Yom Kippur Morning Sermon
Temple B’nai Tikvah
5780/2019
Rabbi Mark Glickman
Today, on this holy occasion, and in this holy place, I’d like for us to spend some time thinking about Jerry Springer.
For those of you not blessed to be acquainted with this man’s oeuvre, from 1991 to 2018, Jerry Springer was the host of a syndicated tabloid talk show on TV, featuring episodes with such memorable titles as “I Faked My Pregnancy,” “Out of Control Catfights,” “Twin Brother Betrayal,” and about 4,000 others that would be inappropriate for me to mention from the bimah.
Jerry Springer will long be known and remembered for his TV show, but that’s not all he was ever known for. He was born in England in 1944 to two Holocaust refugees, and at the age of four, he moved to the United States. He grew up in New York, went to Law School at Northwestern University, and as a young man, he worked as a political advisor to Robert Kennedy. After Kennedy was assassinated, he moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, where he began working as a lawyer. Soon, Jerry Springer got involved in politics, and in 1971, he was elected to the Cincinnati City Council. His career went well until, in 1974, Springer chose to spend some time with a woman he shouldn’t have spent any time with…and he paid her with a check. (Watch 1981 Jerry Springer Mayor of Cincinnati Interview.)
He got caught, he publicly confessed to what he had done, he apologized, he resigned from the city council, and by all accounts, his political career was over.
Except, it wasn’t. Because then a remarkable thing happened. Springer kept on talking about his misstep. He fully was open about it; he acknowledged that what he had done was wrong, and he owned up to the pain he had caused. The following year, in 1975, he ran for election to reclaim his council seat, and he won. And then, two years after that, Jerry Springer became the mayor of Cincinnati. Politics are usually complicated of course, and there were many factors that contributed to Springer’s comeback. But at some profound level, his redemption was rooted in the fact that the Cincinnati community appreciated Jerry Springer’s honesty and what was, by all accounts, the sincerity of his apology. By the time I moved to Cincinnati for rabbinical school in the mid-80s, Jerry Springer was doing a nightly news commentary – liberally minded, thoughtful, and a far cry from his later TV show.
Say what you will about his dumb and often offensive TV show, the political biography of Jerry Springer in the 70s and 80s is, at least in part, the story of the power of genuine apology. And genuine apology is particularly important these days because there’s so little of it. Some people try to apologize – at least ostensibly – but so often their attempts to apologize are, shall we say, sorry affairs.
A famous actress explains a racist tweet by saying she posted it because she was on Ambien at the time. A major Hollywood producer responds to hundreds of harassment charges with “I so respect all women and regret what happened.” One of the most powerful leaders in the world brags of assaulting women, and, when called to task, says, “I’m not proud of it, but this is locker room talk.” The list of half-hearted, disingenuous statements passed off as apologies could keep us here all day.
Part of the problem with apologies is that the English language doesn’t always serve us very well here. In English, you see, the term “I’m sorry,” can mean one of at least two things – it can refer to regret, or apology. If, for example, I were to say, “I’m sorry your grandmother died,” I probably wouldn’t have intended that statement to be an apology for your grandmother’s death (unless I killed her, I suppose) – no, it would have been a statement of regret. It means that I’m unhappy that grandma died, that I feel for you, that my heart is with you. It’s a statement of sympathy rather than apology. And conversely, if I were to say “I’m sorry for bashing up your car,” that’s a statement of apology. It’s not that I sympathize with you because your car is damaged. No, here, I’m owning up to my own responsibility for the harm I inflicted on you.
This duality of meaning – the fact that “I’m sorry” can mean either “I sympathize” or “I apologize” – provides a huge opportunity for people who want to weasel out of genuine apology. For someone who has done something wrong, and who wants people to think that they’re truly repentant when they’re actually not, this is pure gold. It allows them to make a statement of regret and dress it up to look like a heartfelt apology.
They say, “I’m sorry if I insulted you,” which might sound like an apology, but it really says “It’s too bad that you’re so thin-skinned as to be hurt by my innocuous comment.” They say, “I’m sorry, but when you said you like disco, I couldn’t help but call you an idiot,” when they really mean, “Don’t blame me – you’re the one who likes disco.” They say, “I’m sorry you were hurt when I said that dress looked a little tight,” when they really mean “My, my…we’re getting a little sensitive about our weight, aren’t we?”
Let’s be clear, the world “if” has no place in apologies. When someone says, “I’m sorry if…,” then they’ve made their statement conditional, and subtly put the blame of the conflict on you. Chances are that it’s not a sincere apology. Similarly, the word “but” rarely belongs in apologies, either. When a person says “I’m sorry, but…” then they’re probably trying to excuse their behavior, and chances are that it’s not a sincere apology. The same is the case with the word “you.” When someone says, “I’m sorry you…” then in all likelihood, they’re passing the blame for what they did from them to you, and chances are that it’s not a sincere apology.
