Why I Am a Religious Woman

As I was preparing a sign to take to last night's demonstration in Jerusalem against right-wing thuggery, it occurred to me that I've been doing this for a long time. Not often enough, I admit, but I started going to demonstrations (against the Vietnam war) in high school, and I'm now well up in my sixth decade.

So where has it gotten me, all this demonstrating? Has it had an effect? Is the world a better place?

With age, I become more skeptical. The world -- the human world -- doesn't seem to be showing any less warts than it did 40-odd years ago. Or 4000-odd years ago, when the Torah had G!d declaring that "the inclination of the human heart is wicked from its youth." Is peace in the Middle East possible? Can humans learn to live together tolerantly, without exploiting, shunning, wounding and killing? Can religion inspire without giving way to obscurantism? Can the natural world survive us?

No, as I grow older, I tend more toward the perspective of Ecclesiastes, though perhaps there are some new things under the sun. Our urge to mass slaughter and environmental destruction have not changed much, but our ability to make good on them has grown.

Do I think G!d will save (the state of) Israel? Did G!d do that in the past? No, I think G!d's pretty much put that in our hands. And our hands are shaking a lot, lately. Messiah is something accomplished by humans of faith, who can produce good leaders (who stay good) and follow them in good directions. Think about it.

So if I think our efforts are unlikely to redeem the world, and more likely to make us look like laughingstocks in a world that glorifies money and power, why am I still at it?

That, my friends, is faith. I believe in the Torah's commands to do good and be just, however short I fall. I believe we are commanded to keep trying, tenaciously, no matter what. Even if there's little hope of success. Even if they laugh at us or throw things at us. That, too, will keep happening. The world hangs between destructive and constructive forces. We are commanded to keep trying to tip the balance, and to create faith communities for that purpose.

I believe, too, in the extraordinary power of art, in the inspiration to beauty rooted in Spirit, in truths that lie beyond what we can intellectualize. It's not just the hand of the artist, natural or human; it's our eye -- our senses and mind -- programmed to receive and recognize all this, to be inspired and, sometimes, to inspire. To see and, sometimes, to be changed.

There's a spiritual dimension to human relationships, too -- to our ability to connect, communicate, empathize, share and help. And somehow, from what I have seen, those relationships grow best in communities that create common ground and prioritize connecting, communicating, empathizing, sharing and helping in light of a common purpose.

Do you need to be a religious Jew, or a religious person, to believe in all this? Well, no. Sometimes religion can distract from these very purposes. There are many paths of truth, of the same spirit that shows itself in art and in relationships. There are also many paths that lead astray, and even some of them have sparks of spirit in them.

To me, though, it is faith that keeps turning me toward the big issues, bringing them into focus even in the cacophony of religious voices pointing in several different directions. It is faith that keeps directing me to go back and try again. That spirit that shows itself in the pursuit of the good, the just and the holy, in bringing communities together, and in the appreciation of beauty -- my word for it is G!d, though some have other words for it. And I've found nothing better than a community of faith to create and bind human relationships, by rooting them in the joint pursuit of the holy. Ultimately -- because I do live in a community -- it is religion that holds it all together for me.

And that's why you'll still find me at another demonstration -- for a cause that may not be identified with religion.

Why I Support Israel's Tent Protesters -- And Why You Should, Too

"When you have eaten your fill, and have built fine houses to live in, and your herds and flocks have multiplied, and your silver and gold have increased, and everything you own has prospered, beware lest your heart grow haughty and you forget your God ... And you say to yourselves, 'My own power and the might of my own hand have won this wealth for me. ...' For your God is ... the great, the mighty and the awesome God, who shows no favor and takes no bribe, but upholds the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and befriends the stranger, providing food and clothing." (Deut. 8:12-14, 17; 10:17-18 -- from this week's Torah portion)

According to this morning's paper, the month-long movement of social protest here in Israel has aroused little interest and less support around the world. With a world in financial crisis; existential threats to Israel's security -- grimly brought home to us yet again today; a diplomatic stalemate and a cratering image; deep cracks in Israel's democracy; boycotts to fight (or support) -- why take an interest in a scraggly group of youths in shorts and tank tops, lounging around in tents and keeping their lips tightly buttoned on all of the above issues? You might say that, but I think you'd be wrong. From where I sit, those kids look like Israel's last, best hope.

