The Jewish Story: Interlude - What is a Jew?

most people are other people says oscar wilde their thoughts are someone else's opinions their lives and mimicry their passions a quotation now i like to believe i'm actually who i am and i'm saying what i mean but sometimes i'm not entirely sure so just to be confident we're gonna break a few molds because i'm rob mike foyer and this is the jewish story interlude what is a jew you know i've gotten really tired of the question who is a jew i mean aside from the fact that it doesn't seem to have any answer just present an intractable question i see it as playing into the power of the very gatekeepers those who are bothered by the question want to disempower and furthermore it's actually avoiding the real problem that underlies the issue i want to talk about what is a jew instead of playing identity politics and who gets to be in who gets to be out let's talk about what we are and that might give us a little bit of an insight into where this story is headed now there's lots of ways that i could answer the question but i want to take a stab at first at least at the developmental approach let's start at the very beginning with avraham aveeno our father abraham was not the first jew he was the first iv the first hebrew and that word in hebrew means of course on the other side abram avinu stood opposite the whole world that believed in idolatry and he said there is one god and we've said before that this is conceptual courage it's the amazing inner ability to look the entire world into the face and say you're wrong my inner sense of the truth outweighs all of the reality i see around me and in such a fantastic fashion avraham his inner commitment to truth was so strong that it changed the world now this is what we call a paradigm shift you know if you've ever read thomas kuhn's book paradigm shift right he was the american physicist and philosopher that really introduced the idea that the way we know the world changes over time then you'll appreciate what he meant with the following quote he says well by the way he's quoting max plunk father himself of quantum physics talk about a major shift in the way we know the world he says or planck says a new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light but rather because its opponents eventually die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it in other words on some level the truth is that which lasts and conceptual courage is the ability to hold on to your inner essence to cleave to the truth of your story in the face of a world that's denying it and to allow that world just to fade away if you want an example of this in our modern world i give to you natan sharansky the great refuse nick right who sometime in the 70s decided he wanted to come to eretz israel out of the soviet union and for his troubles was thrown in prison if you haven't read his book you've got to check it out it's called fear no evil and it's really a monument in my eyes to exactly what i'm talking about just picture sharansky wants to go to the land of israel to the state of israel and the most powerful empire in the world tosses him in prison for his trouble but inside he's free he believes that he's a jew he believes that he's a human being and he believes that his freedom dictates that he should be allowed to go and join his people in their land and the whole power of the soviet empire is concentrated on keeping him imprisoned he doesn't try to convince them that they're wrong he doesn't rage against the machine what does he do he cleaves to that inner truth and lo and behold the very empire which imprisoned him crumbled around him and he walked out a free man so this lies at the base of the answer to the question what is a jew that conceptual courage that ability to cleave to our story to the point at which the world eventually catches up if we're going to keep going with the developmental approach then the next step of course is abraham's son isaac and there's a piece of what a jew is which comes from his being bound on the altar right the binding of isaac of course is the definitive story of his life and remember martyrdom is far from unique to the jewish story right what is unique however to our tale is life after the altar yitzchak's uniqueness doesn't come in his ability to sacrifice himself or even in his father's willingness to do so it's a complex story we should discuss it sometime it comes from the fact that he doesn't die that his whole life is lived after the altar and the message there is very simple every jew who descends from yitzhak is a living a life which is not entirely their own because when god stays abraham's hand this is why the midrash says that he was actually consumed on the altar that we ourselves what it is to be a jew is to live a dual existence i'm me i was born where i was born i am who i am i live how i live and yet i am not entirely my own and if you doubt that then you need to go back and listen to the jewish story because i think it shows that whatever a jew is you can run but you can't hide from history so the third step in the developmental approach is of course or better known as israel israel right he receives his new name israel which means struggles with god and there's so much that can be said about it but this is not an analysis of the biblical history it's just a little bit of a touching on these archetypes that underlie the idea or the question of what is a jew and what israel adds is this notion is what it is to be a jew is to struggle with god you know it's an interesting contrast to islam which itself means submission to god because what it is to be an israelite not just an ivory like abraham to stand opposite the world and not just a living sacrifice like yitzchak which means you're living a life which is not entirely your own but to be an israelite is to stand up to god every once in a while and say no it's not supposed to be like that so israel also actually introduces into our story the tribal element and that's of course where the word jew has its origin by the way tribalism is a very important part of the jewish story it's one we haven't touched on but it's one i want to start to bring back into the discourse because in my eyes a positive form of tribalism is part of the solution to the problems the world faces despite the bad name that the word has gotten by the way if you have a better name for tribalism i'm working on a marketing project because it keeps getting shot down so let me know but for now