Yavneh, again

When you don't know what to do and every possible course of action seems wrong, study Kohelet (Ecclesiastes). Although tradition holds that King Solomon wrote it, modern scholars attribute it to one or more of his civil servants. It gives, in general, the same advice that Harold Nicolson gave to a young acquaintance who felt trapped and buffeted in a civil-service position: do your job and be meticulous in everything that you can control. The edition of Kohelet that I recommend is The Tao of Solomon by Rabbi Rami Shapiro.

I was thinking of this because of a presentation that the Rev. Michael Dowd gave recently in our community. He spoke forcefully about the inevitability of drastic climate change: that, regardless of anything we do, the amount of carbon already in the atmosphere makes a much hotter world inevitable. Worse, some of the effects of a hotter climate, such as forest fires and melting of polar ice, themselves release even more carbon into the atmosphere.

He also argues that technology won't save us and that faith in progress is actually harmful: the damage has already been done. Nevertheless, this doesn't mean that we should take no action. Things we do now (carbon fee, renewable energy, conservation) won't stop climate change, but that is not reason to continue making it worse.

Yet Michael doesn't consider himself a prophet of doom. He calls himself a post-doom, pro-future evangelist.  

As my friend and colleague Malachi Doane points out, we Jews have some experience with rebuilding life after disaster. The classic example is the refashioning of Judaism after the destruction of the second Temple in 70 CE, led by Rabbi Johanan ben-Zakkai and others at Yavneh, outside Jerusalem. They changed Judaism from a religion centered on animal sacrifices in the Temple to one with a God who did not need sacrifices but demanded righteous living. We could also cite the rebuilding of Jewish life after the Holocaust, including the so-called 614th commandment: not to give Hitler a posthumous victory (through despair).

The question, therefore, is what we should do, what I (as a spiritual educator) should do.

My first thought is: help us equip ourselves against nihilism and despair. This especially applies if you teach or lead young people. While adults head straight to denial, it's common for teens and pre-teens to pitch headlong into despair, which can lead to a personally disastrous life course. In young people it could well be drugs or suicide; in adults it might be wanton abandon, heedless consumption.

Activism, even though it will not solve the problem, is the best alternative to despair. 

My next thought is to teach religious limits more in accord with the "carrying capacity" of the planet (inherent limits). As Michael says, future religion should emphasize limits on consumption and degradation of the biosphere. I've suggested, in a conference presentation and article, that Judaism--very much a religion of limits--should redefine kashrut to limit the consumption of meat to Shabbat and Yom Tov, a practice that economic circumstances and agricultural reality imposed on most of our ancestors. A practice also suggested by existing eco-kashrut is to limit our meat consumption to grass-fed animals.

A third thought is to introduce both young and adult learners to Jewish spirituality that is God-centered in a radical sense: one that is congruent with, and embraces, reality. In the same way that we believe that is is valuable to pray for, or recite Tehillim (Psalms) for a person who is gravely ill even if we don't believe that prayers or psalms will effect a cure, we should understand everything and anything we do to protect the environment and reduce carbon emissions as holy acts.

Fourth (and finally), Judaism is already a religion that passes wisdom forward, but we need to incorporate contemporary, scientific wisdom into the culture that we give the future. We do not know what human life a century or two from now will look like. We don't know for sure that there will be Jews then.  It's incumbent on us now, however, to figure out what wisdom we want Jews (and all people) of the future to value and to figure out ways to preserve and transmit it. This is a Yavneh moment. What would Rabbi ben-Zakkai do?

Who wants to die to save J.P. Morgan Chase?

Maybe I should avoid reading financial columns and websites.

Recently many have been concerned about the economic harm secondary to attempts, such as stay-at-home orders, to mitigate COVID-19. That economic harm is real and we shouldn’t ignore it.

On the other hand, some of the writers seem to be concerned mostly about harm to big corporations, not so much about people who are either kept from working or  continuing to work in conditions that endanger their own lives. The latter category includes not only first responders and medical workers, but also supermarket and drugstore employees and many others.

Concern for the profits of big businesses cannot, in Jewish thought, take precedence over the needs of human beings. Corporations may be people (too) in American law, but they’re not people in a Jewish frame of reference. 

