Responsum on Jewish Denominations - July 20, 2017

Q: What are the major denominations in Judaism--and how can I keep them straight?

A: I can think of many ways to respond to this question, but I think it would be most helpful to offer two answers, one pertaining to the world as a whole; the other pertaining to North America and, to a lesser extent, Israel, where what Jews tend to call movements or streams have proliferated. (“Denominations” tends to sound rather Christian to many Jewish ears.)

Regarding world Jewry, it’s important to recognize that before the 18th century in Europe--and until today in many places--there was really no denominationalism in Judaism, at least as we understand it today. There were certainly sects and schisms and arguments, but there was no Orthodox or Reform, and certainly no Conservative, Reconstructionist, or Renewal Jews. Rather, there was a wide variety of Jewish practice based on geography, broadly divided into Ashkenazic (European) and Sephardic (literally Spanish, but spread across North Africa and Arab lands, including the Land of Israel). It’s important to note that these two broad regions experienced modernity very differently, which is why Reform Judaism, and after it Orthodox Judaism, are primarily European phenomena. It was there, in Central Europe, in the 18th century that a smallish group of Central European Jews decided that Jewish practice required reformation.

The European reformers modeled themselves after the Protestant Reformation, and emphasized decorum in religious services, prayers and sermons in the vernacular language, a streamlined liturgy that emphasized the ethical and rational aspects of the tradition, all with the idea that Judaism should take its place alongside the church as a dignified and respectable religion.

Like the reaction against the Reformation in a Christian context, traditionalists within Judaism pushed back hard against the reformers, even to the point of outlawing practices, like the use of organs in synagogues, that had begun to spread slowly across Europe. The founders of this anti-reform movement called themselves, somewhat misleadingly, Orthodox (correct belief), perhaps in conscious or unconscious imitation of Orthodox Christians who objected to the theological innovations of the Reformation. In a Jewish context, however, theology is much less determinative than practice and communal belonging in a person’s choice of congregation. Orthodoxy, as many scholars have pointed out, might be better called Orthoprax (correct practice).

Today, this basic division between Reform (or Progressive, as it is known outside North America) and Orthodoxy persists, although Progressive Judaism, alongside other liberal movements, is much smaller in Israel and the rest of the world than Orthodoxy, which in many countries is simply the default.

When Jews came to this country, they imbibed the particular religious spirit of the United States, which I would describe as congregational. In this country, without an established religion, everyone who didn’t like the church they grew up in could join another one or, as happened with remarkable frequency, simply start a new one. In this way, local custom, which had always been important in Judaism, became paramount, and so although there are certainly points of contact among synagogues that belong to a particular movement (prayer books, for instance, or a general attitude towards Jewish law), each synagogue developed its own culture and style of worship.

It’s also important to know that for the great waves of Jewish migration to this country came first from Central and then from Eastern Europe, thus bringing the general European division between Reform and Orthodox to these shores. This is not to say that Sephardic Jews did not arrive in America--indeed the first synagogues in this country were founded by Spanish and Portuguese Jews--but the vast majority of American Jews descended from European ancestors. 

Many of those Jews found that they felt at home neither in the traditionalist Orthodox synagogues that tried to recreate the religious life of the old country nor in the Reform synagogues that felt too alien. Thus arose what became known as Conservative Judaism, an attempt to adapt traditional practice to modern realities. During the second third of the twentieth century, Conservative Judaism was the dominant address for American Jews, but affiliation has dropped off precipitously as the movement responded slowly to the challenges of postmodernity: intermarriage,, feminism, gay rights, etc. Now many Jews, even observant Jews, do not affiliate with any movement, which has created many challenges for movement institutions.

So here is a short review of some of the major streams of American Judaism:

Reform Jews trace their roots back to the European reformers of the 18th Century. So-called “Classical Reform” emphasized prayer in the vernacular, decorum at services (rabbis would wear academic gowns at services), and engagement with social justice. More contemporary Reform maintains the emphasis on social justice, but has engaged with a more Hebrew-oriented liturgy and less formal worship. It also has spearheaded outreach to intermarried couples and encourages conversion. The Reform movement was the first North American movement to ordain female clergy.

Orthodox Judaism developed in response to European Reform, and neither was a major component of Judaism in the rest of the world until both arrived in North America in the 19th century. Although there are many branches of Orthodoxy, with degrees of observance and levels of engagement with non-Jews (and non-Orthodox Jews), all affirm the primacy of Torah and Jewish law and many reject any innovations in practice. Recently, feminism has made inroads in modern Orthodoxy, and we are beginning to see the ordination of female clergy, even if most do not go by the title of rabbi.