do you ever wonder and we were the people of one one god one people one land twelve tribes what's up with that not only twelve tribes but when they were brothers it was nothing but trouble i mean ever since joseph's brothers beat him up threw him in a pit and sold him down into slavery it seems that this division amongst the sons of jacob israel has been nothing but a problem and if you trace it down through history once the tribes built their home in the land i didn't get along there either it's a story of civil wars split kingdoms and ultimate destruction so why would it be that god would ordain that it's specifically israel who has 12 sons who will build binay israel we're not binay yavraham we're not been a yitzhak we're bene israel we're the children of israel well i want to offer this thought to you and it's part of the answer to what is a jew is that what the jews are about what am israel is about is union and not unity the difference between the two is that in unity all the parts have to dissolve into the whole but our vision of a redeemed world is one of union in which the parts maintain their integrity but they're finally in right relationship and that's why by the way the ism that eventually springs from israel's descendants meaning judaism is what i call a particular inclusive worldview as opposed to the universalist exclusive worldview of say christianity or islam in brief what do i mean well i'll take the opposite right christianity and islam both welcome the whole world to enter into the covenant of the faith into the community of the faithful but each of them in their own way at least in their classic formations i am aware that both are quite diverse in their present world view but in their classic formations each of them says you're welcome to come in to our universalist community of the faith but if you don't then you're out right there's the world of islam in the world of the sword and there's classically accepting the savior or destruction but that's a universalist exclusive worldview but judaism as a classic tribal religion is particularly but inclusive we say listen we're the jews and you're not and if you're a jew by choice out there then you know that we're not particularly welcoming on the way and i hope they're treating you well once you've got on the inside but the good news is you don't have to be a jew to have a relationship to god you don't have to be a jew to be on the right path towards salvation it's ridiculous but it's inclusive we'll come back to this because it's a very important consequence of the tribal stance but before we get there israel has one son who finally introduces the word jew into our story that's yehuda by his fourth son and when he's named his mother leia says this time i will praise the lord happy this time i'll praise the lord and that's why she called him yehuda which of course means to praise the lord now this is a part of a definition that sticks with us well beyond yehuda's personal origins if you scroll all the way forward to the end of the first temple period god will declare in the voice of the prophet isaiah am zuyat i form this people for myself that they might declare my praise it's a core element of what it is to be a jew to praise god in the world and by the way get out there and do it people do it for your own sake do it for the sake of the world and if you want to know why well isaiah answers that question actually the beginning of that chapter it's chapter 43 if you want to look it up a classic when he says right you are my witnesses says god and my servant whom i have chosen right the other essential element of israel's mission is to be witnesses to bear witness to the existence of god and to bear witness to the existence of god through that giving thanks now these are two like i said essential elements of israel's mission the giving thanks that comes from udah's name and also the testimony that is embedded in there i can't do a linguistic analysis but you should know that that to be mode that which lies at the heart of yehuda's name can be both to give thanks and to acknowledge it's not a place for a full recapitulation of jewish history but for now what i want to do is just get the pieces straight up to now now that we've actually hit the word jew before we can move on number one conceptual courage abraham's ability to cleave to his story in the face of a whole world and that world fades away and the truth of his story becomes known don't forget there are literally billions of people half the planet who know avraham's story now number two a life not entirely your own you can run but you can't hide from being a jew number three we struggle with god the submission piece is not so characteristic of what it means to be a jew and last but certainly not least or second to last is union not unity we are a piece of the whole whose particularism is in service of the universal and not vice verse and finally like i said we get the actual name yehuda that's to give praise and stand witness but reality is this is all backstory right we've got abraham we've got israel we even have yehuda but what is a jew so if you're up and up on the bible then you know that the first person to be labeled as a jew was actually mordechai more which by the way i have a special connection to because that's my hebrew name i'm an otter baby and his appearance in the book of esther in many ways sets the mold for what it is to be a jew is right there was a jew by the name of morocco who lived in shush on the capital and it gives his list son of er each yemeni a benjaminite and then it says he was one of the exiles from jerusalem carried away into exile along with king yohonyavu da who've been driven into exile by nebuchadnezzar of babylon so it's worth it to go back actually and look at that there at the second chapter of the megillah but if you're just listening first of all note that we already hear the transition from a geographical tribal meaning of the word yehudah to the one with which we're more familiar religious right in the first temple period and beforehand udah was a place it was either the tribal land under the united kingdom or it was the southern kingdom of judah that had sort of coalesced around the primary tribe but here in the megillah it's already he's a yehudi even though mordechai is from benjamin he's a benjaminite he's called a yehudi now it's important to note that religion itself is a foreign concept to the torah the word for religion in hebrew is it's actually a persian