On One Foot
Rabba Rori Picker Neiss SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT FOR COMMUNITY RELATIONS, JEWISH COUNCIL FOR PUBLIC AFFAIRS
WE COME at issues as the sum total of all of our being and experiences. I’ll get asked about an issue as a woman or as an Orthodox Jew or as a mother, and it’s hard to isolate where are our Jewish values compared to our Ameri- can values, compared to our moral val- ues that we may or may not think of as connected to our Jewish values. I am seeing the Jewish communi- ty wrestling with the ways in which
we feel this need to prioritize a safety and security of the Jewish communi- ty. Do we think that we need to pri- oritize fighting antisemitism? Do we need to prioritize a relationship with Israel? Are these issues that we think ultimately make the Jewish communi- ty most safe? Or do we recognize the ways in which civil liberties and mi- nority rights ultimately are what keeps the Jewish community most safe?
I think that’s the tension that we’re sit- ting with. I have a hard time with [this in- creased focus on prioritizing commu- nal safety] because I think it’s actually really dangerous for the Jewish com- munity. I think that the Jewish com- munity shifting in this direction is not ultimately going to be good for the Jews, in part because the Jewish com- munity is never going to be influential enough or have enough of a presence in either the American or the Canadi- an context for our values to be what takes hold. So the only way that nar- rative actually moves forward is by ty- ing this idea of Jewish values to other values that are more represented in the majority.
4 IN OTHER WORDS, as a result of Rabbi Zekharya’s decision to not go to the authorities and explain the Jewish laws vis-à-vis temple sac- rifices, the Romans’ offering was refused and they took offence. This re- sulted in the war that destroyed the temple and sent the Jews into exile. The rabbis were keenly aware, even when living in a semi-autonomous state, that the community needed to not only maintain their laws and values, but to advocate for these laws to the authorities. The message is clear: sticking to your own community and not speaking truth to power can cause a community’s downfall. 5 BROYDE, A SCHOLAR OF LAW AND RELIGION (it must be noted that he was at the centre of a scandal when he gained access to private message boards using a pseudonym in order to promote his own work), wrote this in response to an article about the Jewish communal attitude to the gay-rights movement. His argument echoes the shtadlanim of the past whose primary responsibility was the protection of Jewish commu- nal interests. 6 HERE, THE VERY FACT that people feel compelled to do good in the world is understood to be, in and of itself, a Jewish value. The term tikun olam and the idea it represents has a very complicated history. For many Jews it has become the very essence of Judaism, while for others it barely even registers.
TO RETURN to the idea of the shtadlan , the fundamental shift in modernity was, per- haps, not whether one should advocate for Judaism beyond the narrow scope of par- ticular Jewish interests. Rather, it concerns our ability to vote and advocate for what we think is best, often individually, indepen- dent of an overarching Jewish communal response. This ability to be your own shtad- lan should be taken to heart. Should you consider your Jewish values when you go to the ballot box? Absolutely — but what that looks like is going to be different for each of us. For some, it will be limited and relate to issues that directly affect Jews, such as an- tisemitism or a given candidate’s voting re- cord regarding Israel. For others, it will have a broader scope, encompassing social issues that their understanding of Judaism speaks to (however they interpret the sources and whatever they think Judaism has to say about them). All of these have precedent, and all fall within Jewish understandings of civic engagement.
5785 אביב 33
Made with FlippingBook Digital Proposal Creator