David & Ruth

Rabbi David Segal

Aspen Jewish Congregation

15 February 2013 • Parshat T'rumah

David and Ruth

The Jewish world lost a giant this past Sunday, when Rabbi David Hartman died at the age of 81, after a long illness.

He was best known for Shalom Hartman Institute (named for his father), which he founded in 1976 in Jerusalem. There he brought together Jews, Christians, Muslims -- and also (as one commenter said, maybe more impressively!) Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox Rabbis for study and dialogue together!

Hartman grew up in a poor Hasidic family in Brooklyn, and he spent all the time he could immersed in Torah. He once said, “I was a good yeshiva boy until I started to read.” He developed a kind of love-hate relationship with ultra-Orthodox Judaism. He was a fierce critic, but his criticism came from being a fierce defender. For him, the two were inseparable.

In his theology, Hartman was fiercely pluralistic. “I’m fighting a war on the monopoly of certain people on truth, on the understanding of what Judaism is.” He pitted himself against Orthodoxy’s excessive fixation on authority, which he thought came from anxiety, not piety. He wanted to reclaim tradition, and to re-inject it with a spirit of open-ended experimentation. He said: “I don’t want order! I want vibrancy, passion, people to have a stake in it, lay claim to it, feel it’s theirs, it doesn’t belong to anybody else. There’s plenty of order in a graveyard.”

Family was at the center of Hartman's Jewish orientation; he was not focused on the individual Jew as much as the Jewish family unit, and the Jewish People. He saw the Shabbat table as metaphor: in his childhood, his father’s niggun (wordless melody) would set the tone, and they sit around the table, a family who fights and loves and lives together with vibrancy. He also spoke of the dignity of the Shabbat meal, even for a poor family:

“Shabbes turned a poor man into a dignified man who could sing... The tragedy is that the self-appointed carriers of the music, in between the fish and the soup courses of Shabbes dinner, are carrying stones to throw at passing cars, to build up an appetite for the chicken. And on the way, they are arguing about the halakhic implications of the size of the stones.”

Hartman was a storyteller and teacher, by nature. He once wrote:

“I realized then that my task was not to proselytize, but to counter indifference by cultivating an awareness of Jewish tradition as a theological and cultural option that commands attention, that cannot easily be dismissed. My years in the rabbinate taught me pedagogical empathy: a teacher must begin at the place of the students, listen before speaking, hear and share in the deep estrangement of Jews from their tradition - to enter that estrangement and to try to understand the roots of modern Jewish alienation” ("From Defender to Critic," xii).

Religion, he taught, should not stress what is forbidden, but rather lovingkindness. 

In a speech called “Extremism trumping rationality in Modern world" Hartman said:

I joke that the only reason the mashiach has not come is that he wouldn’t have a kosher place to eat in. Wherever he would go there would be a group of Jews who would say that the place itself does not meet the highest standards of kashrut. Who would want to come into a world where you would starve to death? 

He was deeply worried that we’ve given up on the rational capacity of human beings to build a decent life. This presents a profound challenge to the future of the Jewish people.

All that said about Hartman's critique of Orthodoxy... as one of his students Yossi Klein Halevi put it, “Even as he challenged Orthodox Judaism to broaden, he challenged liberal Judaism to deepen.”

If we are to accept his fierce critique of Orthodox Judaism as too anxious about authority, too passionless and too exclusive, then we must acknowledge his critique of us as well. If we are to be authentic dialogue partners in shaping the Jewish future, then we must engage seriously with the ideas and behaviors of Judaism. If we assign ourselves, consciously or not, the role of casual observer, then that’s what we’ll be, and the future of Judaism will be guided by the extremists whom Hartman spent his career criticizing, even as he respected the depth of their engagement with Jewish tradition.

*    *    *

Hartman's legacy is alive and well today, and continues to inspire Jews of all kinds. One example of his influence appeared before the Knesset this week as a new member of the Yesh Atid (There is a future) party, which shocked the pundits by winning 19 seats in its first election. Her name is Ruth Calderon. Years ago, she founded a "secular yeshiva" in Tel Aviv -- think about that phrase for a moment. Last week she took the opportunity of her inaugural Knesset address to teach a little Talmud.

