The panorama and the close-up / Nitzavim-Vayeleich

Do our lives really matter? In the long term, and in the broad picture of the universe (or even of this planet) do we really matter? The year 5773 is winding down, and we are gearing up to usher in 5774 next week. Spiritual preparation for the High Holy Days has us looking both backward and ahead — assessing the year gone, planning the year to come. What have we accomplished? Where have our lives, our efforts, our energies made a difference?

Moses asks himself the same questions. In our lives, Yom Kippur is a rehearsal of death, an opportunity to ask ourselves in advance each year the questions we will wrestle with when our lives draw to a close, so that we can redirect our lives now in the hope of finding rewarding and comforting answers to those sticky questions when our time comes. For Moses, it is no rehearsal.

The combined Torah portions of Nitzavim and Vayeilech we read this week recount the last “chapter” of Moses’ life before he ascends Mt. Nebo, where he will die and God will bury him. His summing up and final words are addressed to the entire Israelite nation, and we hear in them the poignant strains of any parent who has poured his life’s energy into his offspring and now ponders their future without his guidance. Will they follow his advice, or will everything he has tried to teach them evaporate? Will they live by the distinctive moral values he taught them, or operate by the values of others around them? Will they be loyal to the tradition he passed down to them?

Torah tells us that at the last moment of life, Moses was robust and powerful, the exemplary leader he had always been. Torah will report that in his last moments on Mt. Nebo:

Moses was one hundred and twenty years old when he died; his eyes were undimmed and his vigor unabated… Never again did there arise in Israel a prophet like Moses — whom Adonai singled out, face to face… (Deuteronomy 24:7, 10)

Torah is saying that when he died, Moses was a youthful and vigorous 120 years old.

At this particular moment in time, however, Moses’ self-experience is utterly different. He feels depleted and worn out, incapable of leading the people any longer:

Moses went and spoke these words to all Israel. He said to them: I am now one hundred and twenty years old. I can no longer be active (Deuteronomy 31:1,2)

We can sense Moses’ anxiety. He knows things will break down after he dies because God has told him as much. He orchestrates an inspiring ceremony to reaffirm the covenant made at Mt. Sinai. Everyone participates — your tribal heads, your elders and your officials, all the men of Israel, your children, your wives, even the stranger within your camp, from woodchopper to water drawer (Deuteronomy 29:9-10). Moses reminds the people that God brought them into the Land to open up your heart and the hearts of your offspring to love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul, in order that you may live (Deuteronomy 30:6) and that they now stand at a crossroads: See, I set before you this day life and prosperity, death and adversity (Deuteronomy 30:15). If they obey God, life and prosperity will be their reward; if they turn away from God, death and adversity will be their lot.

Yet Moses knows, because God tells him, that no sooner will he die than Israel will make the latter choice:

Adonai said to Moses: You are soon to lie with your ancestors. This people will thereupon go astray after the alien gods in their midst, in the land that they are about to enter: they will forsake Me and break My covenant that I made with them. Then My anger will flare up against them, and I will abandon them and hide My countenance from them. They shall be ready prey; and many evils and troubles shall befall them. And they shall say on that day, “Surely it is because our God is not in our midst that these evils have befallen us.” (Deuteronomy 31:16-17)

No wonder Moses feels drained and diminished! Has it all been for naught? Did Kohelet get it right when he wailed:

Utter futility! All is futile!

What real value is there for a person

In all the gains he makes beneath the sun?

One generation goes, another comes,

But the earth remains the same forever.

The sun rises, and the sun sets —

And glides back to where it rises…

Only that shall happen that has happened,

Only that occur that has occurred;

There is nothing new beneath the sun! (Ecclesiastes 1:2-4,9)

Will we, some day in the future, bemoan our futility and irrelevance the way Moses and Kohelet did theirs? Muriel Rukeyser, in her poem The Place in the Ways, expresses the on-going struggle to see our lives as meaningful:

Having come to this place

I set out once again

On the dark and marvelous way

From where I began:

Belief in the love of the world,

Woman, spirit, and man.

Having failed in all things

I enter a new age

Seeing the old ways as toys,

The houses of a stage

Painted and long forgot;

And I find love and rage.