Conservative Judaism arose in the late 19th century as an attempt to find a traditional form of practice that would be open to historical change. Conservative synagogues offered traditional worship services with limited changes, including nods to feminism and the reality of suburban life: in a major break with tradition, Conservative Jews were permitted to drive to synagogue (but only to synagogue!) on Shabbat. In recent decades, many Conservative congregations have declined as their more traditional members migrate out to independent congregations and Orthodoxy, while their more liberal members join Reform synagogues (especially if they or their children marry non-Jews) or opt out of religious Jewish life entirely.

Reconstructionist Judaism is a truly American movement, founded in the forties and based on the ideas of Mordechai Kaplan, who emphasized Jewish civilization and a rationalist belief system. A product of an Orthodox upbringing and a professor at the Conservative Jewish Theological Seminary, his ideas have had an outsized influence on American Judaism, even if only a small percentage of Jews identify as Reconstructionist. Today, Reconstructionism is the most liberal of the movements, and is particularly welcoming to gays, lesbians, and trans people.

Independent minyanim (congregations) are now a fixture in most Jewish population centers and consist of traditional Jews, many brought up in Conservative and Orthodox households. Many are egalitarian, but others retain the Orthodox practice of separating men and women during prayer. The worship experience tends to be very traditional, and most such congregations do not have a rabbi (although many rabbis may be members) and do not offer a school, life-cycle events, or other services of a synagogue.

Finally, Jewish Renewal (or Neo-Hasidic Judaism) is an attempt to merge the revivalist, mystical, and pietistic aspects of Hasidism with modern sensibilities, especially feminism and environmental activism. Neo-Hasidic Jews identify Rabbi Zalman Schacter-Shalomi as their founder. A former Lubavitch Hasid, Reb Zalman (as he was popularly known), moved away from traditionalist circles and engaged with the wider world of spirituality (especially Buddhism). In this way, he was able to “renew” many Jewish practices, making them palatable and meaningful to contemporary Jews while unapologetically borrowing practices from other traditions (especially meditation and mindfulness). Like Kaplan, Reb Zalman had an influence that goes far beyond Jewish Renewal congregations.

I should also mention that there is a proud traditional a Jewish secularism (an outgrowth, by and large, of European secularism) that split into two main streams: Zionists, with an emphasis on the Hebrew language; and Bundists, who focused on Yiddish language and culture (a good example is the Workmen’s Circle, of which there is a branch in Brookline). Both streams were highly attuned to progressive politics, a rationalist worldview, and a serious mistrust of rabbis and religion. To this day, a majority of Israelis dentify as secular, even though Orthodox religious parties control a growing percentage of seats in the Knesset.

So where do we at Danesh-100 Centre St. fit into this picture? I should say that I myself do not fit comfortably into any of these categories, but I’m closest--by both temperament and education--to Neo-Hasidism. As the rabbi and chaplain of a pluralistic community, I do my very best to meet the needs of the broadest range of residents, so our services contain elements from all of these traditions. Furthermore, I am open to all feedback, so if there is something you would like to see me add or subtract from our services, please come by and have a conversation with me!

Wonder Woman and Zealotry: The Persistent Appeal of Zealotry

Parashat Pinchas (Numbers 25:10 - 30:1)

This post was published on the Hebrew College Blog "70 Faces of Torah" on July 12, 2017

In the film Wonder Woman (2017), the heroine, played by Israeli actress Gal Gadot, intervenes in World War I on the side of the Allies. She zealously seeks the destruction of Ares, the god of war (the gods are almost Greek, but seem not to be immortal). Along with her multicultural group of allies, she determines that Ares has incarnated himself as the supreme German commander, General Erich Ludendorff. She expects that once she has killed him--he is, after all, the source of conflict in the world--the war will end and peace will break out. Pursuing Ludendorff relentlessly, she finally defeats him by stabbing him through the heart with her sword. Sadly, the war continues apace: the general is not Ares after all. However, when Ares himself conveniently appears for a final showdown, there is another violent battle. Again, Wonder Woman prevails and the closing scenes show German and British soldiers hugging like the brothers they had forgotten they were.

This comic book fantasy of horrific violence to purge the world of horrific violence is reasonably standard issue, even if real life (as well as the need for sequels) reminds us that evil is never completely vanquished. It is also nothing new. Indeed we see something similar in the run up Parashat Pinchas, where the title character, the son of Elazar and grandson of Aaron the priest,  stabs an Israelite chieftain and a Midianite princess in flagrante delicto, thus halting the plague of God’s wrath that had already killed 24,000 Israelites in the wake of their apostasy with the Moabite god Baal-Peor. In case you’re counting, that is eight times more dead than in the wake of the incident of the Golden Calf.

