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We Are All Implicated in the World’s Repair
The Hour
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More in Forward ForumThere’s considerable talk these days about Jewish peoplehood. Is the sense of it sustainable? For that matter, is it still alive? And on what foundation does it rest?
What is it that connects one Jew to another? And what connects the two largest communities of Jews, here in America and there in Israel, to one another? Is their bond merely the residue of an earlier time, a characteristic of people “of a certain age” whose lives began in a world without a Jewish state and who themselves witnessed the extraordinary transformation that the creation of Israel embodied? Is that bond significantly reciprocal, or does it come down to our dependence on them for psychic needs and theirs on us for financial and political contributions?
Israel, of course, represents a radical change in the historic Jewish condition. That change is so profound that we tend to pay less attention to the radical changes the American Jewish experience involves. Those changes include both a much keener appreciation of pluralism than was available to Jews of an earlier time, as well as a quiet revolution in our sense of “home.”
Most of us are very much at home in America. That is how it is, and I dare say how it should be. It would be strange, indeed, if we sat in Los Angeles or Chicago or Teaneck and pined for Jerusalem, much less for Zichron Ya’akov (and still less for Ariel). It is America’s mountains and America’s rivers and America’s cities that frame our sense of place, and America’s politics, for all the turmoil they involve, that command our attention.
That will doubtless offend the Zionist sensibility. Classic Zionism taught that outside the Land, Jews would either assimilate, losing their distinctive identity, or be slaughtered; seduction or rape. There are still some Zionists who see our prospect that way, whose standard response to our high rates of intermarriage and to such antisemitic acts as sometimes happen here is, “We told you so.”
So let me try to deflect their irritation with anyone who celebrates American Jewish life, as it is and as it may yet be, by acknowledging that Israel is by far the most important project of the Jewish people in our time. Yet it does not weaken that acknowledgment to observe that we here are the children of the American Jewish experience, as the Israelis are the children of their very different experience.
That makes the relationship between America’s Jews and Israel’s an inherently complex story. We share some holidays and some memories, but the rest of the relationship is pretty much an act of will rather than natural or organic. But willed kinship is not an easy thing to wrap the mind around, still more difficult to promote as our experiences pull us farther and farther apart. We feel neither loss nor shame that we do not speak their language, which is, of course, our language, too; they feel no need nor even desire to comprehend who we are and what we are about.
On what foundation, then, can the idea of peoplehood rest? One can glibly say “shared values,” but beyond a few slogans, we get tongue-tied when we try to name them. As to Hebrew, I would be thrilled — really — were America’s Jews to acquire fluency in our language, but I see no reason whatever to suppose that will happen.
Religious understanding? Surely not so long as Israel’s religious system is the exclusive domain of a sect. A residue of ethnic affinity? Nostalgia for the shtetl?
Ah, it will be said: What of our enemies? What of the persistent hatred of the Jews, the pervasiveness of antisemitism? And what of the chronic threat to Israel’s safety, the ongoing challenge to its legitimacy?
Excuse me, but the fact of others’ enmity is hardly a worthy motive for Jewish life. In America, we use it to rouse Jews and to promote Jewish identity — witness the barrage of fundraising mail we get telling us how imminent is the danger we face, how vicious our enemies. And yes, there are times, though not nearly as frequent as we are encouraged to believe, when the call to mobilize is justified. But as motive? Be an educated Jew out of spite?
The threat plays very differently in Israel, although there, too, it is often misconstrued and exploited for political advantage. But that is for another time. Here, my concern is with laying a persuasive foundation for the idea of Jewish peoplehood, and for the effort that preserving and enhancing the kinship requires.
What is it that warrants the effort? Again and again, here and in Israel as well, we need to find a compelling way to finish the sentence that begins with the words, “It is important that the Jewish people survive in order to…” In order to what?
There is, I believe, one core idea that defines us and could, perhaps, bring us together, make of us one people. To be a Jew is to know, fundamentally, that this world is not working the way it was meant to, or the way it is supposed to. It is badly broken.