Rabbi Rechumei was constantly before Rava in Mechoza. He would habitually come home every Yom Kippur eve. One day the topic drew him in. His wife anticipated him: “Here he comes. Here he comes.” He didn’t come. She became upset. She shed a tear from her eye. He was sitting on a roof. The roof collapsed under him, and he died. (Ketubot 62b)

Calderon drew from this text a lesson for the modern state of Israel. It’s an allegory for the secular and religious Israelis -- the wife on the home-front, the great Torah Sage on the roof -- both of whom believe they are taking care of the home, both of whom feel that they bear a burden alone that the other is unwilling or unable to bear.

In her words:

Sometimes we feel like the woman, waiting, serving in the army, doing all the work while others sit on the roof and study Torah; sometimes those others feel that they bear the entire weight of tradition, Torah, and our culture while we go to the beach and have a blast. Both I and my disputant feel solely responsible for the home. Until I understand this, I will not perceive the problem properly and will not be able to find a solution...

Calderon goes on to thank her mentor, Rabbi David Hartman -- with his courageous commitment to an inclusive Judaism -- for opening his beit midrash to her, thereby opening the rich world of rabbinic debate which has made her a more committed Jew and a better Israeli.

And, as if scripted, during her teaching of the passage of gemara, a Shas MK (Sephardic Orthodox party), Yitzhak Vaknin, interrupted her -- not, as you might expect, to silence or harangue her -- but in support. “I think the idea she is saying is wonderful...” he said. And Calderon’s reply: “I am happy about this participation in words of Torah.”

As one of the online commenters said, “I don't understand how Moshiach did not come at this very moment. Beautiful.”

Near the end of her remarks, Calderon included this hope for the future:

I aspire to bring about a situation in which Torah study is the heritage of all Israel, in which the Torah is accessible to all who wish to study it, in which all young citizens of Israel take part in Torah study as well as military and civil service. Together we will build this home and avoid disappointment.

Through a new commitment to pluralism, Israel might avoid the tragic outcome of the Talmud story, where the roof caves in, all that’s left are ruin, death and grief. Instead, if we all embrace Rabbi Hartman’s legacy, and Ruth Calderon’s vision of a diverse but unified future, then our homeland -- the State of Israel -- will be stronger for it. And we Jews worldwide might become a more powerful force for good and truth, for lovingkindness, and for the greatest blessing, Shalom.

In MK Calderon’s final words of prayer for entering the Knesset (written by Chaim Hames), we conclude:

May it be Your will, Lord our God, God of our fathers and mothers, that I leave this house as I entered it – at peace with myself and with others.

SHABBAT SHALOM.

Asking for Direction(s)

Rabbi David Segal

Aspen Jewish Congregation

Parshat Mishpatim • 08 February 2013

Asking for Direction(s)

I read an interview this week between the Atlantic’s James Fallows and Google’s Michael Jones, the Chief Technology Advocate. (Jones founded Keyhole, which put hi-resolution satellite images of Earth online and was acquired by Google to form the basis of what we now know as Google Earth, which 1 billion people globally have installed on their computer.)

The title of the interview is, “The Places You’ll Go,” borrowing from a beloved Dr. Suess book. It's a conversation about the future of digital maps. The biggest change in map technology is already here: personalized, customizable maps in the palm of your hand. You can zoom, swipe, and get directions anywhere you want to go.

Jones spoke also about what the future holds: that we'll have a wearable computer that will provide a “continuous stream of guidance and information, and no one else will even know you’re being advised.” Instead of walking around looking at our smartphones phones in our hand, there might instead be words or sounds in our ears, or visual cues projected onto our glasses. You'll feel, as Jones says, “Like a local everywhere you go!” Imagine a trip to a foreign country, where the street signs will be translated before your eyes.

And then there’s this smartphone app, Field Trip. You launch it on your phone and first tell it how often you want it to “bother you” (often, rarely, etc.). Then you just leave it in your pocket. And as you walk around, it will buzz and say things like,
A few hundred feet away is the best Pizza place in town...
or, You’re not far from a popular science museum in that direction...
or, “Around the corner behind you is where a scene from your favorite movie was filmed.”
Over time the app learns what you like, and so it gets better at knowing what to point out to you. It's like “getting to walk around with local experts who know your tastes, wherever in the world you go.”

This is all very cool, no question. It opens up the globe to us in radical and exhilarating new ways.

But it’s also a little bit scary, or a lot. And not in the sense that all those movies from the 80s and 90s, like the Terminator, would have us believe, that we are on the path to the computers becoming aware, and then evil, and then rising up to destroy us. It’s scary in the sense that we are becoming so irreversibly attached to our technology. Jones says that people’s IQs are 20 points higher because of Google search and maps, and that’s why we get upset when they don’t work, or give wrong information -- because we “feel like a fifth of [our] brain has been taken out.”