For this horrific killing, Pinchas receives God’s covenant of peace and eternal priesthood. Because Pinchas is a biblical figure and not a superhero, this reward has bothered readers throughout history.  Concerned that we understand both that his act was legitimate and that it is nothing that we should try ourselves, the rabbis insisted that God performed several miracles in its wake (six or twelve, depending on the tradition), including that Pinchas’s spear pierced the genitals of both partners, skewering them together and thus providing proof that they were engaged in an idolatrous act of ritual intercourse. Had he killed them separately, says the Talmud, he would have been guilty of murder.

Like the rabbis, I don’t want to pretend that Pinchas is someone we should emulate, but I also don’t want to dismiss him as a progenitor of comic book heroes, whether in their current cinematic form or in earlier incarnations as, in many cases at least, mid-twentieth-century Golems of masculine Jewish wish fulfillment. What can we take from Pinchas, preferably without the violence and mass slaughter?

The first lines of Parashat Pinchas offer us a clue in the four repetitions of the Hebrew root kuf-nun-aleph: kina, translated variously as passion, jealousy, vengeance, or zeal:

And the Eternal spake unto Moses saying, Phinehas the son of Elazar, the son of Aaron the priest, hath turned my wrath away from the children of Israel, while he was zealous with my jealousy in the midst of them, that I consumed not the children of Israel in my jealousy. Wherefore, say, Behold, I give unto him my covenant of peace: And he shall have it, and his seed after him, the covenant of a priesthood for ever: because he was zealous for his God and made an expiation for the children of Israel. (Numbers 25: 10-13)

Pinchas deserves God’s covenant of peace not for the killing of Zimri and Cozbi (the names of his two victims), but for the result of his zealotry: the reversal of God’s indiscriminate violence against the Israelites. 

Rashi’s comment on verse 11 tries to make sense of the odd construction “he was zealous with my jealousy”:

 בקנאו את קנאתי - “He was zealous with my jealousy” means “when he executed my vengeance” (more lit., when he avenged my avenging) — when he displayed the anger that I should have displayed. The expression קנאה (zeal) always denotes glowing with anger to execute vengeance for a thing; in Old French emportment.

Rashi suggests that Pinchas somehow took the place of God in executing judgement, that God “should have displayed” a deadly anger against the couple, but instead lashed out at the Israelites in general who, God implies, would have not survived had Pinchas not intervened with a kina that somehow overcame God’s own kina.

The emphasis on the Old French word emportment comes up again in Rashi’s discussion of Numbers 11, where Joshua, Moses’s attendant and successor, learns that two Israelite leaders, Eldad and Medad, were speaking prophetically in the camp:

And Joshua the son of Nun, the attendant of Moses from his youth, answered and said: My lord Moses, forbid them! And Moses said unto him, Enviest thou for my sake? Would God that all the people of the Eternal were prophets and that the Eternal would give spirit unto them! (Numbers 11:28-29)

In this obviously lighter context, where Moses seems to disavow Joshua’s zeal, Rashi treats kina slightly differently:

המקנא אתה לי - “Enviest thou for my sake?” means, “art thou envying where I should envy”

לי - “For my sake”: the word לי, “for me,” meaning the same as בשבילי, “for my sake”. Wherever an expression of the root קנא (kina) is used it implies that a person sets his heart on the matter, whether it be to take vengeance or to help; — emportement in O. F. (English = zeal) — he holds the thickest (heaviest) part of the load (i.e. he takes the responsibility for carrying out a matter).

Again, we find the notion that an attendant, an agent, an ally, has taken on the task of envy or zealotry or passion in place of the being who should by rights feel it. Yet here, Rashi widens his understanding of kina to include not only envy or vengeance but also help, a concept that doesn’t necessarily involve violence. He also defines emportment as, to adopt a current idiom, doing the heaving lifting. It is almost as though Joshua, by acting indignant on Moses’s behalf, allows Moses to have a more indulgent response to the two men who might be accused of trying to usurp Moses’s status as prophet: Joshua has taken on the jealousy, thereby bringing peace to Moses.

We can apply a similar reading to Pinchas’s zealotry: by fully inhabiting the outrage and passion that God should have (and might have) felt towards Zimri and Cozbi, he relieves God of the need for continuing God’s indiscriminately violent response, thereby bringing about the end of the plague. 

Joshua’s example, however, suggests that violence is not a necessary component of kina--indeed the core of it is the lifting of a burden off the person or people to whom you are allied. Such non-violent emportment may or may not avert God’s wrath or bring an end to war (as it does in Parashat Pinchas and in Wonder Woman), but it certainly will increase peace.