word not surprising that it appears for the first time in relationship to the megillah in the book of daniel because it's an import into the idea of the torah and that begs the question of what exactly judaism the religion of the jews is there's a question that we can deal with another day but for now number one he's been transformed from a geographic tribal meeting he's not from the tribe of yuda or even from the place but he's a ud and also his labeling as a jew as opposed to as a hebrew or an israelite is a product of exile remember the hometown crowd wherever mordechai was from knew that he was a benjaminite but to the babylonians such tribal distinctions are irrelevant we're all just jews now to appreciate the role that exile plays in defining and answering our question what to do you have to remember the essential fact of exile exile means i am not where i belong and so much of jewish identity both in strategy and in substance is oriented toward both surviving and not getting too comfortable wherever you find yourself jeremiah who was the prophet of the destruction and sent the jews out into exile with his message told them pray for the peace of the city to which you've been exiled build homes plant gardens but he also warned them in 70 years you're coming back so there's a sense of inner alienation from the surroundings which is meant to define the jew but there's also the external opposition we can go right back to the megillah to see the origins of that in the character of the jews there's this certain people scattered and dispersed amongst the other peoples in all the provinces they're realm they're everywhere whose laws are different from those of any other people and who don't obey the king's law and it's not in your majesty's interest to tolerate them you know in many ways as much as mordechai is labeled the first ud it's the words of haman that begin the jew as we know it defined from the outside this is a story that we've traced in the first two seasons of the jewish story the indigestible element the obstinate refuser of salvation the alien other of modern history and that's why i think much of those seasons in my eyes really are just the making of the jew and that external process has its own weight and there's a parallel internal process which matches haman's definition the rabbinic project right the sages and all the rabbinic inheritors ever since have fought to create a jew with an absolute identification of law and identity right they see the answer of our question what is a jew as one who adheres to the law as construed by the rabbis and in many ways the suffering and exclusion of exile served them quite well in that project right the jew in exile is what i like to think of as a halachic astronaut what do i mean i'll give you an example when i used to go visit my brother it should be healthy and well right i would bring my own little portable kitchen with me i had my own plates my own pots my own everything right and i would cook but i would do it in a very controlled environment kind of like an astronaut that goes off into space with his helmet in the suit and you can live but it's clear that you don't belong there once upon a time he and his wife came and visited me in my home and she's not jewish so she looked around at my kitchen and at a certain point her confusion made me ask what's going on she said wow where's like all that stuff that you use to keep things separate and i realized she had no idea that wasn't how i ate on an everyday basis here on my native planet in my right environment i was just like everybody else but the jew in exile is a halachic astronaut and that keeps us bound to one another that's so much of what the rabbinic project is about but hey i don't know if you've noticed the times they're changing because at this point in jewish history we have at least one foot out of exile and one in our land and the question of what a jew is has become pressing once again i want you to appreciate that image of one foot out and one foot in and i'm just gonna push on it for a little bit so you can understand why it's so critical in my eyes you know if you've ever been on a boat a canoe or a sailboat then you know when you're on the shore looking at the boat you feel quite solid when you're on the boat looking at the shore you also feel quite solid provided that you're not afraid the real challenge is when you step out of the boat onto the shore there's a very sketchy moment when you got one foot in the boat and one foot on the shore where suddenly every ripple of water every gust of wind every bit of contour on the shore is of critical importance on whether you're gonna make it picture the jews in exile in i don't know 13th century poland that's about as dark as it gets right now they were all the way adrift on the sea of exile but they held that inner conviction don't forget avraham that their story was going to take them home if you ask them how they just said i don't know until the righteous redeemer comes not our problem we just got to survive and please god let it be soon let it be now when the temple is rebuilt and we can be a people in our land we'll look back at exile almost like a passing dream but right now we're neither here nor there one foot in one foot out and that's why everything appears as a crisis don't forget that we are in an important period of transition so anyway aside from the conceptual elements that i touched on in the first section like the idea of what it is to be a jew and even aside from these pieces that mordechai just added right now the internal rabbinic project and the external pressure right we have to remember that the jew always exists in history we're an embodied people and therefore we should be able to ask what is a jew and answer by pointing and saying there that's a jew but if you've ever met any jews then you know we're a fractious and stiff-naked people to borrow a phrase so it really depends on who you ask and which one you point to maybe next week in honor of purim i should take a deep dive into anti-semitism and the role that it plays in defining the jew from without but i want to actually end off this little diatribe with the deep consideration from within what is a jew now that you can actually just be an israeli so our question takes on an entirely new cast and power and urgency in light of the modern state of israel in the second half of this episode i'm going to sit with a dear friend and rabbi and reflect on the gatekeepers in the rabbit in israel