Before I begin, I want to acknowledge that I will get into some topics that you may not want to hear about today, or, you may not want those you are responsible for to hear about today. Before I begin, I want to ask you to take care of yourself and those you are caring for. I want to welcome your emoting, your resilient presence, and also your need to take a break. I will not be getting graphic, but I will also not be shying away from some of the hard things going on in the world right now while trying to offer the wisdom of my teachers that might help frame or understand them. I offer this dvar torah with communal care and spiritual audacity in mind. May it find you well.
If you’ve been to a Kadima service in the last decade, you have likely heard my shpiel about positioning your body when it becomes time to recite the shema. Those six Hebrew words from Deuteronomy, one of approximately 5,845 p’sukim – Torah verses, were elevated perhaps above all others by the ancient rabbis as the central statement of Jewish unity and interdependence. “Understand, Jews, we understand divinity by the name Adonai, and Adonai is a unified, interdependent Onenessness.” It is difficult to satisfactorily translate it while maintaining Hebrew’s efficiency of words, but it is important to understand the potential nuances: the thing that Jews have held up for millenia as the most powerful is an idea of interconnection and oneness.
Before reciting the liturgy of the shema, the Kadima siddur and machzor have written in them something to the effect of “please stand as able unless your custom is otherwise.” The significance of this cannot be overstated in my rabbinic opinion. The central statement of Jewish unity and interdependence does not have Jewish agreement on how Jews should say it. We have multiple traditions, and have, on this very topic, for thousands of years.
How we hold our body during the shema gives us, I hope, a relatable, low-stakes, embodied mnemonic to help us remember and hold the deeply entrenched variety of ways to be Jewish and the different Judaisms we can practice.
This example of our ability to hold multiplicity in oneness came to mind after I presented on a panel in early Elul about atonement in a time of a Jewish-engineered genocide in Gaza. The conversation and question and answer that followed it brought up the question of Jewish oneness. Are we indeed one Jewish people? Have we really ever been? Should we be? And even if we should, could we be?
These are questions of weight and consequence in this season of repair in this particular year, perhaps more so. In 10 days, we will recite the vidui – the ashamnu and the al cheyt – these lists of misdeeds, transgressions, and wrongs, in the collective. We will say them in the plural, acknowledging our collective responsibility for one another and our accountability for all the acts of harm that any of us have caused. If one us did, we all did.
We are nearly two years into an ongoing genocide being committed in our name by a government that calls itself a Jewish government acknowledged by many Jews, and certainly by many non-Jews, as a Jewish government. And I am responsible. We, Jews, are responsible, remembering Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel’s discernment that while “some are guilty…all are responsible.” While we sing and pray here today, Palestinian people are being expelled, starved, injured, orphaned, and murdered by the design of some Jews. Those Jews are guilty, we are all responsible.
And while there is no part of me looking to avoid or side-step my responsibility as a Jew, as an American tax payer, as a human, for this continuing atrocity, I find myself questioning the very nature, the very idea of our collective as a Jewish people that is said to be responsible for one another. As we move toward the day of communal accountability, where on this matter I have argued that atonement is not at all close to being possible, I include myself as part of a Jewish whole, one that includes military commanders ordering destruction and murder, political leaders dehumanizing their citizens and neighbors, and settlers illegally claiming land with indiscriminate violence.
And on the other hand, as we begin to move through the gates, I feel more open than ever in my life to the possibility of a true schism within our people. The cusp of a divergence that challenges ideas I brought into rabbinical school and have built upon since. The idea itself of klal yisrael, a commitment to the entirety of the Jewish people, is bending, I feel, to the point of breaking.
