What Comes First? An Exploration of Identity

         For some time, I have been personally struggling with a question about Jewish identity.  The topic is complicated, controversial and, in addressing it here, my intention is to promote thought and conversation.  I reserve the right to change my mind, about what I say in this column!  And, in what I consider to be among the holiest words in the English language: “I might be wrong.”

         Maybe it was prompted by all this rhetoric of “America First” – knowing full well that the phrase comes loaded with baggage, echoes of its isolationist and antisemitic roots in relation to both World Wars in the 20^th century.  Or the old game we played in youth group: “Are you an American Jew or a Jewish American?”  Which is the noun, and which the adjective?  Which the modifier and which the core? Which could theoretically change, and which is simply who you are?

         I believe in Jewish unity.   I do believe, somehow, at some level, that, as a Jew, I have something in common with a Yemenite-born taxi driver in Israel, or a Charedi (ultra-Orthodox Jew) who does not consider what I do to be Jewish… something that, actually, I do not have in common with a non-Jewish neighbor. 

         Now, this is a very controversial statement.  Among other reasons why it is so "out there" is that it is really not obvious.  Clearly, culturally, often politically, and in every usual measure of lifestyle and values, what we share with neighbors who are similar to us in every way except for faith is very deep.   What ties us together as Jews, that thread of Jewish commonality I am referring to…  is very hard to see.  It pulls, it tugs, but still we can’t quite grasp it when we look for it.  It is not belief (some Jews are atheists, many others agnostics, some are deeply pious), it is not shared values (some Jews are... never mind that).  So what is it?

         One more caveat – a very important one.  This… sense of commonality I am referring to is made even more complicated by a related but not identical issue: intermarriage.  The fact that there are so many members of so many of our families who are not Jewish truly “complexifies” this search for the elusive thread of Jewish unity.   

         For now, then, I suppose what I am saying is… there is something in common between any families with any Jewish members in it.  Even if, perhaps, that pull is not felt powerfully in our day to day lives.  

         We are so different from one another.  What could that unity be?  Is it something nebulous and impossible to define?  It is simply a shared past, and the sense of some kind of common destiny still?

         The stakes are high here.  I believe that the entire Zionist enterprise, the notion of Israel as a Jewish homeland rests not on religious belief, but the notion of a Jewish people, the idea that there is something which unites us as Jews which transcends behavior and belief.

         My sense of being Jewish is central to who I am.  But is it all of it?  And what other commitments clash with that?

A few years ago the question was posed to me in a different way.  If I had the hypothetical choice between being Orthodox, or not being Jewish at all, what would I choose?  After a lot of thought, comforting myself with some very positive experiences with the progressive cutting edge of the so-called “modern Orthodox” world, or among the "open Orthodox," I came up with an answer.  

 But then the question was pushed further still.  If I had to choose between being ultra-Orthodox, or not being Jewish at all...?

All I can say in response to that is to duck the question, or redefine the parameters.  I cannot envision that scenario.  

I believe in Jewish unity.  But/and…  There are core parts of my being and my own belief system which I view as part of my Jewish identity, rather than apart from it.  There are values I hold which, if forced to put aside, would simply not be Judaism as I understand it.

I share some of those values with you now.  

Part of my Jewish core is egalitarianism, the belief in equal roles, rights and responsibilities for all, affirmed at a certain age (Bar or Bat Mitzvah, whether one has a ceremony or not), but regardless of gender. 

Another is a belief in history.  I believe that Jewish life, culture, perspectives, attitudes and sacred texts grow in and over time.  I believe in building a bridge between yesterday and today, between the world of text and tradition and the lives we lead in any given time period.

         A third is a connection to humanity as a whole.  Even as I work on behalf of a Jewish community and to promote a Jewish future, my core beliefs include a sense of the dignity of all life, that all human beings – all of us, of all colors and creed, races and religion, all of us are made in the image of God.  Yes, I believe there is something special about being Jewish and I want to encourage Jewish choices and Jewish life – but I do not believe in a fundamental, ontological, inherent  and unalterable difference in the “souls” of one group of human beings from any other. 

