Rebuilding Our Hearts
In last week’s sermon, I talked about Rabbi Benay Lappe’s ‘crash theory’. Rabbi Lappe, if you recall, heads Svara, a ‘traditionally radical yeshiva’ and as a Jewish thinker, stands on the cusp between tradition and innovation. Her central thesis is that Jewish history goes through ‘crashes’ that call for realignment and reimagining. We explored last week what some of those crashes were, both in Jewish history writ large and in the turning points during the course of our own lifetime. Even in recent years, we have identified the COVID-19 pandemic as a crash, as well as 10/7.
Talking about 10/7 continues to be raw and traumatic, especially in light of this week’s hostage exchange, heartbreakingly returning to us the remains of the Bibas children, Kfir and Ariel*. The cool, distant glare of history does not always reveal the granular, immediate heat of our anguish; the death grip of violence and suffering subjected upon both individuals and entire populations. It is extraordinarily difficult to be dispassionate in moments like these and I don’t have a good answer to how each of us navigates this moment except to hold each other in love and thoughtfulness.
However, I do know that human beings (when they feel ready) are creatures of meaning-making, hunting for moral patterns in a chaotic universe. We attempt to understand the world and its sorrows, like trying to fit together the jagged edges of puzzle pieces. Perhaps we can hold these sorrows tenderly; for the sake of our own hearts, and for the sake of our humanity.
Confronting the rawness of this moment brings depth to examining our current ‘crash’. Reminding us of the framework of last week, this is what Rabbi Benay Lappe teaches about crashes:
“In the language of the crash theory, we’re at the tail end of the crumble and the beginning of the real crash. You know how the story goes–full-on crashes don’t just happen out of the blue. They are preceded by a long period of “crumble” during which time most folks are blissfully happy with how the master story is working for them, while that very same master story is crashing for the rest of us on the margins, one at a time.”
Last week, I argued that Parashat Yitro – the giving of the Torah on Mt. Sinai – represented a type of crash. The Israelites experienced the upheaval of the Ten Plagues and being liberated from Egypt; they viscerally felt the discombobulation of the pyrotechnics of Revelation, where they saw sound and heard fire. This week – Parashat Mishpatim – represents a new phase; an aftermath. The specificities of the laws given feel grounding and concrete: there is a new reality that calls for the building of a new consciousness, a new way of being in the world, a new society, gestating the hopes of a better future. Thus begins the long march from slavery to liberation.
The destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, of course, represents another such crash. The famous story in the Talmud recounts how the sage Yochanan ben Zakkai manages to be smuggled out of a burning Jerusalem in a coffin – the symbolism of death lies thickly about us – and is ‘reborn’ in a small place called Yavneh, where he builds up rabbinic Judaism out of the ashes of Temple Judaism. Under the cruelties of Roman occupation and devastation, we can only imagine the deep shock of our people. Crash.
It is telling that the name Yavneh is a pun: the root is bet-nun-hey, ‘to build’. The secret mission, therefore, lies encoded in the name. As the old world smolders, Yochanan ben Zakkai and his Sages imagine a new one.
Perhaps this is true for us too, even if it feels difficult to articulate or to imagine. I invite us – if you feel ready – to reflect on the crumble we are living through. This is painful. I know it is for me. The Jewish world I lived in and dreamed of building prior to 10/7 was a radically different world; it was the world as I knew it when I entered it. It was the comfort of a set vision that carried me through rabbinic school and the first decade of my rabbinate. This is not to say that there wasn’t complexity or nuance or ambivalence; but I had a clear sense of what I believed. I believed in a Judaism that is a light unto the nations, where communities are houses of prayer for all peoples. An open Judaism, a kind Judaism. A forward-thinking Judaism, an innovative Judaism. A self-reflective and introspective Judaism. A Judaism full of heart and a willingness to examine its own spirit. A Judaism worth sharing. I held onto that ambitious vision until 10/7 crumbled it in the palm of my hand and the chambers of my heart.
I cannot say what Judaism comes after the crash. It may be many Judaisms. Perhaps it will be a Judaism of tense communal fissures; perhaps it will be of irreconcilable fractures. Maybe some will turn back to tradition; others to innovation. Some will hold fast to an intense particularism; others to may cling to a lofty universalism. Each of us can try to imagine what may come next, our own set of ‘mishpatim’, laws and statutes and regulations that give moral order to our world and meaning to our Jewishness.
As the sorrows and horrors reign unabated in our world, I have come to realize that, perhaps, my post-crash Judaism needs to be less ambitious and more humble. Perhaps we need to go back to basics; reexamine the core tenets that make our beautiful, diverse, open, innovative and enduring ethnoreligious civilizational project so worthwhile. For me, the crash made me double down the values I uphold most dearly: a humane and humanitarian Judaism. A Judaism of prime numbers; of the elegant and undefeated mathematics of human dignity: each human, created in the Image of God, indivisible in worth, except perhaps only by itself.
I cannot do justice to the fact that today is Reproductive Rights Shabbat or that February is Black History Month or Disability Inclusion Month, or that we pray for the hostages and for the ease of the suffering of Palestinian civilians, or that we tenuously hold onto a fragile ceasefire while we may feel pulled under by waves of anger and despair. Each of these questions is a universe and I could dedicate a sermon to each. But when I try to distill each of these issues – and many more – to their lowest common denominator, I cannot help but stumble upon that prime number again. One humanity, enriched rather than fractured by our uniqueness and difference. Each human being, minted not in the image of Golden Calves or the idolatries of power and hierarchy, but just simply, a carving of flesh and blood, of ultimate concern. It is a truth I return to, time and again, even when it burns and sears and feels too hard to hold; but there is no alternative.
Out of our crash, new vistas will emerge. For now, the Yavneh we can build in our hearts is indelibly linked to Revelation at Sinai, when these eternal truths were spoken, and extends into a far and distant future where we refuse to relinquish the dignity of humankind. Something kind and simple and pure. Something we can shape in our own hands and hearts. Something that will grant us an inner glow, that will light the embers of what is to come. I think of it as Humanitarian Judaism.
I do not know if it is enough. But it is worth trying. I hope, that through the small steps on a long and unknown journey, we will all build it.
Hold each other close, holy and beloved siblings. We are the gift we need to receive.
*At the time of writing this sermon, there was still lack of clarity about the fate of Shiri Bibas, and it is important to respect the family’s request for privacy at this difficult time.