There are a lot of bad apologies out there, but what makes for a good apology? Well, rabbis throughout the ages have struggled with this question, and they’ve taught us a great deal of insight and wisdom as to how to say I’m sorry in a way that really counts. I’ve studied these lists, and I’ve been able to distill much of their teaching down to three requirements – three traits that an apology must have if it’s to be a good one. Conveniently, each of them begins with an R.
The first R that a good apology demands is responsibility – you have to take responsibility for what it is that you did wrong. You have to not only own up to the fact that you fell short, but you also need to acknowledge exactly what it is that you did. That’s why every good apology needs to begin with the apologizer saying something to the effect of “I’m sorry that I _____.” Not “I’m sorry if…”; not “I’m sorry but…”; not “I’m sorry you…,” but “I’m sorry that I…” and then fill in the blank. In other words, you need to own up to your own responsibility for your misdeed. You need to be concrete about what you did wrong, you need to be specific, and you need do so without making any excuses.
Don’t say, “I’m sorry if what I said about that dress making you look fat hurt you.” Say instead, “I’m sorry I made that comment. It was insensitive and wrong, and I shouldn’t have said it.” Don’t say, “I’m sorry I betrayed your confidence, but I just got a little carried away.” Say instead, “I’m sorry I betrayed your confidence. Period. You trusted me, and I should have honored your trust.” Don’t say, “I’m sorry you were offended at my off-color joke.” Say instead, “I’m sorry I told an inappropriate joke.”
Own up specifically to your misdeeds, and your apologies can really count.
At this time of year on social media, I see a lot of posts – sometimes even from rabbinic colleagues of mine – saying things like “To anyone I’ve knowingly or unknowingly wronged during the past year, I apologize.” Let me be clear – I’m not going to say that or anything like it to you. Instead what I’ll say is this: “If I’ve done anything hurtful to you during the past year – or even before that, I suppose – please tell me about it. It might be that you misinterpreted something I did, or that we had some sort of a communication glitch, or that you’re simply being a ridiculous kvetcher, in which case you’re not going to get any kind of an apology from me at all. But it could be that I really did do something wrong, and in that case, I’ll do everything I can to offer you the genuine apology that you deserve. But I can’t apologize for something I don’t know I did, and for me to offer you a blanket apology for something I might have done, without acknowledging the specific wrongdoing for which I’m offering it would be worthless and meaningless.”
Apologies need to take responsibility for specific wrongdoings, and they need to do so without excuses.
The second R of a good apology is recognition – recognition of the harm that your misdeed caused. What’s wrong with responding to the release of recordings in which you brag of assaulting women by saying “I’m sorry, it was just locker room talk”? Yes, at one level you apologized, I suppose, but the way you did so was dismissive of the harm that your behavior caused. The fact is that countless women have been victimized by such groping and unwelcome advances, and that each such act has a way of creating horrible pain, some of it irreparable. To apologize for such acts – to really apologize – demands that you recognize and acknowledge this harm. You need to give voice to it, to show that you understand the depth of the injury you caused. And to refrain from doing so is to invalidate your apology.
Imagine a person saying, “Yes, it was me who pushed your husband off the bridge into the raging waters below. [Shrug] Sorry.” Or “By the way, honey, I’ve been having an affair with your best friend for the past two years, and I apologize. Wanna out to dinner?” Or “Yes, I’ll admit it, I embezzled the money and persuaded the boss it was you. Now can we be done with this?” None of those apologies works, because apology demands empathy. It demands that we show ourselves to be sensitive, and aware of the damage our misdeeds do. Only when accompanied by such a recognition can our apology work.
Finally comes the third R of a genuine apology – restitution. Once you’ve owned up to your responsibility for what you’ve done, and once you’ve shown that you recognized the harm you’ve caused, then you need to offer to make the victim of your misdeed whole again – you need to compensate them for the damage. Sometimes, such compensation is easy. If I spill wine on your clothes, I need to get those garments cleaned or replace them. If I drive my car into your garage door, I need to get the door fixed. If I sell you a faulty object, I need to replace it.
But of course, sometimes it’s not so easy. What if I break a confidence with you? What if we’re joking around, and, without thinking, I say something really hurtful to you? What if I do something so horrible to you that I couldn’t ever adequately compensate you for what I’ve done?
In these cases, it’s never easy to calculate fair compensation. But even when it’s complicated, the wrongdoer needs to try to figure out how to do right by the victim of his or her offense. There are couples, for example, whose relationships successfully recover from horrible infidelities, and while the recipe for the recovery of those relationships always has many ingredients, one of the most important is a willingness on the part of the adulterer to make things right. Can you ever heal a relationship after you’ve said something hurtful to the other person? Yes, you can. It’s not always easy, and sometimes it takes time, but when you’re willing to do right by that person, the healing is always possible; redemption can happen.
