Post by Rabbi Neil on Jul 14, 2017 20:12:42 GMT
Of all the sidrot that we find in Torah, the end of Balak and the beginning of Pinchas is potentially the most challenging for us as an American Reform community. When I was a teenager, I remember a very public situation in my Temple where someone’s child “married out,” to use the term that was used at the time. That meant that they were marrying outside the faith. That wasn’t so much the issue, it was the fact that the parents decided to say Kaddish, the mourners’ prayer, over their child once that happened. The person’s choice of a non-Jewish partner resulted in their parents treating them as though they were dead. For some reason, the community decided to inappropriately discuss this in the letters page of the synagogue magazine, which was a monthly publication at the time. So, every month we were treated to letters by members saying that they understood what the parents were doing because the child was abandoning their heritage, and there was also letters from people saying that children should be free to marry whoever they like and their parents should respect that. I remember being particularly angered by the way this family’s private matters were being aired publicly, and how intolerant some of the members of the community were being. So, I wrote a letter which quoted extensively from the siddur in terms of being tolerant of difference, of embracing people who engage in Judaism in differing ways, and of celebrating personal choices.
In my family, marrying non-Jewish people is not rare. It pained my grandmother when it happened and she used to use upsetting derogatory Yiddish terms about the non-Jewish members of the family. “He’s a nice guy but it’s a shame that….” and then she would bring out the offensive words. I don’t mean to speak badly of my grandmother at all, because she was a product of her time. She was also a product of her culture, and intermarriage has always been a very difficult issue for the Jewish community. That is brought out nowhere stronger than in this week’s sidrah. At the end of last week’s Torah portion, the Israelites whore themselves, to use the Torah’s language, with Moabite women. The people involved start worshiping the Moabite god. God demands that Moses publicly impale everyone involved. Then an Israelite man brings a Midianite woman over to his companions at the entrance of the Ten of Meeting. Pinchas, Aaron’s grandson, sees, takes a spear, follows them into the chamber, and runs them both through. An then at the start of this week’s portion, God clearly says that Pinchas’ action turned back the Divine wrath from the people and he is therefore granted a brit shalom, a covenant of peace. There’s very little ambiguity in the text. His act of religiously motivated murder – and let’s call it for what it truly is – is rewarded by God. Sure, many times in Torah God has commanded death, and brought about death, but the start of this week’s portion is different. Pinchas is given a covenant with God merely because of his act of religious murder. Put in a contemporary context, we would say Pinchas is a fundamentalist, a dangerous religious extremist, but Torah sees him as praiseworthy. Even if we thought that intermarriage is a bad thing, none of us would ever justify killing someone over it. And yet we read a document that openly endorses this – indeed, we treat such a document as sacred! So this leaves us with a profound difficulty as Reform Jews, which is what it means to authentically respond to intermarriage as a Jewish community. There is an added American element to this. In England, if a Reform Rabbi performs a marriage ceremony between a Jew and a non-Jew, they are immediately and permanently removed from the Assembly of Rabbis. In America, however, no such censure happens. Rabbis can do what they like. They can even share a wedding ceremony with a non-Jewish minister if they wish, although it is rare for such things to happen. In England, there seems to be a strong sense of “if we fight it, we can limit it,” but in America there is a strongly different approach – “it’s a matter of life, so how do we embrace it and keep the Jewish partner in the community?” Both are valid approaches, it’s just the American way is more tolerant. British Reform can boast far fewer intermarried couples, but my suspicion is that’s because they leave because they don’t feel welcome. So as welcoming as American Reform Jewry is to intermarried couples, though, we cannot ignore the demographics. Children of intermarried couples are far less likely to lead a Jewish lifestyle, and their grandchildren almost certainly won’t. Orthodox Jews often quote such studies to show that if preserving Judaism is important, Reform Judaism isn’t the way forward precisely because of this.
But I would like to take a different approach. What I learn from this Torah portion is that for millennia, ever since Torah times, there have been Jews who have wanted to be with a partner who isn’t Jewish. The past way was to deal harshly with such people, but the instance of the Israelite man and Midianite woman is different to what we see today. God says to Moses “Assail the Midianites and defeat them for they assailed you by the trickery they practiced against you… because of the affair of…” this daughter of a Midianite chieftain and the Israelite man. In other words, what we have here in Balak and in Pinchas is not just two people falling in love, but an act of war by any means necessary. Balak tries to get the prophet Bilaam to curse the Israelite people so he may defeat them in battle, but it doesn’t happen. So he sends in his priestesses to sleep with the Israelite men to get them to worship another god, and thus be abandoned by the Israelite God. And it nearly works. So, when this passage is quoted, as it usually is, in terms of the importance of resisting intermarriage, we have to realise that it’s totally inappropriate. Intermarriage today isn’t because of an act of theological warfare by the other religions! It’s because the world is now an open place and Jews can mix freely in society and they fall in love with whoever they want, not whoever their ancestors or their community tell them they should fall in love with. And that means sometimes they fall in love with a Jew and sometimes they don’t.