I am reminded of one of my favorite classes in rabbinical school: Second Temple Civilization taught by Dr. Elsie Stern, may she be blessed and live long. One of my key takeaways from that class, still swimming around in my head fifteen years later, is that there is not and maybe never has been a single Judaism. There certainly was not in the time period of the second temple two thousand years ago, and that revelation introduced me to the idea of multiple Judaisms. The stakes were enormous for the future of the Jewish world back then. As you might know, the Pharisees, one of the many sects of Jews in the first decades of the Common Era won the longest legacy in the evolutionary battle for the Jewish future, and the Judaism we know of today as “Judaism” is indeed a Pharisee variety – one of many divergent and irreconcilable varieties of Judaisms of that time.
One way that Pharisaic Judaism outlasted the others of its time was that the Judaism they practiced did not revolve around the use of the central Jerusalem Temple, and their identity as Jews was not dependent on Jewish control of Jerusalem, the Temple mount, or the small mountain just by it, called Har Tzion, from which we get the English word Zion and Zionism today. Pharisaic Judaism and Jewishness endured, giving Jews a future in part by being less attached to a particular parcel of land and a particular way of practice that could only be done there, and instead instituted portable, flexible, and interpretable customs and practices all while maintaining a Jewishness that embraced change and resisted Hellenization and assimilation into the Roman empire.
While it is common in today’s Jewish landscape to focus on internal divides where there was still commonality and collective purpose, divides such as Hillel and Shammai where constructive disagreement was encouraged and recorded, it is less common, but perhaps just as important now to focus on historical divides such as the Pharisees, the Sadducees and the Essenes, not to mention the early Christians themselves who at the time were simply another divergent group of Jews of that same second temple era – where indeed there were vastly divergent groups of Jews who over time became literally different religions and peoples. Many of whom led to dead-end branches in the evolution of history.
I believe we may be in such a time again. I do not want to hyperbolize. What do I know? In applying to rabbinical school, I was asked about and assessed on my commitment to klal yisrael, the entirety of the Jewish people. And, I pride myself on thinking of all kinds of Jews as my fellow Jews. Claiming all of us as mine, vigilant in my insistence that I am theirs, whether they want me or not sometimes.
And yet. Another perspective on this is worth bringing into the fore and examining. Not because it is correct, but because it allows us to understand what is at stake and also allows us to build and sustain a divergent future where a Judaism and a Jewishness dripping with compassion and solidarity and care that understands and protects the sanctity of all life, not only when it conveniently or cynically aligns with a false supremacy of Jewish life and Jewish political control.
Maybe there are multiple Judaisms right now. Maybe one of them is a zionistic Judaism. Maybe one of them goes by many names, but, like the Pharisees, is not reliant on an attachment to a particular parcel of land and a particular way of practice that could only be done there. A moralistic one. A Judaism that is certainly valid, is based in our ancestral lessons, and believes that life is the utmost. That every human being is an entire world.
As we move through the Days of Awe, the Days of Return and Repair, the days of gathering with all whom we share a destiny, let us spend some time understanding that we are indeed part of a klal yisrael – an entirety of the Jewish people, and hold ourselves accountable to what indeed our people is doing.
And, let us also acknowledge that splitting, that diverging, and that naming it as such, that becoming a different Judaism – or simply being the different Judaism that we already are, can give us space to mourn what has actually already been irreparably broken and destroyed – the Temple of Jewish Oneness. And from that grief and mourning, may we build up the Jewishness and the Judaism we and our ancestors have dreamed of and future generations deserve.
This Rosh HaShanah I hold two different “we’s” – a we of which I am a part that is doing terrible things and I am responsible for; and a we of which I am a part that will ensure what is happening will never happen again, to anyone, and certainly not by our design. Perhaps only one of these “we’s” has a future. One of these “we’s” needs us each to amplify it and build it up and stay engaged and make it great and make it beautiful in all the ways that line up with our resources and our talents. May we find the strength to commit ourselves to a divergent Jewish future that maybe will one day simply be called “Judaism.” May we find space to feel the heartbreak when we find ourselves on different paths than loved ones in this potentially divergent future. May we find the self-respect and love to honor and protect and reinforce what we build with resilient, flexible communities. And may we find pride in being who we are as the Jews we are, pride that becomes foreign to it being questioned.