Full disclosure: My son is at one of the tent camps now, in the center of Jerusalem. He's almost 25, post-combat service, post-volunteering in a kibbutz and in a home for troubled teenagers, post-Jewish study year, now going into his second year at the Hebrew University. A serious young man, just starting out in life, not untypical of dozens of young men and women of his generation. He's grown up in a middle-class home and never known hunger or deprivation, though he's met those who have. He has a strong Jewish and Israeli identity. And he's convinced that Israel needs a new social contract -- convinced enough to set it at the very top of his personal list of priorities. Convinced enough to spend night after night at the tent camp, deep in discussion of how to bring about a change in Israel's direction.

My son belongs to a generation that's come of age and realized that what the Promised Land promises them, under current conditions, is a life of increasing debt, in which two professional salaries are not enough to make ends meet; an economy that's been sold out to a handful of tycoons and cartels; a struggling "free" education system in which all that's free are the teacher and the blackboard, and everything else, if it's available at all, comes at a price; a deteriorating public health system; an environment that's being devoured to create housing for the rich; and a society that leaves its poor and needy without the resources to get on their feet. The kids who are out there demonstrating are the strong ones. They don't need handouts and aren't asking for them. They're asking for a stake in society, not just for themselves, but also for the less fortunate. They're asking for a society made over according to their ideals.

Many of these kids are quite well aware that the ongoing diplomatic and political stalemate has produced a stalemated society. But they know that airing these issues will create dissension, where they need unity to create change. One of the most remarkable aspects of this movement is how little rancor it has produced. These are the kids who finished their army or national service and went off to see the world. Their travels made them realize how deeply Israeli they are and how much they love their language and their country, even when it gives them so little. They're smart, resourceful and fun-loving; give them a square meter for a tent, and they'll do the rest. They could give up and go elsewhere, but for the moment, they don't want to. They want the Promised Land to turn back into their Land of Promise.

These kids, if we keep them, are set to become the backbone of Israel's society. They're our future, which means that they also hold the key to the future of the country and -- at least to an extent -- of the Jewish people. Let them down, and we're lost.

So, shouldn't they be talking about those existential problems that are of such grave concern to Jews around the world? The stalemated situation that's partially responsible for society's woes? The injustices towards Israel's second-class citizens and third-class non-citizens? I say: wait. Once the issue of social injustice has been raised and aired; once it's allowed to stay and be debated in the public space, it demands examination of the whole society.

This movement that's brought hundreds of thousands out into the public space is the only one on the horizon that has the potential to break the stalemates and open minds to imagine different futures. If you're hoping for an Israel that can grow, change and forge ahead -- give it your love and support.

How long will we keep hopping between two opinions?

The Hebrew name of the great holiday of Passover, whose conclusion we mark tonight and tomorrow (as Christians this year conclude the celebration of Easter), is Pesach -- so called, because G!d "skipped" (pasach) over the doorways marked with the blood of the Passover sacrifice in searching out Egypt's first-born sons for slaying. It was this terrible final plague that persuaded Pharaoh to let the Jews go free.

The association of Pesach with the prophet Elijah is well known: Elijah's cup sits in the center of the Seder table, and it is to him that we open our doors before concluding the Seder. Elijah is also the speaker in one of the rare appearances of the word pasach in the Prophets: "How long will you keep hopping (poschim) between opinions?" he demands of the Israelites on Mt. Carmel. "If the Lord is G!d, follow him; and if Baal, follow him!" As R. Yaakov Madan points out in a pre-Pesach sermon published on the Internet, this doesn't meant that the Israelites were dithering between G!d-worship and Baal-worship; rather, having failed to make a decision, they were doing both at the same time. This course, Elijah warned them, was untenable; it would lead to corruption, violence, doom.