I see it in our b’nai mitzvah students, some of whom walk around glued to their phones like it’s an additional appendage. I see it in parents and friends who are paying attention to their smartphone rather than each other. If I’m being honest, I see it in myself, a little too connected all the time, a little too unwilling to disconnect.

But beyond these concerns, which you’ve probably heard me raise before, is another, more striking issue. It’s what we might call “false hope.” Toward the end of the interview, Jones says this about the power of the mapping revolution:

“No human ever has to feel lost again.”

I know he meant it in a strictly geographic sense, but it struck me as a sad overstatement of the power of technology. I believe we are too easily seduced by shiny, flashy objects, by the works of our hands. That’s probably part of why God in the Torah is so insistent that we not worship idols -- because we have an innate tendency to do just that. So my worry is that we start to worship this revolutionary technology, these works of our hands, and start to fool ourselves into thinking that they can not only give us directions, but also give us direction, that is, purpose, meaning, guidance.

But they can’t.

For that, we must look elsewhere. And the Torah, and our tradition, is a good place to look -- as it has been for several millennia. Mishpatim, this week’s portion, is the first that is majority law, rather than story. And sometimes we think those portions are less interesting, or that we relate to them less. But these laws are precisely the life directions that I’m suggesting our tradition can provide.

We heard verses already tonight, chanted so beautifully, about letting your land go unsown every 7 years, so the needy may eat of it. We heard a command about Shabbat, that we rest so that our animals, and those who work for us may rest. There are laws about lending money, about fair payment of wages to workers, about fair treatment of strangers. There are rules about idolatry, about liability for damages, and there are also laws about celebrating Pesach. So it’s about justice and morality, responsibility and community, spirituality and family.

And of course our tradition demands interpretation, to apply it to our modern lives, but the core value is there, in that ancient text, offering us what even the “next big thing” in technology can’t provide: A guide to what it means to be human, a sense of where are you headed, and how to get there.

What it offers, if we are open to it, is direction.

SHABBAT SHALOM

Torah Study: Modern Jewish Thought

Rabbi David Segal • Aspen Jewish Congregation
rabbi@aspenjewish.org • 970-925-8245 x.1

Modern Jewish Thought

Thursdays* 1:30-3:00, January 10-April 18, 2013

@ Aspen Chapel, Basalt Library Community Room, and Online

In this 14-week course, we'll be introduced to the most influential philosophies of Judaism of the modern period. No prior knowledge of philosophy or theology necessary -- just curiosity and an openness to be challenged and challenge others! 

Registration: $54 covers the main textbook, additional handouts, and refreshments.
To register, call 970-925-8245 x.1 or email rabbi@aspenjewish.org.
ONLINE participation:
https://www.webex.com/login/attend-a-meeting, enter meeting # 192 543 805. Please email or call for the meeting password.

_____________________________________________

Session Topics and Readings 

*sessions are at Aspen Chapel unless otherwise indicated*

1. JANUARY 10. Introduction: The Problem of “Jewish Theology”
1. Choices, Preface and Part I Ch 1 (pp. 3-25)
2. Choices, Appendix (351-353)
   
   
2. Systematic Theologies: The Rationalistic Models
1. JANUARY 17. Hermann Cohen’s Neo-Kantianism
1. Choices, Part II Ch 2 (29-51)
2. JANUARY 31. Leo Baeck’s Religious Consciousness
1. Choices, Part II Ch 3 (53-73)
3. FEBRUARY 7. Nationalism & Zionism
1. Choices, Part II Ch 4 (75-97)
4. FEBRUARY 14. Mordecai Kaplan’s Naturalism - @ BASALT LIBRARY
1. Choices, Part II Ch 5 (99- 121)
   
   
3. Systematic Theologies: The Nonrationalistic Models
1. FEBRUARY 21. Franz Rosenzweig & Martin Buber's Existentialism
1. Choices, Part III Ch 6 (125-142)
2. Choices, Part III Ch 7 (143-165)
2. FEBRUARY 28. AJ Heschel’s Neo-Traditionalism - @ BASALT LIBRARY
1. Choices, Part III Ch 8 (167-184)
   