The demographics nag us, though. Torah is worried about spiritual pollution, about Jews turning from their tradition. Demographics tell us that that is exactly what is happening amongst Jews who marry non-Jews. So how do we respond? I believe that we need to look at history. Judaism, to quote Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan, is an “evolving, religious civilization.” Intermarriage isn’t the cause of Jews falling away from Judaism, or of their children not engaging in Jewish lives, it’s the fact that the religious side of their lives often isn’t developed enough to withstand external influence. Because in the past, external influence was never an issue. Think of the seder service and how it’s based on Greco-Roman customs. Rabban Gamaliel didn’t give up his Judaism because he learned how the rest of the world do things, he strengthened it by creating a service that included external influence. If Reform Judaism is going to be welcoming to interfaith couples – as I believe it should – then it should also be actively engaged in family education, as we shall be. It should be promoting a religious Jewish lifestyle that is evolving. It should not be judging, it should be empowering.
So, it’s totally understandable to have theological difficulties with this week’s sidrah. It’s totally acceptable to find God’s response to religious murder unsettling at the very least. We should. Personally, I have to take this section as clear evidence of the human element in Torah. I cannot imagine - and certainly would not pray to - a God who condoned murder. But I do understand that such zeal comes from fear. And perhaps it’s about time for Reform Judaism to stop being so afraid, for us to be brave with our education, to be bold and say, “This is who we are, this is what we stand for, and this is how we life Jewish lives.” We’re often good with the first two but not so good with the third part of that clause because we don’t want to tell people how to live their life. But if we are to truly welcome intermarried couples, it’s not enough to just hold open the door for them to walk in and then tut and shake our heads one or two generations letter as their descendants walk back out. We have to help all Jews of today be more involved in their Judaism. We need to help facilitate Jewish living. If you join a Jewish community, you do so because you value Judaism. So we need to help turn that value into action, into something alive, into a living religion.
For me, then, the lesson of Pinchas is not one of religious zeal. It’s not one of extremist murder and its not one of fear of pollution of Judaism. It’s a message that Jewish people have always loved whoever their heart loves and that our responsibility as a Jewish community isn’t to fight that, but to help today’s Jews create vibrant Jewish lives no matter whom they love. May such be God’s will, and let us say, Amen.
In my family, marrying non-Jewish people is not rare. It pained my grandmother when it happened and she used to use upsetting derogatory Yiddish terms about the non-Jewish members of the family. “He’s a nice guy but it’s a shame that….” and then she would bring out the offensive words. I don’t mean to speak badly of my grandmother at all, because she was a product of her time. She was also a product of her culture, and intermarriage has always been a very difficult issue for the Jewish community. That is brought out nowhere stronger than in this week’s sidrah. At the end of last week’s Torah portion, the Israelites whore themselves, to use the Torah’s language, with Moabite women. The people involved start worshiping the Moabite god. God demands that Moses publicly impale everyone involved. Then an Israelite man brings a Midianite woman over to his companions at the entrance of the Ten of Meeting. Pinchas, Aaron’s grandson, sees, takes a spear, follows them into the chamber, and runs them both through. An then at the start of this week’s portion, God clearly says that Pinchas’ action turned back the Divine wrath from the people and he is therefore granted a brit shalom, a covenant of peace. There’s very little ambiguity in the text. His act of religiously motivated murder – and let’s call it for what it truly is – is rewarded by God. Sure, many times in Torah God has commanded death, and brought about death, but the start of this week’s portion is different. Pinchas is given a covenant with God merely because of his act of religious murder. Put in a contemporary context, we would say Pinchas is a fundamentalist, a dangerous religious extremist, but Torah sees him as praiseworthy. Even if we thought that intermarriage is a bad thing, none of us would ever justify killing someone over it. And yet we read a document that openly endorses this – indeed, we treat such a document as sacred! So this leaves us with a profound difficulty as Reform Jews, which is what it means to authentically respond to intermarriage as a Jewish community. There is an added American element to this. In England, if a Reform Rabbi performs a marriage ceremony between a Jew and a non-Jew, they are immediately and permanently removed from the Assembly of Rabbis. In America, however, no such censure happens. Rabbis can do what they like. They can even share a wedding ceremony with a non-Jewish minister if they wish, although it is rare for such things to happen. In England, there seems to be a strong sense of “if we fight it, we can limit it,” but in America there is a strongly different approach – “it’s a matter of life, so how do we embrace it and keep the Jewish partner in the community?” Both are valid approaches, it’s just the American way is more tolerant. British Reform can boast far fewer intermarried couples, but my suspicion is that’s because they leave because they don’t feel welcome. So as welcoming as American Reform Jewry is to intermarried couples, though, we cannot ignore the demographics. Children of intermarried couples are far less likely to lead a Jewish lifestyle, and their grandchildren almost certainly won’t. Orthodox Jews often quote such studies to show that if preserving Judaism is important, Reform Judaism isn’t the way forward precisely because of this.