Rage for the world as it is

But for what it may be

More love now than last year

And always less self-pity

Since I know in a clearer light

The strength of the mystery.

And at this place in the ways

I wait for song.

My poem-hand still, on the paper,

All night long.

Poems in throat and hand, asleep,

And my storm beating strong!

Will we, too, look back and say, “My life didn’t really matter; I didn’t really make a difference; the world is no different”? It helps to focus our Yom Kippur-induced “year-end review” or “life review” not on a global, panoramic view that attempts to encompass everything. Even Moses had trouble with that perspective.

Rather than the panoramic, let’s aim for a close-up, granular view of our lives. Consider your individual relationships, the “small” accomplishments, and the (no doubt many) deeds of chesed that you have performed during this past year. They are most reflective of who you really are. Whom have you loved, helped, taught, and supported in the past year? Whose life is better because of you?

Even more, if we can enter the chagim, and especially Yom Kippur, fully conscious of the good we have done (and therefore our potential to do more), the spiritual work of assessing, repenting, and confessing will be far less painful and far more productive.

In preparation for the chagim, take some time to look at the trees and you’ll see that they make up a significant and beautiful forest. A close-up view will reveal that we do matter and we do make a difference.

© Rabbi Amy Scheinerman

Entering Israel and entering Elul / Parshat Ki Tavo

If "timing is everything," it seems somewhat ironic that we read the iconic formula associated with Pesach now, at the end of summer, during the month of Elul, as we prepare ourselves for the upcoming High Holy Days, which focus on repentance, renewal, and reconciliation. But so be it, that’s how the cycle of Torah readings works, right? Perhaps there’s something more here than initially meets the eye.

Poised to enter Eretz Yisrael (the Land of Israel) after four long decades in the Wilderness, not to mention four centuries in Egyptian bondage before that, Moses instructs the people:

When you enter the land that the Adonai your God is giving you as a heritage, and you possess it and settle in it, you shall take some of every first fruit of the soil, which you harvest from the land that Adonai your God is giving you, put it in a basket and go to the place where the Adonai your God will choose to establish His name. You shall go to the priest in charge at that time and say to him, “I acknowledge this day before Adonai your God that I have entered the land that Adonai swore to our ancestors to assign us.” The priest shall take the basket from your hand and set it down in front of the altar of Adonai your God. You shall then recite as follows before Adonai your God: “My father was a fugitive Aramean. He went down to Egypt with meager numbers and sojourned there; but there he became a great and very populous nation. The Egyptians dealt harshly with us and oppressed us; they imposed heavy labor upon us. We cried to Adonai, the God of our ancestors, and Adonai heard our plea and saw our plight, our misery, and our oppression. Adonai freed us from Egypt by a mighty hand, by an outstretched arm and awesome power, and by signs and portents. He brought us to this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. Wherefore I now bring the first fruits of the soil which You, O Adonai, have given me.” (Deuteronomy 26:1-10)

At the very moment the Israelite people are looking forward to a future ripe with possibilities for becoming a people living out God’s covenant in freedom, a nation in their own land, Moses tells them to look backward: Remember where you came from. We are in the middle of Elul, poised to enter the High Holy Days. We are looking forward to a new year of blessings for us, for our families, for our people, for the world. Our hopes are high. Yet this is also our time we are called to look backward: Remember where you came from.

Moses exhorts the Israelites to look back not only to their recent past, but also further back, as well. He tells them: You were slaves in Egypt, but before that your ancestors were fugitive Arameans. Why do the Israelites need to look this far back? Perhaps it is in order to gain self-understanding, appreciation for how far they have come, and a sense of their purpose. Some people feel they need to turn their backs on the past in order to move forward. They believe that the past will anchor them, as indeed it can. This double-edged sword can cut both ways, however. There exists the danger that in looking back, we become caught in the trap of blaming others and thereby evading responsibility for our behavior and choices. If, however, we look back to appreciate our blessings (as the Israelites did), and also to understand, learn, accept, and then let go where appropriate (which the Israelites also needed to do), then looking back can be productive and helpful. Slavery was a terrible thing, but in looking back and remembering the horror or servitude, the Israelites could accomplish three things:

• Appreciate God’s redemption and their freedom.
• Empathetically recognize the importance of assuring freedom for others, especially those in their midst.
• Let go of any remaining vestige of slave mentality anchoring them to the worst experiences of their past.

