Symbols on the Chart: a Thought for the Three Weeks and Parashat Devarim

Jews gather on the evening of the Ninth of Av, to read the Book
of Lamentations, and to chant dirges

Nowadays, when we think of the word ‘maps’ we tend to think of the digital variety.  As in:  I’ll look that up in Google Maps.  Or:  I’ll put the address in Waze and I’ll find it.  We don’t think much of the paper kind of map, the kind you spread out on the table and study to find the places that matter to you.

Well, I’m studying for a skipper’s license here in Israel.  And one of the tests that the Ministry of Transport insists that candidates pass, is a test in chart navigation. (In the maritime world, maps are referred to as ‘charts.’)  So, the other night, I came home from class with a rolled-up chart of the Israeli coast and spread it out on the dining room table.  And Clara watched me, and asked:  What’s that??!  (Okay, I’m kidding…she knows what a map is!  But she was surprised to see it, and said:  What, you can’t use GPS??!)

Well, no; we can’t!  We have to learn the conventional way of finding our way in coastal waters.  We’re studying bearings and courses and winds and currents, and especially how to read all the symbols on a chart that show you where you are.  Someday, you’ll be out there on the water, and the GPS will fail.  So you have to learn to use a nautical chart, the seaman’s version of a road map, to find your way.

It reminds me of how we ‘find our way’ in Jewish terms.  In a sense, we have a road map:  Torah.  And I use here the word ‘Torah’ in its broadest sense:  the totality of the Jewish tradition, including the Holy Scriptures, the prescriptions of the Rabbis, and the many layers of exculpatory commentary on the whole thing.  It all, collectively, serves to enable us to find our way in our ongoing encounter with the Holy One.

And just as we have a set of symbols on a map or a nautical chart, which helps us to understand the information presented therein, Torah provides a rich menu of symbols that help us to understand the information contained therein.  And important among those symbols, is the annual cycles of calendar observances that help us to understand and contextualize the lessons that Torah has to teach us.

It is important to be regularly reminded of important facts and wisdom that we’ve already been taught.  That’s the whole purpose behind the book of Deuteronomy, Devarim, which we begin reading this Shabbat in the Jewish world.  As you probably know, the Written Torah consists of five books, thus the sobriquet Five Books of Moses, or Humash in Hebrew.  Well, guess what?  The fifth of the five books, Deuteronomy, is basically a repetition of what the previous four books taught us.  Its form is a series of valedictory sermons that Moses, Moshe Rabbeinu, delivered to the People Israel as he prepared to hand over the mantle of leadership to Joshua Bin Nun, before Moses’ own death.  The name Deuteronomy, is Greek for ‘second telling.’  The Torah has its own way of showing us that it is not enough to learn something once.  It must be repeated, in different terms that help us to ‘get’ it.

These Three Weeks of Preparation, which began with the fast of 17 Tammuz (2 weeks ago) and end with the fast of the Ninth of Av (next week) are a way for us to remember, and learn from, the experience of the ancient Israelites.  It’s not just that first the Babylonians, and later the Romans, destroyed the Holy Temple on the Ninth of Av in two widely separated years of history.  Rather, the aligning of these events challenges us to understand why these destructions, and other disasters in Jewish history, happened.  And a contributing factor – a major contributing factor – in each event, was disunity among the Jewish people.  When I say ‘disunity,’ I don’t mean simple disagreement.  Rather, I mean the kind of deep and complete fealty to doctrine over brotherhood, that causes one Jew to think of another Jew as The Other, as an enemy of the Jewish people.  Unfortunately, one sees more than hints of this mindset even today among Jews, in particularly during the last few weeks as the Rabbinate here in Israel has sought to narrow the definition of who is a Jew and whose concerns are legitimate.  It is perhaps for just such a time, that we find ourselves once more confronted with the Three Weeks and the lesson of the danger of Jewish disunity.

17 Tammuz at the Hartman Institute

Yesterday was the 17th of Tammuz.  This is a public fast day, the start of the Three Weeks of Mourning that end in the Ninth of Av.  This is one of the most difficult parts - to me - of the Orthodox way of life.  Imagine that; at the height of summer, one must go into mourning and not enjoy (for examples) the beach, or music.  And just at the time here in Israel, when beach and music festival seasons are in full swing!

Okay, but seriously!  It isn't just me; if one is not completely inculcated in a mindset where the Beit Mikdash as a symbol of Jewish nationhood and connection to G-d is absolutely central, it is hard to really feel a need to spend another three weeks - after the first month of the Counting of the Omer, which has a similar status - in mourning over events that took place two millennia ago.  That's why strict adherence to the mourning customs of these three weeks, are probably a sharp boundary between the Orthodox and non-Orthodox.

I'm thinking about this because I spent yesterday at the Shalom Hartman Institute, in Jerusalem.  We Reform rabbis - really, all non-Orthodox rabbis - are quite familiar with Hartman and especially its summer learning program that attracts many diaspora rabbis of all streams.  I've never attended the program myself, but many of my colleagues have and they all rave about the experience.  What I didn't know until I came to Israel, is that Hartman has also carved itself out a role in the breaking down of barriers between the various 'camps' here in the State of Israel; it has made itself an important voice for inter-camp respect and dialogue.  So when the rabbi of my congregation, Gustavo Surazski, invited me to join him in spending the say at Hartman, I jumped at the opportunity.