Shame and Drawing Close to Holiness (Parshat Shemini, Leviticus 9:1-11:47)

Published on the Hebrew College "70 Faces of Torah" Blog, April 20, 20

In a 2016 New York Times Op-Ed, Sally L. Satel and Scott O. Lilienfeld observe that modern American culture has been “down on shame [as] a damaging, useless emotion that we should neither feel ourselves nor make others feel.” This trend is unfortunate, they argue, because it ignores the positive role that “appropriate shame”--which they define as “the feeling that one has failed to live up to one’s own standards”--can play in changing problematic behaviors, especially addiction.

It is true that there is an increasing resistance to the idea of shame as a “helpful” emotion, both in the psychological literature and in popular culture. June Price Tangey and Ronda L Dearing, in Shame and Guilt (New York: Guilford, 2002) conclude that in contradistinction to guilt, “shame is an extremely painful and ugly feeling that has a negative impact on interpersonal behavior. Shame-prone individuals appear relatively more likely to blame others (as well as themselves) for negative events, more prone to a seething, bitter, resentful kind of anger and hostility, and less able to empathize with others in general.”

More recently, Brené Brown, in books, articles, and a TED talk that has been viewed more than 1.7 million times, follows Tangey and Dearing in distinguishing shame and guilt. Guilt, she says, is when one understands that one’s actions were bad and acknowledges the need to make amends; or in religious language: that one has sinned and needs to make teshuvah (to repent). Shame, far from simply a failure to live up to one’s own standards, is the feeling that one is, in oneself, bad, unworthy of love and connection. In such a case, sin is a permanent condition and teshuvah is impossible.

We see echoes of these dynamics in rabbinic responses to Parashat Shemini, which opens at the end of the week-long ordination period for Aaron and his sons, the Kohein Gadol (high priest) and his assistants, now ready to take up the family business of performing ritual sacrifices in the mishkan, the portable tabernacle that stands amid the Israelite encampment. This eighth day has much resonance in Jewish tradition, not least of all as the day of a male child’s brit milah, the ritual circumcision that ushers a boy into the covenant of Abraham. It is also the first day of work--of avodah, of service--after the seventh day, the Sabbath, and thus resonates with the story of creation.

This work is the immediate topic of Moses’ instructions to Aaron: “Take a calf of the herd for a sin offering… This is what the Eternal One has commanded that you do, that the Presence of the Eternal One may appear to you. Then Moses said to Aaron: “Draw near (k’rav) the altar and sacrifice your sin offering and your burnt offering, making expiation for yourself and the people…” (Leviticus 9:2, 6-7).

The medieval commentator Rashi wonders why Moses tells Aaron to approach the altar--wasn’t that clear from the previous instructions? Rashi’s answer comes from Siphra, the rabbinic commentary on Leviticus, specifically from the section Mekhilta d’milu’im (Mekhilta on the ordination): “Because Aaron was ashamed and was afraid to get too close, Moses said to him: Why are you ashamed? You were chosen for this!” This answer is tantalizing, but leads to further questions: why was Aaron ashamed? Why is Moses’s external validation necessary? And what is the antecedent to Moses’s this: was Aaron chose for the work or on account of his shame?

The text of the Siphra helps a bit: 8) "Draw near to the altar": A parable: to what is this matter akin? A king of flesh and blood married a woman and she was ashamed in his presence. Her sister came in to her and said: Why did you enter into this? Is it not only for the sake of ministering to the king? Embolden yourself and serve the king! Similarly, Moses said to Aaron: My brother, why were you chosen as high-priest? Is it not only for the sake of ministering before the Holy One of Blessing? Embolden yourself and perform your service! (Thus: "Draw near!") Others say: Aaron perceived the (horned) altar as an”image of an bull” (Psalm 106:20) and was frightened by it, whereupon Moses said to him: My brother, you’re afraid of that?! — Thus: "Draw near." Embolden yourself and draw near to Him.

The gender dynamics and psychological implications of this passage could lead a discussion in many directions, but here I want to point out a few responses to the questions above. In the first half of the midrash, Aaron is like the humble queen, overtaken by shyness and shame before the king, whether because of her sense of unworthiness in comparison to her exalted spouse or out of a fear of exposure and rejection. Her sister, like Aaron’s brother Moses, points out that service to the king (in this case sexual intercourse, presumably leading to an heir) is why she is here in the first place, thus reminding her of her innate worthiness to be queen. Shame here has no place; it can only interfere, preventing people from performing their ordained service.