   
4. Contemporary Theologies
1. MARCH 7. Post-Holocaust Theology
1. Choices, Part IV Ch 9 (187-220)
2. MONDAY MARCH 11. Soloveitchik’s Modern Orthodoxy
1. Choices, Part IV Ch 10 (221-248)
3. MARCH 21. Jewish Mysticism
1. Choices, Part IV Ch 11 (249-280)
4. APRIL 4. Borowitz’s Postmodern Judaism
1. Choices, Part V Ch 12 (283-312)
5. MONDAY APRIL 8. Jewish Feminist Theology
1. Choices, Part V Ch 13 (313-340)
   
   
5. APRIL 18. Conclusions and Visions
1. Choices, Part V Ch 14 (341-350)

Note: syllabus subject to change!
*No class March 14 - will meet Monday March 11 instead
No class MaRch 28 (during Pesach)
No class April 11 - will meet Monday April 8 instead

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Readings

Required

• Choices in Modern Jewish Thought, Eugene Borowitz ($25)
  http://www.amazon.com/Choices-Modern-Jewish-Thought-Partisan/dp/0874415810 OR http://behrman.powerwebbook.com/productdetails.cfm?PC=6043
  Note: this will be ordered for you when you register for the class
• Excerpts of major works, to be provided

Suggested for Further Study

• A Touch of the Sacred, Eugene Borowitz ($17 paperback, $22 hardcover)
  http://www.jewishlights.com/page/product/978-1-58023-416-0 
  OR http://www.amazon.com/Touch-Sacred-Theologians-Informal-Jewish/dp/1580233376 
• Contemporary Jewish Theology: A Reader, ed. Elliott Dorff (~$75)
  http://www.amazon.com/Contemporary-Jewish-Theology-Elliot-Dorff/dp/0195114671

My Brother's Keeper

Click here to read Rabbi David's monthly column in the Aspen Times.

(And click here to read Charlie Leonard's Jan. 24 column, which Rabbi David is responding to.)

Two Times Ten?

Rabbi David Segal

Aspen Jewish Congregation

02 February 2013 • Parashat Yitro

Two times Ten?

Earlier this month, Roy Moore was reelected to the Alabama Supreme Court. You may remember him as the judge who commissioned a massive granite sculpture of the Ten commandments in the Alabama courthouse building.

The ACLU and other civil liberties groups sued, arguing that this installation violated the Establishment Clause, and they won. Moore refused to remove the sculpture, so he was removed from his post by Alabama’s judicial ethics panel.

It's fitting to talk about the Ten Commandments tonight, since they appear in this week’s parshah. Of course this is the first of two appearances, in Exodus and then later in Deuteronomy. And that leads to something too often overlooked in the public shouting matches over Ten Commandments displays. When someone argues that the Ten Commandments should or should not be displayed, we should ask: Which version of the 10 commandments? Exodus or Deuteronomy? Whose translation? And by the way, Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish tradition differ in how they divide up and number the commandments.

My favorite example of the difference between the two versions of the Ten Commandments occurs in the command about Shabbat. In Exodus, it begins Zachor / "Remember" and in Deuteronomy it says Shamor / "Observe" or "Keep." 

But there’s more: the two versions differ significantly in the way they justify the Shabbat command. The Exodus version explains Shabbat like this:

For in six days ADONAI made heaven and earth and sea, and all that is in them, and God rested on the seventh day; therefore ADONAI blessed the sabbath day and hallowed it. (Exod 20:11)

We are to observe Shabbat because God did. It is an affirmation of the spark of divinity within each of us.

The Deuteronomy version provides a very different reason. After commanding the observance of Shabbat, it says:

...so that your male and female slave may rest as you do. Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt and ADONAI your God freed you from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm; therefore ADONAI your God has commanded you to observe the sabbath day.

Here, we are to observe Shabbat so that those who work for us may rest. In this version, Shabbat is about justice and freedom, and it is linked to God the liberator, not God the Creator.

The Exodus version is about Creation. The Deuteronomy version is about Redemption.

Of course, both versions are relevant, and both are integral to our story and self-definition as Jews. The rabbis of the Talmud were fairly intellectually honest about textual complexities like this. They knew that there is a higher truth within dualities and apparent inconsistencies.

A case in point: We tend to picture the Ten Commandments as two tablets with five commandments per tablet. This is the common conception (unless you’re a Mel Brooks fan...)

