2001 • 47 interreligious marriage? halakhah as interpreted by rabbis who The possibility of conversion to possess political power bestowed by Judaism thus provided a convenient the state. And these social construc- loophole around the issue of racial tions of Jews differ from actual Israeli exclusivity. However, the vigorous practice, especially vis-à-vis Jewish debate over “outreach” exposes the immigrants. In the United States to- flimsy construction of this loophole, day, Jews are considered “white” and in actuality a noose. Those most op- “EuroAmerican.” posed to intermarriage turn out to be A century ago, the category of those most opposed to “outreach,” to European was split between east and making conversion easy for gentiles west, with the latter superior to the (especially those involved in serious former. In the years prior to World relationships with Jews). These same War II when anti-Semitism thrived opponents of intermarriage also and Jews lived largely in semi-segre- worry out loud about how converts gated urban neighborhoods, en- will dilute Jewish life, weakening its dogamy flourished and most Ameri- ethnic dimensions. Racial exclusivity cans thought of Jews as less than thus reappears in religious guise. white. Neither were Jews EuroAmeri- As my son Mik Moore has argued can; rather, they were East European, in an unpublished paper, “By doubt- a considerably lower immigrant ing the sincerity of converts, the Jew- classification. Some racists considered ish/convert marriage becomes nearly them “Oriental” and not European at as suspect as the Jewish/Gentile mar- all. On various scales of attractiveness riage.” Furthermore, “the dearth of as neighbors, Jews ranked just above conversions to Judaism and current blacks and Asians in desirability. opposition to loosening traditional After World War II when Judaism anti-conversion rules belies the ease entered the American pantheon of with which opponents of intermar- the religions of democracy and Jews riage can point to the option of con- joined the middle class and moved version as a way to differentiate anti- out to the suburbs, Jews lost much miscegenation” laws from the Jewish of the stigma attached to them. They ban on intermarriage. gradually whitened up, their differences becoming less and less visible Socially Constructed Identity to their gentile neighbors, especially their children. The issues can be clarified if we leave for a moment the politics of Debatable Questions identity and recognize how Jews are constructed by the societies in which If what it means to be a Jew has they live. Israel constructs Jews ac- undergone such radical shifts even cording to several conflicting crite- within the memory of some of us ria. The Law of Return contradicts (not to mention what history can tell

48 • Fall 2001 The Reconstructionist us about those developments), then anything that smacks of choice is sus- it behooves us to look more closely pect. Neodox speak of Jews as a tribe, at what is animating today’s intermar- rather than a nation, race, ethnic riage debate. Why are the Jewishly group or religion. illiterate offspring of two Jewish athe- ists logged in as genuine Jews while Politics and Polemics the semi-practicing offspring of an intermarriage, especially if the father Jewish solidarity in this view de- is a Jew and the mother a gentile, are rives from kinship and a special rela- not counted as Jews? tionship to God codified in the God Why do we pay more attention to of Israel’s covenant with His (always blood than to behavior? Why do we “His” for these leaders) chosen peo- zealously guard the privileges of as- ple. An intermarriage crisis can be cending the bimah or the honor of used to recruit unwary American Jews leadership from Jews who have inter- to facilitate a shift of resources away married or from their gentile part- from a confident liberal agenda that ners? Why is such extreme language claimed for Jews an equal place at the invoked around intermarriage — I American civic table all along. am thinking of the “silent holocaust” MacDonald Moore argues that the terminology — when no one screams Neodox present intermarriage as an about Sabbath observance? In short, unmitigated evil that results from why have both Israeli and American lack of affiliation with Jewish orga- Jewish leaders become like those am- nizations, inadequate Jewish educa- bivalent American Jews Charles tion and minimal observance of Jew- Liebman skewered several decades ish ritual. The alternative to inter- ago? marriage can be seen in the Ortho- Part of the answer lies in the es- dox, who also appear as paragons of sentialism inherent in identity poli- affiliation, commitment, knowledge, tics. Plural metaphors of identity responsibility — all of the virtues re- politics cannot compete with the de- quired for Jewish survival. The an- mand for a single primary identity. swer then for the Neodox is to rebuild Another part of the answer can be American Jewish life around the found in a loss of nerve among cer- model of Orthodox community. tain American Jewish leaders vis-à-vis American social and cultural life. My The Fruit of an Open Society husband, MacDonald Moore, calls them “Neodox,” a coinage I like, and Are there other alternatives? Well, holds that “they act as if they want one possibility is to suggest that in- to consolidate their gains and dis- termarriage is not an evil, but rather place some guilt in the process” (un- the complex fruit of a relatively free published paper). For the Neodox, society. Such an interpretation would genuine Judaism is not elective, and applaud, not denigrate, the semi-

The Reconstructionist Fall 2001 • 49 practicing behavior of self-identify- children roots. . . . Fifth, Judaism can ing Jewish children of a Jewish father give a wholeness and rhythm to your and gentile mother. life.” And the clincher: “Sixth, your A number of years ago, a Reform help is needed. The Jews are a small rabbi published a modest piece re- people who have given much to the porting on sixteen years of intermar- world. You and your partner can help riages that he had performed in a ensure that this rich heritage sur- small Pennsylvania city. He had de- vives.” The first two answers also cite veloped his own criteria of serious- sacred days, Passover and Hanukkah ness and commitment to Judaism re- for the value of freedom, and the Sab- quired from the couple before he par- bath for its family-enhancing power. ticipated in their wedding ceremony. In the face of the American con- What Rabbi Henry Cohen found sensus regarding marriage as a fun- was, to my mind, impressive: a ma- damental right, Jewish arguments jority of stable marriages and Jewishly against intermarriage began to shift identifying children. This vision of to concern over “continuity” or what Judaism is the opposite of tribal. It is Jews can do to ensure that their based not on commandment, but grandchildren would be Jewish. Ob- commitment; not on obligation, but viously, there is nothing that Jews can choice; not on blood, but values. do to assure that their grandchildren will be Jewish. Only the truly hutzpa-. Why Be Jewish? dik or the meshuggenah imagine they can secure that future. Certainly, any- We can see a version of this type one with even a whiff of knowledge of Judaism in a flyer handed out at of 20th-century Jewish history should the Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim recognize the futility of such a charge. (otherwise known as KKBE) Sister- But if American Jews cannot guar- hood Gift Shop, a shop that attracts antee that they will have Jewish large numbers of Christian visitors to grandchildren, they can commit to historic Charleston in South Caro- raising Jewish children. This would lina. “WHY BE JEWISH?” it asks in mark a significant departure for many capital letters — and then queries in American Jews, who may need to be smaller type: “Why make the effort convinced that it is worth the effort. to raise children Jewish?” The women in the KKBE Sisterhood The sisterhood flyer offers six an- suggest a pretty good set of reasons swers: “First, Jewish life is a wonder- for such a commitment. These rea- ful way to transmit strong values sons focus not on Jewish difference . . . Second, Jewish life builds strong or superiority but rather on Jewish families . . . Third, Judaism encour- otherness. Jewish religious culture ages education and intelligent debate offers a coherent value system, favors and can help you to bring up think- vibrant family life, encourages edu- ing children. Fourth, Judaism gives cation and critical thinking, gives

50 • Fall 2001 The Reconstructionist children a rich heritage that connects tive modifying the word “crisis,” then them to previous generations. And, we need to pay attention not to iden- yes, Judaism is a minority religious tity politics that involves circling the tradition, so that all Jews are precious wagons against an external enemy, to the Jewish people. No mention but to our children, our neighbors, here of prejudice and persecution, of our schools and community centers. chosenness and commandment. For several generations, American Jews have rallied to save threatened The Desire to Live as Jews communities of Jews overseas. Such efforts gave enormous satisfaction to Of course, such an approach will those who participated in them. I not produce Jewish grandchildren, think we can reap similar rewards of nor will it prevent intermarriage. The self-fulfillment that simultaneously question I would want to ask is energize our Jewish collective if we whether it will build a strong desire seek to live Jewish lives at home and in a child to live as a Jew, which in- in the street: to work and play as Jews, volves creating a Jewish home as an not just to pray as Jews. adult. Such homes can emerge even More than fifty years ago, the radi- out of intermarriage, as my experi- cal rabbi and founder of Reconstruc- ence testifies, if the Jewish partner to tionism, Mordecai M. Kaplan, ar- the intermarriage cares deeply about gued in the closing pages of Judaism living a Jewish life. as a Civilization that “The Jew will There are gentile Americans who have to save Judaism before Judaism are drawn to Jews and Judaism for will be in a position to save the Jew.”2 some of the reasons cited by the Kaplan’s call to arms is no less rele- KKBE Sisterhood. They espouse Jew- vant today. It means that Jews will ish ethical values, intellectuality, con- have to abandon the thrill of iden- cern for family and community; and tity politics for the greater challenge they are bold enough to risk minor- of living a program of maximum ity status. However, among the items Jewishness. It means, too, that Jews missing from the KKBE list that I as Jews should champion, in Kaplan’s think is crucial is Israel. The Jewish words, “all movements to further so- state, its people and the land, form cial justice and universal peace.” Fi- an integral part of Jewish culture, al- nally, it means that we should not be beit an aspect not as easily under- afraid of the future but try to create stood and appreciated by gentiles as new forms of Jewish life and culture. those elements relating to religion. Israel speaks to the ethnic dimension 1. Liebman, Charles: The Ambivalent of Jewish identity as well as its reli- American Jew (Philadelphia,The Jewish Publication Society, 1973). gious aspects. 2. Kaplan, Mordecai M.: Judaism as a If we are concerned about conti- Civilization (Philadelphia, The Jewish nuity not as a slogan or as an adjec- Publication Society, 1981), 521-522.

The Reconstructionist Fall 2001 • 51 Adoption and Jewish Families: A Proposal

BY MICHAEL FESSLER

avid and Ellie are a Jewish ish. They have accepted Elana into couple in their mid-thirties their family as their daughter — why Dwho have tried unsuccess- can’t the Jewish community do the fully to conceive a child for the past same? Are they being told that she several years. After several rounds of isn’t really their daughter? Why infertility treatment, they decided to should she have to undergo a seem- adopt an infant from South America. ingly arbitrary ceremony of conver- The bureaucracy surrounding the sion? adoption was arduous to navigate, but last week they flew to Guatemala Adoption and Identity and returned with their new daughter Elana. They are at once relieved, Any time a new child joins a fam- overjoyed and exhausted by the ex- ily is occasion for celebration. This perience of adoption, and are look- is true for adopted no less than for ing forward to settling in together as biological children. But adoption has a family. its own unique qualities that deserve Almost as an afterthought, they ask attention, particularly in a Jewish their rabbi to do a naming ceremony context. for Elana in the synagogue. Their An adoption is a time of transition, rabbi informs them that since Elana when a family brings in a new mem- was not born Jewish, she will need to ber by transfer of parental status undergo conversion, and offers to rather than through birth. In most facilitate this process. Ellie and David Western societies, an adopted child become angry and confused at this becomes legally part of the adopting requirement: In their minds their family. His or her certificate of adop- daughter is now a member of a Jew- tion stands in stead of a birth certifi- ish household and will be raised Jew- cate, and s/he is considered to be part

Michael Fessler, ordained at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in 2001, is spending this year in Israel.