and the challenges which the existence of a modern state poses to what is and frankly who is a jew and in a coming episode probably a few down the line we'll discuss the law of return in its historical context and the development of the modern state just for now we should know that in 1950 the knesset the israeli parliament passed a law which states every jew has the right to come to this country as an ole as an immigrant but due to the inability of those lawmakers all 120 of them to agree on any definition of what a jew is they just left it undefined hoping somehow the issue would resolve itself over time boy were they wrong about that one that was one of the biggest ticking bombs that the israeli parliament ever planted in our story for now i want to highlight how our religious definitions of what it is to be a jew that one-to-one identification between law and identity which is really what carried the jews through most of exile the last two thousand years is no longer a sufficient model to address the realities of the jewish people as they're embodied today and i want to do it through a few stories a couple of them true and one make believe so here's the first one you know i have a friend this is a true story who participates in an interfaith meeting here in israel and recently one of the arab members arab muslim members in his group confessed to him that he wanted to convert to judaism so my friend was a little bit astounded as someone who struggles at times with his own jewish identity so he asked this young arab man why and he said well because he looks around and his dream in life is to be a secular israeli oops so my friend tried to explain to him gently that you can't really convert to a secular israeli total confusion ensued and frankly i can understand this frustration you can't convert to being an arab you can convert to being a muslim or a christian but not to be an arab so it made perfect sense to me why this young arab muslim man was confused how is it that someone who eats pork on yom kippur but happens to be born to a jewish mother can be in but a convert who wants to simply do the same thing is out by definition so this idea of a israeli identity sort of rooted in and resting upon a jewish identity but embodying a far broader social space is a perfect question posed by a young arab man who just wants to join the society in which he lives as a full citizen there's another one which is sort of made up but frankly is true and that's this discussion we've had before which is the young russian soldier whose parents came through that law of return right whose father is jewish in the rabbinic sense meaning the law defines him as jewish but mother is not he himself is an israeli and joins the army serves in a combat unit serves faithfully together with all of his brothers and sisters there and god forbid dies in combat and when it comes time to bury him in the military cemetery having served his people oh so faithfully perhaps just then his relatives discover that he's not actually a member of the tribe and they want to bury him in a separate section of the military cemetery this is though i'm making this particular up is a real story in the state of israel and he's deeply painful because it's true and i don't want to falsify that according to according to jewish law this young man is not jewish but can you really say he's not part of the story of israel this is what i mean when i say that our religious structures may be necessary but they're insufficient to address the reality of what it is to be embodied as a people in our land once again and frankly within a civil nation-state and that finally brings me to our conclusion i have one last story but first just for the sake of clarity let's review and touch on these elements number one conceptual courage what it is to be a jew is to cleave to our story in the face of the whole world abraham to stand on one side even though the whole world says we've got it wrong and not necessarily to attempt to conquer the world we're not proselytizing we're holding fast until the world changes number two you can run but you can't hide once isaac came down off that altar on some level our lives were not entirely our own number three the jews the israelites struggle with god that's not a surprise to anybody who's ever met a jew number three union and not unity we're into a world in which the pieces don't lose their integrity in making up a whole this is a positive model of tribalism when i think of as the ecosystem model we don't want the whole world to be the same this is not a homogenizing universalism that offers peace love and harmony so long as everyone's willing to check their individuality and their culture at the door on the contrary this is a world in which we want the bats to be bats the birds to be birds and the trees to be trees but there needs to be a harmonizing principle that draws them all together and i believe that harmonizing principle is what the jew is meant to provide and then last but certainly not least we have the embodied historical reality these people that when you point and you say hey what's a jew people point at them and that jew let's not forget wherever he is now or she is only a fragment of what israel once was you know there's a beautiful prophecy in the book of ezekiel if you haven't read the latter part of the book of ezekiel stop the podcast right now and go home and read at least chapters 37 and 38 and you'll discover there many of the fundamental visions that shape our world today and especially in chapter 37 right after the famous prophecy of the dry bones so beloved of the zionists who see the world in which we live today as a fulfillment that god opened up our graves in europe and brought us out of exile and revived us as a people in the land but right after that literally the next line you'll see the next great challenge when god says on you ben adam you immortal take a stick and write on it of judah and the israelites jew in one stick and he says take another stick and write on it of joseph the stick of ephraim and all the house of israel associated with them you have the jew and you have the house of israel and there are two different things then he tells the prophet to bring them close together that so that they become one stick join together in your hand and it's only then that the vision can be fulfilled that there's a wholeness that the world can actually hold the presence of god once again let it be soon let it be now and it could just be