Post by Rabbi Neil on Sept 21, 2017 0:08:57 GMT
There’s no ‘i’ in Israel… except, of course, there is! That may sound ridiculous, but it’s actually a fair way to describe how Torah represents individuals in the community. Of course, in Genesis everyone is named, but that’s because there are so few people to consider. Once Israel becomes a nation, for example, after they leave Egypt, the only individuals Torah is really interested in are those in leadership, those who threaten the leadership, or those who interact with the leadership in some way. God interacts with those individuals, sometimes rewarding but often punishing them for their individual actions. But God also often rewards and often punishes the people en masse. There are a number of times, for example, when some of the people contravene God’s will as expressed in Torah, and the response from God is a plague or a fire that runs through the camp, killing thousands of nameless individuals who may or may not have been involved in the original act. This seems wrong to the modern mind, and perhaps even partially to the ancient mind. To paraphrase from Abraham, how can God sweep away the righteous with the wicked? As we saw on Rosh Hashanah, God’s answer a few chapters later to Abraham, and indeed also in the Book of Job and elsewhere, is “I can sweep away whoever I like because My ways are not your ways.”
In ancient narratives, this is a common motif. There are heroes and then there’s the rest of the people. The wonder of the Biblical narrative, though, is that the masses are not irrelevant, even if they may be punished en masse. In fact, God clearly has a relationship not just with the heroes of the Jewish narrative but with the entire people. As Judith Plaskow writes, “any understanding of Israel must begin with the recognition that Israel is a community, a people, not a collection of individual selves. The conviction that personhood is shaped, nourished, and sustained in community is a central assumption .. [of Judaism]…. For the Jew,… the individual is not an isolated unit who attains humanity through independence from others or who must contract for social relations. Rather, to be a person is to find oneself from the beginning in community – or, as is often the case in the modern world, in multiple communities. To develop as a person is to acquire a sense of self in relation to others and to critically appropriate a series of communal heritages.”
God makes a covenant not with individuals, but with the people as a whole. Thus, Plaskow continues that “the commandments deal with community: first, with the God of community, second, with the rhythm of weeks and of generations in the national life, and third, with the space of community, with norms “for mutual relations between its members.” From Sinai on, the Jewish relationship to God is mediated through this community. The Jew stands before God not as an individual but as a member of a people. With that in mind, God reward and punishes the people collectively, not individually, because there is no real “I” in Israel, only a collective “we.” Collective reward and punishment is not an indicator of primitive thinking – in fact, quite likely the opposite – it is an indicator that the people were one entity. We might initially balk at such an idea but only because we are inheritors of Hellenistic ways of viewing the world. And the Rabbis were not impervious to Hellenic influence, and tension developed in their writings between differing mindsets. In Talmud we read that “All Israel are responsible for one another,” but our tradition speaks in two similar but differing voices. One says kol yisrael arevim zeh lazeh, which means every individual Jew is responsible for every other individual Jew. Put another way, if one Jew defaults on a loan, another Jew can be made liable to pay for it. The other voice says kol yisrael arevim zeh bazeh, not lazeh, and this perspective means that all Israel are responsible for one another, meaning that we share a common destiny and that we as a people are responsible for the communal good. The first perspective acknowledges the bond of Israel we all share but clearly speaks of individuals, whereas the second speaks of us all as parts of a collective whole. The first seems profoundly unfair though – why should I be held liable for some other Jew’s debt? The second also seems unfair because if I try my best, why am I liable for others who can’t be bothered to do good deeds?
We only ask such questions, of course, because we see ourselves first and foremost as individuals, not as part of a collective whole. We consider our own personal relationship with God, our own spirituality, our own Jewish journey, or perhaps the Jewish journey of our children. We are aware that the Rabbis tried to resist that individualism with prayers in the High Holiday liturgy that talk in the plural form, ashamnu, avinu malkeinu, hashiveinu. But I’m not convinced that it really means much to us any more. Indeed, can there even be a communal “we” in Reform Judaism, so predicated as it is on personal autonomy?
I think there can. Human beings are by our very nature, social beings. Sure, some people can cut themselves off from society for extended periods of time, but on the whole, we act in social groups. Indeed, we define part of our being by those groups. Similar to what I mentioned on Erev Rosh Hashanah, the narrative of the community shapes the individual just as much as the narrative of the individual shapes the community. For that to happen, though, belonging to the community can’t just be a matter of occasional attendance and paying membership fees. To shape the narrative of the community, we have to actively be present on a regular basis in the community. More than that, we have to contribute to the deliberate transmission of the values of the community, or the next generation will not even know how to be part of the community itself. We are afraid of the idea of a communal identity because it sounds like the voice of anti-semitism, lumping all Jews together. But it’s not. It’s focusing on a shared destiny which we have all contributed to.