52 • Fall 2001 The Reconstructionist of the adopting family — “grafted as transmissible in two ways: descent in,” holding equal standing with any (lineage) and assent (conversion). We biological children. will first discuss each of these entry This legal incorporation into the points as traditionally formulated, as adopting family is critical to most well as modified by the liberal Jew- adoptive parents’ understanding of ish movements (Reconstructionism their parental role and their family: and Reform); then, we can examine They see their new child as their “real the place of adoption within this child,” beyond question, and are sen- model. sitive to messages that seem to delegitimate their parental bond to Traditional Norms their adopted child. According to traditional Jewish Jewish and General Models practice, a child born to a Jewish mother is considered to be Jewish. Traditional Jewish thought is This is the case regardless of the clearly supportive of adoption. Such mother’s level of Jewish observance rabbinic sources as “He who brings or if there are other factors that might up a child is to be called its father, cast doubt on the Jewish identity of not he who gave birth [sic]” (Exodus the offspring. Even if the mother con- Rabbah 46:5) and “Whoever raises verts to another religion, many au- a child in his home, it is as if he thorities would hold that the off- had begotten him” (TB Sanhedrin spring retain a claim on Jewish iden- 19b) clearly laud the act of adop- tity if they so identify. In the tradition and extol the strength of an tional model, what is critical is Jew- adopted parent’s bond with his or her ish status, which inheres in the indi- child. vidual and cannot be abandoned or But unlike the Western legal tra- nullified. dition, traditional halakhah contains (It is worth noting that this sys- no provision for the legal incorpora- tem of matrilineal descent itself seems tion of an adopted child into her new to be a rabbinic innovation dating family. While adoption is viewed as back approximately 2,000 years. In deeply admirable and to be encour- the biblical period, Jewish [or, more aged, it is not transformative of lin- properly, Israelite] status seems to eage as it is in the Western legal sys- have been patrilineal in nature — i.e. tem. An adopted child’s status follows the father’s status, not the mother’s, that of his or her biological parents, was determinative).1 not that of the adoptive parent(s). This has profound implications for Contemporary Alternatives the status of a non-Jewish child adopted into a Jewish household. In the past few decades, in re- Jewish tradition sees Jewish status sponse to the growing rate of inter-

The Reconstructionist Fall 2001 • 53 marriage as well as to changing so- Norms of Conversion cial realities in the sphere of child- rearing, the Reconstructionist and For those who are not Jews via lin- Reform movements have formally eage, entry into Jewish status is tra- adopted policies of ambilineal de- ditionally conferred through conver- scent,2 where Jewishness of either sion. To be halakhically valid, con- biological parent can, under certain version requires three elements: ap- circumstances, suffice to convey Jew- pearance before a bet din, which eval- ish status to their offspring. uates the candidate for conversion; The caveat “under certain circum- immersion (tevilah) in a mikveh or stances” reflects a two-fold innova- natural body of water; and, if the can- tion in the liberal movements’ posi- didate is male and uncircumcised, tion: In addition to including pater- milah (ritual circumcision).4 The nal lineage as a source of Jewish sta- RRA’s 1979 Guidelines on Conversion tus, they have also added a require- endorse each of these traditional ele- ment not present in traditional ments. halakhah — some evidence of actual The Reform movement, in con- and active transmittal of Jewish trast, has as a matter of long-stand- identity.3 Both the Reform and Re- ing precedent dispensed with the tra- constructionist criteria for Jewish ditional elements of conversion. For status can lead to situations where a many years, predominant Reform child’s Jewish status is ambiguous. conversion practice for adults con- This may be either because she or he sisted simply of rabbinic approval and has not (yet?) undergone the identity- a public statement of faith before the forming experiences deemed essen- congregation. Tevilah and milah, and tial, or because the definition of certainly hatafat dam brit (the tak- “timely public and formal acts of ing of a drop of blood when circum- identification” (the language used by cision has already taken place), were the Reform movement to define nec- considered optional at best. In recent essary conditions for identity) is es- years, the pendulum seems to be sentially a judgment call that may swinging back in the Reform move- vary from rabbi to rabbi and comment, and increasing numbers of munity to community. Reform rabbis urge or require the tra- Whatever the ambiguities intro- ditional elements of conversion for duced by the liberal movements’ re- the Jews by Choice with whom they definition of Jewish status, however, work. it is clear that in both traditional Conversion of adopted minor chil- halakhah and in the liberal move- dren does not require extensive study ments’ practice, being raised as a Jew or formal affirmation of Jewish com- is not sufficient to confer Jewish mitment on the part of the child (for identity in the absence of any Jewish obvious reasons) — the presumption lineage. is that Jewish identity will be incul-

54 • Fall 2001 The Reconstructionist cated in the Jewish home in which attributing converts’ Jewish lineage to the child will be raised. However, Abraham and Sarah, are sensitive to someone converted as a minor tradi- any implication that their adopted tionally has the opportunity to re- child isn’t considered to be their “real nounce his or her Jewish status upon child” in the Jewish community’s reaching the age of bar or bat mitz- eyes. vah. This is a one-time option — This factor can be particularly up- once past bar/bat mitzvah age, Jew- setting to parents who have had to ish status is permanent. overcome their own discomfort at There is a minhag (custom) that parenting a biologically unrelated the patronymic/matronymic portion child, and can bring up such issues of a convert’s Hebrew name be “ben/ as inter-spouse conflict over adop- bat Avraham Avinu v’Sarah Imenu” — tion, or grief over the lost possibility “son/daughter of Abraham our father of a biological child. and Sarah our mother,” referring to To still others, conversion seems to the archetypal ancestors of the entire be the wrong paradigm to apply to a Jewish people.5 In effect, this minhag child of Jewish parents. They view gives voice to the tension between the their Jewish home as sufficient to in- lineage-based model of Jewish status culcate Jewish identity, and bridle at and the alternative option of conver- the notion that a ceremony will sion: Jews by Choice are essentially somehow magically do what years of grafted into the Jewish people’s lin- parenting will not. eage at its most primal ancestral source, as if to remove all doubt as to Identity and Status their claim to Jewish status. Many of these sources of parental Resistance to Conversion resistance to converting adopted children can be traced to the conflation While many adoptive Jewish par- of two separate but related issues: ents find it unremarkable that their Jewish status and Jewish identity. De- adopted non-Jewish child should spite popular usage, these are not need to undergo conversion, some identical, and it is important to dis- parents meet the notion of convert- tinguish between the two. ing their newly-adopted child with Jewish status is communally deter- substantial resistance. This resistance mined — it exists only in reference can stem from many sources. Some to a particular Jewish community parents find it stressful that they have that decides who has it and who to jump through a “Jewish hoop” af- doesn’t. It is binary: Either someone ter all the hoops of the adoption pro- is Jewish or is not. Different Jewish cess. To them, civil adoption seems communities have different criteria sufficient. for determining Jewish status. Ortho- Others, conscious of the minhag of dox and Conservative Judaism follow

The Reconstructionist Fall 2001 • 55 the matrilineal principle, while Re- arise in the course of rabbinic work form and Reconstructionism follow and need to be dealt with immedi- a modified ambilineal principle. But ately by the rabbi — not after months within any given community’s deci- or years of communal discussion. sion-making system, a person either In the course of his or her work, a possesses Jewish status — “is a Jew” rabbi is often called upon to func- — or does not. tion in multiple roles of guardianship Jewish identity, on the other hand, and advocacy: on behalf of the inter- is individually determined — it is ests of his or her community, on be- fundamentally an internal dynamic half of the Jewish people as a whole that depends heavily on a person’s and on behalf of the adopted child’s family background, life experience, interest. One goal is for the adopted choices and commitments. Unlike child to have clear, rather than doubt- Jewish status, Jewish identity is not a ful, access to and membership in the matter of yes/no, nor even a quan- Jewish people in her/his adult life. tity — it is qualitative, and can vary In an American Jewish polity in- widely during a person’s life. creasingly imbued with values of in- While Jewish status and Jewish dividual autonomy, adoptive parents identity generally coincide, the cases often privilege Jewish identity over where they do not can be painful to Jewish status. “If we raise our child the individual and the community. so that she feels Jewish,” they might Many people of uncontested Jewish ask, “who are you to tell us that she status are raised in other religious tra- isn’t?” As a rabbi dedicated to build- ditions and have no Jewish identity, ing Jewish community — an essen- for example. Conversely, someone tial part of the Reconstructionist can have substantial Jewish identity project — I might choose to answer: and lack Jewish status according to “It sounds as if you’re really commit- some Jewish communities — e.g. ted to giving your child a strong Jew- patrilineal Jews in Conservative and ish identity. But being Jewish is more Orthodox settings — or even in all than just a feeling — it’s also about Jewish communities — e.g. self-de- being part of a Jewish community clared Jews who have undergone no and of the Jewish people. If you want conversion of any sort. her to belong, you’re doing her a real disservice if she’s not Jewish by any Rabbinic Roles actual Jewish community’s standards.” Rabbis are uniquely situated to mediate these issues of status and Factoring in Klal Yisrael identity. Even in Reconstructionist communities, which practice demo- Another factor is Klal Yisrael. cratic values-based decision-making, While some segments of the liberal particular questions of Jewish status Jewish movements are willing to ig-

56 • Fall 2001 The Reconstructionist nore lack of formal conversion if dis- this disjunction between rabbinic and covered years after the fact, it runs lay (status vs. identity) priorities that counter to the child’s best interests underlies many parents’ reluctance to in cases like these to ignore the rest formally convert their adopted chil- of the Jewish world. While there is dren. Conversion emphasizes formal no realistic prospect of Orthodox issues of Jewish status, but can short- communities accepting liberal con- change real engagement with vital verts anytime soon, Orthodoxy re- issues of Jewish identity — rather mains a small percentage of the than grappling with issues of inte- American Jewish polity. grating the adopted child into the The Conservative movement, on family system, rabbis can often ap- the other hand, is both more relevant pear overly anxious about “correct- and easier to work with. Conserva- ing a flaw” in the child’s Jewish sta- tive Judaism remains the second-larg- tus. est movement in the United States, and contains the largest number of An Alternative Model affiliated Jews who identify with a movement.6 An adopted child will I’d like to suggest a new model for generally be recognized as Jewish in approaching adoption into Jewish a Conservative context without con- households: the creation of a Jewish troversy, as long as the mechanics of adoption ceremony. Having a Jewish traditional conversion are carried out adoption ritual to offer families (bet din, mikveh, milah/hatafat dam). would give Jewish ritual affirmation Finally, many Reconstructionist to an important life transition. As and Reform rabbis require or strongly Reconstructionists, we understand urge the traditional elements of con- that a Jewish wedding involves much version for adopted children. Clearly, more than signing a marriage license; in order to give adopted children the that there is deep meaning in a brit widest possible latitude in their fu- milah or naming ceremony that is ture Jewish involvement (which may unmatched by signing a birth certifi- well venture outside Reconstruc- cate; that for many couples, partici- tionist settings), it seems only pru- pating in a Reconstructionist egali- dent to urge strongly the conversion tarian get ritual provides closure be- of adopted children. tween ex-spouses in a way that sign- While both of the issues just ar- ing a civil divorce decree cannot. It ticulated are compelling to many rab- is just as critical that adoption be- bis, they may be less compelling — come a fully ritualized and sanctified or even alienating — to some parents moment in the Jewish life cycle. of adoptees. From a lay perspective, In good Reconstructionist fashion, rabbis often seem over-concerned this ritual would revalue traditional with status and under-concerned practices, reading them in new ways. with identity and meaning. It may be The elements of halakhic conversion

The Reconstructionist Fall 2001 • 57 would be present — immersion, bet plish the goal of integrating the din, and circumcision/hatafat dam if adopted child into the larger Jewish necessary. However, the ritual would community. At the same time, such not primarily address the child’s a ceremony is radical in that it con- change of status from non-Jew to Jew. stitutes a critique and reconstruction Rather, the ceremony would focus on of the tradition’s failure to give adop- welcoming the child into his or her tion halakhic weight. It rejects the new family and effecting a change of paradigm that adopted children are status of a different kind: Jewish not lineally connected to their adop- adoption as the transfer of lineage, tive families, and affirms that West- such that the adoptive parents are ern culture’s model of adoption has considered the “real” parents in Jew- something to teach the Jewish com- ish as well as civil terms. munity. Immersion is a powerful symbol As Jews who are Americans, we with many potential meanings. Here, want our Judaism to treat our family it could be removed from the con- relationships with at least the same text of purity/impurity (as many un- seriousness that American law and derstand its application in conver- culture do. This new model of Jew- sion), and instead function as a sym- ish adoption ceremony offers a way bol of the child’s metaphoric birth to satisfy this desire, by reframing the into the loving arms of his or her new traditional elements of conversion so parents. As part of this ceremony, the that they signify not only the child’s child would receive her or his new entry into the Jewish people, but also Hebrew name — a name that in- (and primarily) his or her entry into cludes the new parents’ Hebrew the adopting family. names, rather than the traditional Adoption ceremonies such as I’ve “son of Abraham and Sarah” used for outlined could help ensure that adop- adult converts. A Jewish adoption tive children’s Jewish status and Jew- ceremony of this type operates to ish identity, rather than coming into address simultaneously the emotional conflict with one another, instead and pastoral needs of the adopting undergo transition in concert with family, concern for communal integ- one another. In such a ritual, the rity and faithfulness to Jewish tradi- transition into the Jewish people hap- tion. pens at the same instant as (and, arguably, because of) the transition Conservative and Radical into membership in a Jewish family. Moreover, rituals of this nature can To perform such a ceremony is at imbue a stressful and logistically once conservative and radical. It is complicated life transition with conservative in that it takes the tra- connection to community and tran- ditional halakhic elements of con- scendent meaning. version seriously in order to accom-

58 • Fall 2001 The Reconstructionist Appendix the Jewish faith and people” in the case of the Reform movement, as formulated I acknowledge that this new model in the Central Conference of American Rabbis’ 1983 Resolution on the Status of Jewish adoption has complications of Children in Mixed Marriages. The to be worked out. While I hope that Reconstructionist movement’s 1968 this model would be useful to same- statement considers children with one sex couples who are adopting, I’m Jewish parent to be Jews “if the parents acutely aware that there may be have committed themselves to rear their children as Jews by providing circumci- heterosexist assumptions regarding sion for boys, Jewish education for boys family configuration or other issues and girls, and if the children fulfill the that I’ve failed to adequately address requirements of bar/bat mitzvah or con- here. Similarly, Jewish families come firmation.” The Reconstructionist 34:8, in many different configurations, and 30. This is one of several recorded posi- when referring to “parents,” I do so tions of the Reconstructionist movement. See Richard Hirsh, “Jewish Iden- only as shorthand — I in no way tity and Patrilineal Descent: Some Sec- mean to exclude single-parent adop- ond Thoughts,” The Reconstructionist, tions or other configurations I haven’t March 1984. explicitly addressed. 4. If a male prospective convert is already Finally, I have consciously set aside circumcised, hatafat dam brit — the drawing of a symbolic drop of blood — cases of children adopted past the age is traditionally required in place of milah. of infancy. While it is relatively The exception is when the original cir- unproblematic to perform a cer- cumcision was performed leshem giyyur emony involving the elements of con- (for the sake of a later conversion), as is version for an adopted infant, it’s often done with adopted or non-matri- clear that there are psychological and lineally Jewish infants. The Reform and Reconstructionist movements leave the developmental issues at stake in con- requirement of hatafat dam brit to the verting a ten year old that require discretion of the presiding rabbi. substantial sensitivity and care. 5. The earliest source I've found for this minhag is in Teshuvot ha-Rosh 15:4: Shulhan Arukh Even ha-Ezer 129:20 Beit 1. See Shaye J.D. Cohen, The Beginnings Shmuel on the Shulhan Arukh Even ha- of Jewishness (Berkeley: University of Ezer 129:20 The Gra points to Orah California Press, 1999), 263-307, for his- Hayyim 53; Be’er Golah points to Beit torical analysis of this transition. Yosef, citing Teshuvat ha-Rosh Klal 16 2. Often mislabeled “patrilineal,” which siman 4. Beis Shmuel, Even HaEzer, would imply that only Jewish fathers 129:39. See also the Rosh in a responsum and not mothers convey Jewish status to (15:4) in Shut Minchas Yitzchok, Vol. 1, offspring. This may have been the case 136. in the biblical period, but does not ac- 6. According to the CJF’s 1990 Jewish curately describe the liberal movements’ population study, Reform ranks highest current position. overall. However, a large percentage of 3. This evidence consists of “timely pub- Jews who identify as Reform are not nec- lic and formal acts of identification with essarily affiliated with a synagogue.

