Sermons and Divrei Torah
I am Jewish
by Rabbi Elyse Goldstein
(Sermon - Rosh Hashanah 5765)
There's an old joke about an army captain trying to determine the religion of his men for their dog tags,. He calls each one's name and each steps up and answers affirmatively: "Jones, Catholic, sir...O'Donnell, Protestant, sir...Smith, Unitarian, sir...then Davidson is called. Davidson! The private gets up and stammers, "well, sir, you see, my family wasn't really religious, we did some of our traditions, but mostly we... and the captain interrupts and says, "Jewish!"
We are a funny people. Ask a Catholic if they are Catholic and you get a straight answer: yes, no... or lapsed. Ask a Protestant and you'll get their denomination. Ask a Jew and you get a dissertation! They'll answer your question with a question, "what do you mean by that?" That the uncomplicated statement, "I am Jewish" can be so complicated is at once fascinating and also telling. You see, Christians can pretty well explain to you what it means to be a Christian. Muslims can tell you what it means to be Muslim. And though there will be a variety of opinions in every group, being Jewish seems quintessentially the question in search of an answer. Horace M. Kallen once remarked that a Jew is one of eleven and a half million people in search of a definition. He's right. We are a people whose definitions get cloudy, get personal, are amorphic and often contradictory and almost always quirky. We are "very Jewish" in some things, "not so Jewish" in others. When someone asks "are you Jewish" we instinctively react depending on the questioner: friend or foe? Do they ask in a friendly way, as in "gee I didn't know you were also a member of the tribe" or do they ask in an antagonistic way, as if to say "are you one of them?" We answer with a sigh, or a guilty shrug, or a defensive glance, or a laugh. Woody Allen answered "guilty...with an explanation!" When Henry Kissinger was being chastised by Golda Meir for not being "Jewish enough" he said to her, "Mrs. Meir I am an American Jew" and she replied, "Mr. Kissinger. here we read right to left." We are a people with hyphens on our identities. "Are you Jewish?" can mean a host of things. To the black Jew questioned by the white Jew, it's the "you" pronounced strongly: are YOU Jewish? To the nonobservant Jew, questioned by the religious Jew, its the "are" emphasized: ARE you Jewish? And to the proud Jew questioned by the well meaning but often ignorant world, its the "Jewish" spoken as an adjective that seems somehow disembodied from the person: are you JEWISH?
And when we answer "I am Jewish" what do those seemingly simple words really mean to us? Not "I practice Judaism" or "I believe in the Jewish faith" or even "I feel Jewish" but "I AM Jewish?" To BE Jewish is a verb in the present tense but not a normal verb. Its not an action verb, its an existential verb. Its easy for me to explain to you what it means to DO Jewish- we even have a class called Doing Jewish hat will teach you all the holidays, the life cycle events, the keeping and the observing and the active doing of Jewish. Its easy for me to show you what Jews eat, wear, practice. How we build a sukkah. How we eat matza and spin the gragger and put on a tallis and fast on Yom Kippur. How would I explain to someone from another planet, how we "are" Jewish? What do I tell my kids when they ask me what "being" Jewish means?
So this sermon is a little different from other years. I'm usually suggesting a new way of doing things. Today I'm asking you to think differently; to not just act reflexively but to think about what it is that makes you Jewish, to be able to articulate to someone else what being Jewish means to you in a deeper way than just "well, I was born Jewish..." or "I just feel Jewish..." For being here this day demands that each of us must ask ourselves whether being Jewish is some sort of "birthmark" with which we are burdened, or blessed, for life— or more than that. Is it a genetic accident- and if so, can one be proud of a genetic accident? Is it religious beliefs? If so, which ones? An ethnic loyalty- to a group, to a kind of food- after all, Jews makes the best Chinese food patrons so if there is a Jewish food it must be dim sum? Is it a collection of sweet childhood memories? What about converts who don't have those memories? Is it the ethical force of the Bible? But what about those folks who are ethical without the Judeo-Christian Bible?