Remember, compensating our victims – paying them for the damage we cause – is one of the most important steps in teshuvah, repentance. And Judaism says that teshuvah is possible for just about every sin we commit, even for some of the really bad ones.
Think about the awesome nature of what Jerry Springer was able to do. He took a career in shambles, and, with the heartfelt recitation of what was effectively two words – I’m sorry – he recovered it, becoming (for better or for worse) a very successful person as a result. Redemption is possible; healing can happen; repair is achievable – even amidst the wreckage we often make of our lives.
All we need to do is apologize and apologize well. Doing so isn’t always easy, but when we succeed, then just think of all the great things we can accomplish.
Shanah Tovah
Kol Nidre Sermon
Temple B’nai Tikvah
5780/2019
Rabbi Mark Glickman
Over the course of my life, I’ve had to face many difficult challenges. There have been educational and professional pressures; the stress of parenting; the frustration of my futile attempts to learn song lyrics; and my anxiety and utter befuddlement as to why long is a monosyllabic word, and monosyllabic is a long word. It’s all part of what I often describe to my wife Caron as “the burden of being me.”
But in some ways, all of these challenges pale in comparison to the difficulties I’ve faced in trying to engage meaningful dialogue with my friend Betty.
Betty (not her real name) is a woman Caron and I knew from when we lived in Washington State. She’s about sixty – a bookkeeper – with short, stylishly-cut copper-colored hair, a weatherworn face, and a voice a that betrays her many years of smoking. Betty and I are Facebook friends – in fact, I helped her navigate the site a little when she first got on it five or ten years ago – and in her postings, Betty never makes a secret of her politics. Betty’s politics are, to put it delicately, a little different from my own. Her place on the political spectrum is, shall we say, a bit to the right of mine. Actually, Betty’s politics are WAY to the right of mine. In fact, her politics are so far to the right of mine that sometimes their transmission from her to me gets garbled because of the curvature of the earth.
Most of Betty’s political views concern what’s going on in her native United States. Betty, you see, wishes that a certain group of Democratic congresswomen would “go back to where they came from.” Betty bemoans the murderous acts of Hillary Clinton and the demonic corruption of the Obama regime. Betty is terrified of the invasion of rapists and murderers coming over America’s southern border, and is convinced that the “deep state” in her home country is bent on the destruction of western civilization.
Once, Betty shared a post complaining that illegal refugees to America get checks from the government of almost $4000 per month. I looked into it, and responded that, no, it’s not true. First, I noted, there is no such thing as an “illegal refugee”; second, the case she was talking about wasn’t from the United States, it was from up here in Canada; and, third, what really happened is that one refugee family with several children once received a one-time check for that amount of support. “Look,” I wrote, “here’s the article on Snopes [the fact-checking site] with all the details.”
Betty responded by saying that Snopes is a left wing, anti-Trump organization, and she shared twelve YouTube videos to prove it.
Another time, Betty posted a rap video showing a six-pointed star beneath the words, “Destroy democracy,” with lyrics grumbling about how “today’s Rothschilds” are bringing down the nation.
“Betty,” I pointed out to her, that’s an antisemitic video.”
“I’m not antisemitic,” she said.
I responded, “Invoking dark images of “the Rothschilds” is a hateful old trope referring to rich Jews. And then there’s that Star of David.”
“The Rothschilds were evil,” Betty said, “Jewish or not. And that’s not a Star of David, it’s a sheriff’s star!”
Once, without comment, Betty posted a video showing hundreds – maybe thousands – of Muslims worshipping on a street in New York or some other American city. “Isn’t it great?” I said. “So many people gathered together in one place to worship God. What a great country you live in!”
“They weren’t worshipping God,” Betty replied. “They were worshipping Allah. And it’s horrible.”
“Betty,” I told her, “Allah is simply the Arabic word for God. It’s the same God as you and I worship.”
“The same God?!?!” Betty said. “Are you blind? There is no salvation in such a religion. It’s Satanic!!!”
“They worship one God,” I said, “we worship one God. There can only be one ‘one God.’”
“How dare you insult me by saying that I worship Allah,” Betty said. “I would never do such a horrible thing!”
“Betty,” I said, “it’s important not to demonize people just because they’re different than we are.”
“What do you know?” Betty retorted. “You only read half the bible!”
At this point, Caron began questioning why I was even bothering to engage in this conversation.
“Why bother???” I said. “Well, somebody has to call her out! If I don’t, then who will???”
Caron was making an important point, of course. It’s not like I was going to change Betty’s mind. Why bother getting into it with her?