The Reconstructionist Fall 2001 • 59 New Studies of Jewish Identity

Jewish Baby Boomers: A Communal Perspective Chaim I. Waxman (New York: State University Press, 2001), 163 pages

The Jew Within: Self, Family, and Community in America Steven M. Cohen and Arnold M. Eisen (Indiana: Indiana University Press, 2000), 207 pages

REVIEWED BY BARBARA HIRSH

o even a casual observer of significantly advance our understand- Jewish life in America, there ing of the current generation of Thave been noticeable changes American Jews and the challenges in recent years: increased attraction that face us: Chaim Waxman’s Jew- to spirituality, declining interest in ish Baby Boomers: A Communal Per- and attachment to Israel and wide- spective, and Steven Cohen and spread mixed marriage without the Arnold Eisen’s The Jew Within: Self, condemnation of earlier generations, Family, and Community in America. to name a few. These familiar and respected schol- Documenting and explaining ars of American Jewry use different changes such as these, and assessing methods to examine Jewish identifi- their implications, are the tasks of so- cation and practices, yet draw cial scientists. For decades, studies complementary conclusions and have been conducted on the life of voice similar concerns about our American Jewry, our patterns of iden- community’s future. tification, affiliation, mobility and religious practices. Approaches to Research Recently, two important and en- lightening books have appeared that Waxman’s demographic study re-

Barbara Hirsh is the Dean of Academic Administration at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College.

60 • Fall 2001 The Reconstructionist lied primarily on subsets of the 1990 and decision-making. National Jewish Population Survey The books under discussion report (NJPS), most notably the 46 percent that today’s Jews still resemble their who at the time of the survey were parents and grandparents in many between the ages of 26 and 44 (ap- respects in terms of Jewish patterns proximately 800 respondents). of living. Yet they are also quite simi- Waxman used responses from that lar to their non-Jewish neighbors in survey drawn from the pre-World terms of their generation’s approach War II cohort for comparison pur- to religion. Defining exactly what poses, in addition to drawing upon distinguishes this generation of Jews the work of earlier researchers. is a complicated task. To understand By contrast, Cohen and Eisen col- this population and the implications lected their data from a combination for American Jewry, it is helpful to of personal interviews, focus groups examine three interrelated phenom- and survey data. They chose to in- ena: increased personalization, de- terview Jews between the ages of 30 clining communal attachment and and 50 who had some Jewish affilia- intermarriage. tion but were not “activists.” Few of the interviewees were single and far Increased Privatization fewer of the married respondents were in mixed marriages than is true As Cohen and Eisen’s interviewees of the American Jewish population as so clearly illustrate, Jewish meaning a whole. This had an important im- for today’s generation of Jews is pact on their findings, as will be dis- constructed privately, with the “self” cussed below. the final authority in determining Jewish practice. “Almost all our General Conclusions subjects . . . betrayed enduring am- bivalence toward the organizations, The picture that emerges from institutions, commitments, and both works is a documentation of norms which constitute Jewish life. decline in communal attachment . . .” ( 9) “What matters to the Jews among Jewish baby boomers, along we interviewed . . . are powerful with an intensification of privatiza- individual memories and experi- tion and personalization in expres- ences.” (16) Like those dubbed the sions of their Jewishness. By and “generation of seekers” by Wade large, respondents were uninterested Clark Roof,1 Cohen and Eisen’s in authority, theology or consistency. subjects described themselves as per- They were especially concerned with petual explorers. personal meaning, with Jewish obser- Among the Jews studied, ritual vance that connected them to family observance is conducted largely with members and, above all, with au- and within the family, often moti- tonomy in matters of Jewish practice vated by the presence of children.

The Reconstructionist Fall 2001 • 61 Observance is generally connected marriage to a Jew and Jewish social to holidays, not daily practice, and ties. each holiday is evaluated indepen- dently for potential meaning. Prac- Affirming God tices are determined according to individual inclination, and function The respondents exhibited an at- primarily as a means of family con- traction to those aspects of Jewish life nection. that are most universalistic and a disdain for practices or beliefs that em- Identity: A Given and a Choice phasize the boundaries between Jews and non-Jews. This was evident in A paradoxical set of beliefs was in responses about God. Cohen and evidence among many of Cohen Eisen admitted surprise at the degree and Eisen’s interviewees. They under- to which their respondents professed stood Jewishness to be a given — a belief in God. Subjects generally con- birthright, an undeniable inheritance ceive of God as “a force or spirit that and, at the same time, a freely cho- is present in the world rather than as sen identity. The inherited nature of a personal being endowed with con- Jewish identity implies that no one sciousness and purpose.” (157) For can deny anyone else’s claim to these Jews, such a God is found in Jewishness — no matter what they private, not collective, Jewish expe- do or do not do. At the same time, riences, not in the synagogue or the insistence that one has elected prayer book, where the images of this identity preserves the view that God are seen as too commanding one is acting on the basis of indi- and, curiously, too “Jewish.” Cohen vidual autonomy. and Eisen note that few respondents For all the insistence among re- referred to Jewish studies, sources or spondents that they were acting au- texts as informing their theological tonomously in choosing a Jewish beliefs. identity, their adult Jewish involve- The portrait that emerges in The ment nonetheless largely correlated Jew Within is one in which people with their Jewish upbringing and identify as Jews to the extent that it education. Furthermore, the associa- is a source of personal meaning. Jew- tion among various indicators of ish practices are used selectively in- Jewish involvement observed in ear- sofar as they assist in attaining that lier generations continues to hold meaning and are vehicles for family — those who claimed that Jewish- cohesion. Personal decision-making ness is more important also reported is assumed and highly valued in de- a corresponding constellation of con- termining the nature of one’s Jewish ventional and concrete activities. identity, the selection of Jewish prac- Typically, these include ritual practices, beliefs about God and choice tices, prayer, synagogue affiliation, of values.

62 • Fall 2001 The Reconstructionist Declining Communal Attachment and minority populations. The decline of this network, through lack Jewish group identity in the sec- of personal involvement and reduced ond half of the 20th century was communal support, poses a signifi- largely influenced by historical cir- cant challenge to Jewish communal cumstances. The experiences of the leaders who seek to advocate for Jew- 1940s propelled the development in ish group interests in the larger soci- the 1960s and 1970s of a passionate ety. It also may signal a declining in- concern with Israel, Soviet Jewry and volvement of Jews, as Jews, with gen- Holocaust commemoration. For eral societal issues. many Jews, engagement with these concerns constituted a profound and Whither Peoplehood? primary vehicle of Jewish identification. This retreat from the public sphere The receding of such issues and is more than a withdrawal from the the inward turn of consciousness Jewish federations, fraternal organi- now shape the new Jewish landscape. zations and defense agencies. It is the Israel is significantly less likely to be counterpart to the inward turn of a source of Jewish identification. For large numbers of Jews who are less many younger Jews, Israel may as moved by the interests of the Jewish easily be a source of confusion and people as a whole than by a highly even alienation. Freedom for the Jews personal search for meaning. Such of the former Soviet Union is a Jews have a weaker sense of “people- largely resolved issue and, over time, hood” than their predecessors. A the immediacy of the Holocaust be- higher value placed on universalism came lost and interest has waned. often correlates with lower regard for There are a number of implica- traditional identity boundaries be- tions that flow from these changes. tween Jews and non-Jews. The Jews A loss of interest in the public and observed in these studies exhibit a political dimensions of Jewish com- strong sense of universalism, as ex- munity threatens the viability of the pressed in borrowing freely from communal structure that is in place other religious traditions to enhance to address matters of Jewish corpo- personal spiritual practices. A logical rate concern. We are witnessing the consequence of this shift in con- decline of what had been a potent set sciousness is a reduced interest in the of options for involving Jews in Jew- concerns of world Jewry and Israel, ish life. American Jewish public affairs and Jewish communal structures that the particularistic effort to provide provide an array of social services and Jewish social services. organized activity in response to so- The decline in ethnic group con- cial and political concerns have long sciousness poses a particular dilemma been the envy of many other ethnic for the Reconstructionist movement,

The Reconstructionist Fall 2001 • 63 which emphasizes peoplehood. Ironi- their book than one might expect. cally, Cohen and Eisen note that this This is particularly disappointing generation may be especially recep- because the research led Cohen and tive to Reconstructionism (or Re- Eisen to conclude that one’s partner form) because of the emphasis placed is perhaps the most significant influ- on “outreach,” which is heard as ence on Jewish identity and practice. “non-judgmental and accepting.” We As an example: Cohen and Eisen need to consider how to preserve Re- observe a decline from previous gen- constructionism’s emphasis on Jew- erations in the observance by Jews of ish peoplehood, with the corollary Christmas. Waxman observes the concerns for Israel and the Jewish same decline — but only within ex- community, when current and future clusively Jewish households. When constituents find such notions to be intermarried households are also con- simply foreign to their experience as sidered, the observance of Christmas Jews. sharply increases, lending further cre- dence to Cohen and Eisen’s observa- Intermarriage tion of the influence of partners on such decisions. Thus, Waxman notes Compared with earlier generations that “93.4 percent of the respondents of Jews, the rate of intermarriage is in endogamous Jewish marriages say now significantly higher than among that they never or sometimes have a Protestant and Catholic generational Christmas tree . . . [and] 73.4 per- counterparts. The earlier higher oc- cent of those in mixed marriages re- currences of intermarriage among port that they usually or always have Jewish men has given way to statis- a Christmas tree.” (69) tics that suggest Jewish women are as likely as Jewish men to intermarry. Qualitative Differences All three authors observe that intermarriage (i.e., where no conversion Regarding the implications of in- of the non-Jewish partner occurs) is termarriage, Waxman in particular no longer subject to the social disap- makes it plain, based on his own re- proval of earlier generations. The search and the consistent findings of current generation sees little incon- others, that “Jewish identity is quali- sistency in a professed adherence to tatively different . . . in families where Jewish identity alongside the choice there is no intermarriage.” (114) The of a non-Jewish life partner. majority of children from intermar- Because of the composition of the ried families are not identifying respondents in Cohen and Eisen’s themselves as Jewish, nor are they study, Jews with non-Jewish partners marrying Jewish partners. Cohen and were greatly underrepresented. Per- Eisen observe that the depth of one’s haps for this reason, intermarriage re- Jewish life “varies dramatically with ceives surprisingly less emphasis in the commitment of one’s partner.”