The simple statement "I am Jewish" took on a new resonance when they became "newsworthy" in February 2002. Wall Street reporter Daniel Pearl had been kidnapped in Karachi, Pakistan. His kidnappers accused him of being a spy -- an accusation strongly denied by the CIA and his newspaper -- and vowed to kill him if their demands were not met. Indeed they did kill Daniel Pearl and he was confirmed dead on February 21.
The fact that Daniel Pearl happened to be Jewish was, at first, not believed to be a factor. Of course it wasn't going to help him, either, but it wasn't initially the "reason" given for his capture. In fact, his French non-Jewish wife, while hoping for his return, kept impressing upon the media what a universalist Pearl was, what a man of the world he was, as if his being Jewish was only a blip in the story, not even worth mentioning. However, upon release of the horrible videotape of his incarceration, we learned that he made a statement—or was forced to make a statement—of his Jewish identity. Until then, Daniel Pearl had never been identified as a "Jewish" reporter, though he never hid his identity and knew it might get him into danger in the parts of the word he frequented. He had not covered the "Middle East" beat nor had he ever analyzed so-called "Jewish" events. He wasn't a presence at Jewish organizations and, though a proud "ethnic" or secular Jew, had never publicly identified with any "Jewish causes."
But something happened when he made this statement at gunpoint: "My father is Jewish, my mother is Jewish, I am Jewish" and then he told his captors—and the world— that his great-grandfather Chayim Pearl had a street named after him in the town of Bnei Brak. At that moment, Daniel Pearl became a symbol, whether he wanted to or not. Samuel Freedman, a writer for the New York Times and USA Today, wrote, "When Daniel Pearl hovered in limbo, missing but presumably alive, his wife and colleagues and friends emphasized what a universalist he was, as if that might spare him death. In death, however, the meaning of Daniel Pearl changed, or, I might say, it grew complete. He lived as a universalist, but he died as a tribalist, inescapably Jewish. While some of what Pearl said was probably coerced...it is impossible to avoid in his words the sense of some agency, some autonomy, some principled self-determination." We will never know for sure. The one thing we do know for sure, though, is that his statement of identity reverberated throughout the Jewish world, and struck a deep chord for Jews everywhere. We also know it denied his murderers the ultimate anti-Semitic triumph; in fact, just the opposite, in the words of his father Judea:..." highlighting Daniel's identity as a Jew in front of millions of people around the world would forever associate Jews with the admirable qualities of Danny's character, and Jewishness with his missions of peace-seeking and bridge-building."
I pray you and I will never be faced with any crisis close to the one he faced. I can't and won't judge what or why or how Pearl's last words were chosen or meant. But I have that phrase— I am Jewish—etched on my heart today; because when I see all of you here, for all the many and varied reasons you have— I feel that sense of agency, of autonomy, of principled self-determination. I know "they" will always remind us we are Jewish. But is that to be our own accepted self-value? Are we forever to be reactive and not proactive about our self-definition as Jews? When its hard to be Jewish, when its dangerous to be Jewish? No-let the words "I am Jewish" not be spoken only at the point of a knife, like Isaac at the altar. For too many centuries, from the Crusades to the Holocaust, "I am Jewish" is a spit in your face/ thumb in your nose answer. Today with the rise in anti-Semitism its easy to fall into that trap again. That's not good enough for North America in 2004 and we shouldn't be satisfied with it. What does "I am Jewish" mean as a statement of self-identity, autonomy, and principled self-determination and not one thrust upon us by coercion or reaction to outside critique?
So with all due respect to Daniel Pearl's memory, "I am Jewish" can't only be a declaration to our oppressors. The burning question in my mind may be the same one that will one day burn in Daniel's son Adam. Judea Pearl, Daniel's father, wrote, "How would Adam view his Jewish lineage? Would he take it as a genetic accident that may lead to tragedies like the one that befell his father, or would he embrace it as the fountain of his father's spirit, from which he, too, could draw strength, comfort, and direction?"
