 | We're all global citizens of a shared and fragile planet. And at the same time, Jewish life's public vitality – and with it, global diversity and genuine belonging – tends to ebb and flow in cycles of societal turbulence. Yet again, Jews and other minorities face a recurring existential question: who are we relative to where we are? In the U.S. flag's stars and stripes, there is still enough starlight for all of us. |
By Rabbi David Evan Markus
Toledot 5785 (2024)
Click here for last year's post on this Torah portion, "When Because Doesn't Answer Why."
How often does prejudice or worse telegraph "You're not welcome here"? How often do crass slogans like "Love it or leave it!" demean discourse and diversity?
My life is a product of it – and not just mine. My dad was born in Central Asia and fled. The Holocaust chopped whole branches of my family tree. Maybe yours too.
And not just Jews. Not at all.
Times of societal turbulence rock the boat of belonging. Like shaking a snow globe, history shows from era to era and society to society that social jolts shake up barely dormant dust of supremacy and hate. And history shows that responses will vary. Some fight for equal rights and equal dignity. Others suffer inequality and indignity in silence. Some withdraw from civic life for self-protection. Others think about leaving. Some do. Some can't.
Jews have experienced these kinds of societal forces and stark choices for 2,500 years. It's why Torah commands us to cherish the stranger as ourselves, "for you know the stranger's soul" (Exodus 23:9).
From the start, adversity pressured Jews to choose. Facing famine in the Land of Israel, Western monotheism's Biblical patriarch Abraham – the Bible's first stranger – took refuge elsewhere (Genesis 12:10). To Abraham, difference and adversity made departure his best choice. In this week's Torah portion, his son Isaac faced much the same choice, but chose differently (Genesis 26:1-3):
Toledot 5785 (2024)
Click here for last year's post on this Torah portion, "When Because Doesn't Answer Why."
How often does prejudice or worse telegraph "You're not welcome here"? How often do crass slogans like "Love it or leave it!" demean discourse and diversity?
My life is a product of it – and not just mine. My dad was born in Central Asia and fled. The Holocaust chopped whole branches of my family tree. Maybe yours too.
And not just Jews. Not at all.
Times of societal turbulence rock the boat of belonging. Like shaking a snow globe, history shows from era to era and society to society that social jolts shake up barely dormant dust of supremacy and hate. And history shows that responses will vary. Some fight for equal rights and equal dignity. Others suffer inequality and indignity in silence. Some withdraw from civic life for self-protection. Others think about leaving. Some do. Some can't.
Jews have experienced these kinds of societal forces and stark choices for 2,500 years. It's why Torah commands us to cherish the stranger as ourselves, "for you know the stranger's soul" (Exodus 23:9).
From the start, adversity pressured Jews to choose. Facing famine in the Land of Israel, Western monotheism's Biblical patriarch Abraham – the Bible's first stranger – took refuge elsewhere (Genesis 12:10). To Abraham, difference and adversity made departure his best choice. In this week's Torah portion, his son Isaac faced much the same choice, but chose differently (Genesis 26:1-3):
| וַיְהִ֤י רָעָב֙ בָּאָ֔רֶץ מִלְּבַד֙ הָרָעָ֣ב הָרִאשׁ֔וֹן אֲשֶׁ֥ר הָיָ֖ה בִּימֵ֣י אַבְרָהָ֑ם...׃ וַיֵּרָ֤א אֵלָיו֙ יהו''ה וַיֹּ֖אמֶר אַל־תֵּרֵ֣ד מִצְרָ֑יְמָה שְׁכֹ֣ן בָּאָ֔רֶץ אֲשֶׁ֖ר אֹמַ֥ר אֵלֶֽיךָ׃ גּ֚וּר בָּאָ֣רֶץ הַזֹּ֔את וְאֶֽהְיֶ֥ה עִמְּךָ֖ וַאֲבָרְכֶ֑ךָּ | There was a famine in the land – aside from the previous famine that had occurred in the days of Avraham.... YHVH appeared to [Isaac] and said, “Do not go down to Egypt: stay in the land that I tell you. Reside in this land, and I will be with you, and I will bless you.... |
We can empathize with Isaac's predicament – to stay when his own father didn't? to stay on a mere promise of blessing unseen? to stay and struggle to make a better life even if every impulse might have told him to leave?