64 • Fall 2001 The Reconstructionist (133) They note that “the presence Needed: A Comprehensive of a non-Jewish spouse . . . would Response seem to undermine the chances for a supportive Jewish family context; all The rabbis and congregations of the social scientific data tend to sup- the Reconstructionist movement, port this.” (132) Unfortunately, along with other liberal Jews, have Cohen and Eisen did not use their worked deliberately to create congre- in-depth interview technique with gational and educational environ- these families to better understand ments welcoming to intermarried their internal dynamics. Jews, their partners and their chil- Waxman summarizes the conclu- dren. These efforts have yielded many sions of several studies on intermar- positive results. However, as Waxman riage in these strong terms: notes, the Jewish community has yet to develop a comprehensive response . . . it is glaringly apparent that to the challenges that widespread in- those Jewish baby boomers who termarriage presents. The same is are married to non-Jews mani- true for the Reconstructionist move- fest much lower indices of ment. Jewish involvement in both The research under discussion in- the religious and ethnic terms dicates widespread and growing rates than Jewish baby boomers who of intermarriage, which carries sig- are married to Jews. The inter- nificant implications for the charac- married have much higher ter of Jewish communities — both percentages of never having vis- on the smaller congregational level ited Israel . . . not belonging to and in the larger corporate sphere. any Jewish organizations, not While recognizing the delicacy of having had any formal Jewish bringing serious discussion about education, and not participating the impact of intermarriage into in a variety of religious rituals. public Jewish discourse, these In addition, 38.3 percent of studies suggest the imperative of do- the intermarried attend church ing so. services at least once a year. If This one issue alone has significant the Jewish baby boomers, as a implications for the content of rab- group, manifest low levels of binic training and the nature and Jewish identification and iden- content of other professional Jewish tity, the intermarried ones do training. It is an exceedingly deli- so much more. And the evi- cate task to enable congregational dence suggests that the inter- communities to affirm the value of marriage rate is increasing. (117- strong Jewish identity while not 118) alienating non-Jews who are members of the extended congregational family, and in many cases strong sup-

The Reconstructionist Fall 2001 • 65 porters and participants in the con- dryly as statistics, as noted above, the gregation. We need a thoughtful and absence of in-depth discussion with comprehensive strategy to address intermarried families results in a this question in all of its complexity. somewhat skewed portrait. Jewish leadership at all levels Maintaining Connections would do well to consider carefully the agenda that should be crafted out Both books under discussion in- of the conclusions of this research. clude references to the fact that pat- Clearly, the Jewish community, terns and changes within American through our institutions and leaders, Jewry are consistent with those in will have to continue to make many other American groups. Waxman es- adaptations to remain connected to pecially brings to the discussion Jews. It is also clear that there are approaches that locate these develop- many Jews searching for the mean- ments in larger political, economic ing that connection can bring. and historical contexts. This is help- Both books document the current ful in considering why, for example, predominant patterns of Jewish iden- personal autonomy has emerged as tification and bring into sharp focus such a key notion in understanding the challenges that our community contemporary Jewry, and the degree faces at this moment in preserving to which this autonomy truly exists. and perpetuating Jewish life. It is in- It is also helpful in reminding the teresting to read these books in tan- reader that patterns within American dem, precisely because while their Jewry are themselves subject to approaches differ, their conclusions change. are largely similar, thus underscoring Particularly because of the inclu- a set of concerns about the future of sion of in-depth interviewing, Cohen the Jewish community that merits the and Eisen’s study has been long- attention of anyone concerned with awaited. It was hoped that this meth- the future of that community. od would yield an understanding of subjects not possible from large scale 1. Wade Clark Roof, A Generation of survey data. While the dimension of Seekers: The Spiritual Journeys of the Baby testimony does help to put a personal Boom Generation (San Francisco: Harper face on what might otherwise pass SanFranciso, 1993).

66 • Fall 2001 The Reconstructionist Thinking About Male Jewish Identity

Searching for My Brothers: Jewish Men in a Gentile World Jeffrey K. Salkin (New York, G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1999), xiii + 235 pages

From Your Father’s House . . . Reflections for Modern Jewish Men Kerry M. Olitzky (Philadelphia, The Jewish Publication Society, 1998), xxv + 108 pages

REVIEWED BY LAWRENCE BUSH

udaism is not only a civilization, has demanded both spiritual trans- as Mordecai Kaplan taught — it formation and the channeling of J is a civilizing civilization. Its “macho” into Jewishly acceptable economic laws aim to civilize the pathways. Intellectual innovation, yetzer hara, the “evil” or lustful urge. economic overachievement and he- Its laws of kashrut aim to tame the roic social activism have been among survival-oriented instinct to gorge the fruits of this transformation/sub- on whatever edibles are available. limation process. In our own time, Its sexual laws are intended to curb however, the “alternative” masculin- promiscuous impulses. “Modesty, ity proposed by Judaism has been mercy and benevolence” — these are eroded by at least four powerful cross- the ideal characteristics for Jews currents: assimilation and the loos- put forth in the Midrash (Deuter- ened hold of Jewish traditions and onomy Rabbah 3:4) — characteristics community; the devastating, emascu- that defy baser human instincts and lating impact of the Holocaust; the the “might makes right” logic of his- compensatory Zionist pioneer/war- tory. rior mystique; and the challenge to patriarchal culture, including Jewish Channeling Macho culture, led by our own wives, sisters, mothers and friends. Many Jewish For Jewish men through the cen- men of the baby-boom generation turies, the pursuit of these virtues have been stranded on the shore,

Lawrence Bush edits Reconstructionism Today and is co-editor of JEWS., an arts and literary magazine (wwwjewsdot.com).

The Reconstructionist Fall 2001 • 67 alienated from the mainstream of about “Jewish men in a Gentile “hard” masculinity but without a world.” Salkin covers a lot of ground Jewish alternative to call their own. in a short space. He writes about het- The books under review empathize erosexuality (“The question, ‘Was it with this complex identity crisis and good for you?’ is a religious ques- offer resources from Judaism and tion”); about anti-Semitism (a “sym- Jewish history for the reconstruction bol of Jewish vulnerability . . . is the of Jewish masculine identity. frequent inability of Jewish men to defend their women”); about fathers, Feeling of Fraternity sons and father-in-laws (“The Moses- Jethro relationship is probably the Kerry Olitzky’s From Your Father’s most important [human] relationship House . . . Reflections for Modern Jew- in the entire Torah.”); about bar mitz- ish Men is a pocket-fitting volume of vah (“In Europe, bar mitzvah was a forty-five essays, most only a few comma — a comma in the long, run- paragraphs long. Olitzky begins them on sentence of Jewish life and respon- with quotations from a wide range of sibility. In America, it has become a scriptural sources, and seems to take period.”); about contemporary Israel for granted a level of unambivalent (“It was as if a bodybuilding manual Jewish commitment and religiosity had arrived at our doorsteps.”); about among his readers. This stance lim- Jewish history, biblical lore, circum- its his reach but also establishes a nice cision, work and ambition, the Yid- feeling of fraternity. dish language, modern theology and The brevity of the essays precludes more. much in the way of analysis or even Despite this wide range and anecdote; the book is more a packet Salkin’s talent for sound bytes, of “seeds of thought” than a harvested Searching for My Brothers never wears crop. It might best be used by men’s thin or feels superficial. Salkin keeps groups or synagogue brotherhoods it moving with high narrative energy “to open up discussion, to stake out and unpretentious erudition that ex- the territory,” as the author writes in tends from arcane Judaica to popu- his own preface. A friendly, 12-page lar American culture: introduction by Rabbi Shawn Zevit provides an overview of the contem- Only in a post-Israel world could porary Jewish “men’s movement” we encounter someone like the (called the “brotherkeeping” move- current reigning World Champi- ment by one of its leaders, Yosaif onship Wrestling heavyweight August) and adds some necessary champion. He is a six-foot-four- grounding and context. inch, 285-pound man known as Jeffrey Salkin’s Searching for My Goldberg. His real name is Bill Brothers is a considerably more sub- Goldberg, a thirty-one-year-old stantial and personally revealing book son of a Harvard-educated doc-

68 • Fall 2001 The Reconstructionist tor and classical musician. He was toward healing post-boomers of Jew- once a defensive lineman for the ish shame? How much do they iden- Atlanta Falcons. He wrestled his tify with the “warrior mystique” of title away from Hulk Hogan. . . . Israel, and to what extent has it neu- His signature finishing move is a tralized what Salkin calls the “anti- body slam called the Jackhammer. Semitic iconography” of “the Pathetic . . . Wrestling is no longer a ‘goys Jewish Male”? will be goys’ phenomenon.” Baby-boom men could be likened to the generation of Moses: We were Missing Voices “freed from Egypt” by the feminist movement, which directly trans- Salkin also gives voice to several formed our marriages, our sexuality, women, Laura Geller, Mary Daly, our experiences of fatherhood, our Rachel Adler and Alice Miller among cooking skills and our sense of privi- them. Entirely missing, however, lege and possibility as we grew into from both his and Olitzky’s books manhood. Both Kerry Olitzky and are the voices of post-baby-boom Jeffrey Salkin (and, before them, men — the MTV, AOL, Tattooed Jew Harry Brod, editor of A Mentsh crowd, who likewise seem largely ab- Among Men, and Rami Shapiro, au- sent from synagogue life and most thor of Embracing Esau) have worked other Jewish communal settings. well to distill the turmoil of this gen- What are they making of the regres- eration and give new dignity to the sion to macho masculinity and hyper- Jewish paradigm of masculinity. The violence in American culture? How lessons with which we are grappling have their own identities been shaped will not have staying power, however, by AIDS, by “girl power,” by cam- unless we educate — and learn from, pus sex codes, by extraordinarily and give voice to — the next genera- raunchy movies, by The Man Show tion of men, the generation of on Comedy Central, by queer poli- Joshua. Mentoring, even more than tics, by Ecstasy and raves, by the in- brotherkeeping, should be the next tense corporatization of American step for the Jewish men’s movement. culture? How far has the “Cool Ju- daism” (Jonathan Schorsch’s phrase)1 of heavy metal Hasidic rock and Jew- 1. Jonathan Schorsch, “Making Judaism ish characters on South Park gone Cool,” Tikkun, March/April 2000, 33.

The Reconstructionist Fall 2001 • 69 The Sabbath Bride — and Groom — in Shabbat Evening Liturgy

BY DONALD MENZI

“The sun in the treetops no longer The image of the Sabbath Bride is is seen; truly meaningful only in the context Come, gather to welcome the of the kabbalistic understanding of Sabbath, our Queen. . . . the nature of reality and the function of Jewish ritual as the primary means Draw near, O Queen, and here of tikkun olam — repairing the abide; world. Draw near, draw near, O Sabbath Bride.”1 Kaplan and Kabbalah

he imagery of Shabbat as a I found that some basic elements bride has always puzzled me. of the kabbalistic world-view were in TVarious rabbis’ attempts to many ways surprisingly similar to explain it as expressing God’s love for Mordecai Kaplan’s, as expressed in his the institution of the Sabbath have writings.3 For both Kaplan and the always sounded somewhat lame and kabbalists, “God as ultimate reality incomplete. I was sure that there is unknowable.” Both rejected what must be more to it — that there was Kaplan called a pure naturalism “that something the rabbis weren’t telling reduces all manifestations of life, in- us, something that they themselves cluding thought, to mere operations may not have been aware of. of matter and physico-chemical It was not until my friend Zwe causes.” Padeh and I were halfway through Instead, both Kaplan and the our translation into English of the kabbalists viewed the world dualisti- first volume of Etz Hayyim. — cally, with “outer” and “inner” (or Hayyim. Vital’s monumental intro- lower and higher) aspects. For both, duction to the kabbalah of his mas- the “outer” or “lower” aspect is the ter, Isaac Luria — that I began to re- physical universe, the world of things alize that my suspicions were correct.2 that we can touch, taste, see, smell, Donald Menzi is a past president and member of West End Synagogue in Man- hattan.

70 • Fall 2001 The Reconstructionist weigh and measure. And both viewed (melekh ha’olam), with Ze’ir Anpin, the “inner” (or higher) realm as con- the “son.” The Shekhinah, the per- sisting of a “complex of forces . . . sonification of the divine Presence operating in their own right,” which dwelling among us, they identified Kaplan described as “a cosmic urge, with the tenth sefirah — Malkhut, by obeying which man makes him- the “daughter.” self at home in the universe.” Both Kaplan and the kabbalists Unlike Kaplan, however, the kab- saw the “inner” and “outer” (or high- balists sought to probe deeply into er and lower) realms as two distinct the nature of the inner (or higher) but interrelated aspects of reality. To realm, and developed their own the kabbalists, the path connecting methods to analyze and describe its them is a two-way street, and it is the structure and dynamics. They con- spiritual activities of humans — es- ceived of a complex system based on pecially the Jewish people — that ten distinct but interrelated forces bridges the two aspects. It is our that they called sefirot, which they prayers and performance of the mitz- classified as either “male” or “female” vot (with the proper inner intention) based on their essential characteris- that arouses ardent love between the tics.4 divine Male and Female, helping to bring about their marital unifica- The Family of Sefirot tion.6 In order to describe more fully Kabbalah in Kol Haneshamah their interpretation of the interac- tions among these abstract forces, the The Reconstructionist siddur, Kol kabbalists did not hesitate to give Haneshamah: Shabbat Vehagim, in- them human faces (partzufim), iden- cludes just one example of the many tifying them metaphorically as mem- Lurianic kavvanot that express this bers of an extended family. This su- idea: pernal family included the biblical figure “Ancient of Days,” whom the For the sake of the union of the kabbalists called Arikh Anpin, liter- blessed Holy One with the ally “long face” (sefirah 1); a father Shekhinah, I stand here, ready (Abba, sefirah 2); a mother (Immah, in body and mind, to take upon sefirah 3); a son, Ze’ir Anpin, literally myself the mitzvah, “You shall “short face” (six sefirot, 4-9); and a love your fellow human being daughter, Malkhut (“Kingdom,” as yourself,” and by this merit sefirah 10).5 may I open up my mouth.7 In this configuration, the kabbalists identified the biblical God of Despite their imaginative imagery, Israel, YHVH, who is also the rab- the kabbalists were ardent monotheists, binic period’s “King of the Universe” but for them, divinity was a complex