Look, I'll be honest: I celebrate the fact that for most of us "I am Jewish" is still as undefined as Daniel Pearl's. I've spent the last 13 years of my life at Kolel helping people define the question, not the answer. Like the game of jeopardy, what is the question that "I am Jewish" is the answer to? So "I am Jewish" should serve as a catalyst for us to reflect upon, discuss, analyze and hopefully clarify our own notions of what it means to be Jewish. I want us to reflect thoughtfully around our holiday tables today and to use this as an opening for honest and critical thinking about our own self-definitions. A beautiful book called "I Am Jewish: Personal Reflections Inspired by the Last Words of Daniel Pearl" was commissioned by his parents Judea and Ruth, and published just this year by Jewish Lights. In this book are 147 small essays on what those words mean to people as diverse as Joe Lieberman, our own Irwin Cotler and Rosalie Abella, Ehud Barak, Edgar Bronfman, Tovah Feldshuh, and a 13 year old in Connecticut about to celebrate her Bat Mitzvah, and I commend the book to you. I'm going to share with you four short musings in the hope that you will go home and ponder them over these holy days. And of you are not Jewish, I am going to ask you to ask your Jewish partner to ponder them with you.
Thought number one: the be of being Jewish is in the universal. Michael Chlenov, the president of the Federation of Jewish Organizations and Communities in Russia, writes, "Judaism is a tool of resistance." The be of being Jewish is in the way we actively struggle to make this a better world; the way we engage in tikkun olam, or march for human rights, or protest oppression of any people; we are "most Jewish" when we serve in a soup kitchen.
Thought number two: the be of being Jewish is in the particular; we are "most" Jewish when we fight for Jewish causes, insure the survival of Israel, oppose anti-Semitism, educate our children in Hebrew and Torah. Cynthia Ozick wrote, "If we blow into the narrow end of the shofar, we will be heard far. But if we choose to be Mankind rather than Jewish and blow into the wider part, we will not be heard at all."
Thought number three: the common denominator of being Jewish is the Torah. Eric Yoffe, president of the Union for Reform Judaism wrote, "...above all else, I was present at Sinai, and when the Torah was given on that mountain, my DNA was to be found in the crowd... It is the covenant at Sinai that links all Jews, including nonobservant ones, in a bond of shared responsibility." When we practice our unique and rich traditions that we are "being" Jews.
Thought number four: being Jewish is not about "chosen", it is about "choosing." One of the most powerful statements of all in the book comes from Leon Wieseltier, literary editor of the New Republic. He writes, "...the facticity of my identity, the accidental truth that it is what I have inherited, rather embarrasses me. I wish that I could have chosen it...Accident is not an adequate foundation for a life. I envy converts..they are Jews as a consequence of their own reflection and their own freedom. But I must transform outer necessity into inner necessicity...So I am a Jew who is becoming a Jew, if I am a serious Jew at all....For if I cannot imagine not being a Jew, I cannot glory in being a Jew..."
The universal Jew. The particularist. The one who stood at Sinai and the one who chooses to stand there again and again. What will draw them all together is when they all say "I am Jewish" in pride and in freedom; in celebration and not only in peril. When Abraham was asked by God to stand up and be counted he said "I am here"- heneni. But that was at a kind of gunpoint, too. It was only after that, shaken and taken by this experience, that he went on to found a nation based on principled self-determination, a nation of those who truly have believed for thousands of years that their little statement "I am Jewish" could shake the world, change it, repair it, make it and them holy. We are the true inheritors of their principled self-determination when when we hear the shofar call out to us, tekiah: I...Teruah: am...Tekiah Gedolah: Jewish.
Shana Tova
Sermons and Divrei Torah
Additional Resources
Elul: Period of Preparation
Yamim Noraim: Days of Awe
Rosh Hashanah: Introduction
Shofar Symbolism
The Custom of Tashlich
Yom Kippur: Introduction
G'mar Chatima Tova...