I don’t know anyone who would volunteer to die in order to save J.P. Morgan Chase.

Still more un-Jewish is the suggestion that the virus should be allowed to rampage through the population in order to “cull” the ranks of those who aren’t economically productive: those who are old, disabled, poor, or unemployed.  The most extreme advocates of this like the idea because it would reduce future spending on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

There is a name for that ideology, and it’s not one that I willingly write. You won’t have trouble thinking of it.

Judaism, in contrast, requires us to relieve suffering, respect the old (I admit that I’m officially old), and care for the poor.

Jewish law does have provisions for the protection of businesses, but they predate “big business.” For example, if a community has one kosher bakery (a sole proprietorship) and not enough Jews to support another, a rabbi could prohibit the opening of a second one.

Above all, Judaism requires us to preserve human life. Even those who observe Shabbat most strictly know that saving a life overrides the rules. If someone may be seriously ill, calling an ambulance is a requirement even if your Shabbat observance otherwise bars using the telephone.

This is why many synagogues and other Jewish organization will not resume in-person programming right away even when  state government allows it. New York is now allowing religious gatherings of up to 10 people--an exact minyan, which is no coincidence--but the Orthodox Union and the Rabbinical Council of America advised congregations to wait 14 days to see what happens, and then consider limited reopening only if there has not been an upsurge of COVID-19 in their areas. The unaffiliated shul that I'm affiliated with is not planning to resume in-person services until there is an effective treatment or a vaccine.

Ordinary spirituality

When we talk about spirituality, we often seem to mean what psychologists call “peak experiences.”

You know: the kind of experience that leaves you overcome with awe and wonder.“Peak” in this sense doesn’t really refer to mountaintops, but common descriptions of peak experiences often seem to involve mountains. For example, reciting the morning prayer Modeh ani at the top of a mountain precisely at dawn.

That could be deeply moving. Or it might not be—that’s unpredictable. In any case, it requires getting oneself up to the top of the mountain in time for sunrise.

Such experiences are necessarily rare, and we can’t count on producing one on demand. So I’d like to talk here about ordinary spirituality, the experiences that available without extreme effort. 

Let’s start with one that’s available every Friday evening. When we sing “L’cha Dodi” early in the service, we turn toward the entrance  for the last verse in order to welcome Shabbat, which is seen metaphorically as a bride arriving to wed the entire Jewish people.

Instead of turning back toward the front immediately at the end of the verse, try visualizing a bride proceeding slowly down the aisle while the chorus is sung. Turn slowly as she walks along and see if it enhances your experience of Shabbat.

Or try to abstain from gossip whenever the opportunity arises. (This is harder than it sounds.) Remember as you do so that gossip is worse than just “not very nice”: it’s lashon hara, evil speech, which is prohibited by the Torah.  

You might try choosing food consciously. Maybe you’re not interested in keeping kosher, but would “Biblical kashrut” make sense for you? That means avoiding just pork,  shellfish, and intentional combinations of meat and milk.

Or perhaps “eco-kashrut” has some appeal: choosing locally grown food when you can, looking for natural products, or increasing the plant-based portion of your diet.

What about visiting a sick person? This is an important mitzvah for all Jews, not just rabbis. In particular, find out whether someone recently home from the hospital needs help with shopping or getting to follow-up medical appointments. (If you could consider doing this on request, even for someone you might not yet know, please tell us.)

Most important: when you do any of these things, remember that it’s not just nice, or good for your health. It’s a Jewish action, a mitzvah.

A former Archbishop of Canterbury, William Temple, is quoted as saying, “It is a mistake to suppose that God is only, or even chiefly, concerned with religion.” Temple is of historical interest for another reason: in 1942, he and Rabbi J.H. Hertz founded the British Council of Christians and Jews, and throughout World War II he exhorted the Allies to intervene against the slaughter of Jews in Europe. 

It must have been a radical step for the chief cleric of the Church of England to say that God might not be very concerned with religion. After all, he was in the religion business, so to speak.

It is, however, a very Jewish idea. Our tradition holds that how well, or how much, you pray is of much less importance than how you live.