The Reconstructionist Fall 2001 • 71 Kaplan’s multifaceted “God-idea” expressed as a kabbalistic “Tree of Life” unity, with many different aspects. For heal and repair this brokenness, and the Isaac Luria and his disciples, whose con- metaphor that they used most often to cepts influenced all later kabbalists, describe their goal — the achievement God’s oneness is a broken unity that of universal harmony, balance, peace, needs our help to be made whole. All love and joy — was that of a sacred of the imperfections and lack of har- marriage, the union of Ze’ir Anpin and mony in the world — its warfare, ha- Malkhut, the divine Male and Female, treds, poverty, ignorance, crime, disease the supernal Bride and Groom. and general failure to live up to its full potential — they saw as evidence of a Metaphor of Marriage cosmic brokenness that encompasses all aspects of the universe, both outer While the kabbalists used the meta- (physical) and inner (spiritual). phor of marriage in a number of dif- The kabbalists’ ultimate goal was to ferent ways, they applied it especially

72 • Fall 2001 The Reconstructionist to Friday evening services, beginning tionally recited between the end of Fri- with Kabbalat Shabbat, which they cre- day afternoon services and the begin- ated. According to the kabbalists, when ning of the Kabbalat Shabbat service we gather for services on Friday night, proper. Kol Haneshamah has retained we are not just congregants, but wed- part of this practice by including ex- ding guests — bridesmaids and groom’s cerpts from the Song of Songs at the men — witnessing and taking part in a beginning of Kabbalat Shabbat. ritual that they interpreted as a Jewish The Song of Songs is a love song, in wedding, complete with the uniting of the form of a poetic dialogue between bride and groom under the huppah, the two ardent lovers. It owes its inclusion seven nuptial blessings, a wedding ban- in the Bible to the tradition that it was quet, consummation and the begetting written by King Solomon, and to Rab- of new life. bi Akiva, who interpreted it as a dia- The Reconstructionist prayerbook, logue between God and his people, Is- Kol Haneshamah, contains many allu- rael. sions to kabbalistic concepts, both ex- For the kabbalists, the Song of Songs plicit in its “below the line” commen- had a somewhat different meaning. The taries and implicit in its editors’ choices Song of Songs is a love song between of passages to include or exclude and the two “offspring,” Ze’ir Anpin — the in the wording of some of its English Holy One, Blessed be He, the divine renderings. Among “modern” prayer King, the personification of the six cen- books, it is certainly the best with which tral sefirot — and his “sister,” Malkhut, to illustrate the way that the kabbalists the Shekhinah, our Sabbath Bride-to- applied their marital metaphor to be.10 As such, it makes a fitting begin- Shabbat services, though its scrupulous ning for a service that they interpreted use of gender-neutral language has as a celebration of the marital union of somewhat obscured the inherent male- the divine Male and Female. female dynamic implicit in this imagery.8 The Royal Bridegroom The Dialogue of Divine Lovers Immediately following the Song of Songs in Kabbalat Shabbat, we find six “. . . . The King has brought me to psalms — Psalms 95-99 and 29. When his chambers: we examine closely the language of “We are gleeful, we rejoice in you,” these psalms, we find that they all refer he says. . . . to God in the role of king (melekh) and You have enlivened me, my sister- jdge.11 bride Awake, north wind, yes come, south Psalm 95: For THE CREATOR is wind . . . .”9 a generous divinity, a sovereign (melekh) greater than all the im- The entire Song of Songs is tradi- age-gods. . . .

The Reconstructionist Fall 2001 • 73 Psalm 96: Declare among the na- friend, let’s greet the bride, the tions that THE ETERNAL reigns Sabbath Presence bring inside.” (malakh). Psalm 97: . . . THE UNCRE- I had always assumed that the He- ATED reigns (malakh)! O world, brew dodi (“my friend”) was simply a rejoice! way of saluting each other in a com- radely way. Not so! say the kabbalists. Psalm 98: . . .THE ONE who Anaf Yosef, a kabbalistic commentary, comes to rule (lishpot) the earth, explains that here we are addressing to rule the settled world with jus- God himself, our divine Friend, envi- tice. sioned as the Bridegroom awaiting with Psalm 99: . . .THE ONE OF us the entrance of the Shekhinah, the SINAI reigns (malakh) . . . with supernal Bride.14 royal strength, but loving justice. The first stanza of Lekhah Dodi also has a secret meaning for the kabbalists: Psalm 29: . . . THE REDEEMER prevailing at the Sea . . . presiding “‘Keep’ and ‘Remember’ in a sole (melekh) for the cosmos. command, Whatever the kabbalists’ original rea- the solitary God did us command son for including these six psalms in I AM is one, the Name is one, Kabbalat Shabbat, they were certainly in name, in splendor, and in aware that six is the number of sefirot praise.” personified by the figure of Ze’ir Anpin, King of the Universe, the male aspect The reference here is to slightly dif- of divinity who is presented to us here ferent versions of the commands to as the heavenly Bridegroom-to-be.12 observe the Sabbath that are found in the books of Exodus (shamor, “keep”) Here Comes The Bride! and Deuteronomy (zakhor, “remember”). The Talmud reconciled the two Now that the Groom has been in- versions by stating that God uttered troduced, we are ready to welcome the both words simultaneously. The Bride, whom we can imagine as enter- kabbalists found in them a hidden ref- ing the sanctuary to the. accompani- erence to unification of the supernal ment of our singing of Lekhah Dodi13 Male and Female, Bride and Groom, — by the 16th-century kabbalist where zakhor (“remember”) refers to the Shelomo Halevi Alkabetz. Male (zakhar) and shamor points to the Female. Their “oneness” consists of The repeated refrain of Lekhah their marital union, which we have Dodi is an invitation: “Lekhah gathered to celebrate.15 dodi likrat kalah, peney shabbat So, just as in a modern wedding the nekabelah.” “O, come, my groom turns to face the bride as she

74 • Fall 2001 The Reconstructionist comes down the aisle, we turn toward voice, the doorway to welcome the Sabbath Barukh shem kevod malkhuto Bride as she enters the sanctuary, while le’olam va’ed. we sing the final verse of Lekhah Dodi: “Blessed is the name and glory of God’s realm (malkhut) for- O, come in peace, O divine crown, ever.” with joy, rejoicing, and with mirth, amid the faithful, loved by God, Note that traditionally we do not say come in, O Bride, come in, O Bride! the second line of the Shema (“Barukh shem kavod . . .”) out loud except on United Under the Huppah. Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. The Zohar explains that during the rest Now that the divine Bride and of the year we bring the Bride forward Bridegroom are both present, we cel- with a whisper so that the “other side” ebrate their coming together by recit- — the forces of evil — cannot inter- ing the Shema — the quintessential as- fere with their unification. sertion of God’s oneness: Shema Yisra’el, Adonay eloheynu, Every attempt to bring the Bride Adonay echad. “Listen Israel: to the side of the King for the THE ETERNAL, our God, joy of intercourse must be made THE ETERNAL ONE alone!” with a whisper, in secret, to prevent any trace of the evil side The Zohar explains the Shema as fol- from following her steps or lows:16 cleaving to her, or to stop any blemish whatsoever from affect- All the supernal limbs (i.e., the ing her children.17 sefirot) are united together in a single desire and with a single will On the Day of Atonement, however, to be one, without any separation. when evil has temporarily lost its power, Then her husband conceives the we can say this openly, with no fear intention of bringing her to the that the heavenly union will be dis- canopy to be one with her, to rupted. unite with his consort. Therefore we arouse her and say “Shema The Seven Nuptial Blessings Yisrael! Prepare yourself! Your husband comes to you in all his fin- The kabbalists interpreted the seven ery, and is ready to meet you.” blessings of the Shabbat Amidah as paralleling the seven blessings of the Then the consort (i.e., Malkhut) Jewish marriage ceremony. They fo- prepares herself and adorns heself, cused especially on the fourth blessing, and her ministers bring her to her which begins, husband, whispering in a soft

The Reconstructionist Fall 2001 • 75 Atah kiddashta et yom hashevi’i . . . fash as referring to new souls generated “You sanctified the seventh by the marital union of the supernal day . . .” Bride and Groom.20 From this is derived the kabbalistic explanation for the The basic meaning of the Hebrew tradition that married couples should root K-D-SH is “set apart,” which has make love especially on Friday nights.21 a dual meaning of either “sanctified” or As stated in the Zohar, “betrothed,” depending on the context. The second meaning is found in the Those initiated in the higher wis- formula repeated at Jewish weddings, dom perform their marital duties “Harey at mekudeshet li. . . .” “Behold, on each Sabbath night, for it is on you are betrothed to me. . . .” Here the the night of the Sabbath that the kabbalists interpreted “Atah kiddashta Holy One, blessed be He, unites . . .” as referring to the Holy One’s be- with His Consort in order to pro- trothal to the Sabbath Bride.18 duce holy souls for the world. Therefore on this night the com- New, Holy Souls panions sanctify themselves with the sanctity of their Creator, and What happens in a Jewish wedding direct their minds, and fine chil- after the ceremony under the huppah. ? dren are produced, holy children, The Bride and Groom go to a room who do not veer to the right or to where they can be alone together at last, the left, children of the King and where, in ancient times, the marriage the Consort.22 was consummated. (These days, they usually just share a bit of food together L’hayim. to the Newlyweds! before returning to the wedding party to dance and greet their guests.) The The kabbalists had their own under- kabbalists were able to find a hint of standing of Kiddush — the blessing we the supernal Bride and Groom’s mari- say over wine at the start of the Sab- tal consummation in the concluding bath meal. Here, too, they found a ref- verse of Veshamru: erence to the sacred marriage of the . . . uvayom hashevi’i shavat va- Sabbath Bride and Groom. yinafash. We noted above that the Hebrew “. . . and on the seventh day, God root K-D-SH means “set apart,” which ceased and drew a breath of rest.” can be translated as “consecrated,” “sanctified,” or — in the marital con- The Hebrew vayinafash is usually text — “betrothed.” Kol Haneshamah’s translated simply as “rested.” Notice, translation of the last line of the Kid- however, that vayinafash sounds like dush blessing allows for all these inter- nefesh, one of the Hebrew words for pretations: “soul.”19 One of the earliest kabbalistic works, Sefer HaBahir, explains vayina- Barukh atah adonay, mekaddesh

76 • Fall 2001 The Reconstructionist hashabbat — “ . . . who sets apart tal imagery only to Friday evening ser- Shabbat.”23 vices. Some, however, extended the metaphor to the whole day of Shabbat, Indeed, when kabbalists followed the detailing the various elements of recital of the Kiddush blessing with a Shabbat services that parallel a tradi- hearty “L’hayim!”. it was to salute the tional Jewish wedding, ending with divine newlyweds, whose union brings Havdalah, when the divine Bride and new life into the world.24 Groom must separate, and when the “additional soul” that we receive on Two Angels Shabbat must reluctantly return to its creator. “What does the (human) Legend has it that following Friday groom do after he and his bride are night prayers, the Jewish husband re- united?” asks David ben Judah, an early turns home, accompanied by two “an- 14th-century kabbalist. gels,” one good and one bad. If, when he opens the door, he finds the candles He comes into her in the mitzvah lit, the table set, and the bed made, then of coupling, and then separates the “good” angel is permitted to say, from her. . . . This is the essence of “May it be this way next Shabbat also!” Havdalah, the ritual of separation. and the bad angel is compelled to re- For as Sabbath departs, the super- spond, “Amen.” But if the candles are nal King withdraws from the not lit, the table not set, and the bed Queen. For this reason, the soul not made, the “bad” angel is permitted that remains in us here below is to say, “May it be this way next Shabbat bereft, for she remains alone, with- also!” and the good angel is forced to out her mate, the Sabbath-soul. So reply, “Amen.” we strengthen her with fragrant These three items — candles, table scents at Havdalah.25 and bed — were not chosen at random. The lit candles reflect the piety And so, at the close of Shabbat, the and religious observance of the woman Sabbath Bride and Groom are separated of the house. The set table symbolizes once again. Shabbat, which has pro- an orderly household. And the bed? vided us with a foretaste of a world in Clearly, this is in anticipation of what which all separations are overcome, is is to come, after the meal is finished over and we, too, are bereft. For kab- and the children are sent to their rooms, balists, returning to an often inhospi- when the husband and wife are free to table world that was generally un- follow the kabbalists’ injunctions about friendly to Jews and Judaism, there was what to do on Friday night. comfort in the sure knowledge that within a few days — next Friday night, Separating in fact — they would again be able to see themselves as honored guests at the Most kabbalistic sources apply mari- celebration of a sacred marriage and