We have sinned, return us back to you, our God and God of our ancestors. Of course we’re all individuals but if we spent more time focusing on communal destiny and less time on personal destiny, if we continue to create and contribute toward a communal vision, then we can meaningfully speak as one. Regardless of our unique spirituality, or our unique relationship with mitzvah, we know also that no Jew is an island! We know that if the next generation is to belong to a continued people, if the Jews not yet born are to help form the narrative of the Jewish people and to have that narrative help form them, then we need to give of our individual selves specifically for the fulfillment of that communal vision. We have to ask the particularly challenging question – what must I as an individual do to ensure that Judaism continues long beyond my individual being? What must I as an individual do to ensure that Judaism continues long beyond my individual being? If we can all try to answer that question, individually and communally, then the people of Israel may well continue for generations to come. May such be the result of our individual contribution to the communal narrative, and let us say, Amen.
In ancient narratives, this is a common motif. There are heroes and then there’s the rest of the people. The wonder of the Biblical narrative, though, is that the masses are not irrelevant, even if they may be punished en masse. In fact, God clearly has a relationship not just with the heroes of the Jewish narrative but with the entire people. As Judith Plaskow writes, “any understanding of Israel must begin with the recognition that Israel is a community, a people, not a collection of individual selves. The conviction that personhood is shaped, nourished, and sustained in community is a central assumption .. [of Judaism]…. For the Jew,… the individual is not an isolated unit who attains humanity through independence from others or who must contract for social relations. Rather, to be a person is to find oneself from the beginning in community – or, as is often the case in the modern world, in multiple communities. To develop as a person is to acquire a sense of self in relation to others and to critically appropriate a series of communal heritages.”
God makes a covenant not with individuals, but with the people as a whole. Thus, Plaskow continues that “the commandments deal with community: first, with the God of community, second, with the rhythm of weeks and of generations in the national life, and third, with the space of community, with norms “for mutual relations between its members.” From Sinai on, the Jewish relationship to God is mediated through this community. The Jew stands before God not as an individual but as a member of a people. With that in mind, God reward and punishes the people collectively, not individually, because there is no real “I” in Israel, only a collective “we.” Collective reward and punishment is not an indicator of primitive thinking – in fact, quite likely the opposite – it is an indicator that the people were one entity. We might initially balk at such an idea but only because we are inheritors of Hellenistic ways of viewing the world. And the Rabbis were not impervious to Hellenic influence, and tension developed in their writings between differing mindsets. In Talmud we read that “All Israel are responsible for one another,” but our tradition speaks in two similar but differing voices. One says kol yisrael arevim zeh lazeh, which means every individual Jew is responsible for every other individual Jew. Put another way, if one Jew defaults on a loan, another Jew can be made liable to pay for it. The other voice says kol yisrael arevim zeh bazeh, not lazeh, and this perspective means that all Israel are responsible for one another, meaning that we share a common destiny and that we as a people are responsible for the communal good. The first perspective acknowledges the bond of Israel we all share but clearly speaks of individuals, whereas the second speaks of us all as parts of a collective whole. The first seems profoundly unfair though – why should I be held liable for some other Jew’s debt? The second also seems unfair because if I try my best, why am I liable for others who can’t be bothered to do good deeds?
We only ask such questions, of course, because we see ourselves first and foremost as individuals, not as part of a collective whole. We consider our own personal relationship with God, our own spirituality, our own Jewish journey, or perhaps the Jewish journey of our children. We are aware that the Rabbis tried to resist that individualism with prayers in the High Holiday liturgy that talk in the plural form, ashamnu, avinu malkeinu, hashiveinu. But I’m not convinced that it really means much to us any more. Indeed, can there even be a communal “we” in Reform Judaism, so predicated as it is on personal autonomy?
I think there can. Human beings are by our very nature, social beings. Sure, some people can cut themselves off from society for extended periods of time, but on the whole, we act in social groups. Indeed, we define part of our being by those groups. Similar to what I mentioned on Erev Rosh Hashanah, the narrative of the community shapes the individual just as much as the narrative of the individual shapes the community. For that to happen, though, belonging to the community can’t just be a matter of occasional attendance and paying membership fees. To shape the narrative of the community, we have to actively be present on a regular basis in the community. More than that, we have to contribute to the deliberate transmission of the values of the community, or the next generation will not even know how to be part of the community itself. We are afraid of the idea of a communal identity because it sounds like the voice of anti-semitism, lumping all Jews together. But it’s not. It’s focusing on a shared destiny which we have all contributed to.
We have sinned, return us back to you, our God and God of our ancestors. Of course we’re all individuals but if we spent more time focusing on communal destiny and less time on personal destiny, if we continue to create and contribute toward a communal vision, then we can meaningfully speak as one. Regardless of our unique spirituality, or our unique relationship with mitzvah, we know also that no Jew is an island! We know that if the next generation is to belong to a continued people, if the Jews not yet born are to help form the narrative of the Jewish people and to have that narrative help form them, then we need to give of our individual selves specifically for the fulfillment of that communal vision. We have to ask the particularly challenging question – what must I as an individual do to ensure that Judaism continues long beyond my individual being? What must I as an individual do to ensure that Judaism continues long beyond my individual being? If we can all try to answer that question, individually and communally, then the people of Israel may well continue for generations to come. May such be the result of our individual contribution to the communal narrative, and let us say, Amen.