The prophet Jeremiah faced a different scenario but similar pressures. After the 586 BCE Jewish exile to Babylon, Jews faced a quandary that 2,500 years would repeat over and over: how to survive and thrive amidst adversity? Jeremiah's answer: make homes, lean into our home societies, and do all we can to flourish – and help our societies flourish – wherever we are. Even in exile, "Seek the peace and wholeness of the [place] where you are, and pray for it, for in its wholeness you will be whole" (Jeremiah 29:7).
It's why, 2,500 years later, synagogues outside Israel place two flags up front to represent total fidelity to both homes: wherever we are, and the Land of Israel. It's why Jews are taught to lean into bettering society, wherever we are, despite adversity, however we can, as long as we can.
Since the modern State of Israel's founding in 1948, the Law of Return welcomed world Jewry to emigrate to Israel. Many did, fleeing often brutal antisemitism. The Law of Return began to shift ancient Jewish laments of galut (exile), which arose after Romans again ejected Jews from the Land of Israel in the year 70 CE. With nearly half of world Jewry choosing life outside Israel, "exile" became somewhat voluntary if not outdated as a concept. Instead, Art Green offers, global Jews today aren't exiled but instead tefutzot (scattered), without exile's sting of degradation.
Yet degradation can take many forms. The spectrum of societal crassness, hateful displays and tolerance for them, ambivalence, fear to make waves, willful blindness, double standards, denialism, gaslighting, micro-aggressions, macro-aggressions, hate-spurred violence – it's a toxic brew that Jews have known in most every generation.
Lately I've heard from more than a few congregants – and from public-facing Jewish folks who quietly confide in me – that they feel more on edge than ever. They describe life out of sync, like an old Kung Fu movie with audio and video mistimed. Often in hushed tones, they recount cool receptions from people and places once warm and safe. Some say they muddle through and try not to think about it. Some are trying to organize. Others say they're unsure what to do. In just the last few weeks, three friends in very different circles blurted out that they're pursuing additional citizenships, "just in case."
Others minimize or dismiss concerns about distancing, diminishment or denialism. They insist that law, core values and goodwill will hold, reliably averting any "just in case." They counsel that reacting to crass cultural forces would breed its own anxiety and only continue a toxic culture of grievance. They say that institutional focus on diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging needn't particularly extend to Jews because, they claim, Jews generally don't endure structural prejudice.
All of these are exiles – whatever one's beliefs, philosophies, politics or experiences. For most, these aren't physical exiles, but they are emotional and spiritual ones. They are exiles from true belonging, best selves, genuine community, common dignity and basic rightness.
And they hurt – the fact of them, and how they seem unrecognized or devalued. No wonder folks say they feel anxious, afraid, agitated, determined, downtrodden, confused or just plain numb.
I continue to believe, as Jonathan Greenblatt of the Anti-Defamation League told me and other clergy in September 2024, that the U.S. remains the freest home for Jews outside Israel in history. I proudly pledge allegiance to both flags up front as beacons and symbols of civic covenants of equality, liberty and justice for all – even when both nations fall short.
Precisely in our difficult and dangerous times, those covenants compel and command us.
We know the stranger's soul, so we must do all we can so that nobody is othered into being strangers – not in our midst, not on our watch, not in our communities, not in our society.
We know the stranger's soul, so we must live and teach and organize and give and care and hug and march and advocate for a pluralist society for all – not for mere polite tolerance but for genuine belonging – however we feel (or feel ourselves treated) amidst it all.
We know the stranger's soul, so wherever we are, we're to live that way – because patriarch Isaac faced adversity, because Jeremiah leaned in, because our ancestors struggled and died for rights and opportunities we cherish, because it's who we're called to be come what may.
It's why I took our community across the Edmund Pettis Bridge in Selma, Alabama, on our solidarity march timed to Holocaust Remembrance Day 2024. It's why I season my rabbinate with Arabic I began learning after I met with the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah in late 2022. It's why I write this column and aim our covenantal commitments to social justice:
It's why we must build bridges however we can, with whomever we can, as long as we can.
In the U.S. flag's stars and stripes, I see enough starlight for all of us – awesome, radiant, inexhaustible – even if we ourselves sometimes experience fear, darkness, exclusion and exhaustion. We, our moral tradition and our civic covenant are worth everything we can give.
As a church bishop friend puts it, "Inclusive, because diversity was God's idea."