The Reconstructionist Fall 2001 • 77 wedding banquet, enjoying once more Nefesh, which they composed, we can a foretaste of the eternal peace and at least do so with an awareness of what boundless pleasures that will accom- their words meant to them, even if we pany the ultimate harmonization of all can no longer believe in them the same the forces of the universe — those we way they did. can see, feel, touch, and measure, and And when, instead of simply repeat- those that remain invisible to our ing their words by rote or pretending merely human powers of perception. that they mean what we moderns would like them to mean, we look into Contemporary Meanings them more deeply, we will often discover unexpected nuances, new depths What does all this mean to us? What of meaning and some unforseen sur- can we make of this kabbalistic imag- prises that can only enhance our plea- ery, so full of metaphors that are for- sure in what we have been doing all eign to our current way of thinking? these years. First, we must acknowledge that our religious services presently retain many 1. Kol Haneshamah, 10 vestiges of ideas that once made per- 2. The teachings of Isaac Luria (1525- fect sense in the broader context of an 1572), as transmitted by his chief disciple ancient, comprehensive world-view. Chayyim Vital, are the foundation for all Removed from their original context, later kabbalah. For an introduction to they have often either become mean- Luria’s teachings, see The Tree of Life, Chayyim Vital’s Introduction to the Kabbalah ingless to us or have been given “mod- of Isaac Luria, translated by Donald Menzi ern” interpretations that don’t really fit and Zwe Padeh, Jason Aronson Inc., 1999. them very well. It is certainly difficult, 3. Citations from Mordecai Kaplan are and perhaps impossible, for most of us taken from the following sources: Questions to think like the kabbalists, imagining Jews Ask (95, 103), Judaism Without Super- distinct male and female aspects of di- naturalism (26), The Meaning of God in Modern Jewish Religion (26, 244), and “Be- vinity, for example, ritually united dur- tween Two Worlds” in Ira Eisenstein, ed., ing our Shabbat services. Varieties of Jewish Belief, 141. We can, however, out of respect for 4. The Hebrew term sefirah (plural, sefirot) our own tradition, trace the path of its is derived from the root sfr (count, tell) and development back to its sources, in or- is related to safar (to count), sefer (book), and sippur (communication). It first appears der to understand the thinking of those in this sense in Sefer Yetzirah, an anony- who influenced the present shape of our mous Jewish text, roughly contemporary services and created some of their most with the Talmud, that had great influence popular parts. Certainly, if we are go- on the development of kabbalistic thought. ing to follow the kabbalists’ practice of 5. The visual images Arikh Anpin as a white- reciting verses from the Song of Songs haired patriarch and Ze’ir Anpin as a youth- ful black-bearded warrior king, are derived every Friday night, call upon their im- from the Idra Rabba and Idra Zuta por- agery of the Sabbath Bride and sing tions of the Zohar. They appear in Kol songs like Lekhah Dodi and Yedid Haneshamah in Shir Hakavod (“Song of

78 • Fall 2001 The Reconstructionist Glory”), a poetic defense of the use of such expressions of intimacy are typical of anthropomorphic images. (453-457) kabbalistic spirituality, as found, for ex- 6. The metaphor used by the kabbalists to ample, in Yedid Nefesh (Kol Haneshamah, describe this “arousing” was that our prayers 4), written by the 16th-century kabbalist and mitzvot adorn the bride with beautiful Eleazar Aikri. garments and jewels, enhancing her attrac- 15. See Elliot Ginsburg, The Sabbath in the tiveness to her prospective mate. Classical Kabbalah, 109. 7. Kol Haneshamah, 150. 16. Zohar II, 133b, cited in Isaiah Tishby, 8. For a more detailed discussion of the Wisdom of the Zohar, vol. III, 1023. marital motif in the Shabbat liturgy, see 17. Zohar II, 114b, cited in Tishby, Wis- Elliot Ginsburg, The Sabbath in Classical dom of the Zohar, 1027. The “children” of Kabbalah (State University of New York the divine King and his consort are the souls Press, 1989). born in this world to the pious, whose 9. Kol Haneshamah, 14, 18. marital union takes place on Friday nights 10. The kabbalists’ interpretation does not (see below). really contradict Rabbi Akiva’s. To them, 18. See Elliot Ginsburg, The Sabbath in the the Shekhinah was so closely identified with Classical Kabbalah, 118, 171n, 211, 175n, the Jewish people that one of her epithets 231. was Knesset Israel, “the Congregation of Is- 19. Kol Haneshamah’s translator hints sub- rael.” tly at this meaning by using the phrase 11. Kol Haneshamah, 20-39. Capitalized “breath of rest.” In ancient times, the breath expressions in Kol Haneshamah (e.g.,THE was associated with the soul. CREATOR, THE ETERNAL, etc.) are all substi- 20. Sefer HaBahir, 158, cited in Elliot tutions for the unpronounced four-letter Ginsburg, The Sabbath in the Classical Name, YHVH. Kabbalah, 123. 12. The kabbalists also saw the six week- 21. For a thorough discussion of the days as paralleling the six sefirot that they kabbalistic understanding of marital rela- personified by Ze’ir Anpin, while Shabbat, tions, see David Biale, Eros and the Jews, the last day of the week, was to them analo- Basic Books, 1992, 101-120. gous to the last sefirah, personified by 22. Zohar, I, 257a. Malkhut, the Sabbath Bride. 23. Kol Haneshamah, 119. 13. Kol Haneshamah, 40-47. 24. Tiqunei ha-Zohar, 24 (69a), cited in 14. This is the same reading of the Hebrew Elliot Ginsburg, The Sabbath in the Classi- “dodi” that we find in the traditional inter- cal Kabbalah, 118. pretation of the Song of Songs, where “dodi 25. David ben Judah he-Hasid, ‘Or Zaru’a, li” — “my Beloved is mine” — is inter- cited in Elliot Ginsburg, The Sabbath in preted as spoken by Israel to God. Such Classical Kabbalah, 123.

The Reconstructionist Fall 2001 • 79 Touchstones for Jewish Living

Finding Each Other in Judaism: Meditations on the Rites of Passage from Birth to Immortality Harold M. Schulweis (New York, UAHC Press, 2001), 120 pages

REVIEWED BY DENNIS C. SASSO

he founder of modern Jewish tions that we are open to experience Orthodoxy, Rabbi Samson the spirit of holiness and of sacred T Raphael Hirsch (1808-1888), fellowship. Regrettably, the majority asserted that “the catechism of the of American Jews come to the syna- Jew consists of his calendar.” Hirsch gogue “by invitation only” — for a was referring to the cycle of Sabbaths, bar or bat mitzvah, a wedding and, festivals and holy days that punctu- on sadder occasions, to pay their re- ate the rhythm of traditional Jewish spects at a funeral. life. For the majority of postmodern Jews living in the 21st century, this Powerful Rites of Passage assessment is no longer relevant. Per- haps Passover, Hanukkah and Yom In his new book, Finding Each Kippur still claim the allegiance of Other in Judaism, Rabbi Harold M. the majority of today’s Jews, but the Schulweis, whose writings have in- Jewish calendar as a whole has ceased structed and inspired a generation of to define the contours, the context rabbis and lay readers, invites us to a and the contents of Jewish expres- deeper appreciation of the spiritual sion. We live by other schedules. A and social powers inherent in the cel- secular rhythm accentuates the flow ebration and observance of the Jew- of our days. ish rites of passage. These are the Most of today’s Jews find sanctity moments when the “I” draws closer in the flow of time in the occasions to the “we,” to the members of the that mark the cycle of life from birth family and to the community present through death. It is at these times and past. that we are reminded of our Jew- In the introduction, Schulweis de- ishness, and it is during these transi- lineates two obstacles “that dissipate

Dennis C. Sasso is co-rabbi of Congregation Beth-El Zedek in Indianapolis.

80 • Fall 2001 The Reconstructionist the potentiality of bringing the fam- to manuals” nor comparative anthro- ily closer through Judaism: riteless pological surveys. Rather, drawing passages and passageless rites.” By the from the vast store of our religio- first he means the “secular marking legal, spiritual and folkloristic heri- of life’s stages without ritual anchor- tage, each chapter blends ancient cus- ings to religious meaning or spiritual tom and wisdom with poetic imag- reflection,” events that are “purely ery to paint a portrait of a stage in private occasions free of the con- life that touches the soul and feeds straints of communal traditions . . . the mind of contemporary Jews. a birth without benediction, a wed- Prose essays are followed by the au- ding without sanctifying rituals, a fu- thor’s own poetic and reflective medi- neral without Kaddish.” tations, a bountiful treasure to be The second obstacle, “passageless mined by lay folk and clergy alike in rites,” refers to ceremonies where composing and enriching meaning- ritual is trivialized and holiness de- ful life-cycle ceremonies. based. Passageless rites convert “the Some of the poetic selections bar or bat mitzvah into a birthday found in this volume are familiar party; the wedding into a . . . catered from other Schulweis publications meal, the florist’s display and the (e.g. “Touch My Heart,” “Holding photographer’s angle.” Quoting the On and Letting Go”). Sometimes, dictionary, he reminds us that the the poetry is a bit didactic and philo- term “ceremony” indeed functions so sophic, better used for explanation often as “an action performed with than inspiration. But, as a whole, the formality but lacking deep signifi- meditations are erudite and compel- cance, form or effect.” ling. They teach as they touch. Schulweis’ book is intent on “over- Schulweis exhibits a Kaplanian pas- coming the disconnection” between sion for rationality and coherence, a rite and passage. He seeks to “bridge Heschelian sense of pathos and a the chasm, to properly hyphenate rite Buberian urgency for encounter. The and passage, to connect believing prose narrative that introduces each with behaving, doing with under- section eschews scholarly lingo and standing.” is intent upon rendering tradition accessible and inviting for the quest- Marking the Life Cycle ing and questioning Jew. Schulweis devotes six chapters to A New Chemistry of Faith stages in the Jewish life cycle: “Birth and Brit,” “Bar and Bat Mitzvah,” Topics of the life cycle, family re- “The Wedding,” “Rites of Conver- lations and holiday observance are sion,” “In Sickness and in Health” woven in a seamless continuum. and “Death, Dying and Immortal- Thus, the section on marriage ad- ity.” The chapters are neither “how- dresses the theme of divorce by sub-

The Reconstructionist Fall 2001 • 81 tly introducing us to other experi- shows that a religious humanism ences and expressions of family es- grounded in a naturalistic theology trangement. Schulweis proposes a can be spiritually fulfilling and pas- ritual of reconciliation that addresses torally uplifting. Meditations such as the nuanced distinction between for- “May I Not Forget” (a modern Birkat giveness and forgetfulness, anger and Hagomel [thanksgiving blessing for vengefulness. The meditation that safety] upon recovery) should enter ends the section on the wedding, en- into every manual for rabbis and be titled “The Mitzvah of Reconcilia- available for home, hospital and syna- tion,” is a fitting modern piyyut (li- gogue use. turgical poem) for the Days of Awe. In Schulweis’ anthropology, psychol- The Names of God ogy, sociology and theology merge in a new chemistry of faith. In the last chapter, “Death, Dying In the section on conversion, and Immortality,” Schulweis returns Schulweis speaks of outreach in a to a theme about which he has writ- simple and poignant manner: “We are ten before: the distinction between a family, a growing family, which an Elohim and Adonai as divine names. increasing number of Americans not Elohim reflects the “reality prin- born or raised as Jews seek to join.” ciple,” the author of all that “is”; He reminds us that “Judaism’s birth Adonai represents the “ideality prin- was through conversion” and invites ciple,” the source of what “ought to us to “open the gates.” The narrative be.” Schulweis develops these con- portion of this chapter is disappoint- cepts and treats us to a theology that ingly short and lacks a meaningful is modest and patient in the need to evaluation of the values inherent in accept what is, yet at the same time the rituals and practices of conver- is infused with the hutzpah. and ur- sion (e.g. study, mikveh, bet din). gency that moves us to aspire to be However, the meditations at the end partners of the divine in transform- of the chapter are sensitive and per- ing the world for good. ceptive. They reflect faithfully what In Finding Each Other in Judaism, so many thoughtful converts have to Harold Schulweis provides for say about the fruits of their own searching Jews and other religious search and discovery of Judaism. seekers beautiful and meaningful I found the section on “In Sick- touchstones for spiritual enrichment ness and in Health” to be especially and interpersonal encounter at every insightful and evocative. Schulweis stage in the life cycle.

82 • Fall 2001 The Reconstructionist The Art of the Sermon Witness From the Pulpit: Topical Sermons 1933-1980 Harold I. Saperstein Edited with introductions and notes by Marc Saperstein (Lexington Books, 2000) 365 pages

REVIEWED BY GEORGE DRIESEN

he sermon is not a popular, editorial interpolations help the perhaps not even a familiar, reader understand both the rabbi and T genre these days. So it is pleas- the frequently momentous events ing as well as surprising to come upon which he commented. across Witness From the Pulpit, a col- Witness From the Pulpit is some- lection of more than fifty sermons thing of a family affair. Edited by Rabbi Harold I. Saperstein delivered Professor Marc Saperstein, with a at Temple Emanu-El in Lynbrook, foreword by his brother Rabbi David Long Island, from 1933 through Saperstein, the book can be seen as 1980. Saperstein, who recently died, the tribute of sons to their father’s served the temple as its rabbi during career. This adds a human tone to the that entire period, except briefly dur- objective, scholarly voice of the ex- ing World War II, when he voluntar- planatory materials, footnotes and ily served as a chaplain in the U.S. careful references to sources that are Army. provided. Harold Saperstein meticulously Texts in Context prepared his sermons, typing them out and then cutting up the pages so In these sermons (only a fraction they could be turned more easily. of Saperstein’s output), he responded Before delivering a sermon, he read to important social and political it aloud several times. By the time he events of the day. Unlike traditional had finished, he was able virtually to divrei Torah, these sermons were give the sermon from memory. As a rarely tied to the weekly Torah por- result, the sermons were delivered in tion. But then the sermons in this a flowing manner, so much so, the volume were selected for their histori- editor recounts, that congregants fre- cal and social rather than their theo- quently asked whether his father logical importance. The editor’s in- wrote them out. To make sure he troductions, footnotes and occasional never unknowingly repeated himself,

Rabbi George Driesen teaches in the greater Washington, D.C. metropolitan area.