As some modern commentators point out, it's not always bad to dither; sometimes it is wise to draw back and consider the many facets of a situation before making a decision. Indeed, to make a wise decision, critical thinking is called for -- critical thinking that allows us to comprehend things and their opposites, differences of opinion, multiplicity, and the possibility of numerous truths, or numerous facets of truth -- the "70 faces of Torah." By contrast, action is brutal; in taking one course and persisting with it, we reject others. Yet it is by taking decisive action that we achieve tikkun ha'olam: liberation, the rectification of injustice, and the fulfillment of dreams.

Indeed, that is part and parcel of the Passover story. Legend tells us that not all the Israelites came out of Egypt: Only those who were willing to make a stand and paint their doorposts red with the blood of the sacrifice were liberated.

I thought of Elijah recently when I attended a demonstration against sex segregation on public buses serving (among others) the ultra-Orthodox population in Jerusalem. Yes, one could make an argument that such segregation is justified by the religious sensitivities of this population -- or by the economic needs of the public bus company, which fears competition from private companies serving this population alone. For these reasons, as one of the speakers at the demonstration pointed out, the government is pursuing a policy of trying to have it both ways --both approving and rejecting sex segregation -- rather than taking a firm stand on a policy that may render women second-class citizens in the public transportation system, of which they are prime users.

But isn't this also true of some other important aspects of our existence? Where it comes to the territories, too, we want to have it both ways: We want to stay in the territories and to withdraw from them. To keep Jerusalem united and to keep it on the negotiating table. To have a Jewish state and to keep the Palestinian population under our control. When I say to people: OK, so we're going for a bi-national state, they look at me with horror. But: Isn't that what we have?

The Passover story, the leap of Nachshon into the Red Sea, the story of Elijah on Mt. Carmel -- all these teach that there are times when we need to make decisions, however heartbreaking they may be in some respects, and see them through. Notwithstanding the blood smeared on the doorposts, the path of the Israelites led to freedom, spiritual uplift, and dreams of universal justice. May we all be blessed with knowing when we are called upon to take a stand, and may we have the courage to do so.

Postscript -- there are also spouses who want to stay married and be separated at the same time, to keep their wives tethered to them and be free to do as they please. Here, too, "hopping between two opinions" is the way to destruction.

Maternal Wisdom and Solving the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

I often think that word “solution” should be expunged from the language. I do mean that, among other things, in the sense of “solving the Israel-Palestine problem.” Speaking of “solutions” indicates that there is a definable, condensable problem, to which there is some kind of unique “solution” out there, which, if we could only get everyone to see it, could turn a hopelessly muddled situation into a good, well ordered reality. The American-style “can-do” mindset sets us to thinking that if there’s a problem, then of course we MUST and CAN solve it. But jumping too quickly to “solutions,” clever as we think they are, tends to pull our eyeball off the problems, which meanwhile languish and fester in all their knotty complexity.

Last week, I turned to the weekly Torah portion of Toledot for some illumination on this issue, with the help of the commentary of R. Samson Raphael Hirsch. Near the beginning of the reading, it is said of Rebekah:

The children struggled in her womb, and she said, “If so, why do I exist?” She went to inquire of G!d, and G!d answered her: “Two nations are in your womb, two separate peoples shall issue from your body; one people shall be mightier than the other, and the older shall serve the younger.” When her time to give birth was at hand, there were twins in her womb. The first one emerged red, like a hairy mantle all over; so they named him Esau. Then his brother emerged, holding on the heel of Esau; so they named him Jacob.

Even before they were born, these two children were locked in struggle. Rebekah was deeply and spiritually involved in their striving, and from before they were born until the end of the story, she struggled, as a mother, to cope.

A Talmudic proverb says that a child or a young person should be educated “according to their own way.” Hirsch asserts that the parents, Isaac and Rebekah, in their eagerness to pass on the spiritual heritage of Abraham, were wrong to try to educate these two very different children in the same classroom. Sitting in school was good for Jacob, but not for Esau. Like a child with an “attention deficit” issue, he rebelled and ran away to the fields.