Anyada buena, dulsi i alegre, shanah tovah u’metukah, tizku shanim rabot, and gut yontif. May it be good, may it be sweet, may it be joyous. May it merit us long and fulfilled years to come. And may it be so for everyone.
_
Rabbi David Basior
If you’ve been to a Kadima service in the last decade, you have likely heard my shpiel about positioning your body when it becomes time to recite the shema. Those six Hebrew words from Deuteronomy, one of approximately 5,845 p’sukim – Torah verses, were elevated perhaps above all others by the ancient rabbis as the central statement of Jewish unity and interdependence. “Understand, Jews, we understand divinity by the name Adonai, and Adonai is a unified, interdependent Onenessness.” It is difficult to satisfactorily translate it while maintaining Hebrew’s efficiency of words, but it is important to understand the potential nuances: the thing that Jews have held up for millenia as the most powerful is an idea of interconnection and oneness.
Before reciting the liturgy of the shema, the Kadima siddur and machzor have written in them something to the effect of “please stand as able unless your custom is otherwise.” The significance of this cannot be overstated in my rabbinic opinion. The central statement of Jewish unity and interdependence does not have Jewish agreement on how Jews should say it. We have multiple traditions, and have, on this very topic, for thousands of years.
How we hold our body during the shema gives us, I hope, a relatable, low-stakes, embodied mnemonic to help us remember and hold the deeply entrenched variety of ways to be Jewish and the different Judaisms we can practice.
This example of our ability to hold multiplicity in oneness came to mind after I presented on a panel in early Elul about atonement in a time of a Jewish-engineered genocide in Gaza. The conversation and question and answer that followed it brought up the question of Jewish oneness. Are we indeed one Jewish people? Have we really ever been? Should we be? And even if we should, could we be?
These are questions of weight and consequence in this season of repair in this particular year, perhaps more so. In 10 days, we will recite the vidui – the ashamnu and the al cheyt – these lists of misdeeds, transgressions, and wrongs, in the collective. We will say them in the plural, acknowledging our collective responsibility for one another and our accountability for all the acts of harm that any of us have caused. If one us did, we all did.
We are nearly two years into an ongoing genocide being committed in our name by a government that calls itself a Jewish government acknowledged by many Jews, and certainly by many non-Jews, as a Jewish government. And I am responsible. We, Jews, are responsible, remembering Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel’s discernment that while “some are guilty…all are responsible.” While we sing and pray here today, Palestinian people are being expelled, starved, injured, orphaned, and murdered by the design of some Jews. Those Jews are guilty, we are all responsible.
And while there is no part of me looking to avoid or side-step my responsibility as a Jew, as an American tax payer, as a human, for this continuing atrocity, I find myself questioning the very nature, the very idea of our collective as a Jewish people that is said to be responsible for one another. As we move toward the day of communal accountability, where on this matter I have argued that atonement is not at all close to being possible, I include myself as part of a Jewish whole, one that includes military commanders ordering destruction and murder, political leaders dehumanizing their citizens and neighbors, and settlers illegally claiming land with indiscriminate violence.
And on the other hand, as we begin to move through the gates, I feel more open than ever in my life to the possibility of a true schism within our people. The cusp of a divergence that challenges ideas I brought into rabbinical school and have built upon since. The idea itself of klal yisrael, a commitment to the entirety of the Jewish people, is bending, I feel, to the point of breaking.
I am reminded of one of my favorite classes in rabbinical school: Second Temple Civilization taught by Dr. Elsie Stern, may she be blessed and live long. One of my key takeaways from that class, still swimming around in my head fifteen years later, is that there is not and maybe never has been a single Judaism. There certainly was not in the time period of the second temple two thousand years ago, and that revelation introduced me to the idea of multiple Judaisms. The stakes were enormous for the future of the Jewish world back then. As you might know, the Pharisees, one of the many sects of Jews in the first decades of the Common Era won the longest legacy in the evolutionary battle for the Jewish future, and the Judaism we know of today as “Judaism” is indeed a Pharisee variety – one of many divergent and irreconcilable varieties of Judaisms of that time.