Finally, for now, my core beliefs include the impulse towards involvement with the world, the work to make this world a better place, even while recognizing that different people will be moved to do this in very different ways.  Yes, progressive Jews use this term so much that it is easy to mock it.  But I believe in the obligation of tikkun olam.

 

 I believe in history and growth, in tradition and change, in science and spirituality, in the Jewish people and a connection with all of creation, in self-interest and in standing up for others.  And I believe that all can be held, with love, in the palms of an open hand, with open hearts and open minds.

What comes first, and what is secondary?  What binds us together, and what tears us apart?  Who am I, and who are you?

No final answers, and even how we respond, or what we feel about this, may change, for each of us, over time.

Aspiration, Appreciation and Awe

Aspiration, Appreciation and Awe

46^th Interfaith Thanksgiving Service
of the Hebrew Congregation of St Thomas and
the St. Thomas Reformed Church

November 15, 2018

Rabbi Michael L. Feshbach

         Thank you, all of you, for this wonderful service.  Because I am speaking tonight, I was tempted to use that nice, flat parking space around the corner.  You know, the one with sign that says: “You park here, you preach here.”  I’ve always kind of wondered – is that a threat or a promise?

         Friends, for me, personally, and on behalf of my congregation, it is so wonderful to be here with you tonight.  To Reverend Neevel, to Music Director Chanelle Schaffer, I am grateful for your presence in my life, as colleagues, and as friends.  To so many of the members of this holy congregation, you have been an anchor for this neighborhood – and, again, in many ways, for me and for my family, in our short time on island. 

         And speaking very personally, to this church… it was to this place, to this communal circle that I came one Sunday morning, in search of solace and spirituality and…song…  in the aftermath of our hurricane altered High Holy Days last year.   Despite our world-wide network of thousands of overseas families, literally thousands, we are – and especially right after the storms we were -- a fairly small on island community.  We managed, as we have in an unbroken chain of two centuries, to celebrate our most sacred season.  But, barely.  Just,  barely. 

         And I felt, in a way I truly never had before, some intenal need.  I found that, here, in a gift you gave to me.  The theology may have been different, a bit.  But here I found fellowship and energy, warmth and light that lifted me up, and carried me on as we took our first, tentative steps towards recovery.

         A message for us all, tonight, in three parts.  About power and light.  About the good that can come from awareness, and acknowledgement. About aspiration and appreciation and awe. 

        Part One.

         The journey from last year to this one.  It stays with me, I think, each milestone on that road, each stage of the new normal.  I remember when the theater finally opened, in February.  The first film we saw was Black Panther.  What an amazing thing it was, to see that film, in this place, with so much of a

sense of power and spirit coming together – recovery, pride, color, affirmation.  If a theater can be its own form of sanctuary, if any  expression of art at its most powerful can work this way -- that was an experience of awe.

         So why am I talking about a comic book?  What does that have to do with a place where we dive into the Bible, or try to find lessons for our lives?  What might tie all of that together?

I brought a book with me tonight. It was a curious gift, from a past president of my former congregation, amused and a bit embarrassed, both, when she gave it to me.  This is The Book of Genesis: Illustrated, by R. Crumb – a Biblical comic book.  Unabridged but… unorthodox.  And, um, anatomically correct.  I have it with me, now, as a kind of tangential tribute to a different writer… a Jewish man we lost this past week.

         I am not sure, in the end, over the past hundred years, who or what has inspired more people to read: the Bible?  J.K. Rowling?  Or Stanley Martin Lieber.  AKA Stan Lee.

         There have been many clips played over the past few days, past interviews with this prolific comic-book writer.  What stands out for me, is a comment Lee made about those of his characters which I, perhaps, know the least well: not Spider Man or Thor, Ant Man or Daredevil, Iron Man or Doctor Strange, not the Hulk or the Avengers or Peggy Carter or, um, er, you know, the Scarlett Johannson one.  But the few I never watched, and know little about: the X-Men. 

