When will comfort come? A Reflection on The Ninth of Av

אבל מקדש שני, שהיו עוסקין בתורה ובמצות וגמילות חסדים מפני מה חרב? מפני שהיתה בו שנאת חנם

יומא ט ע”ב

But why was the second Temple destroyed when people were busy with Torah study, Mitzvot and Acts of Lovingkindness? Because there was needless hatred.        

Babylonian Talmud Yoma 9b

“Nazi Atah!” – “You are a Nazi!” screamed the little boy.

No older than eight or nine, the boy yelled with the hostility of one who lived a full life of persecution.  His eyes burned hot with anger, his face flush with hatred.  Long black curls, payot, trembled with animosity as he continued shouting at the man on the other side of the gate.  This was not a scene from the shtetl in Europe during World War II.  He was not yelling at a German Soldier.  This was last week at the Western Wall, the Kotel, and this child was yelling at another Jew.  What provoked the little boy to yell “Nazi” at another Jew? Here is the story…

I got to the Kotel late for services on Rosh Hodesh Menachem Av, the arrival of the new month of Av.  As is regularly the case, Women of the Wall (WoW) gathered for services.  This time, thousands of young yeshiva girls came out to fill the Kotel Plaza, as they were instructed to do by their rebbeim,  so the group was forced to meet far from the Kotel, behind police barricades.

Arriving at the bottom of the steps leading to the plaza, I stood next to a group of Haredi teenagers to put on my tallit and tefillin.  I was minding my own business when a guy came from out of the “corrall,” got in the face of the Haredim, yelled something unintelligible, and pushed one of the black hat and black-suit clad youths.  A melee ensued around me with ten Haredim pounding on this guy and young kids screaming at him.  To their credit, the police rushed in and broke up the fight, taking away the WoW participant and the Haredi who hit him the most.

As they were led away, I noticed that the guy from WoW dropped his tallis bag.  I picked it up and followed the group to the police holding area.  I approached the gate and asked if the tallis bag belonged to him.  All around me, Haredi teens and children were screaming in Hebrew and Yiddish:

“Reformi – You’re not Jewish!”

“You are a blasphemer!”

“You are a Nazi!”

The last slur drew my attention away from the WoW participant behind the fence and toward the gang behind me.  There, I saw the angry, raging little boy gesticulating wildly at the WoW guy and screaming “Nazi! Nazi Atah!”  All around me, shouts of “Reformi,” “Lo Yehudi” and “Nazi” rose to a crescendo.

I looked at the little kid with the flying black curls and calmly, in my Hebrew Jewish educator voice, asked:

“Who taught you to say such horrible things?”

He stopped shouting and just stared at me, a mixture of curiosity and surprise.

“Really, who taught you to call another Jew something so horrible?”

“Hu lo Yehudi!” – He is not Jewish!” The boy retorted.

“And how do you know that?  Did you check? I said.

“If he prays like that, he is Reformi, not Jewish!” He screamed.

Devastated, I wondered what kind of “religious” parent, educator, rebbe would teach a child to label another Jew a Nazi.  What kind of fear led people to inculcate their children with such hatred, labeling another Jew a “Jew-Killer?”  There is no circumstance that could ever justify the gross negligence of parents, of rabbis, of educators who teach children that any Jew who disagrees with them is equal to those who tried to destroy our people. I was even more devastated by the fact that we were celebrating the arrival of the Hebrew month of Av.

We call this month “Menachem Av,”  menachem meaning comfort.  According to tradition, The Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed twice  on the 9th of Av(first in 586 b.c.e. and again in 70 c.e.).  During the month,  we pray for a future when the pain of the destruction, the pain of exile, the pain of wandering will be comforted, will be healed.  And why was The Temple destroyed?  The Talmud teaches that destruction came because of “Sinat Hinam,” senseless hatred. Now, at the base of our holiest site, the foot of The Temple Mount, The Place, where the Jewish People and God interacted in the most direct way, here I see for the first time what real Sinat Hinam, real senseless hatred looks like:  A little boy, screaming in full fury, “Jew Killer” at another Jew.

“When will the redemption come?” I ask myself.

Not when every Jew observes a few Shabbatot.  

Not when we all check our Mezuzot or our Tefillin to be sure that the parchments are “kasher.”

Not when we all behave according to one opinion.

Redemption will come when Jewish educators, parents and rabbis teach their children to live a life of Ahavat Hinam, of generous love toward the entirety of the Jewish People.

Salvation will come when the Jewish tradition of Makhloket, of arguing positions, is done for the Sake of Heaven, with Love and respect and generosity.

Comfort will come when one group of Jews watches another group of Jews pray and sees in that different way one of the seventy faces of Torah.

Deliverance will come when every Jew, child and adult, invests more energy in Ahavat Yisrael, in loving all of the Jewish People, than they invest in being “right.”