When we do teshuvah (repentance), we engage in a spiritual looking back at the past year — what we have done, what we have failed to do, how we have affected others — and we often look further back, as well. There is much encouragement today to look back to childhood and family of origin to understand ourselves more fully; that is, why we are the way we are and why we do what we do. The double-edged sword exists here, too: There is the danger of becoming enmeshed in blaming others for our failures and mistakes, but there is also the opportunity to let go of anger, resentment, and the conviction that we are enslaved by our early experiences.

When we can look back in this way, we can see the coming year as the Promised Land of possibility in our quest to become the people we wish to be and were meant to be, just as Israel entered the Promised Land to become the nation she sought to become and was meant to become. As Israel entered Eretz Yisrael overflowing with possibility and dreams, so can we enter the New Year brimming with potential and direction.

May Elul bring us closer to God, closer to those we love, and closer to ourselves.

© Rabbi Amy Scheinerman

A Monstrous Mitzvah Defanged / Parshat Ki Teitzei

Phyllis Trible coined the term “texts of terror” nearly 30 years ago to describe four biblical narratives that feature women suffering rape, expulsion, murder, and dismemberment at the hands of patriarchal men. In all cases, the anonymous narrator is coolly unconcerned with the suffering and fate of the women, and later misogynistic readings have certainly not redeemed them.

These are not the only troubling texts in Torah, of course. There are, too, what I would call Monstrous Mitzvot, commandments conceived by an ancient society whose moral sensibilities on some subjects are far from ours today.

Exhibit A: In parshat Ki Teitzei we learn the fate of a mamzer. The usual English translation is “bastard,” and while mamzer is used pejoratively in common parlance, its technical meaning is a child born of an incestuous or adulterous relationship.

A mamzer shall not be admitted into the congregation of the Lord; none of his dependents, even in the tenth generation, shall be admitted into the congregation of the Lord. (Deuteronomy 23:3)

The stigma of being branded a mamzer was severe indeed. A mamzer was forbidden from marrying any but another mamzer, and his/her progeny carried the taint as well — in perpetuity. This is a classic case of punishing a child for the sins of the parents, even though in the very same parashah we read:

Parents shall not be put to death for children, nor children be put to death for parents: a person shall be put to death only for his own crime. (Deuteronomy 24:16)

Is this verse meant to be read narrowly: to specify only cases that are din nefesh (capital offenses liable to the death penalty), or rather should it be understood to say that in general children should not be punished for the sins of their parents, and vice versa?

Regardless, every fiber of my being tells me that branding a human being a mamzer and denying him and his progeny full access to marriage in the community is a horrendous evil, a violation of that person’s dignity and very humanity — values that surely ought to trump Torah’s aversion to incest and adultery.

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The prophet Nathan confronts King David and Bathsheba who have produced a mamzer through their adulterous relationship. Bronze bas-relief on the door of La Madeleine in Paris.

The Rabbis struggle with the law of mamzeirut. Talmud defines the law as pertaining to incest and adultery (Kiddushin 3:12, 69a; and Yebamot 4:13, 45b). The Sages themselves recognized the gross injustice of the law. In Vayikra Rabbah 32:8, we find this breathtaking midrash:

I further observed all the oppression that goes on under the sun: the tears of the oppressed, with none to comfort them; and the power of their oppressors — with none to comfort them (Ecclesiastes 4:1). Chanina the tailor interpreted this verse as pertaining to mamzerim. “The tears of the oppressed” means: their mothers transgressed and these poor ones are excluded; this one’s father committed incest, but what has [the offspring] done and why should [the offspring] be affected? “None to comfort him” refers to Israel’s Great Sanhedrin, who come at them with Torah’s power (authority) and exclude them, applying [to them] “No mamzer shall be admitted into the congregation of the Lord” (Deuteronomy 23:3). [Concerning] “None to comfort them,” the Holy One says: It is for me to comfort them. Yes, in this world some are spurned, but as for the future, Zechariah has said, I see people all of gold (Zechariah 4:2).

