(Take
kippah off head and hold it, look at it, look at the Ark, look back at the
kippah)
What a beautiful concept. And a
beautiful object.
I feel blessed as a rabbi to be
able to spend so much time near this Ark.
I am grateful to Sol LeWitt for
giving us this vibrant, living piece of art as the focal point of this
sanctuary.
And what a fantastic idea – to
transfer the concept to a kippah, so that folks can carry this colorful Ark
with them out into the world and feel the pride of being Jewish, and being a
member of this congregation, that Stephen Davis, our Temple president, likes to
describe as, “ancient and cool.”
Such a blessing.
And yet, the events of this
past summer cause some questions to arise when I look at this symbol now. Or
when I look in our gallery at Bill Farran’s beautiful depictions of old Eastern
European synagogues, after which Sol LeWitt modeled this building – synagogues
that are all gone now, mostly destroyed by acts of anti-Semitism.
Our Jewish identity.
Is it a blessing? Or is it a
curse? Is it a badge of pride? Or….a target.
(put kippah down)
This summer, it has been hard
to not feel like we are all walking around with targets on our heads. It was
terrifying to witness the anger and the anti-Semitic rhetoric spewed at
demonstrations on the streets of Europe, and elsewhere, in response to the war between Gaza and
Israel. In a Jewish suburb of Paris, a
kosher grocery and a Jewish-owned pharmacy were torched. A synagogue near the
Bastille in central Paris came under attack while its congregation took refuge inside.
Demonstrators were heard chanting, “Death to Jews.”
We also had our own,
comparatively small, acts of vandalism on our synagogue grounds this summer.
While there was no overt anti-Semitic message associated with the vandalism,
you still have to wonder, why a synagogue? And was it only a coincidence that
it took place at the height of the Gaza war?
I consider myself lucky. For
most of my life, anti-Semitism has not been a big issue. I grew up identifying
as a Jew mostly for positive reasons – Shabbat and the holidays were warm,
celebratory times in my family. Synagogue was my second home; I developed a
deep love of Hebrew and Israel; and
Jewish values of social justice have always been at the core of why I’m proud
to be who I am.
My family lost many people in the Holocaust,
including my maternal grandfather’s entire family. This is certainly a large
part of my Jewish story as well. But
perhaps because I’m one generation removed from the horrors of Europe, my
identity was not primarily shaped by the message, “we survived, and therefore
you must continue to be Jewish!” For most of my life, being Jewish has been about
blessing.
Of course, there was
anti-Semitism in York, PA, where I grew up. I remember an incident in which
someone had stuck the head of a pig to the door of the local Conservative
shul. And the Country Club of York did
not admit Jews until I was in my twenties.
I was also rudely awakened to the reality of
Arab anti-Semitism when I spent a month of college living in Amman, Jordan.
There, some very nice, well-educated Jordanian college students informed me,
when I mentioned the Holocaust, that they had been taught that the Holocaust
was a lie. When I shared with them that a good portion of my own family had
been murdered in the death camps, they were horrified and embarrassed. Jordan
was also the first place I had ever seen fresh new copies of the medieval
anti-Semitic pamphlet, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, for sale at the
corner grocery store, translated into Arabic.
These experiences were very
painful and lonely for me, as I was the only Jew on my study program. But I had
hope back then that this ignorance would be wiped away, when there was finally
true peace between Israel and its neighbors; when Israelis and Arab could
finally build bridges and relationships with each other. Unfortunately today, as
we watch extremist Islamist groups sprout all over the Middle East, I don’t
have much hope of that happening any time soon.
This summer I experienced, and
I’m sure many of you felt this, a more visceral fear of anti-Semitism than we
typically experience as American Jews. We witnessed how very close to the
surface the hatred lies, and how when a particular group, this time, the
Palestinians in Gaza, is feeling threatened, how their fear gets projected not
only onto Israel, the state, but onto the Jewish People as a whole.
In fact, I don’t believe that
the anti-Semitism we witnessed this summer was really about Israel. As one
French rabbi, Salamon Malka, explained,
“the Israeli assault in Gaza, with its mounting toll of Palestinian
civilian deaths, has given an anti-Zionist cover to attacks against Jews,
spread on the streets and on the Internet by an angry fringe of France’s Muslim
population.”[1] According to Malka, anti-Zionism has become a
way to cover a much more deeply rooted problem of anti-Semitism, a problem that
has nothing much to do with the state of Israel.
And in fact, anti-Semitism as a
phenomenon usually has much more to do with the perpetrators than about
anything Jews have ever done. Psychologically, anti-Semitism is typically about
the perpetrator’s own feelings of self-loathing, fear and powerlessness being
projected onto the blank slate of, “the Jews.” For the anti-Semite, “the Jew”
is not really a person – it is a projection of his or her very unpleasant
feelings
We saw this back in April, when
Frazier Glenn Miller, a white supremacist, shot and killed three people at the
Jewish Community Center and the Village Shalom retirement home in Overland
Park, Kansas. He didn’t seem to care so
much that he was actually killing Jews.
