Rabbi Cy Stanway – Gainesville
The parasha this week is something of a pivot point, if you think about it. But it’s a pivot point that has been somewhat misunderstood. Let me explain. You see, up to this point the Torah has been concerned with really big things. Creation of the universe. Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel and the beginning of humanity, the roots of morality, tension between husbands and wives, fratricide, and other universal issues and archetypes.
Then comes another pair of stories – the Flood and the building of Babel – this time about society as a whole. These stories are about the tension between freedom and order. The Flood is about a world where abused freedom destroys order. Babel is about a world where order – everyone speaking one language – destroys freedom.
Our biblical authors knew a lot about human psychology which has not changed in 4500 years. They know of the human condition and the messages in the first chapters of the Torah speak to us all at all times. Up to chapter 12 in Genesis, the God of the Torah is the universal God.
And in Chapter 12, we have the pivot. No longer focussed on grand themes, now the text dives down into one humble family: Abram and Sarai, people who have no history and about whom we know nothing. Yes, they are part of the family of Terach and a large tribe but who are they and what makes them so special? We don’t know and never will.
And yet, with Abram and Sarai, God is the beginning of a people whose foundation is covenant and listening to a voice that is both challenging and real. It is a voice that speaks of responsibility and covenant, that begins in Ur of Chaldees when Abram hears the call to go forth and echoes and resonates through Sinai, through the rest of the Bible, through Jewish history, to this very sanctuary at this very hour. We are continuing the journey of Abram and it is one of constant movement as Jews.
In an American context, constant movement means migration and immigration. This is why America was such a logical place for the flourishing of the Jewish story. But movement is also about spiritual movement, not just physical movement. Our name is Abram’s grandson’s new name: Israel – the ones who struggle with God. That is the real journey of Abram and Sarai.
For those of us born into the Jewish tribe and those of us who have joined the Jewish tribe through conversion and love of the Jewish people, many of us see it as the greatest blessing ever. Some, of course, see it as a burden who never wanted the responsibility. Some have embraced the birthright wholeheartedly while some have spurned it giving no heed whatsoever to the covenant. And yet the Jewish people never expel anyone from the Jewish people. In Jewish thought, one can not become ‘unJewish.’ Even the most vile and reprehensible people who are part of the tribe always remain part of the tribe. (By the way, as an aside – if you think that excommunication – or harem – is being kicked out of the Jewish people, that would be wrong. It only means that Jews are forbidden to do business with that one being excommunicated.)
And why does Jewish thought say that someone is a Jew always? Because it always makes room for anyone who wants to return to the family. The door remains open and, even though the family members might talk about you in not-so-glowing terms – think of Meir Lansky! – they will never say you aren’t part of the family!
That is probably the closest definition to what being Jewish is. Jewish is not Judaism. Judaism is the general name given to the religious practice of the Jews. These are the traditions, holidays, mitzvot and acts of gemilut hasidim, and so forth. No, Jewish is not simply Judaism. That would reduce who we are to a set of rituals and beliefs. But name me any belief in Judaism that all Jews agree upon?
No, ours is a tribe, a Jewish tribe with a mandate to be blessing to the world in whatever way that means and whatever moment in history we find ourselves. When God tells Abram, ‘You shall be a blessing,’ God does not tell him what that means. Does it mean that anyone who crosses paths with Abram or his descendants will be somehow magically transformed into wonderful human beings? Well, if that’s what it meant, it was a miserable failure. In fact, it seems that throughout history, when people have crossed paths with Jews, they don’t turn into wonderful people. Rather they often turn into monsters. No, when God tells Abram that he will be blessing it is simply this: that who and what we are ought to be an example to the rest of humanity on how to be a moral, decent human beings. That is what it means to be chosen. Our covenant and the covenant begun by Abram is to help God finish humanity by making humans more humane. Not to make them Jewish. Not to scare them into a life of fear about what happens after they die. Not to control them in any way. But rather to hold up a two-sided mirror. One side asking the nations of the world ‘Is this the best you are?’ And the other side asking ourselves the same question, ‘Is this the best we are?’ The Jewish tribal obsession with questions began with Abram asking that very question and then beginning his journey to find the answer.
He found it in that covenant with God, a covenant that is timeless and in creating the Jewish people who are also timeless. But the connection to the covenant and to the Jewish people by each Jew is fickle and sometimes forgotten. Still, the blessing is that, no matter how distant you were from the tribe, you can always embrace the responsibility of being a blessing. And, if you think about it, when God says to Abram that Abram will be a blessing, it was the very first commandment to the Jewish people. Everything we do, God tells Abram and us, is toward that goal of being that blessing.
A few years ago, I saw a cartoon of a man on his deathbed saying, “I wish I’d bought more stuff.” First world denizens can relate to this. We always want more. You remember the bumper sticker, ‘The one who dies with the most toys wins’? There is a human truth in that and it is this: often we accumulate wealth and stuff to feel happy and to affirm our self-worth. The more stuff, the more affirming to our souls. Ecclesiastes might have a thing to say about that, by the way!
What Abram is teaching us is different. Abram left everything behind to build a life not just of acquisition of stuff, but of acquisition of morality. In that sense, Abram defined what the Jewish people ought to be: collectors of decency and humanity. An or l’goim – the light to the world. Abram didn’t fill his bucket list of acquiring so much before he died. No. He created a reverse bucket list: ridding himself of what he didn’t need to create himself, his family and his nation into something the world had never seen before.
That task has been handed down to us. And the words to Abram still echo in our hearts: go out into the world to be blessing because we are the carriers of that light – not to make people into Jews but rather to make people into people!
Shabbat Shalom