But in a classic midrash collection (Mekhilta de Rabbi Ishmael), the majority of sages don’t share that view that we consider common today. They say instead: all ten commandments were written on both tablets. They don’t give a reason or explanation; I agree with Rabbi Daniel Lehmann of Hebrew College, who suggests that the two sets of ten written on the tablets represent the two versions in Exodus and Deuteronomy.

Lehmann goes on to remind us of the midrash about God’s miraculous handing down of the commandments: 

It is in the nature of flesh and blood that he cannot say two words at the same time, but the Holy One, blessed be He, spoke the Ten Commandments all at the same time, as is said, “And God spoke all these words, saying [implied: at one time]...” (Exod 20:1).  (Mekhilta de Rabbi Ishmael, Beshallakh, Shirata, 8)

In the rabbis' view, divine revelation is complex, multi-voiced, even pluralistic. Those who simplistically insist on displaying “The Ten Commandments” in public distort the depth and truth of Scripture. We Jews, as bearers of the rabbinic tradition, can be models and advocates for a different approach. We can celebrate the Torah’s complexity and reflect it in our own humility and inclusivity.

Rabbi Lehmann concludes his d’var torah by commenting on the typical Jewish choice of depicting two tablets of five commandments each:

Perhaps Judaism needs to re-imagine that symbol to reflect a profound principle of theological pluralism that lies at the heart of much of Jewish tradition. We could teach others through the symbol of 10 and 10 on each tablet that diversity, complexity and plurality are God's blessing to the world and a true gift of the Divine self...

As we sing each week in L’cha Dodi:

Shamor v’Zachor b’dibur echad / hishmiyanu El ha-m’yuchad“Observe” and “Remember” in one utterance / the singular God caused us to hear.

It's a paradox, perhaps, but it's essential Jewish wisdom that God’s oneness encompasses great diversity  of expression. It is kind of the reverse of our American motto: it's not e pluribus unum, "out of many, one" -- but out of the one God, come many possibilities and interpretations, many paths to holiness, and many ways to be a Jew.

SHABBAT SHALOM

Maxwell Shenk Genshaft • Aug. 3, 2011 — Jan. 18, 2013

I share these words online so that more people may know at least a glimpse of the person and personality Max was.

Rabbi David Segal

Aspen Jewish Congregation

January 21, 2013

Remembering Max Genshaft

Sometimes, when someone dies, it fits within the order of things. There is loss, and sorrow, and grief, but we say, “It is natural.” “Death is a part of life.” Sometimes, we even say, “He is in a better place.” “He lived a long, full life.” “It was his time.”

But today ... is not one of those times. Today, nothing fits, nothing makes sense. It is not natural. Today, as we face the reality of the death of Maxwell Shenk Genshaft, the platitudes we utter those other times feel empty, insulting, blasphemous.

Today is the unthinkable, the unimaginable, the not-supposed-to-happen. Today is chaos, it is upside–down, and it is dark.

We gather here in remembrance of Max. Our hearts go out in sympathy and compassion to his parents Alyssa and Ben, to his sister Sophie and brother Eli, his grandparents Joyce and Chuck, Nelson and Carol, to his aunts Andi, Lindsay, and Tracy and uncle Scott, and to his great-grandmothers, Grandma Shenk and Gigi -- who are all living this nightmare.

We see on your faces the shock of this loss, the pain of this grief. We know you are mourning not just those precious 17 months, but also the days, weeks, and years with Max that you looked forward to, but will never be.

It is beyond words. There is nothing we can say to fix it, though everyone here wants nothing more than to bring him back.

On your faces and in our hearts there are many questions.
Why is this happening?
How can this be?
What kind of God would allow this?

Know that you are not alone in your questions, in your doubts and anger. We cannot fully know your pain, but you are not alone. There are no good answers to these questions, but you are not alone.

We ask with you: Who wants to live in a world where this can happen? Where an innocent child can be taken from his loving parents, who wanted and ensured nothing but the best for him?

Every fiber of our being wants to say, “No one” -- no one wants to live in such a world.

But perhaps there is another answer: “Max.”

Max wanted to be here. In his pure, determined, warm, inquisitive way, Max loved living in this world.

He was such a great, happy kid. Whether he was ferrying things back and forth, or trying on shoes far too big for him, or eating -- he loved to eat! -- he was always smiling. He never had to be asked to smile. In fact, he was the only kid who would always smile for pictures. He liked having his picture taken, although when Alyssa would see him doing something cute and ask if she could take a picture, he would smile and walk toward the camera -- not quite getting the point, but enjoying himself nonetheless.