The answer, I think, was that I just couldn’t bring myself to read such horrible things and not say anything about them. Somebody has to call this stuff out. And having seen all the amens that Betty was getting from her other Facebook friends, I figured that if that someone wasn’t going to be me, then nobody was likely to step up.
So, I called my childhood rabbi – a man who also happens to be my uncle, Rabbi Robert Marx. My uncle is in his nineties now, but during the 1960s, he was a leading figure in the civil rights movement in Chicago and elsewhere. He worked closely with Martin Luther King, he was an outspoken advocate for fair housing and other such causes, and in 1964, he founded the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs, which now, 55 years later, continues to thrive as a major advocate of social justice in Chicago.
“Uncle Bob,” I asked, “during your civil rights work, did you engage directly with the individual racists, or did you focus your efforts on larger-scale advocacy.”
“Oh, I didn’t focus on the individual racists,” he said. “It would have been a horrible waste of time.”
“Really.” I said. “Have you been talking with Caron.”
So now two people had told me not to bother with the Bettys of the world. But what was I supposed to do – stay silent? I’ve preached the importance of speaking up for decades now. Now that it’s in my face, isn’t it more important than ever that I say something? But of course, when I do chime in, Betty deluges me with horrible rhetoric, vitriol, and more ugly YouTube videos than I could watch in a lifetime. I want to speak up; I feel morally bound to speak up; but I don’t know that speaking up with Betty would do any good, and to even try would drain me of enormous amounts my time and energy – time and energy that you people in this room have already claimed for yourselves.
How could I speak up? And how could I not?
And this, my friends, is what I’ve been thinking about this year.
The sad thing, of course, is that Betty is far from alone. Throughout North America, anti-immigrant sentiment (much of it downright racist) is rising – we saw explicitly in the election debate just last night. Hate crimes are more frequent; politics seem increasingly disconnected from facts; and conflict grows. In other countries, too, authoritarian leadership is on the rise, as the power of populist dictatorships becomes ever more deeply entrenched.
What is going on? There are many factors contributing to this current climate, of course. Certainly, the economy has something to do with it, as this generation of young North Americans may be the first one in a long time not to exceed its parents in earnings and socioeconomic standing. Technology is changing everything, as machines take over many jobs long held by people, and skills that were once valuable are now seen as outdated and anachronistic. Related might be the new challenges that racial and ethnic privileges are facing, as throughout the western world being white and European no longer brings the automatic social and financial benefits that it once did. Surely, there are other factors as well.
I’m not a sociologist or a social psychologist, though, so I’ll leave it to the experts to explain in detail the causes of what’s going on. All I know is that I’ve got this Betty situation to deal with; and all I know is that talking politics – and talking about anything else of consequence – these days only feels safe once I come to feel assured that everyone I’m talking to agrees with me; and all I know is that there’s a whole lot of yelling out there right now, and that the world feels really divided.
As my interchange with Betty unfolded, I independently began reading historian Robert Caro’s magisterial, award-winning biography of the former American president, Lyndon Johnson. The four volumes of this work published so far comprise more than 3500 pages, and the fifth volume when it comes out, will certainly put the total well over 4000. Reading so many thousands of pages on a single guy is a fascinating experience. The author, Robert Caro, has been working on this biography since shortly after Johnson’s death in the 1970s. It includes well over 100 pages devoted to the topography and culture of the Texas hill country where Johnson grew up. There are 150 or so pages on the history of the U.S. Senate before Johnson was elected to it, a 75-page mini-biography of one of Johnson’s mentors, 50 pages on a political ally of his, another 75 on a rival, and another hundred or so on the history of the American civil rights movement before Johnson sank his teeth into the issue.
Reading this book gave me an insight into who this man was as nothing I’ve read ever has done before. Reading it made me stand in jaw-dropping awe of certain elements of Johnson’s personality, and it made me despise others. Most important, however, the biography helped me understand Lyndon Johnson better than I do almost any other figure from history. With the vast amounts of context, knowledge, and insight that this biography brought me, I can comprehend what made him tick far more readily than I could before. Having read his 4,000-page biography, I can better appreciate Lyndon Johnson for the fullness of who he was as a human being.
Now what do Lyndon Johnson and my friend Betty have in common? Well, aside from the fact that they both had two arms, two legs, and one head, not so much.
In fact, now that I think about it, I’m not sure what they have in common, because I don’t know very much at all about Betty’s life – certainly not nearly as much as I know about Johnson’s. I know that she grew up in a small, working-class semi-rural community in eastern Washington State; I know that her father abused her when she was a little girl; I know she’s been married a couple of times, struggled with alcoholism, that she’s got a couple of kids, and some cute grandchildren whose pictures she’ll show anyone at the drop of a hat.
That’s pretty much what I know of Betty’s story. It amounts to just a fraction of a typewritten page here – far less than the thousands I’ve read about Johnson.