Choosing not to choose

In July, I presented three sessions at NewCAJE, the New Conference on Alternatives in Jewish Education.

I also attended many sessions, including one asking “Can the Center Hold?” with Dr. David Starr, who was one of my teachers at Hebrew College. He’s also a JTS-ordained rabbi, and by “center” he meant “Conservative Judaism.”

Conservative Judaism has portrayed itself not only as the philosophic center of Judaism, positioned between Orthodox and Reform, but also as the “big tent” that had room for everyone. For decades it was the largest movement in American Judaism, but the desire to include all Jews was a constant strain. On one hand, a large share of members became more liberal in practices and views. On the other, a minority wanted the Conservative movement to be more like Orthodox Judaism.

Today the Reform movement is the largest in America. It is also probably the philosophical center, not only because of moving toward the center itself, but also because so many American Jews have moved to the left of Reform.

As I see it, the fastest-growing segment of American Judaism is “Just Jews”: those who do not define themselves by affiliation to a movement, even if they happen to be members of a movement-affiliated congregation. I expect to see growth in the number of communities like ours, attempting to include all Jews by “choosing not to choose.”

Pharisees

When I speak in churches, I often say that Christianity has it mostly wrong about the Pharisees. In the Jewish orbit, it’s something that we rarely think about—but we should. The early rabbis who re-created Judaism in the form that we know were the direct successors of the Pharisees. In other words, we are the heirs of the Pharisees. 

Yet in common speech, “pharisaic” denotes hypocrisy, self-righteousness, or obsession with rules. The term Pharisee derives from the Hebrew root l’faresh, to interpret. Originally, it described Jews of approximately the first century CE who believed that the Torah should be studied for its underlying principles rather than solely as a rule book for ritual practices. Although they were highly concerned with ritual purity, they emphasized ethical teachings over ritual for its own sake. 

Their opponents, the Sadducees, focused on careful adherence to the rules, mostly in Leviticus, for con-ducting sacrifices in the Temple. When Rome destroyed the Temple in 70 CE, those sacrifices became impossible and the point of view of the Sadducees became irrelevant to Jewish life. It was the Pharisees and the early rabbis who refashioned Judaism as a religion that did not depend on specific sacrificial practices in a specific place—a Judaism built around prayer, study, and mitzvot. 

Paradoxically, Christianity also has its roots in the rabbinic tradition, not in the rituals of the Sadducees. Over the centuries, however, the term “Pharisee” became a club used by Christians to beat Jews—often figuratively and sometimes literally. 

Rabbi Jeff Salkin wrote about this recently in a column for the Religion News Service. He raised this issue after Mayor Pete Buttigieg used the term “Pharisee” to criticize Vice-President Mike Pence. Rabbi Salkin does not think that Buttigieg is anti-Jewish. 

He writes that the term embodies “subtle and unexamined religious perceptions—Judaism as a religion of law vs. Christianity as a religion of love; Judaism as a “separatist” faith” and that it is “so ingrained in the way that so many people think, that it has become unconscious.” 

I don’t think that we can eliminate this from almost two thousand years of Christian thought, but I think that we should speak up when the occasion demands it.

Sadly, however, the kind of hypocritical obsession with rules that it denotes still exists in Jewish life. There are so-called religious Jews who may keep strict kashrut and pray together three times a day, but who have no qualms about sheltering child molesters and domestic abusers, mis-educating their children, or cheating the government. 

Or those who vituperatively criticize other Jews. As (Orthodox) Rabbi Bob Carroll says, we should all be at least as careful about what comes out of our mouths as about what goes in. We may choose to ignore it when other Jews merely call us bad Jews, and usually that is best. But should we keep quiet about immoral or criminal behavior carried out in the name of Judaism? Sometimes we fear that speaking out would give fodder to anti-Semites. Yet if we are silent, are we complicit?

The Jew's Oath

A visitor at our Yom Kippur services last year asked why we take all the Torah scrolls out of the Ark and have members hold them during the chanting of Kol Nidre. Some of the scrolls are large and heavy - to the point that we avoid using them for the weekly reading - and Kol Nidre is chanted three times.