The second half of the midrash points not at any innate unworthiness, but at a shame derived of one’s actions--or guilt, according to the researchers I cited above. By referring to Psalm 106, the text recalls Aaron’s sin of the golden calf (which commentators also perceive in the parasha’s opening lines, when Moses instructs Aaron to take “a calf of the herd for a sin offering): “They made a calf at Horeb / and bowed down to a molten image / They exchanged their glory / for the image of a bull that feeds on grass” (Psalm 106:19-20). In this case, Moses’ admonition reminds Aaron that God had forgiven him, had still chosen him, and was drawing him close. Reading this midrash, the Sefat Emet (Rabbi Yehudah Aryeh Leib Alter of Ger) proclaims that Aaron’s sin and the resulting need to repent--to make teshuvah--was what allowed Aaron to be chosen as High Priest, to draw close to the Holy of Holies, and thus to allow the presence of God to descend upon the community (Shemini 1881). To support this claim, he cites the Babylonian Talmud, which states that completely righteous people can never stand in the place occupied by ba’alei teshuvah (successful penitents). Guilt and repentance are necessary to fully experience God’s presence, whereas shame (in the modern sense of being unworthy of love and connection) can only impede it.

The rabbinic--and hasidic--attitude towards shame, as one might expect, does not always track this modern dichotomy, and both the Talmud and the Sefat Emet have passages that speak well of shame as an emotion that can prevent us from sinning and indeed is necessary for successful performance of the mitzvot (commandments). For us moderns, however, it is helpful to think of that kind of shame as a form of humility that allows us to draw close rather than an emotion that prevents us from approaching God’s holiness.

Responsum: Why did you become a rabbi?

This post appeared in the 100 Centre Street Journal in February of 2017

Q: Rabbi Jim, this is the first time that I’m asking you a personal question (in two parts), and I believe the answer will be of great interest to all my fellow residents. When did you decide to become a rabbi, and why?

A: Thank you, Dodie, for these questions, which like many questions have quite a few answers, depending on how far back in my life I push my memory. 

The first thing to know is that I was not born Jewish, so the thought of becoming a rabbi could not have occurred to me until I was in the process of converting. Although it might seem unusual for a convert to become a rabbi, at least 10 percent (and perhaps more) of the rabbis to emerge from my seminary have been Jews by choice. So I am far from the only one in this position.

I did have a period in my teens when I still considered myself Christian and contemplated with some seriousness the idea of becoming an Episcopalian priest. Thinking back, I realize that what attracted me to that role is not so different from what attracts me to the life of a rabbi: a clergy person accompanies people through some of the most intense moments of their lives, helping them to make meaning from their experiences and to find something sacred (or at least something larger than themselves) in the world around us. As clergy, I get to teach all the time (but I don’t have to take roll call or grade papers!), to lead religious services, to sing and play guitar, to advocate for people who need help and for social justice, to study Jewish and other texts, and to develop programming that enriches the lives of the people in my communities. I’m sure I was not fully aware of all of these privileges when I was 16 years old, but I certainly had a sense. And more important, I had two ministers in my family’s church who served as solid, down-to-earth role models. 

Like many people, however, I had a crisis of faith later in high school and in college. I was never theologically attracted to Christianity, so what mattered was the relationships, and when my family changed churches (and I no longer remember the motivation for that change), I never developed strong connections with the new pastor or to the members of our new church. Unmoored from that connection, and assailed by my youthful atheism, I left the church and never found my way back, despite many attempts. As I moved through my twenties, I despaired of finding a spiritual home and ended up concluding that I didn’t belong anywhere. 

Then I met Michele, the Jewish woman who would become my wife. As we discussed the possibility of marriage, I understood that even though she was (and remains) a secular person, our children would be Jewish. Still feeling the loss of religion in my life and wanting to be the same religion as my children, I agreed to look into conversion.  Needless to say, I took to Judaism quickly, finding great resonance both with the emphasis on questions in addition to answers and with the absence of theological litmus tests (Jews can be atheists, even some of the Jews who show up every week for services--I had struggled with that for years at church!).  

Those of you who know me likely also know that I never do anything by halves, so clearly conversion would not be enough--I would also need to become a rabbi! Joking aside, the process took a bit longer than that, but I was already considering the possibility of rabbinical school before I had even finished the conversion process, which started in 1998. Sure enough, after my conversion in 2000, I began preparing for rabbinical school in 2002, matriculated in 2003, and graduated in 2008 among the first class of rabbis ordained by Hebrew College in Newton.