But I would like to take a different approach. What I learn from this Torah portion is that for millennia, ever since Torah times, there have been Jews who have wanted to be with a partner who isn’t Jewish. The past way was to deal harshly with such people, but the instance of the Israelite man and Midianite woman is different to what we see today. God says to Moses “Assail the Midianites and defeat them for they assailed you by the trickery they practiced against you… because of the affair of…” this daughter of a Midianite chieftain and the Israelite man. In other words, what we have here in Balak and in Pinchas is not just two people falling in love, but an act of war by any means necessary. Balak tries to get the prophet Bilaam to curse the Israelite people so he may defeat them in battle, but it doesn’t happen. So he sends in his priestesses to sleep with the Israelite men to get them to worship another god, and thus be abandoned by the Israelite God. And it nearly works. So, when this passage is quoted, as it usually is, in terms of the importance of resisting intermarriage, we have to realise that it’s totally inappropriate. Intermarriage today isn’t because of an act of theological warfare by the other religions! It’s because the world is now an open place and Jews can mix freely in society and they fall in love with whoever they want, not whoever their ancestors or their community tell them they should fall in love with. And that means sometimes they fall in love with a Jew and sometimes they don’t.
The demographics nag us, though. Torah is worried about spiritual pollution, about Jews turning from their tradition. Demographics tell us that that is exactly what is happening amongst Jews who marry non-Jews. So how do we respond? I believe that we need to look at history. Judaism, to quote Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan, is an “evolving, religious civilization.” Intermarriage isn’t the cause of Jews falling away from Judaism, or of their children not engaging in Jewish lives, it’s the fact that the religious side of their lives often isn’t developed enough to withstand external influence. Because in the past, external influence was never an issue. Think of the seder service and how it’s based on Greco-Roman customs. Rabban Gamaliel didn’t give up his Judaism because he learned how the rest of the world do things, he strengthened it by creating a service that included external influence. If Reform Judaism is going to be welcoming to interfaith couples – as I believe it should – then it should also be actively engaged in family education, as we shall be. It should be promoting a religious Jewish lifestyle that is evolving. It should not be judging, it should be empowering.
So, it’s totally understandable to have theological difficulties with this week’s sidrah. It’s totally acceptable to find God’s response to religious murder unsettling at the very least. We should. Personally, I have to take this section as clear evidence of the human element in Torah. I cannot imagine - and certainly would not pray to - a God who condoned murder. But I do understand that such zeal comes from fear. And perhaps it’s about time for Reform Judaism to stop being so afraid, for us to be brave with our education, to be bold and say, “This is who we are, this is what we stand for, and this is how we life Jewish lives.” We’re often good with the first two but not so good with the third part of that clause because we don’t want to tell people how to live their life. But if we are to truly welcome intermarried couples, it’s not enough to just hold open the door for them to walk in and then tut and shake our heads one or two generations letter as their descendants walk back out. We have to help all Jews of today be more involved in their Judaism. We need to help facilitate Jewish living. If you join a Jewish community, you do so because you value Judaism. So we need to help turn that value into action, into something alive, into a living religion.
For me, then, the lesson of Pinchas is not one of religious zeal. It’s not one of extremist murder and its not one of fear of pollution of Judaism. It’s a message that Jewish people have always loved whoever their heart loves and that our responsibility as a Jewish community isn’t to fight that, but to help today’s Jews create vibrant Jewish lives no matter whom they love. May such be God’s will, and let us say, Amen.