Achieving redemption is a big, hairy, audacious goal.

For now, maybe we should begin with the most modest of goals: teaching kids not to scream “Nazi” at those who are different from them.  

With unending hope that we see Redemption, Salvation, Comfort, and Deliverance soon and in our day, I wish us all a meaningful fast, a day of reflection and self-assessment, and a day for renewing commitment to achieving complete repair of our world.

Jewish Pluralism: Alive and Well in Jerusalem.

With all the negativity about pluralism in Israel these days, it is easy to develop a picture that is wholly pessimistic.  There is no question that on the governmental level, restrictions on Jewish choice exist here.  Yet, as one sided-as the governmental religious establishment is in Israel, so too is the exclusively negative picture of Israel we are most often presented with by the press on this subject.

Take this past Tuesday, for example.  In just a few hours, I visited a Bet Midrash for young Masorti Jews in Jerusalem, attended a concert devoted to the subject of supporting a modern, Democratic Israel and met a group of Taiwanese Christians here on the second half of their March of the Living Trip. I also spent time at a meeting of the Tnuat Yerushalmim - The Jerusalem Movement - devoted to strengthening and preserving Jerusalem as the capital for all Jews.  Incredibly,  all five groups were meeting at the same place at the same time.  Pluralism is alive and well here on the non-governmental level!

The concert, titled "Sacred Rights, Sacred Song" and created by my friend Fran Gordon, took place at Moreshet Yisrael, the Conservative Synagogue in downtown Jerusalem. Fran, and those who worked with her, created the piece out of a desire to support Israel's democracy by calling to the forefront the importance of maintaining Israel in general and Jerusalem specifically as the homeland and capital city of all Jews.  The affiliation of the synagogue did not prevent both Orthodox and Secular Jews from attending.  The material, challenging much of the status quo on religious issues, did not prevent Secular or Orthodox Jews from attending. The fact that councilwoman  Rachel Azaria's Yerushalmim Movement was meeting on the campus at the same time did not prevent people who might disagree with the party's platform from attending the concert.

In the bet midrash, a large group twenty-something Israelis, joined together for a weekly learning session.  They came to study with Tomer Persico, an expert on the study of New Age Religion, Neo-Hasidism and other Jewish, New Age variations.  I was only able to stay for a few minutes before running to the concert but I could feel the great energy and anticipation in the room.

The dining room at The Fuchsberg Center was full.  Members of a group of Israeli educators spending the day on professional development dined among a group of Taiwanese Christians in Israel for the second half of March of the Living, having learned about the Shoah while in Poland the previous week.  They were joined by a group of young German Christians, also here on a mission of some sort.  One room, three groups. Jews and non-Jews dining together in the heart of Jerusalem in the Jewish State.  Wow! What's next?  Lions lying down next to lambs?!

After the concert ended, I joined Yerushalmim: For a Vibrant, Pluralistic Jerusalem.  According to their website, Yerushalmim focuses on two main issues and is unique because:

"The struggle against religious extremism and gender segregation and promoting the status of young families in Jerusalem...We are the only organization uniting secular, Conservative, Reform and Orthodox volunteers who share a passion for diversity and pluralism in Jerusalem and...have developed strong friendships and working relationships with both the city council and the Jerusalem mayor’s office, and are thus better able to turn our ideas into urban reality."

Again, wow!  Just Wow!

I went to the group discussing our new home neighborhood, Baka. Sitting in a circle, ten of us discussed everything from parking and traffic problems in the neighborhood to whether or not the Israeli equivalent of a neighborhood JCC, called a Matnas Kehillati, should be open for family activities on Shabbat, to insuring that improvements to Jewish sections of neighborhoods extend to the Arab sections as well.  As the meetings broke up, I looked around and saw men with large kippot, crocheted kippot and no kippot. I saw women wearing traditional Orthodox head coverings, no head coverings and wearing skirts and women wearing the latest in secular fashion.  And, rather than sticking with their own, they were all talking with one another. I left the Center exhausted and reassured that the Zionist ethos of a State for ALL Jews is alive and well among the citizens of Israel.

Look beyond the focus on the negative in the media, on the hegemony of the Ultra-Orthodox over all things governmentally religious, on the discord, and you will find incredible partnerships developing in Jerusalem between Secular and Religious, denominations and independents.

You will see a beautiful Jerusalem tapestry of varying perspectives meeting, learning together and valuing one another.

Finally, because of the ever growing number of individuals and organizations committed to realizing Ben Gurion's dream of a State for All the Jews, as articulated in the Declaration of Independence, we will ultimately see and be part of a stronger, officially pluralistic Israel for all of us sooner and, I believe, in our day.

Shabbat Shalom.

Rock, Pluralism, Blessings and Jerusalem!