I don’t know who Chanina the tailor is. Perhaps that is the point: he represents any thinking, feeling human being, and here speaks for the Rabbis when he gives unequivocal moral voice to the implicit cruelty of the law of the mamzer. He makes no effort to justify it, or work around it. He attacks it head-on as nothing less than “oppressive.” His utter contempt is not limited to this Torah law; it encompasses any Jewish court that enforces it, inflicting suffering so deep that only God can provide comfort. The attempt to provide solace at the end — in olam haba (the world-to-come) where the mamzer’s suffering will be recompensed, or at least the taint will be erased — rings hollow. Who would make that choice?

In a strange and initially troubling discussion of how many generations retain the taint, and why, we find this:

R. Zeira said: It was explained to me by Rav Yehudah that publicly known mamzerim live; unknown mamzerim do not live, and those who are partly known and partly unknown live for three generations but no longer. A certain man once lived in the neighborhood of R. Ammi, who made a public announcement that he was a mamzer. As the [exposed man] was bewailing his outing, [R. Ammi] said to him: I have given you life!

The presumption seems to be that God will bring about the death of mamzerim, so there is no need to worry about their marriages; since they won’t live long enough to contract a marriage, the community is safe from the taint. R. Ammi goes so far as to say that in outing the mamzer in his community, he has prevented the necessity of God intervening and expunging the life of the closet mamzer. All the warmth and compassion of an ice floe.

But perhaps that’s not the only way to read the passage.  R. Zeira tells us that we can trust God to take care of the problem of mamzerim; we don’t need to go on a witch-hunt. R. Ammi, whose words sound incomparably cruel, in a strange way reinforces the notion that God takes care of mamzerim and we needn’t go looking for them. The message is: leave well enough alone. This is not your problem. Leave it to God. And that is a fine message.

Nonetheless the problem arises in any community, that there is always one sniveling tattletale. What if that person outs someone who is a technical mamzer? The Rabbis are keenly aware of this possibility. They tell us:

[Even if] it is rumored that [a woman] has been unfaithful to her husband, and everyone's tongue is wagging about her – her children are not suspected of being mamzerim. [This is so because we presume that] most of [the married woman's] acts of intercourse are with her husband. (Sotah 27a)

We can take encouragement from this Talmudic statement, and additionally from Rabbi Moses Isserles (1520-1579, known as the Ramah). In the Ramah’s gloss to the Shulkhan Arukh (Even ha-Ezer 2.15) he writes:  

[In the case of] one who is unfit has become mixed in a particular family, once it has become mixed it has become mixed and whoever knows of the disqualification is not permitted to disclose it and must leave well alone since all families in which there has been an admixture will become pure in the future.

And there it stands. The monstrous mitzvah of punishing a child (and his progeny for generations to come!) for the sin of a parent is effectively dismantled and set aside. Human dignity and compassion in the face of human suffering trumps an ancient taboo foisted on innocent children. We can breath a collective sigh of halakhic relief.

© Rabbi Amy Scheinerman

Me and Us / Parshat Re'eh

In 1990, a delegation of Jews was invited to visit the Dalai Lama at Dharamsala in India, the seat of the Tibetan government-in-exile. The Dalai Lama wanted to learn the “Jewish secret for surviving exile.” After all, we were going on two millennia. Whom better to ask?

Nathan Katz, professor of religions of India, the history of religions, and spirituality at Florida International University, and a member of the delegation, has written:

The Dalai Lama is intrigued that Jews are able to embrace both secular and religious members within our family. Paul [Professor Paul Mendes-Flohr, scholar of Modern Jewish History and Thought at Hebrew University and University of Chicago Divinity School] eloquently articulates the dilemma of modernity: personal fulfillment is the watchword of the modern world, whereas communal responsibility is the hallmark of tradition. Jews are perceived as the first people to find a balance between the two — individualism and community — providing a model for any traditional people confronting the modern world.