Max loved water, just being in water. Ben remembered a time when Max was so relaxed in the pool, that he fell asleep in Ben’s arms. He did this during his baths in the sink, too -- water had that effect on him.

One of the ways Max liked to spread his happiness was by being the jokester of the family. He knew how to make everyone laugh, such as the time he put Eli’s underwear on his head -- and then paused and looked at his audience, waiting for the laughter to commence.

Max was a smart and independent child. He was an expert at Grammy Joyce’s game of “go get Winnie the Pooh” or “go get the red blocks” -- he understood everything. Alyssa would ask him if he needed a diaper change, and he would say, “Yeah,” and then run and get a clean diaper. When Ben or Alyssa would ask him if he wanted to take a shower -- he loved showers! -- he would take off his diaper and stand there, naked and ready to go. He never had a baby toy phase -- he went straight to iPads and iPhones. And he loved chatting with his family on them.

I mentioned he loved to eat, but it bears repeating. He was a big eater. He knew where his snacks were, and how to open the childproof locks on the cabinets. He was happy to help himself.

At each stage of development, Max gave up everything on his own when he was ready to move on: nursing, the pacifier, and bottles -- which he threw at his parents when he was done.

Even with his independent streak, Max loved people and was very social. When out to lunch with friends or family, he was always curious about the people at the next table. He was a charmer, and even a little flirt.

He loved going to see Sophie at school. The other kids adored him, even (or maybe especially) when he made a mess of their classroom by mixing and matching their snow-boots as he tried them all on. But he was helpful, too. If the adults nearby were standing around looking for something, he would say, “Umm...” as if he was thinking hard about where it might be.

Mostly he wanted to do what the other kids were doing, and he loved his big sister Sophie and big brother Eli, who took very good care of him. He was their doll, and sometimes they would drag him around the house, which he didn’t seem to mind. Other times they’d play “family” -- Sophie as mom, Eli as dad -- and they’d drop Max off at daycare...that is, the other side of the room. And he would wait there until it was time for them to pick him up. Many mornings he would hold out his arms for Sophie, and she would take him to the kitchen, give him a snack, and entertain him until Ben and Alyssa got up for breakfast.

Max showed a special love for his family. He wanted to be with Ben and Alyssa, and Sophie and Eli, wherever they were.

He had a special bond with Ben. When he heard the garage at the end of the day, he would run to the gate at the top of the stairs -- often with Eli at his side -- and say excitedly, “Dada!” His face shone when Ben walked in. When Max learned to walk, he would wander from room to room, looking for Dada.

Max was blessed to know so much of his extended family, including great-grandparents, and they were blessed to know him, through visits and video-chats. As Ben said, “Everyone loved him. They all wanted to see him grow up. We miss him.”

Max was a special and amazing soul. Though he was only with us for 17 months, he filled his days, and ours, with hugs, kisses, and laughter. His death is heart-wrenching, incomprehensible, tragic.

On behalf of this community, I pray for help in bringing comfort to Alyssa and Ben, and to all the bereaved. Let their tears fall on us. Let their anger break against us. Let their grief rest in our loving arms. As so many stepped forward to watch over Max’s body this weekend, so he would not be alone, may we now extend our sheltering wings over the grieving family. Then may the memory of their beloved Max return gently, peacefully, to their hearts.

Give us the strength and gentleness to remind them -- even as we remind ourselves -- that in the depths of this darkness, there may yet be light. May Max’s spirit shine through this night of desolation and bring the dawn of another day.

May his memory teach us to embody his happy, sweet, bright presence, so that this world without Max -- where he once walked the earth, and smiled, and brought joy and love to so many -- might again be, somehow, Max’s world.

zichron tzadik livrachah
may the memory of the righteous be a blessing

read Max's obituary here

Standing Up for Self and Other

Rabbi David Segal

January 4, 2013

Parshat Shemot 

The king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other Puah, saying, "When you deliver the Hebrew women, look at the birthseat: if it is a boy, kill him; if it is a girl, let her live." The midwives, fearing God, did not do as the king of Egypt had told them; they let the boys live. (Exodus 1:15-17)

In this scene, we witness a moment of great courage. Shifrah and Puah disobey Pharaoh's cruel order. In the history of genocide, we hear too often about decent people, bystanders, who just follow orders. But here we have an ancient example of civil disobedience, a refusal to participate in a murderous decree.

