Whatever happened to our image of tolerance?

The comedian Jon Stewart quipped two weeks ago, “It seems that the ‘War on Christmas’ starts earlier every year.” The pundits and opinion makers in our culture seem attached to this notion that Christianity and the predominant Christian culture, are constantly under attack – this time from something as innocuous as people saying “Happy Holidays,” instead of “Merry Christmas.”

So let’s look at this a little, understanding that regardless of claims of Christianity’s tenuous position in our American culture, this is still a mostly Christian country, with the vast majority of people identifying themselves as Christian of some sort, and we have the largest church-going population of ANY industrialized country.

First of all, a large segment of our population seems to think that there was some great golden age of America, perhaps in the 1950’s some time, when all families were whole and healthy, and everyone gathered around Christmas trees and said Merry Christmas to one another and sang carols in their snowy suburban paradise. This image ignores the fact that at that time there was incredible racial and ethnic injustice in this country, that women’s equality had been sent back decades, and that this “Golden Age,” included very few years without war and a draft.

Second, “Happy Holidays,” did not originate as a way to include other religious and ethnic groups’ winter celebrations, but rather was short cut to combine “Merry Christmas and Happy New Year,” without having to spend too long greeting everyone.

So what do we do now? One of America’s greatest strengths is our diversity, and our confidence in who we are fuels that. The more we believe in ourselves, the more we can allow other people to believe in themselves, even when they may be different from us. The “attack on Christmas” is fear-mongering, period. This is the language of fear, insecurity, and intolerance.

I know that I don’t want to go back to a “Golden Age” built on the oppression of others, and if going forward means accepting each other’s differences – for example, happily accepting that some well-meaning people, even when I am wearing a yarmulke, will say “Merry Christmas” – then I think someone expecting that in return can cope with the similar sentiment of “Happy Holidays.” There are plenty of celebrations to go around – can’t we share in their joy without feeling threatened?

Happy Holidays to all of you in this season of getting together, and by holidays I mean, “Merry Christmas,” “Happy Chanukah,” “Happy Kwanza,” “Happy New Year,” and any other holiday that might pop up in this time of celebrations!

Respectful Dissent - at the heart of good humanity...

Argument and debate, dissent and discourse – not only are these the bedrock of our democratic system, but also the heart and soul of Judaism. It seems that something has happened to this spirit of disagreement in our culture over the last few years, and I would like to take a moment to advocate on behalf of respectful dissent.

I imagine that I might not be the only one who has noticed how difficult it has become to speak about issues of any significance in a way that allows two or more people to disagree. More and more, on hot button issues, between right and left, religious and secular, liberals and conservatives, people actually go so far as to refuse to hold discussions with those who disagree with them.

Jewish history and traditions, of course, include a most engaging understanding of the importance of healthy debate. The first attempt to create a comprehensive Jewish legal corpus, the Talmud, consists of a very involved, engaged, and quite lengthy debate over how to live and build a Jewish society. The Talmud lays out principles of argument, including a most rigorous ruling about the recording of minority opinions, so that they may be referred to at later times when the vote on them might change.

While strident traditionalism has occurred at various times in Jewish history, the bulk of our past writings and experience emphasize the importance of opening almost all topics to discussion. The rigidity of the lines between different Jewish sects emerging over the last century, especially in the areas of ultra-orthodoxy on the side of preserving traditions, and liberal Judaism on the side of adaptation and change, perhaps represents a wider gap between Jews than has existed before, and thus may help explain some of our own struggles at civil discourse between Jews as well.

All this goes to say that even though there may be some recent evidence to the contrary, the bulk of Jewish thought leads us to work on the creation of healthy environments in which disagreement and argument may be viewed as assets to relationships and communities.

Considering our current struggles then, how might we work to foster such reasonable discussions in our own lives?

As a “recovering” New Yorker, I thought I knew everything about healthy debate – also known as, I knew how to be very argumentative. One of the interesting things about reasonable argument is that good discussions are less about the arguments that we make, and more about our willingness to listen to those of others. Perhaps, our current environment of divisiveness can be summed up quite simply as a crisis in listening.

Next time we have the opportunity to express ourselves about our deeply help opinions, maybe we can challenge ourselves to take a deep breath, and listen to someone else’s position on that topic. Instead of biding our time to give our version, let’s try to lend all of our attention to what the other person might be trying to say. After all, I strongly believe that our fellow humans around us wouldn’t feel strongly about something without a good reason – despite how differently they might think from us.

