May, 2023 Megillah
RABBI'S NOTES
It’s time to write about not writing about Israel. We are watching the headlines, I know, as hundreds of thousands of Israelis fill the streets in protest, holding signs that say “Democracy!”We see the Prime Minister, facing indictment on various corruption charges, attempting to strip the Supreme Court of its authority to hold him accountable. We see politicians with intense right-wing policy agendas appointed to leadership. We see all of this and more. We may be in touch with people we know in Israel or in the Occupied Territories, and be moved by their accounts. It’s painful and concerning and and and….
I don’t know what to do, what to say, to be your rabbi in this regard. I have strongly-held thoughts and feelings about these goings-on, as do many of us. I have also been the rabbi of this community for over three decades and have experienced the anger and alienation that have most often come between us from attempts to speak together about Israel. I know that many of us are in pain as we watch the latest events. Some of you have expressed a desire to come together and share. I imagine that behind this desire is a hope to feel aligned with others in our Jewish community, to feel our own perspectives affirmed, to feel less alone in our concern and our pain. Some may wish that we could find a way to contribute to better outcomes there.
I don’t know that we can do that. I know that we hold vastly different political, emotional and spiritual perspectives about Israel. Sometimes I think that we all look at the same facts, the same map, the same history, the same headlines, but our hearts are drawn to different views. For some it is toward brave halutzim who left the Pale of Settlement in Europe and tried to build idealistic communal life in a new land. For some it is toward the refugees from Hitler seeking safe refuge. For some it is toward the expectation that there can be a place of refuge if antisemitism where we are increases. For some it is toward the exciting technological and cultural sophistication of Israel. For some it is toward a place where one can live in Jewish time and language. For some it is alliance with the United States and its global objectives. For some it is toward the displaced inhabitants of ancient Palestine as their homeland was occupied. There are more, I’m sure.These different allegiances live deep inside us. For some of us they are very strong. I don’t know if we can come together to witness and respect these strong inclinations of our various minds and hearts. And I don’t know what is served even if we can.
I remember back to a Shavuot many years ago. We were studying deep into the night; I don’t remember our theme, but the wonderful Scott Meltsner, a poet who lived here at the time, led a writing exercise about intimate relationships. I remember that he asked us to write about five different themes in this realm. The theme that touched me was “overlook.” Any of us who have ever loved anyone know that part of loving someone is overlooking aspects of who they are, sometimes large and glaring aspects. Somehow we make peace with what we can’t absorb, understand, support or celebrate. It’s worth it because of all else that makes the beloved who they are. But sometimes those aspects of the beloved become too disturbing to keep overlooking, and this causes a crisis.
At that juncture, people may inch back to remembering all the other things they love about their beloved, and things calm down.With careful exploration, people can come to understand why a behavior or a belief is so important to one of them, and/or why it is so painful to the other, and this allows them to return to each other with more tolerance. One party or both may be able to change at least outward behaviors that inflame the conflict. Unfortunately, though, the differences, when looked at directly, become insurmountable, and beloveds can no longer stay in relationship.
I think we see some of these dynamics in this country, as family members, neighbors and communities negotiate the red/blue divide. Mostly we separate. Sometimes a relationship is important enough to us that we overlook. Over time many of us migrate to communities where we won’t be continually rubbed by insurmountable differences with neighbors, colleagues and friends. It’s not perfect by any means,but without these places of ideological refuge, we might be ground to the bone every minute.
I feel a certain amount of guilt about not advocating strenuously in our community for what I think is most right and just with regard to Israel and trying to rally as much allegiance and action as I can to move things in my preferred direction. I admire rabbis who stand up and speak out (in favor of the perspective I hold) and let the chips fall where they may. But there are several reasons I don’t do that.
First and most important, I love all of you. I am more than willing to overlook just about any political division, and most any other, for the sake of love. You are my home and my community, my hevra, my minyan, my refuge. I would do almost anything in the world—including NOT speaking out in ways that will alienate and inflame people I love. “Almost,” of course:there have been times when I felt it morally worth the friction to stand up and speak out, and I know that people I care for have felt alienated when I have done so. I’ve also made what I have come to see as mistakes in this department, holding my tongue when I should have spoken up or speaking out when I should have been more circumspect. This for me as a rabbi, and I know for many of us, is an ongoing negotiation. But I lean strongly in the direction of overlooking.
A far-distant second reason is that I don’t think we as a community have that much to offer in the direction of justice and peace in Israel and Palestine. We are more likely to end up fighting against each other than contributing anything constructive toward the goals I or any of us might espouse. So a simple cost-benefit analysis leads me to reckon that we offer more to a better world by not going up in flames about something over which we have very little control. We have some power, not none, and we certainly have moral standing to act. Many of us do so individually in the ways that support our perspectives. But I generally don’t think it’s worth the cost to try to do so collectively.
A third reason—and this one I feel more and more strongly committed to—is that I believe that the locus of Jewish life and thriving is more and more in the diaspora. And so building vibrant, spirituallyalive, interesting Jewish life in the places where we live is actually really important for the Jewish people and not just for me or us as a little satellite on the edge of the world. This notion is sometimes called doikayt—Yiddish for “here-ness.” The term is associated with Bund, the socialist labor movement in Lithuania most active before World War II. As an alternative analysis to the emerging Zionism of the time, it said, “Let’s build a better world here where we are.”
The term is taking on some currency again these days, as more and more Jews question the religious and cultural centrality of Israel to vibrant Judaism. Much of what is transformative and forward-looking and spiritually alive these days is happening in Jewish communities around the world and also in the cyber-world. That we have managed somehow to create and sustain a little Jewish community where we are, with our distinctive mix of imagination, love of trees and ocean, commitment to materially supporting each other as best we can, our funny and flexible and often-moving ways of prayer and celebration and study, our flexibility and joy for half a century right here where you can’t even buy a real rye bread. When it comes to building a vibrant and healthy Jewish people, and a better world, this is not nothing. “Here” is where I live spiritually and politically—mostly, not entirely, but it’s where the work feels juiciest and most promising.
My dear community, we can look at each other and know that Israel is causing us pain these days, for reasons that may be different for each of us. Maybe we can feel compassion for the fear and pain even of people we disagree with. In places of intractable division and pain I am inclined to pray. If nothing else, prayer reminds me of what power I hold and what I don’t. Prayer also has a tendency to open my heart, and sometimes even my mind. Maybe….I don’t know how to end this sentence. But maybe.
PAIGE NOTES
Chodesh tov! The previous new moon transitioned us into the Hebrew month of Iyar. Mystics often interpret Iyar as an acronym for the Torah verse אני יי רפאך meaning “I, the Divine, am your healer” (Shemot/Exodus 15:26). We spend this entire month on the healing journey of Counting the Omer. This earth-based practice of counting the barley growth during the seven weeks from Pesach to Shavuot also serves as a metaphorical counting of our healing.
Each week, and each day of the week, aligns with one of the Sefirot, the Kabbalistic attributes of the Divine Spirit, of ourselves, of Life.
Thus, with no major holidays the whole month (Lag B’Omer is minor), we welcome the Divine as our healer, journeying through the seven Sefirot of Chesed loving-kindness, Gevurah boundaries, Tiferet beauty/harmony, Netzach endurance, Hod surrender, Yesod actualization, and Malchut presence. In order to receive revelation and our own personal truths next month on Shavuot, we must first make progress through this profound counting.
with blessings of healing,
erev rabbi paige lincenberg