Balancing individualism and community is no easy task. I see the earliest echoes of that effort in Parshat Re’eh in and around the question of the consumption of meat and tithes. We find, in Torah, an interesting progression of ideas about when, and for what purpose, meat is eaten.

We know that the patriarchs made sacrifices wherever they found themselves. Jacob built an altar in Beth El. There was a cultic center in Shechem for a many centuries, particularly after the nation split into a Northern Kingdom and a Southern Kingdom following the reign of King Solomon. And indeed, Exodus 20:21 seems to permit sacrifices to be made anywhere.

Leviticus 17:2-7, however, already knows of a centralized sanctuary:

…This is in order that the Israelites may bring the sacrifices that they have been making in the open — that they may bring them before the Lord, to the priest, at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting, and offer them as sacrifices of well-being to the Lord… (Leviticus 17:5)

Deuteronomy reflects the centralization of sacrifice, but also recognizes that animals might be slaughtered in a non-cultic setting; that is, merely for food. In this week’s parashah we read:

Take care not to sacrifice your burnt offerings in any place you like, but only in the place that the Lord will choose in one of your tribal territories. There you shall sacrifice your burnt offerings and there you shall observe all that I enjoin upon you… You may not partake in your settlements of the tithes of your new grain or new wine or oil, or of the firstlings of your herds and flocks, or of any of the votive offerings that you vow, or of your freewill offerings, or of your contributions. These you must consume before the Lord your God in the place that the Lord your God will choose — you and your sons and your daughters, your male and female slaves, and the Levite in your settlements — happy before the Lord your God in all your undertakings. Be sure not to neglect the Levite as long as you live in your land. (Deuteronomy 12:13-14, 17-19)

What might we do with this? What message is there for us beyond an interesting little lesson in the historical and political development of Israel’s sacrificial cult?

There are two poles of Jewish life: home and community. Home is the locus for the celebration of many holidays and rituals. It is the mikdash me’at (“small sanctuary”) reflecting the values and aspirations of the larger nation in an intimate miniature — home and hearth, with the ones we know best and who know us best. But the mikdash me’at (home and hearth) is not sufficient. Home alone is life in isolation. We need the Mikdash itself — the broader community. Torah seeks to strike a balance between home and sanctuary, between individuality and community. We are best off when we have both in our lives.

It’s worth reiterating Nathan Katz’s summary of Paul Mendes-Flohr’s observation:

…personal fulfillment is the watchword of the modern world, whereas communal responsibility is the hallmark of tradition. Jews are perceived as the first people to find a balance between the two — individualism and community — providing a model for any traditional people confronting the modern world.

Mendes-Flohr’s observation is worthy of our serious consideration. The key is the word “responsibility” which is perhaps another way to say commitment and involvement. While some sacred moments and rituals are best reserved for the intimacy of the family dinner table (shabbat dinners, Pesach seders, and Chanukah celebrations come to mind here), others are far more meaningful in the context of community (here High Holy Day worship, a child becoming bar/bat mitzvah, and Shavuot celebrations jump to mind). There is immeasurable value in coming together as a community — and accordingly reserving certain sacred moments, rites, and experiences to be with the broader community — and not just family or those whom we adopt as family.

It helps to remember that it’s not just that each of us needs a community to be part of; the community needs each one of us.

© Rabbi Amy Scheinerman

Baby play is serious stuff / Parshat Ekev

As the world giddily awaits the birth of the youngest heir to the British throne, a child that will enter the world and grow up in storybook fashion, so too do we watch the torturous and heartbreaking case of Baby Veronica. There are so many complex and perplexing issues that surround fertility, childbirth, and parenthood. Here is NPR’s synopsis of the case:

Before Veronica was born, [biological father Dusten] Brown had given up his parental rights, but he began seeking full custody of his daughter after finding out that she had been put up for adoption. In 2011, the South Carolina court ruled that under the ICWA — which was enacted in 1978 to prevent the separation of Native American children from their biological families and tribes — the Capobiancos [Veronica’s adoptive parents since birth] had to turn Veronica over to her biological father. But in June, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Brown could not claim parental rights under ICWA because he "abandoned the [American] Indian child before birth and never had custody of the child."[1]