In other words, let us do our best to try to make room in our minds for the “minority opinions” that might be out there. Let us embrace our Jewish and American traditions of discourse and disagreement for the sake of expanding our understanding of the world. We humans are social beings – we solve problems better when we work together, not because we have all the answers by ourselves, but precisely because others may have insight that we don’t. May we all work a little bit more to find and share those insights with each other.

A truly welcoming Judaism means...

American culture seems focused on the nature of the family, and, for the last few years one of the most important aspects of this discussion has been the struggle over how, or how not, to include same-sex couples into a notion of family. Many of the most strongly religious leaders of our nation have also identified themselves as heartily against such a broadening of the definition of family, and often their argument finds support in biblical passages, namely one in Leviticus.

Here is the passage in question, from the Hebrew Bible, Leviticus 20:13, from a translation that closely expresses the intent of the original Hebrew: “A man who lies with a male as one lies with a woman – abomination have the two of them done, they are to be put-to-death, yes death, their bloodguilt is upon them!” At first glance this seems relatively definitive upon the issue of same-sex relationships between men, although not between women. However, there are at least two questions I wish to raise about this text.

First, what does the text mean by a “man who lies with a male as one lies with a woman”? Some studies of ancient culture have discovered that some peoples living around the times of the ancient Israelites may have practiced a ritual in which male priests dress up like women and perform intimate acts with male worshippers. This would definitely fall into the “abomination” category as early Israelites wrote laws to help them distinguish themselves quite clearly from their neighbors.

One can easily imagine that our modern notion, which many of us hold, and to which there is plenty of supporting evidence, that two men or women could live together and build a healthy family was unknown to our ancient ancestors, and that therefore what is being prohibited here is something else entirely.

Second, no matter how serious a religious person one is, none of us live by the letter of the biblical law. We are not offering up sacrifices, nor are we stoning rebellious children (which of us would have survived?) or those who don’t follow our rules about the Sabbath. Judaism follows an interpretive tradition, one that has always frowned upon death penalties that contradict our teachings about compassion and community-building, for example. So the question here needs to be what are our values, and how do we best teach and promote them?

I, for one, am very committed to the notion of a healthy family as the building block of society. I want to help people find life-partners, if they wish to, so that they can live the most fulfilling lives possible. If someone cannot have a fulfilling relationship with someone of the opposite sex, but can have a fulfilling relationship with someone of the same sex, then we ought to facilitate that healthy relationship, welcoming them and enabling them to commit to each other. Our traditions teach compassion and caring – let us turn that compassion and caring to all who wish to build families, and help them do it even when it may seem uncomfortable to us.

More on spirituality and Judaism

The divine, spirituality, and Judaism – a second installment on this topic seems to be necessary, since I seem to have created a little stir with my last piece, and the least I can do is explain myself. Liberal Jewish communities try to devote ourselves to maintaining a sense of dialogue and discussion on all these issues. If anyone felt that I somehow meant to exclude them from this communal discussion with what I wrote in the previous post, please understand that that was in no way my intention. Some felt strongly enough about the piece to discuss it directly with me – thank you! A lively discourse on what exactly makes us who we are and why is one of my most important goals as rabbi, and a fundamental aspect of Jewish tradition. When we discuss these things, I believe that we live better, more reflected lives, which better embrace Jewish traditions about discourse. Jewish tradition strongly advocates for freedom of belief, and strongly frowns on any instruction that tells one what to think or believe.

First of all, just because I wrote that it was possible to be an atheist and Jewish, doesn’t mean I advocate that. In fact, as many of you may remember, I often talk about what Dr. Gerald May (may his memory be for a blessing, he recently died) has called “functional atheism” – “the belief that ultimate responsibility for everything rests with me.” When do we do this? Whenever we place our own desires and needs above those of the community and the world, we act as if we are more important than anything else, as if there is nothing greater than ourselves, as if there is no source for meaning beyond the self. Living in a world where humans are placed at the center, where our own self is of highest importance, is the ultimate form of atheism, and one that clearly I think is neither advisable nor Jewish.