Years pass, and the two boys confront each other over a stewpot. Whether this exchange was “for real” or, as Hirsch suggests, a boyish acting out of the rivalry between the brothers, each must have brought to it his own resentments: Esau, for his parents’ inattention to his specific needs; Jacob, for a deficit of father-love. As we know, “Isaac favored Esau, because he had a taste for game, but Rebekah favored Jacob.” Each, says Hirsch, also brought his own natural inclinations: Esau, roaming the fields, had no real desire for the property and responsibility that would come with the birthright, while Jacob longed for the heritage of his forebears. (As Hirsch points out, the upshot was exactly the reverse: Jacob, after the affair of the paternal blessing, ended up being forced to leave his parental home with nothing but his staff and the clothes on his back, leaving Esau to inherit the family estate.)

Sensing the enmity between the boys, Isaac tried to resolve it by imposing the “fair and square” solution of giving Esau his paternal blessing, as the rightful firstborn. But Rebekah understood that Esau, the loner, was unsuited to spiritual leadership. Dressing Jacob in Esau’s clothes, as Hirsch presents it, was a scheme to buy time; Rebekah knew that the deception would be discovered immediately – and such, in fact, was her intent. By foiling Isaac’s plan to hand over the leadership immediately – though he was still far from being on his deathbed – she hoped to allow her two sons more time to settle their differences and define their roles over against one another.

Here, too, though, she misstepped grievously. Esau’s understandable fury became murderous. Ever “the mother of Jacob and Esau,” as she is called at the end of the story, Rebekah was alive to the complex and conflicting emotions and inclinations of both her sons. Educated by her failures and continuing to grow and develop as a mother, she arrived at the painful understanding that their struggle could not be resolved quickly, and so they must be separated. She sent her favorite son away to a distant land, from which he was not to return in her lifetime. Living apart, however, the two men eventually arrived at a point in their life-paths where they were able to come together again without rage, if not in perfect brotherly love.

Today, the descendants of Isaac and Ishmael, Jacob and Esau, continue to struggle. What could not be resolved in the biblical narrative itself, and has not been resolved in the millennia since passed, evidently will not be resolved in our time, notwithstanding the almost painfully naïve ambitions of each new American president, or the duplicitous rhetoric of successive national leaders on every side. Don’t get me wrong: I think it is urgent to address the wrongs of the occupation, even as we protect ourselves from terror. But that is exactly the point. As we pursue the chimera of a “solution,” the occupation festers, the struggle continues, and rage, resentment and competition over resources claim yet more victims. Positing "fair" solutions is easy. Addressing the problems on the ground, while staying attuned to the spiritual and material yearnings of Palestinians and Israelis (including settlers), requires far greater wisdom, intense and unremitting work, and willingness to fail and try again.

Roger Cohen wrote this week in the International Herald Tribune that an Israeli-Palestinian solution is probably impossible under present conditions, given the hostility and fear that has built up on all sides. A truce, he declares, is not only the best one can hope for at the moment, but a worthy goal. I would add that if we can keep our eyeball, our minds and our efforts on the problems, we might even aspire to address and ameliorate them.

New Orleans and Thinking the Unthinkable

What does New Orleans have to do with Tisha be'Av?

Thanks to my dear friend, brilliant sociologist Brenda Brasher, I found myself in the "Big Easy" a couple of weeks ago, attending the conference she organized on "Jewish Women and Philanthropy." While I was there, Brenda helped me get my consciousness raised about the disaster that struck the city, and the efforts at recovery.

On a "Katrina tour" of the parts of the city hardest hit by the hurricane, I heard the bitterness in the voice of our soft-spoken guide, Gail Cherlew, whose home was flooded, destroying most of the possessions that make a life. "The flood was a man-made disaster," she told us more than once. Contrary to what one may have heard, it wasn't the earthen levees lining the Mississippi River and Lake Ponchartrain that gave way. It was the drainage canals running through parts of the city, whose purpose is to drain off floodwaters and pump them into the lake. And those, Gail told us, were not built to the specifications set down for them by the federal government. Meant to go 50 feet into the ground, they went down a mere 14 feet. When the test came, they simply fell down.

