With all that’s going on right now, with anti-Semitic violence seemingly sweeping the globe, rearing its ugly face even in places like Canada and Tunisia and Sweden, with so many so ready to pounce on what didn’t happen in Jenin and make as if it did, with more and more newspaper articles actually talking about the odds of a “second Holocaust,” now seems a good time to remind ourselves of what being Jewish is all about.
So that we make sure to cling to it. And to each other.
Jewish hate seems to be much in vogue these days — from a man who has labeled the Holocaust “a detail of history” doing very well in the French presidential election, to the national Jewish center of Australia being torched, to cemeteries in Slovakia and Ukraine being desecrated, to Jews in Belgium and Germany being beaten up.
The key, however, is not to allow all that Jewish hate to turn us into hateful Jews.
No one says it’ll be easy. But then no one ever said being Jewish was easy.
It isn’t.
It is, however, fun and meaningful, and for Jews, the absolutely best thing to be.
We need to remember that, even now — especially now. It ain’t no big whoop to believe it when times are good for us. It is essential to believe it when times are not so good for us. To believe and feel and recognize that being Jewish is the best thing to be and the best way to go.
And to act accordingly.
Not to flee, but to affiliate. Not to avoid going to Israel, but making sure to visit. Not to turn away from what’s going on, but to keep in touch with what’s going on. Not to become depressed, but to be energized. Not to feel hopeless and helpless, but to find ways to make things better and doing them.
And one of the very first things we should do, one of the most important things we can do, is feel connected to our fellow Jews. To all of them. To each of them. Even, especially, to the ones who drive us nuts.
Jewish unity is needed more now than ever, but in some ways, harder to achieve more now than ever. That’s because emotions are so high, feelings so strong, that too many of us have no use for those Jews who do not see things as we do, react as we do, find the same answers as we do.
But it is especially now that we need to be accepting of all Jews and all Jewish points of view, truly respect and embrace and love all Jews, no matter how they are Jewish, no matter how they see things Jewish.
It is no big whoop to feel close to those Jews who see things as you do. That is not Jewish unity.
Jewish unity is only when you feel a connection to the Jew who totally disagrees with you, who acts in a way you find wrong. Jewish unity is only when you embrace a fellow Jew, despite of, just because of. Jewish unity is only when we come together out of love for each other, not when we come together out of hate for the other, whether it’s Yasser Arafat or the French.
Two examples show the way.
The first is something that has taken place, sadly enough, again and again during the past 19 months. I’m sure you’ve seen it dozens of times, sadly enough, on the TV news every time there’s been a suicide bombing in Israel.
After the scenes of the carnage, of the destroyed bus or restaurant, of the people screaming and the sirens wailing, of the injured being wheeled off and the authorities sealing the scene off, you have those indelible pictures of bearded men in yarmulkes, wearing white gloves meticulously scouring the scene to collect any stray pieces of skin and tiny body parts in the street and on the trees.
That tells you better than anything what the people of Israel are living through.
They collect them for respectful burial, they collect them because Judaism teaches how vital it is that a human body be treated with dignity, be returned to God. Every piece of it.
What has always struck me about that is that it appears that all the men doing the collecting are Orthodox while many of the victims are not.
This may be the only time, the only circumstance, during which they would come together. Be Jewish together.
There’s something beautiful about that. But there would be something even more beautiful if all Jews would do the same under happier circumstances, as part of living a Jewish life, of embracing all their fellow Jews.
And that’s true for all Jews. It always makes me laugh when I talk to Reform or Conservative Jews to see how angry they are, how much they feel that Orthodox Jews are not embracing or accepting of them and their choices. It makes me laugh because inevitably those Reform and Conservative Jews then proceed to lambaste Orthodox practices, not be accepting of the very people they accuse of not being accepting.
It’s why I always say that pluralism for most of us means that everyone should accept and respect my way of being Jewish. As for me having to do that for you, well, that’s another issue.
No, we must all accept all, must see all Jewish ways as legitimate and all Jews as equally precious in God’s eyes. If we can do that for the body parts of dead Jews, we must do it for all of live Jews.
It starts with always acting as true Jews. There have been many beautiful stories told in the wake of Sept. 11, examples of amazing humanity.
But the most beautiful one I heard is that of the Jews doing shmira, or keeping watch, over the victims of the World Trade Center attack.
Every single day since Sept. 11, to this very day, Jewish volunteers have sat in a tent outside the New York City Medical Examiner’s office doing shmira, the ritual in which from the time of a Jew’s death until burial, someone is always next to the coffin so the deceased is never alone.
What is absolutely amazing is that the Jews have been there, are still there, doing shmira 24/7 not for family members or for friends, or even for Jews, but for all the victims of the attacks.
During the week, shmira is performed by various members of an Orthodox synagogue, Ohab Zedek. But because, as Orthodox Jews, members of the synagogue cannot drive to the city morgue on Shabbat, filling in have been nine young women who are students at the Stern College for Women, a branch of the Orthodox Yeshiva University. Stern’s dormitories are within walking distance, just a few blocks from the morgue.
And so, each Shabbat, for all of Shabbat, these young women take turns sitting outside the morgue, wearing their Shabbat dresses, saying psalms, doing shmira for the bodies and body parts brought in, Jewish and non-Jewish.
How absolutely amazing, beautiful and inspiring. Indeed, it’s the right thing to do, the humane thing to do, the Jewish thing to do.
If I asked you to name one principle or value unique to Judaism, you couldn’t. There isn’t one.
What is unique to Judaism is how we express our principles and values, what we do to promote them in a Jewish way.
That’s what we must remember, cling to and do in times like the Jewish people are going through now. To put our principles and values into action, to be most fully human by being most fully Jewish.
We cannot, we must not see how so much of the world is treating us and respond in kind. We must always and only respond as Jews.
That doesn’t mean being weak or not speaking up for ourselves or standing up to our enemies. That doesn’t mean not hitting back or even hitting first.
It does mean that in all we do, we do it as Jews, in the Jewish way. We must never respond to how they treat us, to what they do, by in any way acting as they do, becoming what they are. We must always respond by acting as we are taught to do, by being what we are meant to be.
It’s not easy, not easy especially at times like these.
But it is Jewish, and especially needed at times like these.