This scene is also a moment of great ambiguity. M’yaldot ha-ivriot means either "Hebrew midwives" or, possibly, "midwives of the Hebrew women." So Shifrah and Puah are either Israelite women fighting for their people, or Egyptian women -- "who feared God" -- standing up for the Other.

Not surprisingly, voices of our tradition support both interpretations. Rashi, following the Talmud, considers them Israelite women, even naming them as Yocheved and Miriam. Abravanel and others as far back as Josephus consider them Egyptian midwives. Shadal supported that interpretation thus:

“How is it conceivable that Pharaoh would order Jewish women to kill their own folk and imagine they would not divulge the whole plan?”

Also, the text mentions an important detail: the midwives "feared God" (Elohim). Why state that fact if they were Jewish women? They'd be expected, in that case, to look out for their own people. But for Egyptian women to look out for Hebrew children required a belief in something higher.

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the British Commonwealth, speaks of this episode:

We do not know to which people [the midwives] belonged because their particular form of moral courage transcends nationality and race. In essence, they were being asked to commit a "crime against humanity," and they refused to do so. . . . All we know about them is that they "feared G-d and did not do what the Egyptian king had commanded." In those words, a precedent was set that eventually became the basis of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights. Shifra and Puah, by refusing to obey an immoral order, redefined the moral imagination of the world.

*    *    *

Last month I took a group of high school students to the National Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC. I thought about that experience as I read about Shifrah and Puah this week. What is always so moving to me, for some reason, are the stories of the righteous gentiles who risked their lives to save Jews, motivated by something that transcends ethnic and familial ties.

That museum explicitly connects the Holocaust to modern-day genocides, and the message is clear: we all must learn the lesson “never again” to work to stop genocide in our time, whether against our own people or our fellow human beings.

Yad VaShem, the Israeli Shoah museum in Jerusalem, sends a different message. As you pass by the displays about Nazi evils and Jewish resistance, you come out of the relative darkness of the museum to the light of the Jerusalem sun, and a panoramic view of the surrounding hills. There the message is also “never again,” but with a profoundly different interpretation:
because of Israel, “never again” will another people victimize Jews the way they did during the Shoah. “Never again” will we Jews allow ourselves to be defenseless and stateless in the face of our persecutors.

There is growing tension today between these two versions of “never again” -- Jews who emphasize group preservation versus Jews who emphasize universal human rights, going head to head over which is the more Jewish way. As the old joke goes, the most Jewish approach is probably to have these two groups arguing with each other.

The truth is, neither approach is authentic without the other. A story:

Ruth Messinger, head of the American Jewish World Service, was speaking at a synagogue about her organization’s work in the developing world, much of which benefits non-Jews, especially in Africa. During the Q&A, as often happens, a man in the audience criticized her for devoting resources and attention to non-Jews when so many Jews are in need. Before she could answer, a diminutive older woman got out of her seat and marched over to the man. She shook her fist at him and said:
I am a Jew, and a Holocaust survivor. It is because of people like you that my entire family was murdered in the camps.
At that point, Ruth Messinger didn’t need to say much more.

That ethos of “take care of our own” -- a natural and healthy sentiment that leads to protection of one’s family and group -- can also be twisted into a rationalization for ignoring the suffering of others. How often do we bemoan the fact that so many otherwise decent Germans turned a blind eye to what their countrymen were doing to their Jewish friends and neighbors? In order not to be hypocrites, don’t we also need to remember to direct our moral attention to those who are “other” to us, just as we wish others had done, and will do, for us?

On the flip side of the coin, the universalist attitude of looking beyond our own familial and ethnic boundaries can, if taken to a superficial extreme, lead us to neglect our own while pursuing the very noble cause of reaching out to the other. It can lead us to forget that the place where we learn those universal values that reach beyond ethnic boundaries, is the very family and community that those values teach us to transcend.

The Jewish way is to embrace that ambiguity, that duality. Jewish wisdom teaches us that we are to live for ourselves and for others. Either side of that equation alone would diminish us, would weaken our impact on the world, would be less than the fulfillment of both our humanity and our Jewish identity.

As Rabbi Hillel so famously said,

If I am not for myself, who will be for me?
If I am only for myself, what am I?
If not now, when?

Shabbat shalom.


Many thanks to Lisa Exler for the inspiration behind this d'var Torah, and several of the sources as well, including the essay by Rabbi Sacks.