The Reconstructionist Fall 2001 • 83 Saperstein developed a filing system Jerusalem on sabbatical when the sur- by subject. rounding Arab states invaded in 1967. Aware of the likelihood of war, The Imperatives they had remained while many oth- of Social Action ers fled. One could only imagine how proud and deeply moved his congre- Harold Saperstein was a rabbi in gation must have been when, after the great social action tradition of the recounting what he had seen, he in- Reform movement, a disciple of voked the familiar aphorism of Ha- Rabbi Stephen S. Wise. Like his men- nukkah, “nes gadol haya sham,” “a tor, Saperstein was actively engaged great miracle happened there,” to de- by the events of his time: the rise of scribe the Israeli triumph. Hitler, the agony of the Holocaust, World War II, the creation of the Tensions of the Topical State of Israel and its repeated wars for survival, the unfolding liberation Topical sermons can be problem- of African-Americans from segrega- atic, however. American rabbis tion and physical intimidation, the learned this during the Civil War, successes of the civil rights movement when some got into trouble for in the South and its effects else- speaking for abolition, about which where. many congregants felt rabbis ought Saperstein not only preached to remain silent lest they divide their about contemporary events, he was congregations and violate the prin- often in the thick of them. For ex- ciple of separation between church ample, he and his wife went to Ala- and state. bama in 1965 to participate in the Topical sermons are equally, if not black voter-registration drive. Fre- more, problematical today. The Jew- quently, they were the only whites to ish community is more divided po- address gatherings of black people, litically than it once was. Congre- often in churches, to encourage them gants today are saturated with news, in the dangerous business of assert- commentary and opinion. The rabbi ing their rights. When Saperstein is just one more competing voice, and closed his first account of his trip not necessarily better informed and with a ringing declaration that “To- educated than congregants — even gether we go forward. With God’s if he or she quotes a verse or rabbinic help. . . deep in my heart, I do be- aphorism in support. lieve, we shall overcome some day‚” Furthermore, people’s attention his hearers and, forty years later, his spans seem to be shortening. In the readers, recognize that he was privi- 19th century, a good orator could leged to say “we” as ordinary well- hold a crowd’s attention for an hour wishers were not. and a half or more. Today, rabbis are Similarly, the Sapersteins were in repeatedly admonished not to talk

84 • Fall 2001 The Reconstructionist too long, and “too long” often means many often want to hear a rabbi’s anything more than ten or fifteen words. The High Holidays of 2001, minutes. The sermons collected here following the events of September 11, are considerably longer than that, as proved yet again how central the they needed to be to accomplish the synagogue and the sermon can be in rabbi’s goal of informing and moti- time of crisis. vating his congregation. In his lifetime, Saperstein spoke to equally troubling topics. Thus, on Affirming the Sermon Rosh Hashanah Eve in 1942, when he and other discerning Jews had Moreover, Jews today come to come to recognize the horror swal- synagogue as much to feel themselves lowing up the Jews of Europe, he part of a community as to learn. linked the agony of the Jewish people They often prefer dialogue with one to the image of Isaac lashed to the another to sitting passively while the sacrificial pyre atop Mount Moriah. rabbi speaks. As a result, in many congregations a rabbi-led discussion Promoting Hope suggested by the Torah portion sub- stitutes for the Shabbat “sermon But despair was not enough. Quot- slot.” Ideas aside, the discussion gives ing an American Jewish Joint Distri- congregants a chance to get to know bution Committee worker back from one another and to be heard, op- Europe, Saperstein asked, “Is the portunities they often crave and that whole story of what is happening to help build a sense of community. A our people so sad? Isn’t there anything rabbi’s closing comment, if any, hard- comforting or inspiring?” Yes, Saper- ly functions as a sermon. Given these stein said. The “spiritual brother- developments, the regular Shabbat ser- hood” that united the Jewish people mon may be on the road to extinction. in its hour of peril has expanded “un- Witness From the Pulpit demon- til it embraces all the forces of civili- strates how great a loss that would zation and decency and humanity.” be. Sermons may perform important For once, he said, the Jews were not functions, many of them illustrated alone. If that observation was overly here. First, rabbis are trained in a tra- sanguine, it was nonetheless pecu- dition that spans millennia, and have liarly appropriate for a rabbi whose a sense of history that many congre- task, after all, was not only to assess gants lack. Hence, rabbis often see a danger but to embolden people to contemporary issue “under the eye confront it. of eternity.” This can be a valuable Similarly, Witness From the Pulpit perspective that ought not be lost. records Saperstein’s sermons upon the Second, at moments when history assassination of President Kennedy drives Jews collectively to the brink and at the height of the Yom Kippur of despair or to heights of exultation, War. Both are tied to a vision of Jew-

The Reconstructionist Fall 2001 • 85 ish history and to our textual tradi- Despite the high quality of Saper- tion. Both are ennobling and stirring stein’s sermons, the book suffers from examples of sermons delivered at the limitations of the genre. A ser- moments of despair and crisis. mon must be brief, be understood on The topical sermon can inform first hearing and, usually, be ad- Jews about political and social devel- dressed to ordinary people. These opments that particularly affect us limitations restrict the questions a but of which we are unaware, either preacher may pose and the depth because they are not generally report- with which they can be pursued. ed or because their significance for Rarely, as in Saperstein’s 1957 sermon us is not apparent. The topical ser- to the Central Conference of Ameri- mon enlightens us. Finally, topical can Rabbis, “How Leadership Fails,” sermons help achieve one of the lofti- are these sermons-turned-essays est of rabbinic goals, to inspire Jews profound, even though the com- to live moral lives. ments are uniformly astute. The sermon’s primary objective, after all, From Eyewitness to Preacher is to motivate and arouse. It is hard to inspire readers many decades re- Many of Saperstein’s best sermons moved from and deprived of the seek that target. Nine days after Mar- rabbi’s voice. tin Luther King delivered his famous On the other hand, whatever the “I Have A Dream” speech on the Mall future may hold, most rabbis still in Washington, D.C., Saperstein, regularly give sermons. The sermons who was there, described the occa- collected here may lift a contempo- sion. He traced its roots back to the rary rabbi’s eyes, for they are literate, Torah, through the Exodus and the organized and passionate, qualities Emancipation Proclamation, and rabbis strive to achieve. And, to the quoted King’s words. Saperstein did extent contemporary rabbis need en- so for a purpose. At the time, a local couragement to tackle social justice school board was embroiled in a con- issues, Witness From the Pulpit pro- troversy over its decision to bus stu- vides it. dents to certain schools to promote racial “balance.” Though not taking The Sermon and History a position on the precise controversy, Saperstein embedded it squarely in This collection is also intriguing the aspirations and the text of King’s as history. Today’s historians are as famous oration. Whatever those who interested in the experience of ordi- heard him may have done in response nary people as earlier historians were (many of their children would be af- in heroes and battles. Saperstein, of fected), the rabbi had clearly set the course, was far from ordinary. But, bell of freedom ringing in their by noting the topics he chose and the hearts. ideas he mobilized, the reader may

86 • Fall 2001 The Reconstructionist gain an intuitive understanding of here. The sermons make clear that the the concerns and the ideology of Jewish community mobilized to per- middle- and upper-middle-class sub- suade elected and appointed govern- urban Jews during the tempestuous ment officials to respond to the on- period covered here. For older read- going extinction of the Jews of Eu- ers, the book will revive poignant rope, but was repeatedly blocked by, memories of the hopes and fears that among other things, anti-Semitism accompanied the shattering and en- and official indifference. nobling moments of their earlier Harold Saperstein, the rabbi whose years. life and thought are documented in For other readers, precisely because these sermons, was an admirable ex- of its accessibility, the book may emplar of the successful spiritual serve as an antidote to the dubious, leader of his day, a man highly liter- glib judgments of the past that have ate in Jewish and secular sources, pas- become current since the generation sionately committed to the Jewish that lived through them has moved people and dedicated to the congre- offstage. Thus, the widespread notion gation he served during virtually his that the American Jewish community entire working life. We are indebted stood mute in the face of the Holo- to his sons for preserving and present- caust is belied by the history captured ing a portion of his legacy.

The Reconstructionist Fall 2001 • 87 Facing Death and Grieving

When a Jew Dies Samuel A. Heilman (University of California Press, 2001) 271 pages

REVIEWED BY DAYLE A. FRIEDMAN

s I was writing this review, I scrupulous observance of the tradi- received a call from an ac- tions for death and bereavement A quaintance who had recently gradually, and gently, brought him suffered the sudden loss of her back from despair to affirmation, mother. She spoke of her disorienta- from isolation to connection. tion and distress, and added, “The daily minyan is my life-saver. I don’t Two Perspectives know what I would do without it.” This woman, who was already quite Heilman resolved to use his aca- involved in Jewish life, was still sur- demic tools and Jewish knowledge to prised and relieved to discover that mine these traditions, in order to Jewish mourning rituals provided her unpack their “underlying meaning.”1 with an anchor amidst the sadness When a Jew Dies is the result of this and anomie of bereavement. endeavor. The volume’s structure is Samuel Heilman, a City Univer- two-fold. The main text is what sity of New York professor and social Heilman describes as an enthno- anthropologist who has previously graphic study of Jewish mourning. published studies of ultra-Orthodox The voice here is that of “the social Jews and of the sociology of the con- anthropological interpreter of cus- temporary American Jewish commu- toms and traditions.” Heilman’s is nity, made a similar discovery. When not an ethnographic study of a par- he experienced the loss of his beloved, ticular community at a specific Holocaust-survivor father, this Or- point in time, but rather, an exami- thodox only child found that his nation of Jews as what Max Weber

Rabbi Dayle A. Friedman is director of the Geriatric Chaplaincy Track and a spiritual director at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College. She is the editor of Jewish Pastoral Care: A Practical Handbook from Traditional and Contempo- rary Sources (Jewish Lights Publishing, 2001).

88 • Fall 2001 The Reconstructionist called “ideal types,” “personifications evaluate how accurate the depiction distilled and emerging from the cus- is and to apply productively its find- toms and traditions that they shaped ings. and that shaped them.” While Heil- man acknowledges that Jews range In Search of Meaning in observance and approach to the tradition, he states that Furthermore, in an ethnographic study, one might expect to hear about this book seeks to . . . provide the meaning that particular individu- an informed portrait of what als derive from the practices de- happens when certain Jews at- scribed. Heilman offers a compelling, tached to Jewish practices die, first-person narrative about the while trying to understand and meaning and impact of Jewish reveal the cultural and social mourning practices on him, but does meaning of their customs and not share with us any other individual received traditions. Jew’s perspectives. We learn about neither his family members’ reactions The other component of the study to these rites nor those of other Jews is an often moving narrative of in communities in which he was a Heilman’s personal experience in ob- participant/observer. At the end of serving Jewish mourning rites in the day, it seems that what Heilman grieving his father’s death. Here, his has done is actually something dif- voice is that of a bereaved son who ferent than he set out to do. Rather acts “according to the imperatives of than providing a study of what tra- religious obligation.” ditional Jewish mourning customs It is an ambitious undertaking mean to those who observe them, he simultaneously to hold two such di- has given us one person’s perspective, vergent perspectives, and it is not along with an penetrating analysis of always successful. Heilman’s failure the idealized ritual based on tradi- to focus on a particular community tional sources and anthropological leaves the reader wondering who theory. these “certain Jews” are who observe Notwithstanding these weak- in the manner he describes. Are they nesses, Heilman offers a passionate the haredim of the Jerusalem hevrah. and incisive account of Jewish prac- kadishah? Modern Orthodox Jews in tices for mourning the dead. His American? Observant liberal Jews? comprehensive approach to the Theoretical constructs derived from whole structure of Jewish mourning, the texts he perceptively analyzes? from deathbed through the first year Given the diversity of the con- and on to yizkor and yahrzeit, is a temporary Jewish community, helpful framework, and he makes we need to know which Jews are be- important observations about the ing described, in order both to function and impact of these rituals.