In that sense, we are all — all of us — in exile, whether we live in Jerusalem or in New York. Exile is not a place; it is an existential condition. And the meta-understanding that Jews bring to that condition is that we are implicated in the world’s repair.
The most obvious challenge to such a formulation is, simply, “What’s so Jewish about that?” After all, you don’t have to be Jewish to love Levy’s real Jewish rye or to be passionate about tikkun olam. (Given our paltry numbers, that’s good news for both the Levy’s people and for our compoundly fractured world.) The good news is that the challenge can be met.
Comments
"Tiqqun 'Olam" does not really mean "repairing the world". Hebrew is a very ancient language, and studying it seriously means having some familiarity with its literature from throughout the ages. "Olam" in the Tanakh, for example, means "eternity". In the Mishnah, "olam" could mean "world", but it very often means "the Jewish public". Yiddish is very much under the impact of Talmudic literature, so there too "oylem" could be understood to be "the public". Now, the word "tiqqun" in the Talmud has a meaning of "making a regulation", a rule ("taqqanah") that the rabbis would publish at times. Studying Israeli Hebrew is very important, and generally it is an excellent tool in studying the Jewish text - but one must keep in mind that language has a life of its own, and meanings can change. So, in modern Hebrew, "tiqqun 'olam" seems to mean "repairing the world" - but the term is Talmudic. It means "making a regulation for the Jewish public" so that it can continue living in accordance to the Torah.
For a famous example, see Gittin 34b in the Babylonian Talmud. The public tended not to lend money as the seventh year approached, since it was feared that the debt would be canceled in accordance to the Torah. But helping the needy through lending money is also the way of the Torah - so it would seem that the public could not maintain itself in the frameword of the Jewish tradition. So, Hillel established the "prosbol" - for "tiqqun 'olam" (in order to set a regulation so that the Jewish public could continue its life under the Torah). In this "tiqqun 'olam", the bet-din collects the outstanding debts for the lenders - and in such a way, the Jewish public would not refrain from helping the poor.
Today's understanding of tiqqun 'olam, meaning social action, is a very nice idea - but for the sake of general Jewish literacy, it is important to bring the Jewish public to an awareness of its true roots.
Yehuda's comments are very interesting (as usual) but, in my view, mistaken. The small thing first: "Calling for a dramatic change in Hebrew achievement in America" is, sadly, a waste of breath. It hasn't happened not because of a dearth of calls but because of a deficit of interest. The large thing: Yes, being an American Jew is something quite new under the Jewish sun. The issue is not "primary" vs. "secondary" identity. Is there any point in asking whether David Grossman's identity is primarily as a Jew or primarily as a writer? What we here have accomplished is to make our multiple identities coherent. We have selected out of our Jewish understanding (yes, that understanding is inadequate) elements that we then mix ands match with elements we have selected out of our American experience. If the challenge is to keep alive even here our sense of estrangement, to carry with us as a permanent feature our failure to have chosen to live in the Land -- well, that is not a destiny I can comfortably recommend to my people here. Others may think that a cop-out, as I find much of Tel Aviv cafe life a Jewish cop-out.
The price of being at home in America is to be very much not at home in one's own Jewish culture? (I wonder, under such circumstances, what it means to speak of "our own Jewish culture." There are aspects of Jewish culture that I come close to understanding and closer still to feeling decisively alienated from. I am no more "at home" in Me'ah She'arim than I am in Williamsburg. We are all necessarily selective.
What you must then be saying is that we are too ignorant to be intelligently selective. True. But the way to offer incentive to people is not to remind them daily how ignorant they are. It is to develop the kinds of rich adult education programs one now finds everywhere in American Jewish communities. And so forth. It is to open doors, not to tell peope who come knocking that they can only have what's inside if they acknowledge its primacy.
Mr Fein - I thank you for taking the time to comment on my reaction to your weekly article. Kol ha-kavod! I'm very impressed.