When I say, “One may be Jewish and an atheist,” I am being intentionally provocative, to encourage thoughts about the nature of Jewish communal life. Additionally, I attempt to open doors for those who may find literal interpretations of the divine in the Hebrew Bible and our prayer services a barrier to their participation in Judaism. I often find that people who claim to be atheists actually react against a perceived simplicity in many more literalist interpretations of the divine. Unlike many other religious perspectives, Judaism, as a culture, a philosophical system, and a religion, embraces the complexity of the universe as a source for awe in the power behind its creation. Judaism asks us to explore the depths and intricacies of a universe that defies our limited comprehension, and a spiritual path that leads us into something far bigger than our finite selves.

Second, I truly intended my last piece to assure people that no matter what their personal spiritual path, I, as a rabbi, would not condemn their inner spiritual life. Judaism has no dogma about the inner spiritual life. Some people find their spirituality fed by a prayer service at a synagogue, some people find it fed on top of a mountain – neither of these paths, nor any other that provides one with a deeper sense of meaning in this life, falls into the realm of a synagogue or rabbi to dictate.

Perhaps, when I wrote that Judaism demands no particular belief or theological perspective, I could have clarified that Judaism demands no particular spiritual path from anyone. Judaism asks us to behave well, and work to make a better world through the building of healthy communities. Judaism refrains from dictating one’s thoughts or beliefs – there are certainly thoughts and beliefs inconsistent with healthy participation in a Jewish community, but as long as they don’t manifest in the form of actions, I will not ask anyone to change what they think.

Again, my thanks to all of you who engaged me in discussion on these topics. Few enough people consider a talk about theology and philosophy interesting, much less as a central conversation to a community’s health. As Jews, we know that a discourse like this, especially one that contains heart felt opinions and potential disagreements, reflects our health as a community. As my namesake, Rav Yonaton, in the Talmud says, “One who argues with their companion does so for the sake of heaven” – commenting on the piece in Proverbs 28:23 – “One who reproves a man will in the end find more favor than one who flatters him.”

May all of you have a beautiful and thoughtful August – filled with fruitful conversations and helpful actions!

Atheist & Jewish? Why not?

Many of you may find this strange, but often people come up to me and say something like this: “Rabbi, I am Jewish, but I don’t really believe in God…”

Isn’t this great? You can be an atheist, and be Jewish! It’s true. There is nothing that says anywhere that you have to believe one thing or another to be Jewish. After all, you could, theoretically, “believe” that killing people is a good idea, and as long as you didn’t DO it, you could still be accepted as a “good Jew,” in most communities, whatever that means.

And, yes, just as an aside, I propose here that nobody really knows what it is to be a “good Jew,” and that most of us don’t think that we are “good Jews.” Jews use this term on each other and ourselves to create bad guilt about how we could be better – leave this term and the guilt behind and we will all be happier. Who is a “good Jew”? The good friend, the good family member, the good human, the good care-taker, the good giver, the good community-builder – these people are great Jews! The one who keeps strictly kosher, doesn’t drive on Shabbat, etc. – this person is a strictly observant Jew, not necessarily a better Jew than the rest of us.

Alright, tangent on what it means to be a good Jew finished, let’s return to the topic of the divine. What does Judaism tell us about how we NEED to relate to God?

Not much – there’s a lot about what God tells us to do, a little bit about how to be holy, and therefore like God, but almost nothing about how to get in touch with the divine (Kabbalah, or Jewish mysticism, is all about getting in touch with the divine, and it is a discipline that evolved much later than our biblical texts). Furthermore, Jewish texts tend to shy away from teaching about the nature of the divine as well, to the extent that Maimonides, that famous medieval Jewish philosopher, posited that the only thing we can even begin to know about the divine is what it is not. In other words, we can propose that the divine is not inherently destructive, even while we can debate over just how inherently creative the creative force in the universe might be.

Considering all of this, I am going to go out on a limb here and say that we don’t need to talk about God to be Jewish. I want all of you to think about the most essential aspects of our Jewish experiences as members of Temple Bat Yam, or any other thriving Jewish community. The things that I come up with when I ponder this are not declarations of faith, but warm feelings of community and family sharing times together – celebrating together, supporting each other, having fun together, and occasionally mourning together.

Perhaps we have made a small mistake in American English by treating “religion” and “theology” as equivalent terms. I would guess, and please correct me if I am wrong here, that most Americans, regardless of their ethnic and cultural heritages, don’t go to synagogue, church, mosque, ashram, or wherever, to hear about the divine – I bet they go to find people who care about the same things in the same ways that they do – to find extended family, as one of our local congregants so clearly articulates for us here in South Lake Tahoe.