I wonder what would happen if I could read the 4,000-page Betty biography. Maybe it would help me understand something about her father, and give me some insights as to what led to his terrifying abuse. Maybe it would tell the story of the community where she grew up, and help me understand the impact that growing up there continues to have on Betty as an adult. Perhaps it would tell the narrative of Betty’s first-ever sip of alcohol, and give some insights as to its impact up on her – chemically, emotionally, and in other ways, too. Maybe Betty’s 4,000-page biography would bring me to her church, and help me understand how perspectives that I see as so offensive she sees as so deeply religious. Maybe it would introduce me to her friends, and her first love, and her ex-husband. And maybe it would describe how Facebook gave her a voice political voice that she never had in the pre-Facebook era. – the one I find so objectionable.
Unfortunately, however, nobody has written Betty’s 4,000-page biography. The Bettys of the world rarely become subjects of published works of even a fraction of that length. And unfortunately, I’ll admit, I haven’t asked for anything beyond the briefest details of Betty’s life-story. I did a little bit at first, but then when I started reading her Facebook posts, I got so angry that I stopped being curious.
It occurs to me that this might be the source of the problem. I’ve gotten so angry at Betty during the past few years, that I’ve forgotten to be curious about her. Of course, I don’t have time to read very many 4,000-page biographies, but I’m pretty sure that the closer I can get to knowing somebody’s full story, the more fully I will be able to appreciate where that person is coming from. I highly doubt that knowing Betty’s story will make me agree with her, but maybe knowing where she is coming from would keep me from wanting to wring her neck in frustration.
We Jews, I’ll note, are called upon to learn the stories of others – especially the stories of people who oppose us. Our tradition is full of biographical material about our enemies. Reading the midrash, you can learn all about their backgrounds. Pharaoh, Haman, Amalek, you name the enemy of Israel, there’s all kind of stuff to read describing where he came from. Much of it is imagined legend, of course, but it’s all part of our tradition’s urge to help us understand our enemies.
And the rabbis? They also provide us with some good guidance here because they disagreed with one another all the time. In fact, having good juicy disagreements is a big part of what being a rabbi is all about. Last Yom Kippur, I spoke at length about the sacred art of disagreement in Judaism. I spoke of what our tradition called a machloket l’shem shamayim – a disagreement for the sake of heaven. As I reminded you then, according to Judaism, disagreement isn’t necessarily bad. It can actually be quite a good thing, provided that you do it respectfully and kindly. Plus, everyone – every single human being – has something to teach us…even the people with whom we disagree. And one ingredient of respectful disagreement is the act of really hearing what another person has to say. The great rabbi Hillel was so revered, it is said, because whenever he went up against his archrival, Shammai, he always gave voice to Shammai’s argument before his own; he always made sure he understood the opposing view before articulating his own.
Our friend Peter Walker recently pointed me to a teaching from the late Reb Zalman Schacter-Shalomi about the 23rd Psalm. Psalm 23, Reb Zalman points out, describes God as setting a table before me in the presence of my enemies. Why would God set a table before me in the presence of my enemies? Because, Reb Zalman notes, God wants me to sit down with them and share a meal! Because God wants me to talk with them! Maybe we could talk about our disagreements, but maybe we could talk about the roast beef. Or maybe we could talk about sports, or maybe we could sing old show tunes, or maybe we could tell one another our stories. The point is that God wants us to figure out a way to connect with our enemies rather than just vanquish them.
It’s an important teaching. Everything I know about God – or at least everything I think I know – tells me that God wants me to oppose Betty’s odious politics with every morsel of my being. But that’s not all that God wants me to do. God also wants me to get to know Betty – to understand where she’s coming from and why she’s saying what she’s saying. Even though I’m pretty certain that she’s wrong, understanding her story may help me find some truth hiding somewhere in her hate, or it may help me show her how she’s wrong. Until I get to know Betty, I can’t ever hope to even have a chance of engaging in a meaningful dialogue with her.
Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, who died in 1972, was a leader in the field of interfaith relations and interfaith dialogue. Modern religions, he argued, need to avoid falling into religious disputations. Christians, Heschel might have said, will never persuade us Jews that Jesus was the messiah, and we’re never going persuade them that gefilte fish is delicious. What we should do, Heschel suggested, is try to learn from one another rather than persuade one another, to help one another rather than defeat one another, to engage in what his daughter, Susannah Heschel described as not just “theology,” but as “deep theology” – the kind of theology that propels us to go beyond all that separates us and to find the common humanity with which we can all connect.