that this messianic vision is a reunion of the jews the tribe of judah with everyone out there who's living in israel's story are you living in israel's story send me an email if you're living in israel's story even if you don't think of yourself as a jew but for now my question is how do we bring those pieces back together and that brings me to the final story you know rafale riskin great educator zionist leader and rabbi of course of the city of ephrat he tells a story that at one point during the oslo war during the second intifada there were 40 soldiers stationed at ishiba there in efrat and ravriskin was in the habit of giving shir there every thursday afternoon and a number of the soldiers would generally attend one day he noticed that there was a young african man amongst these soldiers now he didn't look like like an ethiopian who was a well-established african community jewish obviously within the state of israel he looked somehow different so right after the end of this year ravriskin stopped him and asked this young man his story and it turned out his name was dan and he came from nigeria now as far as i know there aren't so many jews in nigeria and here he is in uniform in a time of combat so rob riskin asked him how did you end up where you are and the young man's answer was very simple tikkun olam the fixing of the world raf riskin said i don't understand you have to explain so the young man told him a story he said when he was a boy in nigeria one day they showed up in his village a group of israelis and amongst this group of aurelius was one keep a wearing youth he happened to be a leader in the youth movement beneath kiva manekiva is a religious zionist youth movement here in oh in the land of israel all over the world actually right and so this young man became very close with the young man dan who wasn't his original name and it turns out this was a post-army program of israelis spread all over the world who are bringing the latest knowledge in medicine and in agriculture to the developing world in order to just try to help people so this young nigerian boy became fascinated and in his discussions with this israeli asked him like what are you doing here and he said well i'm a jew this is what we do and he said what do you mean he said well what's a jew not so many jews in nigeria and so this young israeli man said we're the people that god put in the world to fix the place tikkun olam now imagine the impact of this young nigerian boy who kept up a correspondence with the israeli once he went back and as he grew up he became fascinated by the idea that the people that god had put in the world to fix the place had a country not only they have a country but that they were fighting a battle and so as this young nigerian boy got older he eventually came to the land of israel went through a conversion program and enlisted in the israeli army now raverskin was so moved by that story that he asked this young man to come to him on friday night so he could share shabbat dinner with him not only you know give him some hospitality so that his own family could be inspired by such an amazing story but it turned out that friday night the young man didn't show up and after shabbos when raverskin tried to determine why he hadn't it turned out the young man had fallen that night in combat in defense of the yeshiva and at the military funeral where he was given full honors rav riskin tore kriya he tore his clothes and committed to saying kaddish the prayer for the mourners for an entire year because as a convert of course he had no family now it's a powerful story but there is a post script one day raverskin's taking a nap on shabbos afternoon a nap which legendarily is zealously guarded by his wife because of how often he teaches on shabbos day when nevertheless income his wife to wake him up now in his surprise he said what's going says listen his wife said to him listen i know i know i shouldn't wake you up but i think that you don't want to miss this so he comes out into his living room and he sees an elderly nigerian couple turns out they are don's parents and they hadn't heard from him they were just given a notice by the army that he died and when they came looking for the answer of how it was their son had died on a battlefield around the planet in a place that they didn't know they'd heard that the last conversation they'd had was with this rabbi and so he sat with them and he tried to explain that their son had died in order to fix the world because of tikkun olam and frankly after that painful exchange raskin didn't think much about it but two years later he received an invitation to hanukah tabayit a housewarming party and it turned out it was this elderly couple the parents of don who had stayed on in israel themselves entered a conversion program and we're now building by nemanja israel a faithful house in israel in the city of netanya and he went there and he helped fix the mezuzah to their door and it might just be that this is the most essential answer to the question what is a jew the people that god put in the world to fix the place and furthermore it might just be that in the battles which lie ahead both for the state of israel and for the jewish people wherever they are that it would serve us well to shift away from the identity politics of the question of who is a jew and how that empowers the gatekeepers and caused us to divide up into camps and to want to exclude one another from participation in such a vital vital task away from that identity politics toward a mission focus not who's a jew but what is a jew and if we're willing to ask that question well then we could do a lot worse than answering it with this young man's message that we're the people god put in the world to fix the place now i want you to hang on because there's another half to this show we're going to sit with my dear friend mentor and teacher of arn leibowitz and we're going to talk a little bit about how this looks in the modern state of israel before i do i want to make an invitation the first ever jewish story webinar is coming up if you want to join in there's only six spots this is an exclusive opportunity to ask the hard questions that you're holding religiously historically personally to ask me directly and to hear the questions that our diverse audience also has to basically not see and be seen but to hear and be heard i want you to send me an email if you're interested in joining that exclusive group from six people rob mikefoyer