I think what drew me most towards the rabbinate (in addition to the more general benefits of the clergy role I described above) was the intuitive way that both ancient and modern rabbis read Torah--literal “correct” answers were less important than creative associations and productive struggles with difficult questions. And even final answers weren’t final--opposing viewpoints were always preserved, not least of all because situations might change and perhaps that alternative reading would be more appropriate in a new context. I found this combination of rigor and openness completely invigorating, and almost 20 years later I still can’t quite believe that I found it.

Thanksgiving Reflection - Delivered at Brookline Interfaith Clergy Association Thanksgiving Service, 2016

Even several weeks after a particularly harsh and divisive presidential campaign, I know that people are still on edge. Trump supporters are celebrating their victory, but many feel hurt by the reaction of many Clinton supporters, many of whom seem to paint supporters of the president elect with the broad brush of racism and bigotry. Many Clinton supporters, in addition to their deep disappointment serious apprehensions about the future, feel that they don’t recognize their country and cannot believe that even here, in Brookline, there are voters who supported the other side. And those Trump voters, not surprisingly, often feel misunderstood and even unwilling to acknowledge their support. How, one might ask, can we find something we’re grateful for, something to sustain us in such a situation? What is a blessing we can identify in this new reality?

Here’s my response: At work at Center Communities of Brookline  last week, I had a series of conversations with colleagues and residents who voted differently than I did. If you know me already, you probably know how I voted. If you don’t know me, I’m willing to tell you face to face, but it’s really not relevant in this context. What’s relevant is this: these were difficult conversations, full of the pitfalls of our contemporary political scene: we get news from different sources, so not surprisingly we have diametrically opposed views of the candidates and of the events that have followed the election. 

With one colleague, the conversation was especially challenging. One of us, the Trump supporter, feels threatened by the intensity of the negative feelings expressed by Clinton supporters, especially in attributions of bigotry.  The other one of us, the Clinton supporter, couldn’t understand how someone so devoted to our shared community and shared values of racial and gender justice could overlook the various factors that seemed to disqualify Trump for the office of president. The Trump supporter couldn’t understand how someone so devoted to security and economic fairness could simply overlook the various factors that seemed to disqualify Clinton for that office. 

But as we talked, we also began to listen, to pay attention to the words and, even more important, the feelings the other was communicating. We began to understand a bit more, to see the election, and perhaps even the world, through the eyes of the other. Not that she convinced me or that I convinced her, but we were talking, listening, relating, and connecting.

In Pirkei Avot, the Ethics of the Fathers that forms part of the Mishnah, a compendium of Rabbinic traditions codified around 200 of the Common Era, Rabbi Hananiah ben T’radyon is quoted as saying

אבל שנים שיושבין ויש ביניהם דברי תורה שכינה שרויה ביניהם.

 that “when two persons meet and exchange words of Torah, the Shekhinah--the presence of God--hovers over them.” In this conversation, difficult as it was, I felt the presence of Shekhinah between me and my colleague, and for that blessing I am supremely grateful. May we all find the capacity to listen to one another, to argue strenuously for what we believe in, and to work tirelessly for justice. And most of all, may we discover how to make it possible for the Shekhinah to dwell among us, even amid passionate disagreements.

Poetry and the Blessings of Misunderstanding

Published on Hebrew College's "70 Faces of Torah Blog" on November 2, 2016

There are utterances — their meaning
Is obscure or negligible, 
But to attend to them
Without agitation is impossible.

                - Mikhail Lermontov, 1840

As we come to the close of a bitter election season, in which the use and misuse of language has loomed so large, this week’s Torah portion, Noach, gives us an opportunity to ponder both the importance and the challenges of linguistic diversity.

Parts of this campaign have effectively channeled the fear and resentments of a large portion of the electorate through what gets characterized as “plain speech,” unadulterated by “political correctness.” Whether a given instance of so-called “plain speech” is meaningful or meaningless, factually correct or plain wrong, it can foster an extreme emotional response. Such speech also fosters divisiveness, across regional, ethnic, gender, religious, and class differences, among others—in a way that makes it difficult for people with different views or positions to communicate with one another.

From this perspective, it might be tempting to suggest that we have reached a Tower of Babel moment— we can’t even talk with one another anymore, so we lament the loss of the unity and clear communication that we had until… well, when? Isn’t linguistic diversity (even if we’re all speaking the same language) simply a fact of life?

This question lurks behind the story of the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11:1-9), in which God confounds the generation after the Flood by confusing their language and scattering them across the earth. Traditional commentators see this loss of linguistic and geographic unity as a punishment for some sort of rebellion, though the text never specifies any hostile motive—only a desire to make a name (shem, most likely a monument, as in “yad vashem” from Isaiah 56:5) and to avoid dispersal.