The prophet Jeremiah faced a different scenario but similar pressures. After the 586 BCE Jewish exile to Babylon, Jews faced a quandary that 2,500 years would repeat over and over: how to survive and thrive amidst adversity? Jeremiah's answer: make homes, lean into our home societies, and do all we can to flourish – and help our societies flourish – wherever we are. Even in exile, "Seek the peace and wholeness of the [place] where you are, and pray for it, for in its wholeness you will be whole" (Jeremiah 29:7).
It's why, 2,500 years later, synagogues outside Israel place two flags up front to represent total fidelity to both homes: wherever we are, and the Land of Israel. It's why Jews are taught to lean into bettering society, wherever we are, despite adversity, however we can, as long as we can.
Since the modern State of Israel's founding in 1948, the Law of Return welcomed world Jewry to emigrate to Israel. Many did, fleeing often brutal antisemitism. The Law of Return began to shift ancient Jewish laments of galut (exile), which arose after Romans again ejected Jews from the Land of Israel in the year 70 CE. With nearly half of world Jewry choosing life outside Israel, "exile" became somewhat voluntary if not outdated as a concept. Instead, Art Green offers, global Jews today aren't exiled but instead tefutzot (scattered), without exile's sting of degradation.
Yet degradation can take many forms. The spectrum of societal crassness, hateful displays and tolerance for them, ambivalence, fear to make waves, willful blindness, double standards, denialism, gaslighting, micro-aggressions, macro-aggressions, hate-spurred violence – it's a toxic brew that Jews have known in most every generation.
Lately I've heard from more than a few congregants – and from public-facing Jewish folks who quietly confide in me – that they feel more on edge than ever. They describe life out of sync, like an old Kung Fu movie with audio and video mistimed. Often in hushed tones, they recount cool receptions from people and places once warm and safe. Some say they muddle through and try not to think about it. Some are trying to organize. Others say they're unsure what to do. In just the last few weeks, three friends in very different circles blurted out that they're pursuing additional citizenships, "just in case."
Others minimize or dismiss concerns about distancing, diminishment or denialism. They insist that law, core values and goodwill will hold, reliably averting any "just in case." They counsel that reacting to crass cultural forces would breed its own anxiety and only continue a toxic culture of grievance. They say that institutional focus on diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging needn't particularly extend to Jews because, they claim, Jews generally don't endure structural prejudice.
All of these are exiles – whatever one's beliefs, philosophies, politics or experiences. For most, these aren't physical exiles, but they are emotional and spiritual ones. They are exiles from true belonging, best selves, genuine community, common dignity and basic rightness.
And they hurt – the fact of them, and how they seem unrecognized or devalued. No wonder folks say they feel anxious, afraid, agitated, determined, downtrodden, confused or just plain numb.
I continue to believe, as Jonathan Greenblatt of the Anti-Defamation League told me and other clergy in September 2024, that the U.S. remains the freest home for Jews outside Israel in history. I proudly pledge allegiance to both flags up front as beacons and symbols of civic covenants of equality, liberty and justice for all – even when both nations fall short.
Precisely in our difficult and dangerous times, those covenants compel and command us.
We know the stranger's soul, so we must do all we can so that nobody is othered into being strangers – not in our midst, not on our watch, not in our communities, not in our society.
We know the stranger's soul, so we must live and teach and organize and give and care and hug and march and advocate for a pluralist society for all – not for mere polite tolerance but for genuine belonging – however we feel (or feel ourselves treated) amidst it all.
We know the stranger's soul, so wherever we are, we're to live that way – because patriarch Isaac faced adversity, because Jeremiah leaned in, because our ancestors struggled and died for rights and opportunities we cherish, because it's who we're called to be come what may.
It's why I took our community across the Edmund Pettis Bridge in Selma, Alabama, on our solidarity march timed to Holocaust Remembrance Day 2024. It's why I season my rabbinate with Arabic I began learning after I met with the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah in late 2022. It's why I write this column and aim our covenantal commitments to social justice:
It's why we must build bridges however we can, with whomever we can, as long as we can.
In the U.S. flag's stars and stripes, I see enough starlight for all of us – awesome, radiant, inexhaustible – even if we ourselves sometimes experience fear, darkness, exclusion and exhaustion. We, our moral tradition and our civic covenant are worth everything we can give.
As a church bishop friend puts it, "Inclusive, because diversity was God's idea."
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