         In their first appearance, Lee said, the first issue which featured them, they were… regular people, who wore ordinary street clothes.  The response was immediate, overwhelming and unanimous.  It went something like this: amazing, fantastic, great story, can’t wait for the next one.  But get them into costumes, or we won’t buy it at all.

         So maybe it makes for a better book.  Visually appealing, easier on the eye, jumps out.  But beyond the glitz and the graphics, belied by a format so seemingly juvenile that serious stuff slides in unannounced… there is a very powerful premise behind all this superhero stuff. 

         Darkness may come, the light may go out, hope may be lost and forgotten.  But there is still wonder in the world.  Marvel and miracles.  And it could be you, and it could be me.  The real power is in us.  If we but open our eyes, and discover… what we are truly able to do.

         Power, and aspiration.  End, of Part One.

        Part Two.

         I came here on a Sunday morning, last year.  Two weeks ago, we needed you.  And many of you… came to us.  What remains with me, from our Solidarity Shabbat, is Imam Mohammed calling all the clergy who were there forward at the end of his remarks.  There, on our pulpit, stood the imam, an AME preacher, a Moravian minister, Reverend Neevel… and one very moved rabbi.  At a time of feeling torn, it was grace and healing and hope.  In the midst of division, and even out of authentic diversity, it was a moment of unity.

         But the beat goes on, and the world goes as it will, and the news just never stops.  Whole communities in flames, smoke in our eyes – and blood on our hands…with yet another murder of an innocent African American.  No, not just innocent.  A hero, a protector, a guard in uniform, who did his job, ended an attack, and was shot on sight by the first police on the scene, no hesitation or question or pause.  How do, how can we still see ourselves in each other, how come together with such barely contained forces beneath the surface, so quick to tear us apart?

         Unity.  Oneness.
         I think of the most sacred prayer of my tradition.  It is not really a prayer at all, but a statement, about oneness.  It is the Shema, the declaration of faith.  “Hear O Israel, the Eternal One is our God, the Eternal God is one.”

         As an aside I will share that I had been taught, growing up that this sentence was pure and clear, a straightforward declaration of unadulterated monotheism, our initial and still ultimate declaration of the Oneness of God.  Well, not so fast.  That…may not have been what it meant at first.

         But I will share what these words mean to me.  To do so, I turn from the comic to the cosmos, theology to cosmology, metaphysics to astrophysics.

         What is the Holy Grail, if you will,  of modern math, the ultimate puzzle all particle physicists are trying to solve?  It is the Grand Unified Field Theory, the hint, the hunch that all the basic forces of the universe, all of them -- electricity, magnetism, light, gravity, the strong nuclear force, the weak nuclear force, all of them can be defined by a single set of mathematical equations.  Even if… even if it will take, as scientists now believe… twelve spatial dimensions for the math to work out.  And even if… even if…the world worked this way… only for the first billionth of a billionth of a second in the life of the universe.  Still, you figure out that math and I promise, Stockholm will come calling.  Your Nobel Prize is just around the corner.

         Think about it.  If this is true, if this is right, then… even if all that is and all that will be were in total harmony for the only briefest of moments, still, if this is right then there is a connection between everything.  What we say, what we pray for when the world seems broken and shattered… is literally, physically, scientifically true.  There is a unity in the universe, a primal pull which somehow calls and binds and brings together all that seems distinct.  Literally true, that the molecules in my fingernail, your tears, the wood in that pew, the stone we stumbled on coming in, mist in the moist cloud over Tortola, the spiked tail of the iguana outside our building, all of it, all of it, is just stuff that shifts places, exchanges itself, transforms.  All we are is energy congealed in ways temporarily distinct and only superficially separate and apart.

         There is, yes, much which makes us different, and I cherish that.  But we are also, fundamentally, literally, truly, part of each other.  We are one, the world is one, God is one.

        Aspiration. We are more powerful that we can possibly imagine.
        And awe.  Everything is connected.  The universe throbs with a beating heart of divinity, a oneness at the heart of the world.