gmail.com or you can hit me up on facebook rob mike foyer or the jewish story podcast but for now stay tuned there's more to come you're listening to the jewish story with rav mike foyer subscribe on itunes or soundcloud and leave a customer review to listen to season 1 from daniel to the spanish inquisition and season 2 from the diaspora to the founding of the state of israel visit jewish story dot co okay we're back and i hope that you are really chewing over some of the thoughts about this question of not only who is a jew but what is a jew and since it's never good to think alone i've reached out to a great friend mentor teacher colleague rabbi aaron leibowitz hi roland how you doing hey mike it's awesome to be together so i know who you are and you know who you are but it might just be that it's possible some of our listeners don't know so you are the founder and ceo of hashgraph and those are two organizations really devoted to breaking the monopoly of the rabonut on religious services here in the land of israel in the state of israel and a social activist i think is a fair title not to mention also the rabbi of vanit villa wonderful community here in nakhola did i miss anything um i think that's enough are you a socks fan should we throw that in there and there you go happy husband there you go deep learner and and wonderful friend and i'm so happy that we're sitting here in another office we've been in a few iterations of this office type meeting people don't know you can go check out on the internet rabbis out of the box we have a whole series about 20 shows i think if i'm not mistaking yeah that was fun it was good it was a good run just like old times now just like old times i've got the coffee going my head is spinning and i really have a very basic question in the arc of our story in case you're not a listener you don't have to admit if you're not i mean the arc of our story we finally hit 1948. and you know there were a lot of arguments in the zionist movement outside of the zionist movement across omni israel leading up to 48 about what's a jew but this whole momentum of the new jew which i'm guessing you're familiar with was an interesting theoretical construct but now here we are in 1948 or 2019 as the case may be and we've got a jew we got the old jew we got the new jew we have the israeli and perhaps things that i'm not even thinking of so the opening question i have for you is very simple what is a jew in 2019 wow it's a simple one but big notice i didn't say who is a jew we'll get to that unless you want to start there i mean i think that the the kind of um stunned stuttering yeah i should get a camera silence yeah the look was was present that you're that you're hearing from me now is because really i think there there are multiple answers to that question all of which are valid and which to some extent may overlap and which um and which perhaps are not shared by everybody who who defines themselves as as jewish today might even contradict and might even contradict one another and so you know the it's very hard to give that answer and you know maybe you map out some pieces for me it doesn't have to be a complete thought maybe i'll give you a uh you know i think i think maybe just to discuss one of the one of the challenges that we face here in our work you know we're we're performing weddings for for couples who either choose not to get married in the chief rep through the chief rabbinic or cannot get married through the chief rabbit now some of those couples who cannot get married through the chief rabbinate of israel the reason they can't get married is that one of the members of the of the couple are not recognized as jewish by the jeep revenue by the chief rob in it and i just want to clarify for our listeners but your weddings are yeah these are what people would call orthodox legal jewish weddings absolutely which by the way are the only kinds of weddings in israel which are illegal if they're performed outside of the chief rabbinic wait let me say that again these are the only kinds of weddings which are illegal meaning orthodox weddings which aren't done by the chief rabbinic are forbidden or forbidden but if you wanted to get married i don't know in the reform a conservative movement or you had some i don't know internet minister that astral projected into your hull there to join you in holy matrimony that would be okay so it would not be recognized as a valid marriage it wouldn't be registered but you wouldn't be liable to two years in prison like i myself and the couples whose weddings i perform wait a minute are they coming crashing through this door while we're in the middle of the show just tell me now because i want to pack my bag i sure hope so that would make my day that would be a great moment of radio we can always hope unfortunately i think they know that the best the best possible thing for what for for our work would be for them to arrest one of us oh for sure they're not they're not they're not looking for that for that publicity right now or or of course for the for their case to fall apart in the supreme court um but tell me so but what does it mean to do these weddings in defiance of the revenue why are why are you doing why are people seeking you out well let's come back to the this particular case which i think is relevant to your topic today um you know we have it's no secret that there's been a vast immigration from the former soviet union um to israel and today there are you know we we count about 400 000 um um immigrants from the former soviet union who are not eligible to get to get married um the chief rabid of israel when hear crazy statistic i saw it that this year at the end of the year the israeli bureau for statistics said that for the first year ever the majority of immigrants to the state of israel were not recognized as jewish by the ministry of interior yes so so this touches exactly on your point because over here you have people who have who identify themselves as being jewish who have a very you know many of them a very strong identity of actually holding on to their judaism behind the iron curtain and who are not recognized by jewish by orthodox jewish law by as i practice it as as being as being having a jewish status and i'll say even more than that when you talk about individuals of individuals that fit that bill who have been here already for a generation and whose children's children have gone to high school and served in the army here they are fully fully