| Yom
Kippur 2004 Day
Can You Be Modern and a Jew?
Do you remember
the 1993 movie Groundhog Day ? It wasn't considered a great movie,
but it did have an interesting premise. "Bill Murray
plays Phil, an arrogant, Scroogelike weather forecaster who spends
a night in Punxsutawney … where he is to do a broadcast the next
day about the annual ritual of the coming out of the groundhog.
He … does his story and is annoyed to discover that he is trapped
in Punxsutawney for a second night because of a snowstorm. ...
When he wakes up in his guest house the next morning, … it is the
morning of the day before all over again. Everything that happened
to him the previous day … all happens again…. And so it goes, day
after day, as this misanthrope of a human being finds himself trapped
in Punxsutawney on Groundhog Day in what science fiction would
refer to as a time loop. … At first Murray 's character responds
with bewilderment. Then he despairs…."
Repeatedly
trapped in a seeming time loop of history, in a place one doesn't
want to be and is not really wanted. It occurred to
me that some might see Jewish history the same way going over and
over from free and prosperous to persecuted and exiled. Like Groundhog
Day, the story is repeated over and over from Joseph and Egypt
, from King David's Israel to the Babylonian exile, from the Golden
Age in Spain to the Spanish Inquisition, to expulsion, from German
Jewish assimilation to Nazi Germany and the death camps. One could
understand a tendency to despair and become pessimistic in such
a time loop. But soon after the Holocaust, that nadir of modern
Jewish history, "a scholar and man of letters, Simon Rawidowicz,
published a great retort to pessimism, [in a] wise and learned
essay called " Am Ha-holekh Va-Met," "The Ever-Dying
People." 'The world has many images of [the people of] Israel ,'
Rawidowicz instructed, ' but [the people of] Israel has only one
image of itself: that of an expiring people, forever on the verge
of ceasing to be…. He who studies Jewish history will readily discover
that there was hardly a generation in the Diaspora period which
did not consider itself the final link in Israel 's chain. Each
always saw before it the abyss ready to swallow it up…. Often it
seems as if the overwhelming majority of our people go about driven
by the panic of being the last.'"
We are just beginning to celebrate the 350 th anniversary of Jews
on this continent. I expect that it will be a glorious and joyous
celebration, nationally and locally. We should feel pleased and
honored that one of our members, Judith Rodwin, is the Coordinator
of the Lehigh Valley celebration. It will be highlighted by a poster
board exhibit from the Library of Congress on the broad Jewish
American Experience and by an accompanying exhibit covering the
early history of the Allentown/Bethlehem/Easton Jewish communities.
These exhibits will be displayed as part of the opening of the
new Lehigh County Heritage Center , starting in April and continuing
through July 2005. In addition, there will be other exhibits, trips,
scholars-in-residence, music and educational programs. I encourage
you to avail yourselves of as much of the programming as you possible
can. We have much to celebrate about the past 350 years of Jewish
life on this continent.
But, inevitably, such an occasion demands not only a look back,
but also some thoughts on the present and future of Jews and Judaism
in the United States . And oddly enough, these examinations seem
to echo Simon Rawidowicz's observation, every generation is afraid
it will be the last.
When do you
think the following passage was written? "The disintegrating
influence of American conditions on Jewish life and productivity
can be demonstrated most palpably in that section of American Jewry
which has for a sufficient length of time been exposed to the life
and liberty of this country, and in which the extent of de-Judaization
stands in exact proportion to the amount of freedom enjoyed by
it." These words were written by Dr. Israel Friedlaender, Professor
of Bible at the Jewish Theological Seminary, my alma mater, in
an address [entitled: The Problem of Judaism in America] delivered
before the Mikve Israel Association in 1907! As part
of the celebration of "the 350 th anniversary of Jewish settlement
on this continent," Conservative Judaism magazine issued a special
supplement featuring Dr. Friedlaender's essay along with six essays
by "six scholars of national and international repute" on the topic
of "The Problem of Judaism." As Dr. Martin Cohen, the editor of
the supplement noted in his introduction: "[Dr. Friedlaender] discussed
a variety of issues he must have considered specific to his time
and place, but which have retained their relevance and interest
to an almost amazing degree over the many decades that have passed…." Ah,
the Groundhog Day phenomena on a scale of decades.
What were some of Dr. Friedlaender's insights? He clearly saw
that freedom and prosperity for Jews did not mean the flourishing
of Judaism.