        End of part two.

Part Three.  Appreciation.

         There is so much that is wrong with the world.  There is a saying that goes: “if you are not outraged, you are not paying attention.”  But as another colleague taught me: we can lead with that, but we cannot end with it.  “If you are not outraged, you are not paying attention.”  Yes.  But, also: “if you are always outraged… you are not paying attention either.”

         Thanksgiving comes.  All of us need, I believe, this prod to appreciate.  This gift of gratitude.

In English we say that we should count our blessings.  In Judaism, though we may not emphasize this enough, this is literally what we do. At some level, I believe it is a large part… of what spirituality is about.

         Do you remember the opening of Fiddler on the Roof, the montage of encounters, snippets of shtetl life?  Disciples approach the rebbe and pose a question.   Is there,” the disciples ask… “is there a blessing for the czar?”

         The rebbe responds: “Of course.  There is a blessing for everything.  May God bless and keep the czar…far away from us!”

         I have heard this exchange hundreds of times and still it makes me smile.  But the important part is what comes first.  “There is a blessing for everything.”

         There is a blessing for everything.  This night, we come together from different traditions.  What I have just said… it is, I think, a fundamentally Jewish way of looking at the world.  But it can also be a gift, to all of us.

         I love… I really have come to cherish… the Christian tradition of… spontaneous blessings, the offering of the heart, the search for the right words for each and every occasion.  What we do is a bit different.  There is a quiver of customized arrows, a whole set of plug and play prayers to use for many different moments.  There is the blessing to be said on food from a tree, and that which comes from the ground.  There is a generic blessing for meat, fish, and eggs – and a special prayer for chocolate chip cookies (well, baked goods). 

         And there are blessings for what we see: a friend, trees blossoming for the first time in a season, a rainbow, a tall mountain, Magen’s Bay, a great scholar, the ruler of a country.  (Maybe even the governor of a territory.  I have to check on that one.)

         You may yawn your way through life.  You may blink and miss the power of a moment.  But no matter how mundane it may seem on the surface, every encounter is supremely sublime.   As we saw, under the surface of the superficial lies the DNA of divinity, if we but open our eyes and see.  

         And just as with DNA, where every cell contains the code for the entire organism, so does every moment hold within it echoes of eternity.  Every experience is an encounter with the entirety of existence.

         For Doctor Who fans I would say that this is the Tardis of tradition.  And it is bigger on the inside than the out.  When we are aware, when we acknowledge the connections, when we give voice to our appreciation, we step into the web of eternity, where then is now and here is there and dark is light and God is here and all are one.

Aspiration.  We have power, beyond what we think.
Awe.  We open our eyes and see a unity beneath our differences.
Appreciation.  We make our oneness real, when we give it voice and value.

Power, connection and expression.  The very act of opening our eyes, and coming together, and giving thanks… just that, can change the world.

May we all have… a powerful, spiritual and very meaningful Thanksgiving.

Spitting Image

Spitting Image

         Once again, in a cemetery, I thought about a pre-school.  It was our annual Kever Avot Graveside Memorial Service, held at both of the historic Jewish cemeteries in St. Thomas, on the Sunday in between Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur. And in some ways, there is nothing like a scheduled, non-funeral based visit to old graves to get you thinking about Jewish journeys, where we have come from and, perhaps, where we are going.

         Sadly there was almost no attendance at the older site, the Savan Cemetery, closed at near capacity in the 1830’s, and badly in need of restoration.  Still, it tells an amazing story.  There are gravestones in seven different languages there.

         There were more people at the “new” site (opened mid-1830’s?), in Altona.  And it was there, looking at a mixed and multi-racial group, older folks visiting family members they remembered, and toddlers hearing tales about people they never met, that I thought about the founding families of the synagogue.