Thus Veronica returns to the parents who had raised her since birth, from the beginning, and will continue to have a relationship with her biological mother, Christy Maldonado, under the terms of the open adoption. This case was complicated by the fact that although Dusten Brown, the child’s biological father, is registered with the Cherokee Nation as a Native American, he has been described as being 2% Cherokee — yet any degree is sufficient to register. In 1978, the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) was passed to "promote the stability and security of Indian tribes and Indian families by the establishment of minimum federal standards to prevent the arbitrary removal of Indian children from their families and tribes and to ensure that measures which prevent the breakup of Indian families are followed in child custody proceedings."

Torah, in this week’s parashah, Ekev, acknowledges fertility as a blessing that results from Israel’s loyalty to God and faithfulness to her covenant with God. In other words, it’s conditional. In this case, I provide the Hebrew as well as a translation because a peculiarity in the Hebrew leads to a most interesting story in the Talmud.

And if you do obey these rules and observe them carefully, the Lord your God will maintain faithfully for you the covenant that He made on oath with your fathers: he will favor you and bless you and multiply you; He will bless the issue of your [masculine singular] belly (p’ri bitnkha) and the produce of your soil, your new grain and wine and oil, the calving of your herd and the lambing of your flock, in the land that He swore to your fathers to assign to you. (Deuteronomy 7:12-13)

The peculiarity occurs in verse 13 where “your womb… your soil… your new grain and wine and oil… your herd… your flock” are all couched in the masculine singular possessive form. This means that, “He will bless the issue of your womb,” is couched in the masculine singular possessive. How can that be? Only women have wombs. It is clear from context that Moses speaks to the people as one; his words are addressed to the entire nation as an aggregate. This anomaly leads to a story in the Bavli (Babylonian Talmud) in which someone named Ulla (itself a marvelous gender joke: Ulla is a man) travels from the Land of Israel to Babylonian and finds himself a guest in the home of R. Nachman, where it is customary to pass a cup of wine called the Cup of Blessing around the table after the final blessings after eating so each person present can call upon the blessing he or she wants. In one swift and nasty move, Ulla redefines fertility as a divine blessing given only to men (based on the masculine singular possessive in our verse above) and then reduces the scope of the Cup of Blessing to fertility alone. Hence, women can be entirely excluded from the Cup of Blessing. Yalta, the wife of R. Nachman, is not pleased, nor is she passive. The consequences are not pretty. Here’s the story:

Ulla once happened to be a guest at R. Nachman’s house. He ate a meal, led the grace after meals, and passed the Cup of Blessing to R. Nachman. R. Nachman said to him: Please pass the Cup of Blessing (kasa d’virkhata דברכתא כסא) to Yalta. He [Ulla] replied: This is what R. Yochanan [ben Nappacha] said: “The issue of a woman’s belly (bitna בטנה) is blessed only through the issue of a man’s belly (bitno בטנו) as Scripture says: He will bless the issue of your [masculine singular] belly (p’ri bitnkha) (Deuteronomy 7:13). It does not say “her belly” but rather “your belly.” So too a baraita teaches: R. Natan said: Where is the prooftext in Scripture that the issue of a woman’s belly is blessed only through the issue of a man’s belly? As Scripture says, He will bless the issue of your [masculine singular] belly (p’ri biknkha). It does not say “her belly” but rather “your belly.” When Yalta heard this, she got up furiously angry, went to the wine storeroom, and smashed 400 jars of wine. R. Nachman said to Ulla: Please send her another cup. He [Ulla] sent it [with this message]: All of this is a goblet of blessing (navga d’virkhata).” She sent [this reply]: From travelers come tall tales and from rag pickers lice.” (Berakhot 51b)

Ulla refuses to pass the Cup of Blessing to Yalta because he claims that her ability to bear children derives not from her fertility; it is all about her husband, and only he need receive the Cup of Blessing. Yalta’s point is clear and dramatic: if blessings come from the cup of wine, how many can she deny the men by smashing 400 jars of wine?