He noted: "The dawn of the Jews is the dusk of Judaism; that the
nearer the problem of Jewry reaches its solution, the more complicated
and the more dangerous becomes the problem of Judaism; that the
more emancipated, prosperous and successful the Jews become, the
more impoverished, defenseless and threatened becomes Judaism, …" (Pg.
9) Dr. Friedlaender, living in the early twentieth century, certainly
seems to have predicted the late twentieth and early twenty-first
centuries. Never have we been so free to express our Judaism; rarely
have we been so prosperous and so accepted by the surrounding culture,
and yet Judaism, and I believe the value of Jewish community, have
rarely been so impoverished in reality and in the eyes of very
many Jews. The critical question Dr. Friedlaender asked in 1907,
is one we must ask today: "Is there no hope for the Jews to participate
in the life and the culture around them and yet remain Jewish?" (Pg.
10)
Today, we are
perplexed to know who is a Jew, who wants to be a Jew and how
many of us there are in the United States . An article
by Rob Eshman in The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles noted:
( 10/11/02 ) "The National Jewish Population Survey[of] 2000-2001, … says
there are 5.2 million Jews in America , a 5 percent decline since
1990, when the last survey was done…. Those figures show U.S. Jewry
trending downward. The American Jewish population has fallen by
just over 5 percent at a time when the general population has increased. … Reactions
to these semi-dire numbers, … were predictable. Orthodox rabbis
said the figures proved that more money was needed for Jewish education
and that Orthodox practice is the best safeguard against assimilation.
Those involved in Jewish senior care say the numbers prove that
we are overinvesting finite dollars in Jewish continuity and neglecting
the needs of our aging population. People who've been saying for
years that Jewish life is too expensive say the numbers would be
better if the cost of Jewish involvement were cheaper. The Jewish
continuity experts, their programs by now firmly entrenched, said
the declining numbers prove that their programs are needed now
more than ever."
Professor Charles
Liebman, who once served as scholar-in-residence at Brith Sholom,
and was "one of the foremost sociologists of Jewish
life in our time," died last September after submitting his paper
on the Friedlaender essay. Commenting on the debate as to the exact
number of Jews in the United States , Dr. Leibman wrote: "One of
the core issues in this debate rests on the question of whether
those who were born and raised as Jews but no longer consider themselves
Jews should be counted as Jews. According to reliable estimates,
there are over one million such Jews. I estimate that one-third
to one-half of American Jews have no interest or affiliation with
any Jewish activity."!!! (Pg. 43) Further on, Dr. Liebman reminds
us: "It is worth remembering that no more than an estimated 40
percent of American Jews belong to a synagogue." (Pg. 47)
While commenting
on Dr. Friedlaender's essay, Rabbi Sidney Schwartz, author of
the book Finding a Spiritual Home: How a New Generation
of American Jews Can Transform the American Synagogue , wrote an
upbeat piece entitled: "Hold the Eulogy, Jewish Renaissance on
the Rise." And yet, he makes this observation. " Israel , anti-Semitism,
oppressed Jewish communities, … is not an agenda that motivates
a post-Holocaust generation into a strong and positive identification
with Judaism and the Jewish community. Indeed, all of the evidence
points to the fact that this generation is essentially post-tribal. … Increasingly,
the question that I find younger Jews asking is not: 'How do I
survive anti-Semitism' but rather, 'Why should I bother to identify
as a Jew at all?'" Whew! When that is the optimist's view, it is
no wonder some of us are worried about the future. I remind you
of Dr. Friedlaender's comment: "The dawn of the Jews is the dusk
of Judaism."
As has often
been noted, by probably every commentator on every siddur and
machzor, and by every rabbi who has ever taught a course
on either, Judaism emphasizes the importance of the community over
the individual, and that is incorporated into our prayer tradition
that states over and over, we, we, we and our, our, our over I
and my. But listen to more observations on the state of American
Jewry from Dr. Liebman. "Pluralism has come to mean the right of
every individual to interpret religion in any manner he sees fit
and the obligation of the religious establishment to accept this
interpretation as equally valid with all others." (Pg. 42) That
means Jews do what they want and synagogues, of all movements,
say "o.k." because we need your dues to survive at all. As Dr.
Liebman puts it: "Adaptionism seems to be the opposite of what
one might expect from a religious point of view. Adaptionism means
that Judaism is interpreted as malleable rather than fixed. The
Jewish tradition is therefore not something that compels; it is
not a body of law or a set of norms which one is obliged to observe." (Pg.
41-42) Rabbis of all the Jewish movements say: "Observe Shabbat." Jews
respond, "but rabbi, we work all week and so we need to cut the
grass, go shopping, run errands, get a haircut and play sports
and, rabbi, it's 2004." So much for Judaism and its obligations.