Remember that “religion” is mostly about community, and not only about God. I would guess that anyone who is trying to tell you about the definite and specific nature of the divine, is probably trying to sell you something. Religious people in 21^st century America care about the values that make a community strong, just like us. So remember that as long as your are good people, you are all “good Jews,” and that whether or not you believe in the literal truth of the “God of the Bible,” has nothing to do with it.

Happy Summer everyone!

Jews and the Holocaust - Memorials and Victims

Look in any place you might find Jewish resources – library (real or virtual), Jewish Community Center, synagogue library, even in a book store – and you will find a significant section devoted to the Holocaust, or the Shoah, as it is referred to in Hebrew. Look around the United States, Europe, and Israel, and you will find a multitude of memorials to the Shoah. To say that the murder of six million Jews was anything but a catastrophe that shook the Jewish people to its foundations would be a disservice to the memories and lives of those lost.

As Yom Ha-Shoah, the Day of Holocaust Remembrance (the evening of May 5, through May 6, this year) approaches, I attempt to reflect and reassess how American Jews have related to this tragedy, remembered it, and taught about it over the past sixty years. With creativity and devotion we have taught ourselves that remembering is the key to avoiding the repetition of such a tragedy, and yet our methods have been one dimensional.

By the time I became Bar Mitzvah at the age of thirteen I had studied more about the Holocaust than I had learned about the older traditions of Judaism. I knew more about Nazis than I did about the rabbis who authored the Talmud. I knew more names of death camps than I did books of the Hebrew Bible.

This seems an imbalance – one that I hope I correct regularly. We cannot forget the tragedies of our past, yet we should not focus on it to the neglect of the true foundations of our identities – the living traditions that inform us as we consider the paths we choose in life.

All of us must remember that living by our values, sharing, teaching, and discussing those values – this creates the greatest response to the terrors of the last century. Memorials are only as good as the lives they inspire us to lead. In a true Jewish fashion, this year, when we remember the Holocaust, the low-point of our recent history, let us also walk boldly into a future that we help shape for the better.

[Please join Rabbi Jonathan for a discussion of this topic at 8pm, on Thursday, May 5, at Temple Bat Yam, in South Lake Tahoe – for information call 775.338-0790]

Live THIS life

Often people ask me what Judaism has to say about the “after-life,” or heaven and hell. My quick response is that Jews have historically been relatively skeptical, and since we have received no verifiable reports from beyond the grave, the best thing to do is wait and see until we get there.

This may be viewed as insensitive to many of my co-religionists. Please note the key word is “verifiable.” Many will then express their beliefs, like, they believe their holy text is absolute truth and therefore there must be heaven and hell, or some form of the afterlife where their vision of the divine awaits them. Yet, one’s faith or belief, and how one pursues that belief in a spiritual way, seems like an individual issue to me. When one’s beliefs affect others by influencing one’s behavior, usually negatively, then that belief or belief system becomes a communal concern. Let me explain.

If I believe that there is no heaven or hell, and I behave in a kind, giving, and law-abiding manner to those who share this world with me, then really what I believe or don’t believe should be irrelevant to everyone. After all, I am still doing my best to have a positive impact on the world around me, even if I may believe that my life force will just seep back into the general pool of energy that fuels the universe after I die.

However, if I were to believe in some form of the after-life that is more important than this life, claiming that therefore what I do in this world doesn’t matter, and thus I can be a terrible neighbor, a polluter, a thief, or even worse, then I think my community would have something to say about my conduct, and that would imply a problem with the belief system that was the source of my conduct.

So, a Jewish perspective on this teaches: believe what you like, as long as it doesn’t have a bad impact on the people around you. This is why there is no “declaration of faith,” upon becoming Jewish – it is about good behavior not beliefs.

So, how does one answer the accusation that without the threat of hell and the reward of heaven, people won’t behave well? I say, look around at our lives - most of us are pretty lucky, and work to get along with each other. We get along because we know that the main reason for being a good neighbor, friend, and family member is to make THIS world a better place. Our lives, families, homes, communities, towns, mountains, cities, and country reflect the care that we devote to them.

Living a life filled with integrity, honesty, and devotion to the people around you, as well as caring for your community is better for its own sake. As the Hebrew Bible says, “Choose life, that you may live,” (Deuteronomy 30:19) – isn’t the gift of this life enough reason to be a good person?