But the biggest objection to this reading is the fact that Genesis 10:5 reports that “[f]rom these [descendents of Japheth] the maritime nations branched out by their lands—each with its language—their clans and their nations.” Migration and linguistic diversity here appear to be uncontroversial facts of human life, so it seems unlikely that they would become punishments a mere chapter later. To understand what is at play here, it’s worth noting that the Hebrew text of the story is unusually rich in verbal play: the similarity of sounds—for instance of nivleh (let’s confuse) and bavel (Babylon); and word repetition—safah (language) and kol ha-aretz (all the earth) each appear five times. This word play is explicitly poetic, carrying an emotional resonance beyond the words’ plain meaning.

The story also carries verbal and thematic echoes of the story of Creation and the expulsion from Eden. When God says, “Let us go down there and confound their speech…” (hava nerda, in 11:7), the phrase echoes another instance of surprisingly plural divine language in Genesis 1:26—“let us make a person in our likeness and image”—as well as God’s “going down” into Eden to confront Adam and Eve after they realize their nakedness in Genesis 3:8. These verbal echoes—God’s use of the first-person plural (to whom is God speaking?) and God’s descent to both confront and confound—connect the story of the Tower of Babel to the blessing of creation and the trauma of expulsion, carrying an emotional resonance beyond the plain meaning of the text.

That resonance is what Lermontov identifies as the surplus content of otherwise obscure utterances, which Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas (in citing Lermontov’s poem) characterizes as poetic language, “language of pure transcendence without correlative.” For Levinas, poetry transforms words into signs without any objective meaning, undoing any simple correlation between a word and what it is supposed to mean. “No novel, no poem… has thus perhaps done anything else [but] undo the structure of language. Without this, the world would know only the meanings which inspire official records or the minutes of…board meetings…” Poetic language may at times be difficult to understand, but its meaning is ultimately far greater than what we can fully express in our usual, every-day language. In Genesis, such poetic resonance in the narrative contrasts with the apparent uniformity of the language used by the Tower Builders themselves: “All the earth had the same language and the same words.” This sameness suggests not only that everyone spoke the same language, but that everyone was in agreement about the meaning of words. In the Garden of Eden, the absence of death also meant the absence of growth and development; here, the absence of misunderstanding, which allows for the construction of towers, means the absence of poetry, of the struggle to understand another person that lends meaning to our existence.

In this reading, the confounding of languages is not a punishment, but a corrective; and what prompts this corrective is not the building of the tower, but the triumph of linguistic uniformity in the face of diversity. Although diversity is necessary and even desirable, the challenges it poses are real—and can lead to conflict. One midrash imagines the murderous rage that will result from that loss of mutual understanding: “Thus one said to his colleague, ‘Bring me water,’ whereupon he would give him earth, at which he struck him and split his skull.” Such violence, however, results not so much from the initial misunderstanding as from the failure of the interlocutors to strive for understanding across the linguistic divide. They decided, or at least one of them did, to forgo communication in favor of violence.

For Levinas, poetic speech carries an ethical dimension: our fundamental responsibility to go beyond ourself towards the Other and to recognize the irreducible diversity of individuals. In this ethical imperative, we see the contrast with demagogic speech. The demagogue not only denies this responsibility to the Other; their language also imagines and longs for a pre-Babel world devoid of diversity with its challenges and blessings.

Diversity, like poetry, can be difficult—but it is far superior to the alternatives: a fantasy of “plain speech,” or a uniformity enforced by violence.

Got Questions? Well, So Do I!!

This post was printed in the 100 Centre Street Journal in January, 2016

Now that the Hanukkah menorahs have returned to their boxes in the cellar and we’ve recovered from our Gregorian New Year’s celebration, it’s time to look back at some of the questions that arose from the holiday season.  I hope that my responses will not only interest you but also spur you to come up with additional questions about Judaism or interfaith topics--if you pass them along to Dodie or bring them to me directly, I’ll be happy to consider responding in print.  I should also say that if you see something in the answers I’ve provided here that you disagree with, please let me know and I’ll be happy to discuss it.  Finally, I’ve included a question for you at the end of the article, so I hope you’ll have the patience to read the whole thing!

