Siblings Against Siblings
Chukat 2012/5772
Rabbi Neil A. Tow©
The fighting in distant wars, half-way or more around the
world not only is distant, but for
many of us it feels distant.
When there is debate on Israel’s defense policy, we try to
remind everyone that Israel is a small country, 290 miles in length and 85
miles wide at its widest point, similar to the size of New Jersey. And we remind everyone to think about what it
would feel like if there were regular rocket attacks on our State.
And then there are the battles that people fight very close
to home – battles in which family members are pitted against other family
members, where conflict arises from within, and the ancestral connections break
down. We might think here in this
country about the ways that some brothers fought against one another during the
Civil War on different sides in states such as Kentucky, South Carolina, and
Virginia.
And now we have reached a low point in the conflict between
the Orthodox leadership in Israel and Reform and Conservative Judaism in
Israel, a conflict that the establishment has pursued with rigor as
non-Orthodox Judaism has grown.
Recently, the Israeli Supreme Court, following a case initiated
by the Reform movement 7 years ago, decided that some non-Orthodox Rabbis
should receive government funding, as our Orthodox colleagues do – funding that
would not come from the department of Religious Affairs, but from the Cultural
and Sports Ministry – most likely for political reasons.
This past Tuesday, a chief Rabbi of Israel, Rabbi Moseh
Amar, called for and held a gathering of Orthodox Rabbis and friendly Members
of Knesset. He called for this gathering
in a letter.(Read excerpts.)
After hearing this letter, we know well why my colleagues in
the Conservative-Masorti and Reform communities are outraged at the accusation
that we and our congregants are ‘uprooting and destroying Judaism’ or acting as
saboteurs or terrorists. We must remember
that Orthodox groups receive some $450 million in government funding in Israel
and Masorti receives some $50,000.
The Orthodox initiated fight reminds us about the way that
the people of Edom, our kin through the line of Esau, brother to Jacob, do not
allow us to cross their lands during our wilderness journeys, even if we will
‘pay our way’ and cover the cost of taking supplies during our travels. Moses sends representatives to Edom from
‘your brother Israel’. Edom denies us
passage and backs up the denial with a threat of force.
The Rabbi of Kutna, a Hasidic master, teaches us that the
Rabbis shared a lesson – When we, the people of Israel, were enslaved in Egypt,
our brothers in Edom prospered. And so
when we come to them and ask for passage through their lands, when Moses
communicates to them, “You know all the suffering we’ve endured in Egypt,” we
would expect that Edom, Edom that has prospered and enjoyed the bounty of many
years, that Edom should be able to know just how much we have suffered, even
though they were not with us in this suffering.
But they do not have the empathy we hope for, and they react
in a painful way, as potential new oppressors just like Pharaoh.
This past Tuesday as Rabbis inside the Chief Rabbinate
offices met to strategize about how to deal with the Court’s decision and as
some 50 Masorti Rabbis protested outside for their rights, a miraculous event
happened. Both groups chose to pause and
pray the Mincha-afternoon service at the same time, one group inside and one
group outside.
The lesson here is clear – for Israel to prosper we cannot
forget that we are all related, whether our relationships are warm and close as
with Abraham and Sarah or cold and distant as with Jacob and Esau. And we must remain committed to the Jewish
teaching that suggests we do not rejoice when others suffer-that we all must
seek to raise up one another with dignity, that the way of a democracy is to
allow and encourage disenfranchised people to speak their minds and seek
recognition and leadership – a pathway that is no different from the way that
women here and abroad fought for the right to vote, or the way here that
African Americans and other minorities, including Jews, fought to be treated
equally by the same governments, and States, who crafted the Constitution’s “We
the people.”
Shabbat Shalom.
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