There is the logic (let's say) of a rabbi. He knows that there are things that he can't say for fear of irking his community (and losing his position). So he'll give a sermon about the importance of life-long Jewish education, but he probably won't declare the synagogue afternoon supplementary Hebrew school "inadequate" or a "dismal failure". But journalism has a different logic. Just last week you announced that you will "sing in Israel's ears until she opens her eyes". Your position as a journalist was clearly that there are issues that are so important that you simply will not remove them from the agenda. You did not declare that "it's a waste of breath" or that "there is a deficit of interest". Nor do you believe that the way to offer incentive to Israel to change "is not to remind them daily..." On the contrary - your message is blunt and relentless, and indeed that is your duty as a journalist.
A Jewish newspaper has a duty towards the American Jewish public as well. In America, the Jewish agenda is quite different than the agenda here in Israel, obviously - but there are severe problems that must be defined and presented to the American Jewish public - and just as relentlessly. If you believe that Hebrew is a dismal failure, then "sing in their ears until they open their eyes". It's not a waste of breath; it's a public service of the first order. If the American educational system consisted of two-three hours of unprofessional afternoon instruction a week for three-four years, you would be screaming that the system is scandalous. The journalist in you wouldn't hesitate for a moment, claiming "the way to offer incentive to people is not to remind them daily how ignorant they are". Nor would you console yourself in the illusion that "rich adult educational programs" will do.
The integration and the acceptance of Jews into American society is behind you. It has already occurred, and it was very successful. It's no longer an issue, period. Now, let's deal with the problems of the Jewish community. First and foremost, there has to be a declaration that something has gone very wrong. That's the blunt task of the Jewish press.
I appreciated the article very much and can think of several examples of how the challenge cn be met, beginning with Brei[word deleted]'s task for Adam in the Garden, "to work it and protect it." But I would like to hear your response to the challenge. Rabbi Ron Aigen
In this week's article, Mr Fein is willing to raise a comment that expresses some critique of the American Jewish experience. He notes rightly that "we feel neither loss nor shame that we do not speak their [Israel's] language, which is, of course, our language, too..." Yes, the Hebrew failure in American Jewry is really deep and worrisome. It would have been even better if Mr Fein would have added his voice in calling for a dramatic change in Hebrew achievement in America; but, still, it was a breath of fresh air to hear even this level of criticism.
It was noted that Israel "represents a radical change in the historic Jewish condition" - and then in an attempt to present the American Jewish experience as a drama as well, Mr Fein mentions "a quiet revolution in our sense of 'home'." While it's obvious that the drama in Israel is unique ("...by far the most important project of the Jewish people in our time"), still it was misleading to present the "quiet revolution" in American Jewry as a kind of Jewish experience - a "radical change" parallel to the "radical change" of the Israel experience. It isn't.
The sense of home in America represents a change in identity - a change AWAY from a primary Jewish identity. Hence, in Mr Fein's poetic way, it would be "strange" to pine for Jerusalem from Chicago. Strange? Pining for Jerusalem is the very heart of the Jewish historic experience. Is there a reader out there, including Mr Fein himself, who didn't smash a cup at his wedding, declaring: "If I forget thee, O Jerusalem...."? Since, however, this is just a kind of "strangeness", we have to draw the obvious conclusion that the sense of being at home in America has been at the price of being very much not at home in one's own Jewish culture. That, of course, is not a Jewish drama. That is an American drama, and the general American public should be bragging about their society which has so successfully lured an ancient people away from its historic identity. But Mr Fein is bragging. Now, that's a strangeness worthy of discussion.
If the "quiet revolution" of which Mr Fein speaks would mean being at home in America while maintaining a primary Jewish identity, well the success would be worthy of all praise. The "quiet revolution", however, has meant a shift in identity. Jewish identity has become secondary (for the committed minority) or even marginal (for the non-committed majority). But just like with the Hebrew failure ("we feel neither loss nor shame"), the real crisis is that there is no sense of crisis. Being at home in someone else's cultural world and historical experience - while being an outsider to one's own heritage - is apparently the new "revolutionary" definition of Jewish success.