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| Moses Mendelsohn |
The European Enlightenment, when the Christian Church lost its
power of the secular state, presented incredible new opportunities to Jews who
wished to participate more fully in civil society. The efforts of these Jews to integrate, are
well documented in many places. For
those who don’t know what I’m talking about, I recommend viewing Simon Schama’s
five-hour miniseries on Jewish history, The Story of the Jews, produced
by BBC and available on DVD. Schama,
himself a man very much influenced by Enlightenment ideas, gives a clear and
passionate overview of what the Enlightenmentt Jews were trying to achieve.
The German-Jewish Rabbi and
philosopher, Moses Mendelsohn, was considered the Father of the Jewish
Enlightenment. Mendelsohn was
unapologetically Jewish and German. But
other figures of the Jewish Enlightenment were much more ambivalent concerning
their Jewishness. They tried to minimise
the Jewish influence on their lives outside the specific ritual practices of
Judaism. Judah Leib Gordon, a Russian Jew
of the 19th century, summed up the approach of many Enlightenment Jews: Be a Jew inside your home and a man
outside it. Perhaps obviously, his
use of ‘man’ wasn’t meant to disqualify those with two X chromosomes. His point was to be a ‘normal’ citizen
outside the home. Jewishness, and all
that made Jews distinctive, was something to express only privately. As if that were possible, because it isn’t.
Any Jew
who tries to be a Jew in the home and a non-specific citizen in the street,
will ultimately feel the sting of incongruence and disconnect. And will either push Jewishness further out
of his make-up, or immerse himself in it.
Because a Jewishness that does not infuse one’s character and influence
all that a person is, is an irrelevant Judaism. Take Mendelsohn's family for example. By the generation of his grandson, the famous composer Felix Mendelsohn, none of the great Rabbi's progeny were Jews.
Those who know me well, understand
that I’m not suggesting we wear Jewishness on our sleeves and wave it in the
face, uninvited, of everybody we encounter. You know that’s not what I’m about. Other Jews are about that, and I’m not
here to criticise it. But for me, as for
most of those hearing or reading my words today, it isn’t them. And it doesn’t have to be. My point is not that you should either hide
or make obvious your Jewish identity. Rather,
that you should use Jewish identity as a starting point to learn and actualise what
the Jewish Tradition teaches. The idea
that you can compartmentalize your life – a Jew at home and a man on the street
– is neither possible nor desirable.
Some will think what I’m saying
today is in distinct contrast to what I said last week about the soul of
Judaism resting in the home, not in a public place. But it isn’t.
My point last week, was that the nexus between Jew and G-d is nurtured
and expressed most intimately in everyday life. We do not call, or think, the table that sits
in the middle of the Jewish prayer space – or up on the bimah, when
there is one – as an ‘altar.’ The table
is a reading table, no more. We do not
perform any ritual here that serves as a literal conduit to G-d. Rather, we uplift one another with liturgy and
scripted acts that allude to the ancient Temple. But the real connection to the Temple, the
direct interaction with Hashem, comes in the home where we sit together at
table, sharing sustenance and fellowship in G-d’s Name.
That said, for many Jews today the
reality is that Judaism and Jewishness is not shared by all in their household. There are those Jews who are partnered with
non-Jews. And Jews-by-choice who did not
come to Judaism as a ‘package deal’ with their entire household. For for many Jews today, the synagogue has
become, de facto, the seat of not only Jewish identity but also of
Jewish sacred practice. There’s really
no way around it.
But really, the Jewish community is
not expendable. Even when the strength
of Jewish identity rests in the home, that doesn’t mean that a larger community
is not necessary. It’s true that Jews
with a strong identity and family connections frequently survive times of exile
from a larger community – resulting, for example, from taking a great job offer
in a place with little or no Jewish community.
But when a community exists, it helps to nurture and support our
individual Jewish lives in important ways.
This is why, at key moments when
Moses assembled the entire community to instruct them. Our Torah portion this week, Vayak’hel – ‘and
he assembled’ – begins with the very word and the concept. It takes place immediately after the communal
sin of the Golden Calf and the reconciliation between Hashem and the community
after that debacle. And what is the important
instruction for which Moses assembles the people? To instruct them to fastidiously observe and
practice the Shabbat, the weekly cessation from creative work, and to be
careful not to light any fires in any of the Israelite habitations on the
Sabbath day.
Why does the observance of Shabbat
come up again and again in the instructions to the people whenever they have
been led astray? Because it is Shabbat
that makes, and keeps Jews distinctive. We don’t look different than anybody
else. But our weekly observance puts us
so out-of-synch with the world around us that if we’re keeping it, we’ll be
distinctive and have that weekly infusion of Jewish thinking that will keep it
a part of who were are all week. Yes, it’s
true that there are a number of Christian sects that also keep Shabbat. Some Jews find that threatening, but I do
not. Even in a world where there are Subbotniki,
and Seventh-day Adventists, and Messianic ‘Jews’ the Sabbath, as taught and
ideally practiced amongst Jews, keeps us distinctive and gives us common ground
with other Jews and with the Jewish Tradition.
Shabbat shalom.
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