My friends, this is a time that calls upon us all to do what Rabbi Heschel taught us to do. It’s a time that calls upon us to demonstrate not only compassion, but deep compassion. Compassion calls upon us to welcome the homeless and the refugees into the confines of our own borders; deep compassion calls upon us to extend hands of friendship even to those who would have us turn them away. Compassion inspires us to make the world a gentler and more loving place; deep compassion reminds us that people who reject those values are the way they are for a reason. Compassion beckons us to protect our children and loved ones from needless violence; deep compassion drives us to reach out to the very ones whose actions contribute to the atmosphere that allows violence to grow. Compassion calls upon us to feed the hungry; deep compassion calls upon us to address the real needs and be sensitive to the real stories of those who make the world more selfish.
Of course, we must never allow our compassion – even our deep compassion – to excuse improper behavior. We must stand up to it now just as we’ve always done. But resistance alone will not make our world good, only love will – and real love, genuine love, rarely comes easy. It means that we need to push ourselves beyond ourselves, and acknowledge others around us in the full measure of their humanity.
We read in the Talmud that Rabbi Abba Isi ben Yochanan taught in the name of Shmuel Hakatan that when you look into a person’s eye, you’re really seeing a map of the world there. The white of the eye is the ocean; the iris is the world; the pupil is Jerusalem; and the face you see looking back at you is the holiest of all, the sacred Temple.
To look at another human being is to look at an entire world. That’s true even for the people we disagree with; even for the people who act so objectionably – Betty and all the rest. Let’s look deep into their eyes. Let’s remember that they, like us, each have compelling stories to tell. Let’s learn from their stories, even as we affirm the call of our tradition to stand for what is right and good in all that we do. We may not agree with them, but when we disagree, we must do so with deep compassion – the kind of compassion that can only enrich us all as we navigate the choppy waters of our lives today.
Shanah Tovah
Rosh Hashanah Morning Sermon
Temple B’nai Tikvah
5780/2019
Rabbi Mark Glickman
I’d like to tell you about a conversation that happened several months ago just down the hall from here, a few meters from where we now sit. It took place at a Temple board meeting in our library this past spring. The topic at hand was whether to add an option to our Temple membership forms that would allow you to pay five extra dollars to become members of ARZA Canada, the Canadian branch of the Association of Reform Zionists of America.
A long discussion ensued – it was a board meeting, after all – and at times, believe it or not, the discussion became somewhat…spirited. “Of course, we should support our nation’s Reform Zionists,” one board member said. “Israel is besieged these days – sometimes literally, but always politically. Israel needs all the help it can get.” “Well,” said another board member, “I’m not so sure. Does joining ARZA implicitly mean that we support all of Israel’s policies? If so, I’m not so comfortable with it.” “Do we have the right to ask our congregants to stand behind Israel these days?” asked one board member. “We’re Jews. How dare we refrain from it,” replied another.
Then, a board member we’ll call Amy spoke up. “I’m all for Israel,” she said. “I only want the best for it. But ARZA – the Association of Reform Zionists of America – is a Zionist organization,” Amy said, “and to be honest, I’m a little uncomfortable with the word ‘Zionism.’”
Across the room, another board member we’ll call Bob responded with a jolt. “You’re not comfortable calling yourself a Zionist?” Bob asked. “How could you say such a thing? How could any Jew say such a thing these days? Especially after the Holocaust? As Jewish leaders, we need to stand with our people. We should wear the Zionist badge with pride. We need to! I can’t believe that a Jew today could dare not call themselves a Zionist!”
At this point, a wave of tension swept across the room. It was palpable. You could cut it with a cheap plastic oneg-knife.
Sadly, this was far from the first time that Israel has become an item of tension for us Jews. And sadly, this was far from the first time that Israel has become an item of tension for us here at Temple. Other board meetings have become difficult when Israel-based topics have come up, and many of us are scared to even bring it up. Some of you have come into my office to tell me that you feel lonely here because you don’t feel like your fellow congregants are supportive of Israel. Others – many others – have also come into my office and said, “Rabbi, I have to tell you that I’ve become critical of Israel lately, but I don’t dare say anything out loud around here about how I feel – they’ll run me out of the place!”
Talking about Israel these days has become difficult. In fact, for many of us, the very notion of talking about Israel – even and especially within the Jewish community – has become downright scary. And to tell you the truth, it’s even become frightening for us rabbis. I know for a fact that many of my colleagues have become scared to preach about Israel lately for fear that whatever they say is going to get them into trouble with one group or another. I can also tell you that my own computer hard drive overflows with fully written sermons about Israel that I never delivered, and instead simply scrapped, for fear that they’d create more heat than light.
More often than not, speaking about Israel has become like speaking to a large group of people standing on the face of a clock with moving hands. You don’t know what’s going to happen; all you know for certain is that somebody is going to get ticked off!
But the discussion at that board meeting troubled me, and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. As a result, today I’m going to break my pattern of letting my Israel sermons say safe inside my hard drive, and I’m going to share some thoughts with you about Israel, instead. In fact, I’m going to share five of them.