Somewhere along the way, the money for building those canal walls was siphoned off, leaving the city at risk of catastrophe. The possibility of a catastrophic storm had in fact been considered -- yet was put aside as "unthinkable."

Maybe you can already see what I'm getting at. In the additional reading for the Torah portion of Deuteronomy, read last Shabbat as part of the lead-up to Tisha be'Av, we heard: "Your silver has turned to dross; your wine is cut with water. Your rulers are rogues and cronies of thieves, every one avid for presents and greedy for gifts; they do not judge the case of the orphan, and the widow's cause never reaches them" (Isaiah 1:22-23).

Which of these decadent ways created the aperture by which the catastrophe of conquest rushed in? We cannot know. It is said that the first destruction was a result of corruption; the second -- leading to a 2,000 year exile -- of divisiveness and mutual hostility. But these were the indirect causes; the direct cause was conquest and defeat by a greater power that became an enemy. Decadence blinded the nation to the reality of the risks facing it and to the holes in its defenses. The possibility of conquest was the elephant in the room; it was "unthinkable" -- and so it was not prevented.

People will disagree about what the "elephant in the room" is today, and of course that's one of the problems. There are plenty of elephants to worry about, from meteorites striking the earth to swine flu. I personally see a grave risk in the policy of continuing to settle the territories while hoping that the "Palestinian problem" will somehow go away; and I see a grave source of corruption in keeping masses of people in our territory without the civil rights emanating from democracy. And what about the possibility of alienating our great friend, the United States? "Unthinkable"! Others will disagree with me about the elephant's identity. But perhaps the real difficulty is that decadence in our society will keep us from recognizing the real risks and coping with them before -- well, I don't want to say. It's unthinkable!

An Israeli whom I happened to meet in the US before setting out for New Orleans said to me: "I can't understand why people would go back to live in such a place, knowing that a hurricane could come again!" I responded as you probably would: "And you're from the Middle East??" "That's different," she said. "it's home; that's where my family is." It's often the risk closest to home that we don't want to think about.

To go back to New Orleans, I met wonderful people there. They are committed to rebuilding their city, making it better than before, and sealing the holes in its defenses. And they are doing that by getting the city's diverse communities to work together. Now that I've been there, I feel a little bit like a citizen of New Orleans, and as an ambassador, I take back this message: Don't ignore the unthinkable. By letting empathy grow and rooting out corruption, we, too, can remove the blinders and see to our defenses.

Independence Day

Coincidentally or not, Israel's Independence Day fell this year in the week of the reading of "Aharei Mot" -- "After the death of the two sons of Aharon" -- which is concerned with the rituals of Yom Kippur. It seemed appropriate, on this day, to do some soul-searching, some thinking about the years of my life in this country, and how we go into the years that lie ahead.

I've lived in Israel for 33 of my 55 years -- which means that, by now, I've been here not only for much longer than half of my life, but also for longer than half the life of the State. My Hebrew is still accented, but I'm far from a greener, an "olah hadashah." The four children born to me in this country are grown-up Israelis.

It's no secret that my politics are left-of-center, even, as these things go nowadays, far left; or that I'm one of those maverick religious lefties. That puts me out of sync with the politics of Israel's majority. It means I'm doomed to feel the pain of both sides in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the more so since my spouse works for a human-rights organization and spends many of his days traipsing around the territories, experiencing the hardships faced by Palestinians at first hand. But I'm also a mother of soldiers in the IDF, and a citizen of Jerusalem, city of spiritual glory and terror.

Many people on the left are pretty critical of this country and pessimistic about its future. I'm critical, too. There's plenty of human folly to be seen here, and cruelty, and corruption. Yet if I ask myself, in that soul-searching mood, whether I have regrets about settling here -- no, honestly, I don't. Maybe it's because Judaism, Jewish culture, and Hebrew culture are so vital to me. Maybe it's because of the unparalleled energy I feel here. Maybe it's the idiosyncratic people, the let-it-all-hang-out ways of relating (for better and worse). Maybe it's the richness of our community and family life. Or the breathtaking landscape. What I know is that from the moment I arrived here, it felt right, and after 33 years, it still feels right. The bad things pain me; they don't make me feel like going anywhere else. I think you call that love.