         The names of those nine Sephardic families are found…everywhere on this island.  And around the world.  They are of now faces of every color, bearers of every creed, on the rolls of every church.  Soon, I want to organize an evening service, or a weekend of events, called “Roots and Wings,” for every person on these islands who have Jewish roots of some sort, or who are interested in Judaism, or who have heard of it, or who can spell it…  It will be, I think, a long list of invitees.  Whether many or few will be interested I don’t know; we can only find out by trying.

         But looking back to see who we are and where we might go is kind of a thing these days.  All it takes is spitting in a cup, or some other form of sharing yourself… with the commercial DNA-testing labs offering such services.

         I saw that a colleague spoke about 23andMe during the High Holy Days this year.  What a great topic – at least for Ashkenazic Jews.  Part of the information you get, apparently, is what percentage “Ashkenazic Jewish” you are.  I think I read that Sephardic roots are simply characterized as “Middle Eastern,” rather than Sephardic Jewish.

         Whatever the science behind the distinction, this raises interesting questions.  And those questions lead to more questions.

What is a creed, and what is a culture?  How much of who we are is about where we are from?  How will knowing the past impact us in the present?  Does our genetic history matter for more than medical purposes – and if so, why, and how, and to whom?  And: look at how many white-bread with mayonnaise eating middle Americans are discovering something about themselves they never knew, this newish Jewish part of them?  What will they do with the information?  How will this change them?

And, most chillingly, I often wonder this: what drove so many away?  Indifference, oppression, opportunities?  Or was it, perhaps, a closed-circle within our own community, cliquishness, making someone feel “other” and “out.”  Some of the stories I have heard here center around grandparents who did not feel welcome, or wanted, and who found a spiritual home elsewhere.

I don’t want to go too far down that road.  I sometimes am astonished that Jews find it so very easy to set aside a 4000-year old history and dynamic culture and intellectual inheritance not because of spiritual questions (although there is some of that), but because somebody (sadly, often a rabbi) looked at them the wrong way.  Yes, we make mistakes, we act imperfectly, and we turn each other off.   I have staked my own work, my passion, my devotion to the notion that, for most of us, and most of the time it is deeply worth it… to get past the flaws and bumps and bruises, however they may hurt.

But it is time for those “inside” the Jewish orbit to redouble or triple our efforts… to be more open, to be more welcoming, to reach out, to break up our cliques and widen our circles.   Because this is not just about liquid in a cup, or information in an envelope (or email).  And whether someone comes back with results that are 85% “Jewish” roots, or none at all… the ability to even ask indicates fluidity and curiosity, about identity and connection and community.

Science impacts society.  The physical affects the spiritual.  Just look at the religious changes brought about… by the printing press.  Or the phone.  Or the car.

People today are using new techniques to ask old questions.  They are looking back at an internal yesterday.  It is a perfect moment to build… a better tomorrow.

Contradictions and Consistency: Three Things I Believe That Don’t Hold Up -- Part One: Why Be Different?

          This is the first time in over a month I have written something essentially unrelated to the hurricanes!  May there be more such occasions soon.

Have you ever met someone who was completely consistent?  Someone who lived their lives with no obvious logical lapses, or ways in which their arguments or beliefs did not always add up?  On occasion, I believe I have met such individuals.  A few of them.  And, as I recall, they tended to be extremists, of one form or another.

          It’s not that I don’t think we should try.  Rank hypocrisy is… not rare, but still distasteful. It’s a good thing to think through what we believe, and to test it to see how it holds up – against reality, and against everything else we say we stand for.

          So it bothers me to realize… that there are three things I believe which don’t quite hold up.  There is, within my positions, a contradiction.  And yet, somehow, I believe these things anyway.

          What are my inconsistent positions?  (At least, the ones I am aware of and live with.)   One relates to spirituality.  The other to community.  And the third, somewhat connected to the second, to identity.  The first is about God and Judaism, universalism and particularism.  The second is about ways in which Jews are connected to one another.  And the third is about, well, Jews for Jesus.

1.   If God is one and everything is connected why do we promote being different? 

          The most important foundation of my own spirituality, and my understanding of divinity, comes from the Sh’ma.  It is the basic statement of the oneness of God, and with it the unity of the universe.