And what of the value of Jewish community, the famous concept of
the "we" before the "I." Having already heard from Rabbi Schwartz
that Israel , anti-Semitism and oppressed Jewry are not on many
Jews' agenda, please listen carefully to what Dr. Liebman has to
say about communal prayer. "Developments in the last two decades
are characterized by the emergence of personal and privatized Judaism
at the expense of ethnic Judaism. The rhetoric of ethnicity concentrates
on themes such as peoplehood, community and solidarity. … Ethnic
Judaism, however, has retreated before a form of privatized religion.
The language of this religion speaks in the hushed, softer terms
of individual meaning, journeys of discovery, spirituality and
the search for fulfillment. Its emphases are interpersonal rather
than collective. … Personalism detaches individuals from the larger
social collectives of whom they are a part, releases them from
the binding duties these collectives impose, and leads them toward
self-directed lives that pursue rare moments of meaning and growth. … Responsibilities
toward abstract collectives, such as the Jewish people, therefore
decline in significance." (Pg. 44-45)
I could take
these points in several directions: declining commitment to Israel;
declining donations to Jewish causes; declining interest
in serving on communal boards and committees; declining attendance
at services on the second day of Rosh Hashanah and even Kol Nidre;
declining lifelong affiliation with synagogues; but I want to focus
for a couple of moments on the declining reality of daily minyans.
First, I want to separate two issues: the responsibility of maintaining
a daily minyan and the counting of women for a minyan. The counting
of women for a minyan is a significant issue that stands on its
own merit as worthy of thought and discussion. Because I have come
to realize that there is both confusion and lack of awareness about
the way Brith Sholom counts women in the minyan, and because it
is time to do so anyway, I am reviewing our custom. I had a very
meaningful meeting this summer with several women who do count
in our minyan and are both serious and sensitive to the issues
involved. I plan to announce shortly a meeting open to all the
women in the congregation to discuss the issue. If necessary, we
will follow that with a meeting open to men as well. But please
understand, I do this because it is an important issue; we and
many other Conservative synagogues have already proven counting
women in a minyan does not particularly save the daily minyan.
Women who are counted have just as much right not to go to the
daily minyan as men do. The key issue, for men and women, is a
recognition and acceptance that daily minyan is an important, critically
important, part of Jewish communal life and it is an obligation
to attend, not some kindness to the rabbi or to one of the other
regular attendees. The notion of communal prayer obligation clearly
flies in the face of what I have told you about the current trends
in the American Jewish community. The "optimistic" Rabbi Schwartz
notes: "With few and notable exceptions, synagogues are empty of
regular worshipers." (Pg. 63) But as I asked in a different context
on the second day of Rosh Hashanah, what are YOU ready to sacrifice,
so that Brith Sholom can maintain a daily, morning minyan? Will
you sacrifice 45 minutes or an hour a week? Every two weeks? Once
a month? If not, it will not be long before the daily minyan disappears.
If so, it will be a tragedy. Jewish communities, over the course
of history, are not remembered because of their social events,
their athletes, their facilities, or even their warmth. Jewish
communities are noteworthy in history because of their commitment
to Jewish learning and to Jewish religious practice. The daily
minyan is certainly the major leagues of davening – all in Hebrew,
few page announcements and, for better or worse, no sermons! I
am offering a four-week course this fall on Sunday mornings, starting
October 17 th , on the Geography and Choreography of the Prayer
Book. It will provide some basic information to help someone be
comfortable at any service, but especially the weekday morning
service. If public instruction makes you uncomfortable, please
let me know and I will do the best I can to find a private tutor,
whether it is me or someone else. It seems to me that it will be
an historic shame if Dr. Friedlaender turns out to be right and
Jews thrive in America while Judaism slowly disappears. Sometimes
we have to sacrifice some time, some sleep, some comfort, for the
benefit of the community.
Otherwise, we will find ourselves in another Groundhog Day experience;
a prosperous, successful period of Jewish history, followed by
a decline.
So what happened to the weatherman in Punxsutawney ? Bill Murray
accepted the positives in Punxsutawney and its value system and
changed himself for the better. He came to realize that there was
more than one way to live life and that material items have limited
value. Didn't the hurricanes and recent rainstorms again remind
us of the tentativeness of material pleasures? There are, of course,
positive signs in the American Jewish community; there is reason
to hope. So as we are about to appreciate 350 years of Jewish life
in America , may God give each of us the strength and insight to
help insure that there will be celebrations for the 500 th and
700 th anniversary as well.
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