In fact, his victims turned out to all be Christians who were using
those Jewish communal facilities. Miller was clearly motivated by profound
hatred and fear and wanted to evoke that feeling in all of us. But in the end,
it didn’t really have much to do with real Jews or Judaism.
So then, how do we respond to
this complex dynamic of anti-Semitism?
Typically, the initial
reaction, is to hide. A few weeks ago, a Jewish couple living on the Upper East
Side, was attacked by a mob carrying Palestinian flags. After the incident,
Rabbi Haskel Lookstein, the principal of Ramaz, an Orthodox day school in
that neighborhood, had to develop a response. His first instinct was to suggest
that parents speak with their sons about covering their kippot with baseball
caps and tucking in their tzitzit when they walked in the neighborhood. I don’t
blame him for that initial feeling of wanting to hide. But after some thought,
Rabbi Lookstein retracted his advice, saying that there is another way. He came
to the conclusion that, in his words, “We have to stand up here in New York and
say we are who we are, and this kind of behavior by people who try to terrorize
others should never be allowed…. Our answer to anti-Semitism has to be that we
stand up like exclamation points and not bend over like question marks.”http://www.jta.org/2014/09/02/news-opinion/united-states/manhattans-ramaz-school-clarifies-advice-on-concealing-kippahs
I agree with Lookstein. We should not see ourselves, this kippah, as walking targets. Rather, it can be a symbol of pride in who we are. We should not have to hide. And when we stand up, we can actually influence people and bring about change.
Our Torah portion for this
morning also brings us some healing responses to the experience of
anti-Semitism.
Our People are gathered to ratify
the covenant with God before we finally cross over into the Promised Land. Moses
addresses us there, saying, “You stand this day, all of you, before the Eternal
One, your God –the heads of your tribes, your elders and officers, everyone in
Israel, men, women, and children, and the strangers in your camp.”
One very important way to
respond to anti-Semitism or to other experiences of being attacked is to gather
together to support each other and to know that we are not alone. Even when
there are not particular incidents to which to respond, just having a community
and being a part of it can help us to find sanctuary in a world that can
sometimes feel hostile.
But this is not a “circling the
wagons” kind of gathering. The Torah portion says that we gathered together –
even with the strangers in our camp. Especially in response to anti-Semitism,
it is critical to build relationships with allies and neighbors who are not
Jewish, in order to raise awareness, and to educate everyone, including public
officials, that anti-Semitism is not only a Jewish problem.
The shootings in Kansas City
showed us how we truly are all bound up together – Jews and Gentiles. We are
even more interwoven these days, as so many marriages and families are composed
of Jews and non-Jews. We see from this how hate for one group is really just
hate, and how very much we need each other.
As we stand on the edge of the
Promised Land, Moses declares, “I have set before you this day life or death,
blessing or curse; choose life, therefore, that you and your descendants may
live – by loving the Eternal your God, listening to God’s voice, and holding fast
to the One who is your life and the length of your days.”
Anti-semitism is probably not
going away. Some individuals, some communities and institutions can change. In
fact, my father, who was a rabbi in York, PA for 35 years, recently conducted a
Jewish wedding at that same Country Club of York that used to exclude Jews. The
chair of their board is now a Jewish doctor, believe it or not. Yet, we know
that the curse is still here in our world.
So, the Torah teaches that we
have a choice. We can choose to see our Jewish identity as a blessing or a
curse. As something to hide, as something to display defiantly, or, even
better, as something actually worth celebrating!
Something I love about those woodcuts
of the Eastern European synagogues in our gallery is that it is not only a
memorial to what was lost – it is not only about mourning our victimhood. What
I see out there is a celebration of a rich heritage, a celebration of Jewish
communal and spiritual life that we want to perpetuate for its own sake.
Today we worship in a wooden
synagogue, inspired by those old Eastern European synagogues. And in our
synagogue, we do not have to gather out of fear. Here, in this building that
evokes both the ancient and cool, we can choose life and blessing. Here, we can
choose to be Jews out of love –love for something larger than ourselves – love
for Torah, love for Jewish values, love for community and connection and
justice.
This synagogue is not only a
refuge, and it surely is not a hiding place. And in fact, in this place, we are
a very diverse group of people. Yes, we need to do what we can to increase our
sense of physical safety – by improving the lighting and installing security
cameras. But this place should never become a fortress. We should always be a
living, vibrant, open place of spiritual community for all. Our kids need to
know that to be Jewish is a blessing, and it should lead us to BE blessings in
the world.
I believe our kids DO know
this. The other day, Trina Shipuleski and David Shilling’s son Jonah ran in the
front door and headed straight for this Ark. “I’m a Jew! Star of David!” he
cried! (by the way, happy birthday
Jonah!)
Our Star of David - on this Ark, in this ceiling - is not a
target, and it is not only a badge of pride. But it is a portal. It draws us
close to what is holy. And it beckons to us to look outward and upward, beyond
our own history, beyond our own suffering, to something higher – to life, and
to blessing.
[1]
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/29/world/europe/gaza-conflict-seen-sparking-anti-semitic-attacks-in-france.html?_r=0
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