Ulla’s attempt to define Yalta out of the process of blessing and fertility and childbirth came to mind when I learned that Baby Veronica was torn away from her adoptive parents — the only parents she had ever known — because of a law that defines her as Native American and despite her father having signed away all rights to her. I have the utmost respect for the aim of the Indian Child Welfare Act, supported by a sensitivity born of the controversial baptisms of Jewish children during the Holocaust, which continues to be a controversial concern. But I know too that the ICWA was designed to benefit and protect children, not wrench them from loving parents after a proper legal process has been followed.

There is a conflict of interest in many court cases: Parents come to court to seek what they understand to be their rights. The courts are tasked with protecting the welfare of children. An article published in Pediatrics, the journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics, explains it this way:

Child protection cases are under the jurisdiction of juvenile or family court under the parens patriae role of the court, the state’s interest in and responsibility for the well-being of all children in the state. The state, recognizing that the parens patriae role conflicts with common law reflecting children as chattel (personal property) of their parents, will exercise its authority with caution. Although no state now recognizes parental ownership and unrestricted control of children, each state is committed to protecting a family’s autonomy and privacy and the parents’ right to decide how to raise their children. (Pediatrics Vol. 104 No. 5 November 1, 1999
pp. 1145 -1148)

Children are a blessing (the greatest blessing most of us will ever know) but they are not chattel, to be transferred and traded by adults. A society’s decency and justice can be measured by how it treats its most vulnerable members. Our children are the most vulnerable members of our society. The welfare of children must be made paramount. South Carolina's Supreme Court is to be applauded for doing just that.

© Rabbi Amy Scheinerman

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[1] http://www.npr.org/blogs/codeswitch/2013/07/18/203288653/s-c-high-court-moves-to-end-saga-of-baby-veronica

Ambassador-at-large / V'etchanan

Diplomat Sir Henry Wotton wrote: “An ambassador is an honest gentleman sent to lie abroad for the good of his country.” That may hold for politics, but what about the realm of religion?

Rabbi JonathanSacks, writing about how we might draw close to God during the y’mei-teshuvah, the ten days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, exhorts us to find God’s divine presence through, “Kiddush Hashem, sanctifying God’s name in the world by acting as God’s ambassadors. "The roots of the notion that we are God’s ambassadors are deeply embedded in this week’s parashah.

See, I have imparted to you laws and rules, as the Lord my God has commanded me, for you to abide by in the land that you are about to enter and occupy. Observe them faithfully, for that will be proof of your wisdom and discernment  [chochmah and binah] to other peoples, who on hearing of all these laws will say, “Surely, that great nation is a wise and discerning people [chacham v’navon].” For what great nation is there that has a god so close at hand as is the Lord our God whenever we call upon Him? Or what great nation has laws and rules as just as all this Teaching that I set before you this day? (Deuteronomy 4:5-8)

The notion that we are God’s ambassadors is not new, and is closely tied to the controversial, confusing, and uncomfortable notion of chosenness. Rabbi Uziel Milevsky provides a traditional explanation in a torah.org column: “In essence, Jews are God's ambassadors in this world. When a non-Jew commits a sin in public, he alone bears the consequences. In contrast, when a Jew sins publicly, he is not the only one affected ― through his sin God's esteem is diminished among people and His Name is desecrated. As the most advanced society of its day, Egypt represented the world at large. For this reason God set out to elevate the Egyptian conception of God, through the experiences of the Jewish people. Thus the ultimate role of the Jews in Egypt was to bring the world to a clearer understanding of God.”

This idea of ambassadorship is riddled with problems and concerns. We could certainly jettison the idea as untenable and inappropriate in our day, but I prefer to explore it further. It seems to me that the underlying question boils down to this: Does this “clearer understanding of God” mean that Jews should run out and become evangelists for Torah toward the end that in the fullness of time everyone becomes Jewish? Or, alternatively, does it mean that Jews should share with humanity Jewish insights and wisdom, Torah’s exhortation to build a justice, moral, and compassionate society?

I would hold no to the former, and yes to the latter.