One way that Pharisaic Judaism outlasted the others of its time was that the Judaism they practiced did not revolve around the use of the central Jerusalem Temple, and their identity as Jews was not dependent on Jewish control of Jerusalem, the Temple mount, or the small mountain just by it, called Har Tzion, from which we get the English word Zion and Zionism today. Pharisaic Judaism and Jewishness endured, giving Jews a future in part by being less attached to a particular parcel of land and a particular way of practice that could only be done there, and instead instituted portable, flexible, and interpretable customs and practices all while maintaining a Jewishness that embraced change and resisted Hellenization and assimilation into the Roman empire.
While it is common in today’s Jewish landscape to focus on internal divides where there was still commonality and collective purpose, divides such as Hillel and Shammai where constructive disagreement was encouraged and recorded, it is less common, but perhaps just as important now to focus on historical divides such as the Pharisees, the Sadducees and the Essenes, not to mention the early Christians themselves who at the time were simply another divergent group of Jews of that same second temple era – where indeed there were vastly divergent groups of Jews who over time became literally different religions and peoples. Many of whom led to dead-end branches in the evolution of history.
I believe we may be in such a time again. I do not want to hyperbolize. What do I know? In applying to rabbinical school, I was asked about and assessed on my commitment to klal yisrael, the entirety of the Jewish people. And, I pride myself on thinking of all kinds of Jews as my fellow Jews. Claiming all of us as mine, vigilant in my insistence that I am theirs, whether they want me or not sometimes.
And yet. Another perspective on this is worth bringing into the fore and examining. Not because it is correct, but because it allows us to understand what is at stake and also allows us to build and sustain a divergent future where a Judaism and a Jewishness dripping with compassion and solidarity and care that understands and protects the sanctity of all life, not only when it conveniently or cynically aligns with a false supremacy of Jewish life and Jewish political control.
Maybe there are multiple Judaisms right now. Maybe one of them is a zionistic Judaism. Maybe one of them goes by many names, but, like the Pharisees, is not reliant on an attachment to a particular parcel of land and a particular way of practice that could only be done there. A moralistic one. A Judaism that is certainly valid, is based in our ancestral lessons, and believes that life is the utmost. That every human being is an entire world.
As we move through the Days of Awe, the Days of Return and Repair, the days of gathering with all whom we share a destiny, let us spend some time understanding that we are indeed part of a klal yisrael – an entirety of the Jewish people, and hold ourselves accountable to what indeed our people is doing.
And, let us also acknowledge that splitting, that diverging, and that naming it as such, that becoming a different Judaism – or simply being the different Judaism that we already are, can give us space to mourn what has actually already been irreparably broken and destroyed – the Temple of Jewish Oneness. And from that grief and mourning, may we build up the Jewishness and the Judaism we and our ancestors have dreamed of and future generations deserve.
This Rosh HaShanah I hold two different “we’s” – a we of which I am a part that is doing terrible things and I am responsible for; and a we of which I am a part that will ensure what is happening will never happen again, to anyone, and certainly not by our design. Perhaps only one of these “we’s” has a future. One of these “we’s” needs us each to amplify it and build it up and stay engaged and make it great and make it beautiful in all the ways that line up with our resources and our talents. May we find the strength to commit ourselves to a divergent Jewish future that maybe will one day simply be called “Judaism.” May we find space to feel the heartbreak when we find ourselves on different paths than loved ones in this potentially divergent future. May we find the self-respect and love to honor and protect and reinforce what we build with resilient, flexible communities. And may we find pride in being who we are as the Jews we are, pride that becomes foreign to it being questioned.
Anyada buena, dulsi i alegre, shanah tovah u’metukah, tizku shanim rabot, and gut yontif. May it be good, may it be sweet, may it be joyous. May it merit us long and fulfilled years to come. And may it be so for everyone.
_
Rabbi David Basior
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