So to the Hanukkah questions, courtesy of Dodie Catlett:

1. What is the significance of Hanukkah gelt, and when/why did it change from coins to chocolate?

As with many Jewish customs, Hanukkah gelt has its roots both in Jewish history and in the encounter of Jews with the primarily Christian cultures of Europe and North America.  To start with Jewish history and religious practice, it’s important to remember that Hanukkah commemorates the victory of the Maccabees over the Greek empire.  When the Maccabees (Hasmoneans) reestablished sovereignty over Jerusalem, they struck coins reflecting that sovereignty.  Further on in history, the rabbis of the Talmud decreed that when a person had to choose between purchasing kiddush wine and oil for the Hanukkah lamps (in the days before wax candles), he should buy oil in order to publicize the miracle of the oil in the temple that should have lasted one day but instead lasted eight. For that reason, the tradition arose of giving gifts of money to the poor at Hanukkah time to pay for oil. 

More recently, in Europe and in North America (I’m not as familiar with Hanukkah customs in other parts of the world), the practice arose of giving money to tradesmen and students at Hanukkah time as a kind of year-end tip.  I assume that this practice was at least in part in imitation of the year-end tips that non-Jews would offer in honor of Christmas and the New Year.  Equally recent was the custom of spinning the dreidel, which was a basic kind of gambling game that would require money to become interesting.  The practice of gift giving at Hanukkah is rather fraught for many Jews, since there’s a sense that Hanukkah has gained prominence (and commercial attention) only by its proximity to Christmas.  It’s important to remember, however, that gift-giving at Christmas time is also a fairly recent phenomenon and can be equally fraught for many Christians concerned with commercialization and a lack of spiritual significance. 

The rise of chocolate gelt (as opposed to real coins) seems to have its origin in the shift from Hanukkah as an opportunity to give tips to our tradesman (although many of us still tip our mail carriers and newspaper delivery people at the New Year) to a holiday for children.  Jonathan Sarna of Brandeis University was quoted by NPR as suggesting that chocolate in the form of coins was a way of preserving the cultural memory of earlier practices.  What’s important to remember is that Hanukkah traditions, like all Jewish practices, will continue to evolve as Jews strive to find an ongoing balance between similarity and distinctiveness in relation to the larger culture.

2. I’ve seen menorahs with seven lights and with nine lights; why the difference?

A “menorah,” strictly speaking, is a lamp stand.  According to the Torah, the menorah in the Temple had seven lamps (again, this is in the time before wax candles) and is described in several places, including Exodus 25:31-40.  

These days, when people say “menorah” or, more specifically, a “Hanukkah menorah,” they are referring to a “hanukkiyah,” the nine-branched lampstand that we use only for Hanukkah.  Generally, these hanukkiyot (to use the Hebrew plural) include eight candle holders (or oil lamps, for people who prefer period instruments) on one level, plus another at a different level (lower or higher) for the “shamash” (“beadle”), which we use to light the other lights.

3. Why was the color blue chosen for Jewish holiday merchandise and gift wrap?

This question is particularly interesting because it points to several aspects of the Jewish experience, including the widespread acceptance of Hanukkah as a legitimate alternative to Christmas in this country and the rise of Zionism and the state of Israel as a gloss on the Hanukkah story of self-determination and cultural distinctiveness.

To begin with the latter factor, it’s important to note that the colors of the Israeli flag are blue and white, in part to echo the traditional colors of the Jewish prayer shawl.  The blue is called t’khelet, which is described in the Torah and has been traced to pigment derived from mollusks. These colors, which the Zionist movement adopted at its inception in the late 19th century, were described in “Judah’s Colors,” an 1864 poem in German by Ludwig August Frankl: “Blue and white are the colours of Judah; white is the radiance of the priesthood, and blue, the splendors of the firmament.” (see Ronald L. Eisenberg, Jewish Traditions: A JPS Guide, 2004, p. 577 and Amanda Green, “Why Are Blue and White the Hanukkah Colors?,” Mental Floss on-line).

Since the explanation about Hanukkah in this country has focused not only on issues of religious freedom and self-determination but also Jewish sovereignty in the Land of Israel, Jews readily associate the holiday with the establishment of the State of Israel and thus the colors of the state, namely blue and white.  These colors have the added advantage of being clearly distinct from green and red, which in this country are the currently accepted colors for Christmas (I understand there is a history there, as well, but I am ignorant of it). In both cases, marketers have cemented the use of these colors as an easy visual shorthand for both retailers and consumers to recognize products for one or the other holiday.  

As a curious aside, I learned in my internet searches that in the first half of the 20th century, most Hanukkah candles (and electric Hanukkah lights) were manufactured in an orange color, so that before the current vogue for blue and white, the color of Hanukkah was indeed orange.  If any of you has any memories of the shift from orange to blue and white (or, indeed, memories of other colors associated with Hanukkah), I would love to hear about them!

With blessings for a happy and healthy New Gregorian Year!

Rabbi Jim