My first point is the simplest and most fundamental – Jews should care about Israel. There was a time, of course, when I wouldn’t have had to say that to a room full of Jews. Israel, as many of you know, was established as a state in 1948, when the smoke of the Holocaust still hovered dark and new over world Jewry. To Jews everywhere, it had become clear that our people needed a safe haven, and they thanked God that the time of Jewish political powerlessness had come to an end. Plus, for years, Israel was a dangerously imperiled country, its borders constantly violated by terrorists, its citizens living under the ongoing specter of terrorism and military incursions. At the time, there was a worldwide Jewish consensus – not complete, but certainly widespread – that the existence of the State of Israel was crucial for the Jewish people, and a blessing that we must protect at all costs.
That consensus lasted for the most part, for about 25 years – until the Yom Kippur War, back in 1973. At that point (for complex reasons that we don’t have time to go into today), something about Israel shifted in the eyes of many Jews. Israel, in the wake of the Yom Kippur War, was no longer an imperiled David; to many it had become a ruthless Goliath. For many, the youthful shine of the fresh young state had worn off, leaving a flawed, imperfect country behind.
And since then, of course, things have gotten really problematic for many of us. Yes, Israel has remained a haven for oppressed Jews, but it also occupies lands inhabited by people who don’t want it there. Yes, Israel as laboratory of Jewish independent life in modern times thrums with vitality, but for many it is also a place of religious intolerance and oppression. Yes, Israel is an island of democracy in a sea of Middle Eastern totalitarian repression, but it is also a place of palpable and very concerning antidemocratic threats.
In short, Israel has gotten so complicated these days, and through it all, it has become easy for us to forget what an amazing blessing the State of Israel truly is. Despite all of its faults, despite everything that can make thinking about Israel so confusing, the fact remains we Jews in the post-1948 era live in a era when, for the first time since the destruction of the Second Temple in the Year 70, there is an independent Jewish state in our ancestral homeland. Now, as has never been the case for almost 2000 years, Jews living under oppression have a safe – or at least safer – place to go, and Israel has been able to welcome millions of our people from places like the Former Soviet Union and Ethiopia, not to mention countless Arab countries where they had been living with great difficulty. Now, moreover, there is a place where it’s standard to stay home from work and school on Shabbat and Jewish holidays, where you can write the Jewish date on your checks, where the citizenry might not agree whether buses should run on Friday nights, but at least they need to ask the question, and they get to debate it as Jews living in their own country and as people in charge of its own destiny.
At the very least, Jews should be concerned about Israel because it is home to the largest Jewish community in the world. More than six million Jews live there – our people – and we should hold their safety and security and wellbeing in our hearts. When bombs fall on Jewish cities and towns, it’s our brothers and our sisters and our cousins that they’re falling on. When Israel comes under threat of widespread attack from its neighbors bent on the demise of the Jewish State, it’s our people whose lives are imperiled. And as Israel struggles to figure out what it means to be a modern Jewish democracy in a region populated by countless people who feel threatened by all three of those adjectives – modern, Jewish, and democracy – it’s our people who are undergoing that struggle.
So, without necessarily addressing all of the complexities of Israel today, let’s start by reminding ourselves how lucky we are to be alive during a time when once again, the Jewish people is literally on the map, in a country committed to guaranteeing the safety of our people, and where, once again, Judaism has the opportunity to face the challenges of modern life on its own terms and in its own way.
For the reality of modern Israel, we should feel profoundly grateful; for the wellbeing of the state and its citizens, we Jews should feel deeply concerned.
Second: Not all criticism of Israel is antisemitic. Israel, as we know, is a modern country, replete with all of the complexity and confusion that being a modern country involves. It has a right to exist, it has a right to ensure the security of its borders and the safety of its citizens, and sometimes, like all countries it makes mistakes. And sometimes, like all countries, it embraces misguided policies, not to mention a misguided leader or two. And sometimes, like all countries, it falls short of what it can be.
And today Israel faces a lot of difficult challenges. What should it do with the occupied territories? How can it be a Jewish state if its Orthodox Jews feel it should be run one way, its secular Jews feel it should be run another way, and its growing Reform and Conservative movements feel differently still? How can it both guarantee its safety while also embracing the Jewish values of its people’s history.
This isn’t the place to delve into these difficult questions in detail, and I’m not sure I’m the best guy to do the delving. What I will say, however, is that thinking, reasonable people who care about Israel can differ on these issues. As a result, even people who love Israel can be critical of it. In fact, sometimes, people who love Israel need to be critical of it. Just as I’m not going to stand by silently when I see my family members doing things that bring harm to themselves, so too will I speak up when I see Israel doing something I think is wrong. Certainly, the stakes for me aren’t nearly as high as they are for the people who actually live in Israel, but nevertheless, loving Israel doesn’t mean agreeing with its every move. Loving Israel means helping it be great and speaking up when it goes astray.