Probably needless to say, the recent decision by PM Netanyahu's cabinet to trash the Western Wall Agreement, was high on the agenda.  But rather than spend the day fulminating about it - and believe me, the temptation was there! - the speakers who set the tone for the day urged everybody to instead consider as more important the personal communication, face-to-face, that we engage  in with our more-traditional cousins.  Instead of publicly decrying the double-cross, perhaps we should try to hold respectful dialogue, where we try to understand why some Jews are not exercised about the decision, while we try to make them understand, why we are.

I know...that's very Covey-ish, straight from The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.  Habit Number Five:  Seek first to understand, then to be understood.  Does this tactic work?  No, not as a tactic.  If it's only a tactic, it will never work.  But if it's a mindset and a way of life, it can effect change...if ever so slowly.

And that's, I think, the key to many aspects of Jewish observance.  Some of my more traditionalist cousins like to say that immersion in traditional observance is a sort of prophylaxis against assimilation and intermarriage.  As such, they reduce it to a tactic.  But as a tactic it will never work, because for those not assimilated into the way of life that it demands, it's just more restrictions and constraints that most of humanity - including most of the Jews - does not feel are necessary.  But when Torah becomes as mindset and a way of life, then it is possible to consider the full range of traditional practices and observances, and adopt them as a joyous program for life.  Yes, perhaps even three weeks of mourning in mid-summer!

I'll keep repeating the Fifth Habit through this Shabbat, to get me past the sermons that will surely issue forth from the Chief Rabbi and others of traditionalist bent, who will liken Reform and Conservative Judaism to the Zimri and Kosbi in this week's parasha, whom Pinchas slew and was considered by G-d to be justified and even praiseworthy.  While cringing about these sermons, I'll think about trying to understand, and consider what I can do to support the work of the Shalom Hartman Center.  A shout of kol hakavod to the Hartman Center and the work of creating dialog between Jews!

A Hope for America, from Israel

A dear friend here in Israel, is also an American immigrant to Israel but has been in Israel for many years.  He in turn has a friend, another long-time American oleh, who some years back went home to the US to take a visiting faculty position at Norwich University in Vermont.  Now this man was not young and, being unused to the harshness of the Vermont winter after so many years in Israel, he spent much of his time at Norwich indoors, and he ended up watching a lot of American news and commentary TV.  This was during the years of the George W. Bush Administration.  When he returned to Israel, he told my friend:  the level of discourse was terrible...people shouting one another down, talking past one another, saying nasty things...it was just like Israel!

Many years ago, the American-Jewish commentator, Dennis Prager, contrasted American and Israeli politics.  Observing that the level of noise and rancor was considerably higher in Israel, he attributed it at the time to the effect of the two different systems.  Israel's, which was and still is fractured into many small parties, grants a large amount of power and influence to tiny parties that can only win one or two seats in the 120-seat unicameral Knesset.  As a result, small populations can sway policies on large issues that affect the entire country.  (We saw an unfortunate example of that last week, when PM Netanyahu overturned a previous agreement in order to keep two Ultra-Orthodox parties in his coalition and in so doing, caused considerable damage to Israel-Diaspora relations.)  In America, as Prager observed back then, almost the entire base of political power is in the hands of the two major parties, Democrats and Republicans, which both straddle the center.  In Israel, the power rests at the fringes.

I'm sure that now, over a quarter-century later, Dennis Prager would no longer hold to that assessment.  Whereas back then, one used to frequently hear frustrated Americans opine that there was little to no difference between the Democrats and the Republicans, today there is far more air between the platforms and policies advocated by the two parties, and in the amount of rancor each expresses towards the other.  So, what changed?  Well, for one thing newer laws on campaign financing make it much more difficult for candidates to raise money on their own, and since they are far more dependent upon their parties' apparatus to fund their campaigns, the parties require much stricter discipline in their legislative behavior.  It sounds noble to declare that one is voting for the candidate, not the candidate's party.  But in the reality of today's party politics the character of the candidate is far less relevant.  And we're poorer because of it.  Gone are the days when the Tip O'Neill-led House of Representatives (Democrat) could work together with the Reagan White House (Republican) for the good of the country.  Instead one sees, at least in the current Administration and Congress, a hatred so deep that one wonders if anything, short of a national emergency of the proportions of World War II (G-d forbid!) could get the two parties to work together.  It's that bad!

BTW, I don't attribute the entire phenomenon of the fracturing of American political dialog on campaign finance reform.  There's far more to it, including a lack of public expectation that discourse will be civilized and perhaps even, a reward from the electorate to the candidate or party who can out-nasty the other.

So, when I hear what this American-Israeli said about the American political scene a decade or so ago, and realize that things are probably far worse today, it pains me.  Whatever could be said about the dysfunction of the political system in Israel, which also pains me, the more-mature and more deliberately-designed American system should compare positively as a point of national pride.  But today it is hard to say, with a straight face, that it does.

I know that it is bad form to accentuate the negative on America's Independence Day, the Fourth of July.  Believe me, I agree that we have much of which to be proud considering our nation's achievements, how it has and still does add to the goodness of the world.  But right now, I also wish that the tenor of our national discourse would also be something, of which to be proud.

May all Americans, whether they live within the borders of the USA or choose, for whatever reason to live elsewhere, resolve on this 241th Anniversary of the founding of the American Republic, to do all we can to restore her image to one that other nations should consider worthy of emulation.