acculturated into israeli culture view themselves as jews celebrate the jewish holidays you're not talking here about you know a a a a a question of identity for for a for a semi-assimilated jew somewhere in the world you're talking about somebody who who is putting their life on the line for the state of israel and who perhaps is only jewish by patrilineal descent and therefore not recognized by and you know we we actually my family adopted such a young woman who was studying for conversion and and i was shocked to discover that she didn't even know that she wasn't recognized halachically as jewish until she went to join the army and they said well instead of the regular service would you like to take the conversion track and she was like the conversion track and they're like yes you know native the conversion track and she said why would i need the conversion track and that was the first time a young woman who was born in israel right she's israeli she's in all definitions she is israeli in all definitions and her identity you're saying she's self-identified as a jew that's right but the reality of israeli or nazi israeli jewish laws right she was not that's right so so over here you know we we i think we have to recognize that that judaism is a religion there's zionists around us well judaism is practiced by many jews as as a religion and and it manifests in in you know in in our day and age as a religion it manifests in our day and age as a nation it manifests in our day and age as a people it manifests in our day and age as a culture yeah i tell you why my father-in-law should be a healthy mom who's not jewish but lives his whole life in the new york area identifies culturally as a jew because of the new york area thing that's right so so you know we can we can get into the question of of which of those definitions are most meaningful to us and are there any of those definitions which we would seek to invalidate or delegitimize it wouldn't change the fact that that it is it that is it is one of the presentations of the jewish experience in this day and age and i i personally think that um when you look at this particular case of our theoretical um you know random second generation former soviet union patrilineal descent um israeli israeli i think that you know for me i can't help but but come to terms with the fact that there are that there are different definitions of of what it means to be jewish which which would speak to me um wait i want to pause on that second i'll tell you in the middle sentence i'm i'm taking the mic well okay okay go ahead i could say one more sentence which i think would just lock in okay let's just lock it in my screen so i'm going to push it i'm going to push it through you're bigger than i um you know what i find myself telling such people um and and and here you know maybe this is maybe this is what you would want to respond to is is not that they're not jewish but that they are jewish but they are just not hilariously jewish in other words to to to come to terms with the fact that that there might be dissonance or you know tremendous overlap and only a small area a small gap in those in the circles of nationhood peoplehood and and religion which which which needs to be looked at perhaps as as technicalities to some extent some extent or or if not technicalities certainly not mutually exclusive definitions i'm hearing a lot of my inner voices and i'm imagining some of our listeners cringing at the word technicalities when it comes to questions of definition in law i mean and i'm wondering if if what you if i hear you correctly in the sense that um you know say a second generation descendant be it patrilineal dissent or even lasso but someone who came into the state of israel under the law of return a concept which our listeners are going to hear a lot more about in coming episode but the basic principle in law that every jew has a right of citizenship to the land of israel that they just have to gain by physical residency so they came here under that premise they're not halal jewish but what i hear you saying is that that gap between halal jewish and the participation in the life of the jewish people as embodied in the state of israel is so overwhelming that the gap is a technical issue i'm saying that any kind of resolution of the gap can be looked at as a technical need in other words to share the shared values the shared experience the shared destiny that that that individual and i have from my perspective is undeniable and um you know i might have a harder time with this question if there was not a strong halachic tradition which we call zara israel which does lend significance to patrilineal descent in other words does not define one as halachically jewish but it gives it weight beyond being a non-jew exactly and it was for instance we don't we don't um seek to um to to evangelize in judaism and convert people and yet we have a tradition that somebody who has a jewish father it is there is a an inane there is you know perhaps perhaps an interest or an incentive to connect them to the so so i think that that makes my the position that i'm suggesting a little bit easier perhaps maybe for some of our listeners to palette to to recognize that there is a there is there the concept of somebody who is half jewish or part jewish is not totally foreign to our tradition it's not just some american phenomenon that's right that's what came up for me no offense anybody listening yeah so you know for sure that that that we have we have huge questions around this and i think there's also huge confusion around it um and and and also in order that our listeners not get confused i want to maybe say very clearly that i would never perform a wedding between someone who was halal jewish and someone who is not halal jewish in other words the gap over there which i which i've described as a technicality is nonetheless essential for me so there are places where it's unbreachable there are there are there are places which because of my commitment because of my commitment to the path or not are unbridgeable you know what do i know those of you those are those of our listeners who have listened to some of our other podcasts you know maybe familiar with my with my refrain but then again what do i know the definition of a moon it's not just an afraid that's right you know if we talk in our tradition about mashiach is going to come we've got this kind of image which you could take literally you could take metaphorically