Some folks on the left say they don't feel like celebrating anymore, because Israel is too wicked, too corrupted. And yet, to me, every day in Jerusalem is a fragile, shimmering gift. I insist on holding onto the contradictions, and still blessing God for what we have, and what we have done.

Actually, we read two sedras this week, "Aharei mot," and also "Kedoshim" -- Be Holy! A sedra that includes a great many ethical commandments, including the commandment not to oppress "the other." While celebrating what we have, it behooves us to bear in mind that holiness is not a state (or a State, or a Land), but a commandment. Not, "you are holy," but "be holy!" And not, "you are righteous," but "pursue righteousness!" That's why, for example, I found the recent pronouncements of Ehud Barak and others that "the IDF is the most moral army in the world" ridiculous. Such declarations sound like what they are -- babble. Morality is not a state of being, but a constant pursuit, and the moment we let go of that pursuit to rest on our "moral" laurels, we lose them. If Barak had said, "the IDF strives toward a level of morality worthy of our people" -- that, I think, I and others could respect (and by "people," I mean all the denizens of the Land of Israel/Palestine). And if the army's leaders could inculcate that striving into our soldiers and their officers, the news coming out of our conflict zone might improve considerably.

Having reached middle age, I am past hoping that the human race can be perfected. Israel is no exception, but since I can't buy out of humanity, I've stopped looking for that cool white space in which I can glory in pure righteousness and criticize others for being defective. That's not what we're asked to do; as humans divinely commanded, we're given the Sisyphean task of striving constantly to correct ourselves, which is, indeed, the spirit of Yom Kippur. So, no regrets, but if I could have a wish for our country's future, this would be it: That the energy we devote to self-criticism -- and Israelis are world leaders in that activity -- should be spent in striving to "turn from evil and do good, seek peace, and pursue it."

The Invisible People

The plagues commenced in Egypt with the ghastly plague of blood, and continued, perhaps oddly, with the comical-sounding plague of frogs. Commenting on the Hebrew word tzefardea, 'frog,' R. Samson Raphael Hirsch quotes a fanciful etymology, according to which the word is a compound of the Aramaic word tzefar, 'morning,' and the Hebrew word da, 'knowing.' The frog, he explains, is a meek creature active mainly at night; it knows the coming of morning and is quick to hide before most humans are up and about. What happened in the plague is not that there suddenly were frogs where none had been, but that the creatures, in defiance of their usual nature, stayed up and went where people could see them. Instead of staying under the sink, they jumped up onto the plates. Just so, continues Hirsch, were the slaves in that society -- always present, but rarely noticed. The portent of the plague was that the society's "invisible people" were about to become visible and trouble the nation's consciousness.

In the plague of locusts, too, an army of small, ordinarily barely noticeable creatures rises up to "cover the eye of the land." So, as the disasters piled up, did the Hebrew slaves become the most noticeable and troublesome group in society. To end the plague, God sweeps up the locusts and drops them in the area of the Sea of Reeds -- pointing to the spot where the slaves were to have their final, redemptive confrontation with Pharaoh's army.

In that confrontation, two elements of society that usually hover just below our consciousness, intermingled in society and taken for granted, are set out in the stark light of a desert morning, with the sun glinting off the sea: the most oppressed, and the perpetrators of oppression. For once, we can tell who is who; they stand on one side, and we on the other. And even then, with the final overthrow of the oppressors, God is said to have chided his angels: "My creatures are drowning in the sea, and you are singing songs?"

The lesson, perhaps, is that no creature is invisible to God, and we, to realize God's image in ourselves, need to open our eyes to the "invisible people" who ought to be troubling our consciousness. Case in point: When our planes and tanks wreak havoc upon a civilian population, we'll never be able to assess the extent to which the destruction was justified unless that population is visible to us -- unless we can see them as real people, and not just as "the enemy."

Unless we want to end up where some of our enemies want us -- in the sea -- we'd better not wait until they "cover the eye of the land."