One reason, and I think that this is probably what occurs to the most people, may be to emphasize the seriousness of the occasion. Our congregation also has a Torah scroll (just one or two, depending on the Torah readings) held - usually - by a member during the prayers for the country, the State of Israel, and so forth.

But I think that the custom originated centuries ago as a result of an iniquitous practice in Europe called the Jew's Oath.

In the Middle Ages, church and state were one throughout Europe, and oaths taken in court typically required swearing on a (Christian) Bible--something that persisted almost to the present day and may still occur in some jurisdictions. A Jew would not swear on a New Testament, or repeat an oath invoking the Trinity. 

So an alternate oath was demanded. This was established in the Byzantine empire by the tenth century, although it did not immediately become universal in western Europe. There are numerous formulations for it from the Middle Ages and later, commonly involving holding a sefer Torah, wearing a crown or girdle of thorns, standing on the skin of a pig, and other indignities, some verging on torture. This version from Frankfurt in the fourteenth century is an example: "The Jew shall stand on a sow's skin and the five books of Master Moses shall lie before him, and his right hand up to the wrist shall lie on the book and he shall repeat after him who administers the oath of the Jews."

The Jew would then call down on himself some or all of the curses in the Torah. In some places, such as Arles in France, a thorn branch would be pulled "between his loins" while he did so.

Another reason for the more Judaico was that authorities distrusted the word of Jews because of the Kol Nidre recitation, which (read literally) annuls all vows that might be made during the coming year. From a Jewish point of view, the reason for this was to prepare for vows that might be made under duress, probably including false conversions; we also understand it as applying to vows that a person should never make, such as when an exasperated parent says to a child, "If you do that again, I swear I'll kill you." We might also interpret as covering vows that we made in good faith but just could not keep.

The correct reading of the Kol Nidre text should have been a reason for taking the word of Jews seriously: it shows that our ancestors considered every oath valid, even if made under duress or extreme mental strain, unless it was relieved by Kol Nidre. 

The Jew's oath started to fade in the nineteenth century. In France, a rabbi was prosecuted when he refused to open the synagogue for it--and he was acquitted. Some German states (before Germany was unified) dropped it in the 1820s and 1830s; Zecharias Frankel published a commentary when Saxony discontinued it in 1839. Prussia did not completely abolish it until 1869, and it persisted longer in eastern Europe, having been demanded in Romania as late as 1902.

The other side of the blanket

At this time of year--Rosh Hashanah through Yom Kippur--you're likely to see some blanket apologies on social media. In the olden days people sent them through email, often to the entire roster of a listserv.

They're usually formalistic blanket apologies: to everyone and no one, for everything and nothing. I won't be posting one, because I read them as "to no one in particular" and "for nothing in particular."

As I see it, a valid apology is specific: to the person wronged, stating the nature of the offense and agreeing that it was wrong, pledging to try not to do it again. How can you genuinely apologize if you don't know what you did or whom you did it to? The vague "If I offended you in any way" is on a par with the non-apologies that politicians and celebrities offer: "I'm sorry if you were offended." That is no apology at all, because it places the guilt on the victim, for taking offense.

So why are we doing this? In truth, we have all committed offenses that we forgot or didn't even notice at the time. Probably even some that we are still incapable of recognizing. 

That's a big part of what Yom Kippur is about: accepting responsibility for everything we did, even what we did without knowing. A major role--to my way of thinking, the major role--of the Yom Kippur liturgy is to bring our souls back into alignment even after sins that are still unknown to us. 

And that's why the liturgy does so much to induce feelings of guilt, not that we don't enter Yom Kippur already feeling guilty. But another role of the Yom Kippur liturgy is to relieve free-floating guilt (the guilt that we take on for no specific reason at all) in order that we can focus on making amends for what we know we did.

I've written about some of this before. I believe that an apology, in addition to being specific, needs to be made in the right form and in the right place. For example, a private offense does not demand a public apology, but a private apology does not atone for a public offense. In other words, don't apologize in email or on social media for an offense committed in another venue, and don't make a private, secret apology for an offense that you committed on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or whatever.

So I'm not posting a blanket apology. If I owe an apology, and if I haven't offered it by, say, Shabbat Shuvah, please tell me about it and keeping telling me until I get the point.