Well, it is the crispy, sparkly, solstice week of Hanukkah as I write -- Maccabees vs. Hellenizers, priestly class vs. common folks -- and the time when we read the story of Joseph and his brothers in Torah -- working guys vs. the little dreamer, Daddy's Boy vs. the older brothers, coat of many colors vs. the shepherd's staff. 'Tis the season of family struggles.
Which provides an interesting lens for me to reflect a bit on the amazing but slightly maddening conference I have just returned from -- the first-ever Rabbinic Conference on Judaism and Human Rights. Among the highlights, by all accounts, were the inaugurations of Imams for Human Rights and Dialogue and of Evangelicals for Human Rights, both at our conference. It was quite a thrill to sit at dinner with four imams and to hear that they have gathered ninety-some of their colleagues, in North America and points beyond, and are beginning to promulgate a process of collaboration with rabbis and others around various matters of shared concern. The imams were lovely -- smiling, shaking our hands, asking our blessing and friendship as they begin their work. Several of them stayed for the whole conference, and it was a heart-opening sight to see them schmoozing with mobs of rabbis and rabbinical students even as they begin organizing their own communities around these issues which are so important to us all.
Even more of a thrill to me, for whatever reason, was a small meeting with Dr. David Gushee, professor of Moral Philosophy at Union College, a Southern Baptist college in eastern Tennessee, and a founder of Evangelicals for Human Rights. Dr. Gushee has composed a statement (thirteen single-spaced pages!) essentially spelling out a position based in Christian scriptures which says that regard for human life means that you shouldn't torture human beings. He is putting his statement before the country's leading Evangelical leaders and trying to get them to sign on. It's going pretty well. (Many of us were delighted to hear Dr. Gushee report that the seamless alliance between the Evangelical community and the Republican right is beginning to crumble.)
The most heartbreaking, infuriating moment at the conference came with the news that, on the exact date of International Human Rights Day, while we were meeting in New York, the Municipality of Jerusalem was for a second time bulldozing the home of the Dari family in East Jerusalem. This home has become a symbol of the outrageous policy of "administrative demolitions." The Dari home stood (twice) in Issawiya, a neighborhood which has never had a town plan, making it impossible to get a building permit there. The Dari family owned their land since the days of Jordanian rule. As their family grew, they enlarged their home. In 2003 it was demolished for the first time, even while lawyers were in court trying to save the house. After the demolition, Rabbis for Human Rights raised money to rebuild the house, and a delegation of American rabbis traveled to Jerusalem to help with the rebuilding. Those of you who participated in our Human Rights Day seder will remember a beautiful passage from Rabbi Arik Ascherman about losing his kippah while trying to block the bulldozers the first time. Arik was with us at the conference last week, weeping as he broke the news to us. We quickly raised enough money among ourselves to again rebuild the Dari home, and we got letters and delegations organized right away to decry this particular travesty. But all of this was against the backdrop of the Municipality announcing that they plan to demolish eighteen Palestinian homes this month (what a number, eh?) and have already destroyed six.
This was a grand outrage. But there were tiny ones as well. My own pet peeve: in order to have kosher-enough food to suit the handful of Orthodox participants, we had to use vast quantities of plastic plates and flatware. This brought back to me something I've been smoldering about for the past fifteen years or more. Back then a rabbi friend of mine was organizing a conference on healing for rabbis. Her hands were pretty full for awhile, so I said, "Give me a task to do for you…" She asked me to find a mashgiach, a supervisor of kashrut. I got right to work and found the perfect mashgiach -- a woman well-versed in the laws of kosher food and of "eco-kashrut" as well. She promised to look out for organic food, in season, recycling, composting, fair wages for farm workers, I don't remember the full list. Wonderful! But no… One Orthodox rabbi was planning to come to the conference. And a woman mashgiach, not to mention one not endorsed by whichever association was acceptable to him, "excluded the Orthodox community." And so there too -- as at almost any gathering which tries to include the more traditional end of the Jewish community -- we ate off plastic and tossed great mountains of detritus in the trash which wouldn't decompose for centuries or more. Once again in New York last week I was washing my plastic plate in the bathroom sink, fuming and thinking, "I'll eat off their plates, but they won't eat off mine… Their values matter; mine don't." And that's not to even touch what could be said publicly about Israel at the conference, or what prayers could be said by all of us and which had to go on in separate rooms. Welcome to the merry world of coexistence.
Which got me thinking about how much greater is my tolerance for the Imams and the Evangelicals than for my own brothers and sisters and colleagues. So maybe they're against abortion... So maybe they exclude, or even persecute, gay men and lesbians… "Don't ask, don't tell…" We are meeting around this one issue of shared concern, and nothing else matters. I've heard similar comments from many Jews involved in the world of dialogue and coalition: meeting with Moslems or with Christians is easy compared with trying to have dialogue with different varieties of Jews.
I have higher standards for my own family. I'm not sure this is wrong. I know more about them, and at some level I care more. I don't really want a "don't ask, don't tell" relationship with other Jews. I am willing to be mad, willing to be offended, willing to hash it out. Like at some level, I suppose, the Maccabees did.
But at the same time I think about how genuinely moved I was by the gesture of the Imams and the Evangelicals meeting with us, how appreciative I was of their bravery in "crossing the street" to enter the Jewish Federation building to meet with 225 rabbis and rabbinical students. I was so grateful that they would sit down with me, even shake my hand. Why would I not be equally moved by the rabbis and students from Yeshivat Chovevei Torah who joined us? Was it not just as brave, just as open-minded for them as for Imam Yahya Hendi to sit at the table with me? Was the street not nearly as wide?
I came back from the conference moved and challenged, but also frustrated and angry by the myriad difficulties of getting all of us around a table. And I have had to stop and think a bit, find my own rachmones, my spirit of mercy, within myself. (Maybe I should even try a bit of it with my actual family!)
Mickey and I are off in just a few short weeks to Israel (and then I'll go onward to South Africa.) And I've been waking up in the middle of the night grinding my teeth: Israel is in some ways the hardest place for me to be Jewish, the place where I feel most judged and most judgmental, the only place I've ever traveled where I have felt compelled to lie about what I do for a living. So maybe it is a bit of a blessing to have prepared by spending a couple of days in a room with so many Jews (rabbis, no less,) all of us trying to open our minds and hearts to each other and, more often than not, even succeeding.
I will miss you all! I will be back, God willing, with stories to tell, and maybe even a more open mind and heart. Meanwhile, all of you stay healthy and well and safe! You'll hear from me via Megillah while I'm gone, and I will be looking forward to breaking matzah with all of you in just a few short months.
© 2006 Rabbi Margaret Holub
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Updated 12/29/2006(rge)