The Reconstructionist Fall 2001 • 89 In treating the entire ritual cycle as a the dead — or perhaps the sense system, he is able to point out the of obligation to the dead on the ways that symbols, themes and mes- part of the living — that helped sages contribute to a coherent whole promote communal prayer. If that effects healing and transforma- the community was servicing tion. those who recite Kaddish by providing us with a minyan, it Binding the Mourner was the dead who were some- to Community how the prime movers in all this, exerting their power upon Heilman notes that the entire the living to come together in structure of Jewish mourning prac- their name. tices summon the mourner out of his or her2 desolation and into connec- Ongoing Relationships tion with community. While public commemoration of a death is com- A lifelong rationalist, Heilman is mon to many cultures, the pervasive- somewhat startled to discover after ness of communal rites throughout his father’s death the degree to which the “long haul” of mourning is a dis- he continues to feel himself in rela- tinctive feature of Jewish tradition’s tionship with his father. He notes approach. He notes that “congrega- that the practices he observes nurture tion is the Jewish antidote to death’s and deepen that relationship over abandonment.” He finds that saying time. In sitting shivah in his parents’ Kaddish in a minyan over the eleven home, Heilman is struck by his months of mourning joins him to “a father’s simultaneous presence and fraternity of the bereaved.” Saying absence: Kaddish is “a kind of double-sided clamp linking the reciter with the . . . he was everywhere, and ev- abiding sense of loss, as well as with erywhere missed . . . At first I the Jewish congregation and its con- felt as if I might find him in the soling embrace.” armchair where for the last five Interestingly, Heilman notes that years, since his debilitating this link between mourner and com- strokes, he had always sat. But munity is mutually beneficial. Not he was not there and never only does the public nature of Jew- would be again. The chair’s ish mourning offer sustaining, loving emptiness was overwhelming. connection to the mourner, but it When I turned away from the serves to strengthen communal life. sight to gaze out the windows, In this way, ironically, the dead help I could almost feel him stand- the living: ing nearby, meticulously closing the blinds as he did each . . . at least in my day, it was evening before going to bed or

90 • Fall 2001 The Reconstructionist quietly opening them in the From Despair Toward morning when he got up — al- Affirmation ways the first one — ready to begin the day. If I turned to- Heilman observes the inexorable ward the table in the dining pull of Jewish mourning rituals to- room or the kitchen, my eyes ward meaning, affirmation and life. were drawn first to his empty He notes throughout the mourning chair at the head of each. Even process the ways in which mourners’ when I was surrounded by visi- ritual obligations induce in them a tors, and we looked for chairs positive attitude toward life at pre- on which to seat them, those cisely the moment when all feels chairs remained untouched and ashen to them. From the obligation in their place, silent witnesses to lead worshippers in the minyan, to my father's lingering pres- calling them with Barekhu to praise ence and absence. God, to the very act of saying Kad- dish, the mourner is drawn back from Over time, Heilman is comforted the abyss of alienation and doubt to to find that the rituals he has ob- a stance of affirmation: served in his year of mourning have brought him ever closer to his father: What both the repetition of Kaddish and the invitation by As long as I continue to do the mourner to the congregation all this and come to the syna- to recite borchu (sic) do as well, gogue, study the Mishnah, as of course, is to echo the senti- he would have had me do, I ments first expressed when the dissolve the distance between living encountered or were in- us. We pray together; we study; formed about the death [the we go on together as one. recitation of Dayan ha-Emet: When he was alive, I could de- Blessed is the Eternal our God, tach myself from him, go away the True Judge]: to bless and from where he was. Now he is exalt God, and hence tacitly always with me. We have con- acknowledge not only his supe- quered the breach of death. rior judgment but also their ac- ceptance of God’s will. It was a Heilman has found that “under- sign of their having made their neath my tallit I am not a rational peace with the Almighty and man. Here I keenly feel my father’s with the reality of death. As presence beside — inside — me.” The such, then, the summons to rituals he has observed have not only “bless God” is a dramatic public drawn him into new, deeper connec- statement that some order and tion with his father, they have trans- spiritual healing have begun to formed his experience of himself. fill the breach opened by death.

The Reconstructionist Fall 2001 • 91 While we might argue that this persevere against the pain of its process often takes far longer than sadness. Heilman’s description would suggest, this core function of the rituals is Insights for Our Communities what makes them so beloved, and so powerful. At the first yahrzeit mark- Heilman, an accomplished soci- ing the end of his year of mourning, ologist, knows that his portrait of Heilman felt this pull quite dramati- “when a Jew dies” is at best a descrip- cally as he noted his reluctance to tion of how the small Orthodox mi- share the customary drink of shnapps nority (5.5 percent, according to the and to make a l'hayim. with the min- 1990 NJPS) of the American Jewish yan: community mark a death.3 He acknowledges that "some may argue — But my fellow worshipers were not altogether beyond reason — that pleased to join me, and they the picture I have drawn here of what held off their normal rush happens when a Jew dies is already out the door. One by one, as yellow with age, disintegrating at the congregant after congregant margins. Its value is therefore at best lifted the little glass of golden academic and historical. This may be liquid and toasted my father's what once happened when a Jew soul, wishing him a gentle as- died, but soon it will not be the case.” cent from the oblivion of death However, he justifies his approach to the supernal heights, offer- because there are still some Jews who ing me their hopes that “his mourn in the way he describes. It is neshoma should have an easy disappointing, though, that Heilman aliyah,” as they put it, I felt the does not acknowledge that other Jews awkwardness slip away. The might observe mourning differently, cumulative effects of a collec- but rather merely makes occasional tive spirit of joy and grace and condescending references to Jews meant to lift my father’s spirit who are alienated from tradition and was lifting my spirits as well — community (he actually calls them and away the vapor of sadness “rootless cosmopolitans”). flew. We were free, all of us, my The question we are left with is father from his body and the how this rich yerushah (inheritance) fresh weight of death, I from of Jewish mourning wisdom relates my grief and the long wait of to Jews who do not start from the mourning, and the community point of connection with community from its need to support and and observance. In my work in the sustain me each day of the year. nursing home with families grieving We had survived even death, for their elderly relatives, I was often and as long as I used this day saddened by their responses to my to recall that, all of us would inquiries about their plans for shivah

92 • Fall 2001 The Reconstructionist and Kaddish. “We’re just going to go portunity to finally conquer Hebrew, to a restaurant after the burial, and to unlock the mysteries of the daily that’s it. We don’t want to have to service or to learn to lead a service. entertain. We don’t feel like having a Most likely, they will be shy, and will party.” “We’re just going to sit for a need an invitation, good teaching day; we don’t have that many people and loving encouragement along the to visit.” “I don't belong to a congre- way. Ongoing education about ritu- gation, and wouldn’t have anywhere als of death and bereavement is an- to say Kaddish.” “I don’t know how other way that teaching can be help- to read Hebrew; I can’t say Kaddish. ful. Members of our communities are Can’t I just make a contribution and more likely to engage in these rituals have someone else say it for me?” The if they have them in their minds be- largely unaffiliated people with fore a moment of crisis. whom I worked had neither the social nor liturgical resources to make • Make communal support univer- tradition’s healing power available to sally available. Those least likely to them. have social or community resources need them the most, and may be least Ways of Responding able to ask for them. For this reason, it may be helpful to set up systems in It seems to me that there are a few our communities that ensure that ways of responding to this challenge: every mourner will be offered shivah meals, a minyan, rides to services and • Adapt the tradition. Sometimes, whatever else they might need. As mourners will find it meaningful to Heilman points out, the structure of engage in a regular ritual drawn from shivah pierces privacy in ways that their relationship with their loved one may at times feel invasive. It can feel rather than from Jewish tradition. awkward to attend a minyan at the Rabbi Patricia Karlin-Newman de- home of someone we barely know in cided that her “Kaddish” for her non- our community — who am I to this observant mother would be to put mourner, and how will she feel about into practice what her mother had my presence at this vulnerable mo- taught her about knitting. Every day ment? Nonetheless, it is this breach- during her year of mourning, she put ing of normal social distance that aside time to knit a blanket for the makes the comfort of the ritual pos- baby she was expecting, using that sible for the mourner. time to connect with her mother’s spirit.4 These are just beginning answers to the critically important question • Use bereavement as a teachable raised by Heilman’s work. In describ- moment. Some mourners will find ing how powerfully mourning ritu- that the year of mourning is an op- als work within a traditional commu-

The Reconstructionist Fall 2001 • 93 nity, he unintentionally lays down a Jewish literature on death, dying and challenge for committed liberal Jews: the afterlife, reflect the aging baby How can we make our tradition’s boomers’ quest for meaning and guid- comforting power available to those ance as we contend with the deaths of parents and our own ever more evident who lack Jewish knowledge or are cut mortality. off from community? We will do well 2. In depicting Orthodox practice, Heil- to contend with the challenge of con- man is generally describing the experi- necting our communities with these ence of male mourners. He makes note rituals in forms that will make them of the increasing numbers of Orthodox relevant and accessible to them. women who choose to participate in some way in these rituals, but does not tell us how the others (such as his mother) are affected by their exclusion 1. It is worth noting that Heilman’s en- from most of these rites of mourning. deavor closely parallels that of Leon 3. See, for example, his excellent analy- Wieseltier, who reflected on the loss of sis of the contemporary community in his father through journal entries and Portrait of American Jews: The Last Half scholarly analysis of tradition in Kaddish of the Twentieth Century (Seattle, WA: (Alfred A. Knopf, 1998), published University of Washington Press) 1995. shortly before When a Jew Dies. These 4. Presented at a conference of the books, and the growing contemporary Women’s Rabbinic Network.

94 • Fall 2001 The Reconstructionist Vintage Perspectives Subsequent to the events of September 11, 2001, many drew an analogy with the attack on Pearl Harbor. We thought our readers might be interested in what The Reconstructionist had to say at that crucial juncture in the history of the United States.

“Our Country at War” (An Editorial, Vol. VII, No. 17, printed December 26, 1941/6 Tevet, 5702)

n December 7th, the armed The Reconstructionist, though con- forces of the Japanese Empire secrated to the cause of peace, en- Olaunched a brutal and unprin- dorses this war without reservation. cipled assault against the territory of For if war it must be, then never has the United States and the lives of its any country’s right been more clear. citizens. Within a few days, the totali- In the Far East our government has tarian governments of Italy, Germany striven incessantly for a just peace. and captive lands under their control It was prepared to make any sacrifice issued formal declarations of hostilities to that end, except the sacrifice of against us. Thus suddenly, America justice to others. It has engaged in was precipitated from a state of tenu- patient, protracted negotiations with ous peace into a planetary total war. the government of Japan, exhibiting To our beloved country, The Recon- a vast tolerance and forbearance. It structionist pledges its unswerving loy- has wanted peace and worked for it. alty. That this is to be not only a long Now it has been treacherously at- but a hard war as well was made clear tacked. Neither in reality nor ideally both by the candid words of President has it any alternative except a vigor- Roosevelt and by the news of the ini- ous self-defense. tial defeats which we and our allies have And so far as our enemies across suffered in the Pacific. But, however the Atlantic are concerned, declara- long and hard it may be, we shall be, tions of war serve only to give for- together with all other Americans, mal status to a struggle which has steadfast in our prosecution of it. We long been in process. Hitler has been shall not rest until the wrong done to engaged in undeclared war with the others and to us has been rectified, and United States ever since he came to until our country has made it forever power. He has sent paid agents to impossible for similar outrages to be these shores, he has subsidized sub- visited either upon it or upon any other versive activities in the land in the ef- peace-loving people. fort to destroy our freedom, our power

The Reconstructionist Fall 2001 • 95 of action and our system of govern- ordinated to some international au- ment. He has made it clear that we were thority representative of all mankind, “next” on the list in his program of one in which every people, no matter world conquest. At the very moment how small and weak, shall be protected when we took cognizance of our peril by the concerted efforts of all peoples and adopted our first measures of self- against oppression and brutality. defense through aid to the democra- We are fighting then, as President cies, hostilities were on in all except Roosevelt made clear, not only name. On both fronts, the Eastern and against an immediate evil but for an the European, which are together as- ultimate good — the achievement of pects of one attack against us, we have that era of universal freedom, justice taken the only possible course. The and peace which the prophets of Is- most sensitive conscience need feel not rael first envisaged and proclaimed to the slightest scruple over the justice of mankind. All of us have grown sus- our cause. picious of crusades and “holy” wars. A great lesson has now been taught But this is a holy war, or rather, it us — that lesson to which President can be made such, if we keep its ideal Franklin Delano Roosevelt referred purpose clearly in view throughout when, in his first war address to the the conflict and after it. If, out of the nation, he said: “There is no such smoke and flame of battle, the first thing as security for any nation — foundations of God’s kingdom on or any individual — in a world ruled earth shall arise, our cause will truly by the principles of gangsterism.” We prove to have been sacred. This have learned at last the empty futil- struggle has been forced on us. Its ity of isolationism. We know now justice is clear. Its holiness depends that mankind is all one, that peace is on us — on our clarity of vision and indivisible, that no one is safe so long firmness of moral purpose. as anyone is threatened by force. And Many sacrifices will be required of from that lesson, so tragically admin- us. Each of these and the totality of istered to us, has come a great ideal them are, to quote our truly great — that, this time, when the struggle President once again, “not sacrifice is over and we have won the war, we but privilege.” It is indeed a privilege shall win the peace as well. We must to endure hardship for our country, understand that America “can never its existence and its freedom. It is a again isolate itself from the rest of duty to defend ourselves against the humanity.” Out of the blood, sweat onslaughts of an arrogant and vicious and tears of this conflict must emerge enemy. And it is a privilege to be a new system of international rela- permitted to share, no matter at what tions, one in which no political state cost, in the winning of that interna- shall be able to claim for itself un- tional society in which at last, every limited sovereignty, one in which ev- people and every individual shall be ery national government shall be sub- able to live out life, free and unafraid.

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