          Now, to my regret, as I have come to understand as an adult, this is probably not what the Sh’ma meant originally.  Despite what we all learned in Sunday school, in contrast to the solemn proclamation of some kid in Cleveland that he will now recite the “washword of our face” (because, after all, what is a watchword, and what kid can say the word “faith”?), many Biblical scholars challenge the idea that these words were first meant as any kind of pure declaration of monotheism. 

In contrast, they say, the Sh’ma did not actually deny the existence of other gods.  This was not a theological statement about ontological reality.  Instead, it was a way of connecting to a community, or reading oneself in.  These words were…  a loyalty oath.  And they were not about monotheism, but  some form of henotheism, or monolatry, both of which meaning that while there may be many gods… we ourselves have only one!  Not: “Hear, O Israel, the Eternal our God – the Eternal is One,” but:  “Listen, you Israelite! YHVH is our god… and only YHVH.”

But, okay, fine, so the central understanding of Jewish origins I had as a child was wrong.  I can live with that.  It remains the case that these words came to be understood as a proclamation of the unity of God, and it is in this way, and their connection with particle physics, that they speak to me.

So, what is the Nobel Prize in Physics, waiting to happen?  What is the formula which, once worked out, will guarantee the one who solves it a place in the pantheon alongside of Einstein?  It is the Grand Unified Field Theory, the idea that all the basic forces of the universe can be described... by a single set of mathematical equations!  Even if… even if the math only applies… for the first billionth of a second of the life of the universe.  And even if it will take twelve spatial dimensions for the equations to work!  (As I understand it, that is what cosmological string theory is all about.)

But think about it.  If this is true, even for a limited time, and in a way beyond what we can ordinarily imagine… then what we are saying is that, with the mystics, everything really is connected.  That all we see as separate is really only a superficial difference, that every “thing” around us is merely energy congealed in a transient, temporary form, but basically all beating to the cosmic pulse of the universe, all part of a divine symphony which we can but faintly hear.  That which seems to be separate and distinct… is merely a matter of faulty or limited perception.  Anything” is really “every” thing,   And borders and boundaries and distinctions and definitions are malleable, permeable, deceptively described, and temporary at best.

I believe that about life, the universe, and the way the world works.  My basic understanding of berakhot, of blessings, relates to the idea that a berakha is a way of opening our eyes, to help us see the divine, the sacred, the underlying awesome connectedness of all, in moments which seem to be mundane and discreet and distinct.

So, fine.

But then: how come so much of Jewish life is about… making distinctions?  And separation?  And being apart?  This is kosher, and this is treif.  This is Shabbat, and this is the rest of the week.  This is holy, and this is not.  This is the land of Israel, and this is outside.  This is a Jew, and this is not.

In a universe of connection, why the boundaries?  If reality is universal, why celebrate particularism?

And if you say that separation is just an aspect of a broken world, an unredeemed sphere of existence, a phase before we step back into some cosmic Kabbalistic Unity of All… really, still, why would the distinctions matter?  Is all of our effort to maintain our identity, promote our community, is all of it just a holding pattern, some kind of exercise in differentiation while we wait for the real time of ultimate togetherness to come along?  Why be Jewish, why be anything individual, if all definitions will ultimately fail and all differences fall in the end?

A “universal” faith (the word “catholic” actually means universal) in fact anticipates this oneness, but in a hegemonistic fashion.  The world will be one…when everyone becomes just like us.  But Judaism truly does not envision this kind of sameness, this urge to merge.  Maybe it is just hard to picture, but I don’t think many Jews actually anticipate or even desire the whole world becoming Jewish.  We are fine, even in traditional settings, with the notion that there are different paths to God.  So I circle back to my own dilemma.  If God is one and everything is ultimately connected, why be different?

I can fumble a response, approximate an answer.  But this remains one of the central spiritual questions of my life.  What’s your answer here?

And that… is the first of my three things I believe, which have a contradiction within them.