We are not evangelists, holding that our perspective on God and our traditions are superior to others and that to be saved, fulfilled, or made whole, other people need to “see the truth” which only we possess. Such thinking is obnoxious and offensive. Our prayers make this abundantly clear. Our public prayer services end with Aleinu, which closes with a verse from this week’s parashah, V’etchanan:

Know therefore this day and keep in mind that the Lord alone is God in heaven above and on earth below; there is no other. (Deuteronomy 4:39)

In the context of parshat V’etchanan, this verse enjoins the Israelites to scrupulously observe God’s laws for them and thereby ensure their success and longevity in the Land of Israel. In the context of Aleinu, however, the same verse expresses the hope that some day in the future, the evil of idolatry will disappear and no longer lead people morally astray, and of course this can include Jews; but it does not suggest that everyone will become Jewish.

The alternative to understanding ambassadorship as license to go out and convert the world is sharing Jewish insights and wisdom. This is a bit more complex. We quoted Torah above a saying: Observe [God’s Torah] faithfully, for that will be proof of your wisdom and discernment [chochmah and binah] to other peoples, who on hearing of all these laws will say, “Surely, that great nation is a wise and discerning people [chacham v’navon].” Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch (1808-1888) understands chochmah to be absorption of truths, and binah to be the intelligence needed to draw the correct inferences and conclusions from what one has learned. He writes in his commentary to this passage from parshat V’etchanan:

Whatever arts and sciences may characterize the heritage of other civilized nations, yours, the Jewish arts and sciences, are the knowledge and skills needed to build up all of personal and national life upon two foundations: your awareness of God and your awareness of your duties to human beings. These are the arts and sciences entailed in knowing the Law of God and translating it into reality, the arts and sciences of truth and of a harmonious life.

Hirsch is attempting to convince the Jews of his day, who are just beginning to be accepted into secular European society, to retain their heritage and not assimilate. We, however, can understand Torah’s comment about “wisdom and discernment” together with Hirsch’s observation in another way: We have something to offer the world and therefore the obligation to do so.

Struggling with diaspora Jewish existence, Hirsch comments further:

You are the only nation on earth that possessed laws before it possessed a land of its own. Furthermore, these laws that have been given to you are the only laws extant that are not intended as a means for building up a national existence and for achieving national independence and prosperity based on the possession of a land of your own. They represent, instead, the sole end for which you were given existence as an independent nation on your own soil. Every other nation becomes a nation solely by virtue of the fact that it has a land of its own; only after that does it create its own laws to be observed in that land. You, by contrast, became a nation solely by virtue of your Law and were given a land of your own solely for the purpose that you may observe that Law. (p. 668)

In essence, Hirsch is saying that while other nations developed their laws and cultures because people living together in one geographic area needed to do so to survive, Israel came into existence as a nation with its own turf in order to promote Torah.

Today, we have our turf back. The State of Israel, for all its struggles and challenges, is thriving and contributing to the world in many areas, from Jewish studies to high tech biomedical innovations. But most Jews live outside Israel, in countries around the globe. There are many people today hungering for wisdom, insights into the complexities of life, and spiritual connection. Judaism has much to offer without presenting itself as the only legitimate wellspring of wisdom and truth. This is happening.

As an example, Rabbis Without Borders is working to achieve this goal. Their mission “is to nurture and develop a network of rabbis with a shared vision to make Jewish wisdom available to anyone looking to enrich his or her life.” Many rabbis and others write and blog in an effort to share — not evangelize — Jewish moral values, spiritual models, modes of thinking, and methods for exploring and analyzing difficult issues. Many of us speak with and teach classes for both Jews and non-Jews; our goal is to enrich, not convert. This, for me, is what ambassadorship is all about.

The claim to exclusive wisdom and truth should have no place in a diverse and highly connected modern world. Intellectual integrity should reign supreme, lest we fall into an abyss of fundamentalist, anti-intellectual, regressive ideas and beliefs. Our society needs a marketplace for ideas, competing not on platforms of claims of exclusivity and superiority, but on their own merits. Caveat emptor. Our job is to be ambassadors; not of the sort Sir Henry Wooton knew, who while constitutionally honest are compelled to lie when doing their job, but rather who seek truth and wisdom and feel privileged to share what they have discovered with interested others.

© Rabbi Amy Scheinerman