Third: Sometimes, criticism of Israel is antisemitic. To criticize Israel alone while tolerating or staying silent about worse abuses in other countries; to suggest that the world boycott, divest from, or sanction Israel as a veiled way of delegitimizing the entire state; to use antisemitic tropes to undermine Israel’s legitimate security concerns – all of these and many more are ways in which people who hate Jews channel that hatred into attempts to undermine the legitimacy of the Jewish State. Not all criticism of Israel is antisemitic, but nevertheless, some criticism of Israel certainly is.
Fourth, lately, the political right has kidnapped Zionism. In the old days – like, until just a few years ago – it used to be easy for political liberals to be openly Zionist. Lots of Zionists were socialists; the Israeli government was leftist; in North America, most of the liberal political parties were ardent supporters of Zionism and Israel. It was the Republicans in the States and the Conservatives here in Canada who were opposed to supporting Israel. Lately, however, the landscape has changed. Now, many of Israel’s most ardent critics in the West are liberals. Think of the four American congresswomen who were recently so outspoken in denouncing Israel. And, on the flipside, in North America, the people who are most outspoken in their support of Israel are often those on the political right. When he speaks to Jewish groups here in Calgary, Jason Kenney inspires standing ovations galore when he proclaims support for the State of Israel – support that is, by all indications, quite genuine. And in the United States, there’s a certain leader who insists that he’s the best friend that Israel has ever had, and he implements policies with which he tries to prove it. That leader will remain nameless here, but his name rhymes with “Donald Trump.”
As a result, supporting Israel these days has come to sound a lot more conservative than it once did. And for liberals – liberals like Amy at the board meeting and many others here today – that makes them feel uncomfortable. “I don’t want to call myself a Zionist,” people think. “Being a Zionist means not caring about Palestinians, and being in favor of settlements in the Occupied Territories, and being deaf to the plight of oppressed peoples. Being a Zionist is so…Trumpy. I guess I’m pro-Israel,” they say, “but please don’t even think of calling me a Zionist.”
If you are a liberal who falls into this camp – if you’re a person who is reluctant to be identified as a Zionist for fear that it will put you in bed with people whose politics you reject – then I have something to say to you: Please don’t do it. Don’t cede Zionism to people whose politics you reject, because that way, they win. Instead, claim Zionism as your own. You can be a lover of Israel, a passionate Zionist who cares about the future of the Jewish state, in a way that affirms rather than denies your core values. There is room for you within this thing called Zionism.
In other words, to say that Israel should and can exist as a safe and secure state alongside an equally safe and secure Palestinian state – that’s Zionism, just like being opposed to territorial compromise is Zionism. To say that every time Israel treads on the human rights of its non-Jewish citizens, it destroys a part of its own soul – that’s Zionism, just as the desire to wall off the occupied territories is Zionism. To argue that Israel mustn’t ever close its borders to refugees, or close its gates-of-entry to non-Orthodox converts, or close the Wall to women wearing tallises – that’s Zionism, too…as are countless other ways of showing love for the Jewish state.
Of course, your Zionism might not always be Trump Zionism, and it might not always be Netanyahu Zionism, and it might not even be the Zionism of the person here in Calgary wearing an Israeli flag pin on their lapel, but none of those people own Zionism. Not Trump, not Netanyahu, and not the Israel supporter down the street. The Jewish people owns Zionism – all of us, including you.
Fifth, finally, and perhaps most important: Folks, let’s make build an atmosphere – here at Temple and elsewhere – in which it’s safe to talk about these issues. If you’re frightened to share your views about what’s going on, I want to encourage you to share them anyway, even if they’re at odds with the people across from you. Not to do so would be to let the other views carry the day unchecked. I know it can be scary, but it’s important that we put this stuff on the table. I may or may not agree with what you have to say, but I’ll go to the barricades to defend your right to share your thoughts. And if you hear views with which you disagree, please don’t pounce. Don’t attack. Instead, listen, probe, challenge, learn. That’s the way we grow as a community.
My dream is to build a spirit in this community in which we can have discussions about topics that came up at that board meeting down the hall that aren’t permeated by waves of tension – in which disagreement can be a welcome opportunity to learn rather than an intolerable threat to us all, in which our discussions – even and especially when we disagree – can be spirited, and affectionate, and challenging opportunities for us all to learn and grow.
My friends, we do live during an amazing time – a golden age in the history of the Jewish people. Part of that gold is what we create here at our synagogue and at countless others around the world. And part of the gold is the result of the amazing revival of Jewish life in a small country halfway around the world from here. When we do it right, we and they can engage in a relationship of push and pull and learning and support and growth for us all. Let’s keep talking about how to make that happen, for when we do, this age for the Jewish people can only become more golden for us all.
Shanah Tovah.