There is no question that the picture painted about Israel in the press today is not pretty.  Nurses went on strike to force the government to increase what are embarrassingly low wages.  Only a last minute action by the Knesset prevented the shutting down of Channel 10, a noteworthy critic of the current Prime Minister.  The man slotted for the number two spot on the "Likud - Yisrael Beiteinu" list was indicted by the attorney general for breach of communal trust.  The neighborhood, also known as the Middle East, gets nastier and more unstable every day.  And let's not forget about the daily announcements of the Chief Rabbinate trying to impose the opinions of the very few on the entire country.  It all sounds so bleak.

Yet, this is not the full picture of today's Israel.  It leaves out important discoveries in the fields of medicine and technology.  It fails to include the rich cultural events that are woven into the daily life of jerusalem.  It neglects the wide variety of social entrepreneurial ventures popping up on a constant basis, the beautification projects making Jerusalem a more livable and lovely place and the sounds of multiple religious traditions co-existing in the most sacred of cities.  Finally, the journalistic approach of publishing only the darkest narratives neglects the incredible projects related to  התחדשות היהדות - the reinvigoration of Judaism - taking place all over Jerusalem and Israel.  Here is an example of what I am talking about.

I spent Sunday night at The Yellow Submarine, a music club in the Talpiyot Shopping District, to listen to a group of rock bands.  Surprised?  Rabbi Sykes went to a what?A rock concert? After all, rock is not my musical genre. I am not one to frequent concerts or rock clubs. I am definitely not the "clubbing" type. This, however, was not an ordinary battle of the bands.  The musicians were all teenagers and the bands were a mix of religious and secular, Ashkenazi and Sefaradi, socially comfortable and socially akward teens.  They were participants in  "Meko-Rock Jerusalem" - a project of Bet Midrash Elul, the pluralistic bet midrash in Jerusalem and the founders of Merko-Rock, a project started in a place called Emek Chefer, by David Levy.

Meko-rock is a play on the Hebrew word, Mekorot or sources.  The concept is simple and beautiful.  Meko-Rock brings together teens of different backgrounds on a weekly basis, for three to four months, to study Jewish sources.  These teen musicians create study groups that become bands.  They choose sources from the Bible, Rabbinic literature and other Jewish texts which become the inspiration for writing rock music.  Just as the teens have excellent facilitators to help guide them through exploration of Jewish texts, they also work with top notch musicians who help take their source-based inspiration and create inspired rock music.  I am not talking about taking "Oseh Shalom biMromav" and writing a new tune to replace the one we know; rather, by learning about different faces of Peace, participants may look at their lives, their angst and where they lack Peace.  Their exploration becomes lyrics and music and performance techniques.

I was blown away by the music, by the depth of learning and the depth of the material created.  It was exceptional.  The bands were fun to watch, the participants were all very talented and were totally into it!  The audience, made up of parents and friends, supporters and funders, was equalling inspired.  Roni Yavin, the power house professional leader of Bet Midrash Elul, understood the potential of this program to touch the lives of all points on the religious spectrum.  For teens on the "religious" end of the spectrum, the project allows for the re-examination of familiar texts, for the extraction of different life lessons, for exposure to perspectives different than their own and for the expression of identity through music.  For the more "secular" participants, Meko-Rock creates the space to encounter a part of Jewish heritage often denied them by secular educational institution and increasingly Haredi off-putting.  Perhaps most important of all, teenagers progress through this encounter together, breaking down barriers between the different sectors of Israeli society.

Meko-Rock is but one of many similar examples of efforts to bridge the gap between "religious" and "secular" Jews of every age and stage.  The התחדשות movement is a reaction to the trend toward התחרדות or Haredization of Jerusalem and the government.  Meko-Rock, Bet Midrash Elul, The Jerusalem Movement, The Masorti Movement and other organizations - religious, pluralist, denominational and not - are working together, bridging gaps, and insuring that Jerusalem remains the creative, religious capital of the entire Jewish people.

The pluralist, open approach to Judaism being taken by the above mentioned groups is the embodiment of the blessings given in VaYechi, the final portion of the book of Genesis.  The children of Jacob are not given just one collective blessing; rather, they are given an individual blessing.  They are a family and are blessed and they are recognized as individual components of the family and blessed.  The התחדשות or reinvigoration approach to Jewish Jerusalem acknowledges that Jerusalem is both collectively and individually ours. That is something to celebrate!

Thank you to Roni Yavin for introducing me to Bet Midrash Elul and to Meck-Rock and thank you for the work that you do on behalf of the Jewish People.  Your work is definitely avodat kodesh - sacred work - and it brings to life the sentence we will all shout at the end of the Torah reading this week:

חזק חזק ונתחזק!

Be Strong! Be Strong! And together, we will be strengthened!

Shabbat Shalom!