meshiach coming and sniffing people and based on the sense of smell saying who is really authentically jewish and not and um you know i what do i know about about what what what's really going on and who of us you know may be convinced absolutely of our pedigree and who of us might have surprises in store and where might amistral discover that that what we thought were were were pure um genetics in terms of um in terms of you know who is your mother you know might there be spiritual elements of um which which haven't spoken about you know we have many many sources about people who convert who actually had a spark of judaism in them that had to be brought back that had to be reconnected um you know so so i look around to people you know from my perspective somebody who's here to stay somebody who speaks hebrew somebody who celebrates the jewish holiday somebody who puts their life on the line for the jewish state is there a halachic status issue which needs to be addressed yes but are they jewish at least in most of what i mean when i say that when i say that with that word but my sense is yes all right you've had more than a sentence i've got a couple of questions for you and i want to make them pointed um because my first question is actually very simple nehi let it be that there's a gap and that that gap on one hand is is unbridgeable when it comes to certain categories like marriage or um the need for conversion or participation in a in a minion a ritual quorum what have you um so but why try to bridge the gap why not actually widen it why not say jewish mush your israeli this was the zionist dream we've recreated a national identity get rid of this whole confusion between the jewish religion and the israeli national identity you know with the work you're doing here at hot is a religious ceremony that you're seeking but there's another alternative which is to create a completely civil ceremony and the reason i ask i'll give you two examples then you can tell me what you think about them um on one hand i would note that you said as long as you're here and you're speaking hebrew and um you know you're celebrating the holidays you're defending the country that terribly tragic situation where god forbid a young soldier dies in service of the state of israel and really the people of israel and can't get buried in a the same place in the military cemetery as his comrades because he's not halal jewish what could be more painful than that at the same time he's israeli nobody questions that so i'm wondering number one why not widen the gap and in order to to um to make that more clear i see two sides so the hebrew participation in the state of israel is irrelevant to a good portion of the jews out there who are asking this question my students at pardes come from a very diverse background patrilineal descent to you know the definition which is not accepted by the halacha down through the ages perhaps in times gone by but orthodox today does not recognize patriarchal design but many of my students do come from movements where it is recognized and their identity their identity is certainly core jewish identity they're not speaking hebrew they're not defending the state of israel frankly many of them have begun to turn away from the state of israel often for these very reasons so maybe there just needs to be a clean separation the flip side is i'll give you a story my wife god bless her is very concerned about the refugee issue here in the state of israel the africans who have come refugees migrants infiltrators you can pick your word whoever's listening right now fill in the blank to make you happy that's not my issue but she had an experience recently there's a school in south tel aviv which is devoted to the refugees who have gotten actual status in the country and there you know you have second generation you're saying sudanese hebrew speaking identifying israeli she heard one of these groups speak and when one a young man young sudanese man was asked why is it important to have a state this is by the way after he returned from his trip to poland having gone as all israeli high schools do to see auschwitz and experience the tragedy and trauma of the jewish past and he his response was it's important i'm grateful we have a molete in order that we as a people can stand strong and defend ourselves so that nothing like this can ever happen to us again you hear it he's not jewish isn't presumed to be jewish no one would call him jewish but that answer is israeli yeah i'm actually not really challenged by a whole question that we have to come up with better you know i think i have no doubt that there is a shared israeli identity and a shared israeli experience which is shared by the jews and many bedouins and many arabs and um and of course you know can it can also be relevant for a second or third generation uh migrant you know migrant family from uh from africa you know for me i insist that for us to take individuals who view themselves as jewish and say you are not jewish you are israeli just as the arab israeli is and just as the is to ignore a the power of peoplehood in other words there is a large part of of the jewish experience which which expands beyond the the the practice of religion and certainly since the time of the enlightenment when some jews are practicing and some jews are not practicing you know we could take that and i think that there are you know ultra-orthodox um uh you know perspectives which say you know you know ultimately um ultimately anybody who's not practicing judaism is fraunten's purpose is a guy until they find their ways back for sure that's a growing voice out there and um you know the um and i can i could bring examples from the world of kashrut which proved that that perspective is much more pervasive than we that than we suspect and yet at the same time the insistence of the last 200 years as the jewish people have been have been kind of exploring these different these different avenues and these different halachic identities you know the the you know or or or identities or religious secular identities our insistence has been our consistent insistence has been certainly in in the modern orthodox community one of brotherhood one of brotherhood and one of insistence on brotherhood well what is shared between between between me and my and my and my atheist cousin when i'm when i when i'm really when i'm when i continue to insist and continue for instance you know if they if they show up in shoal for a family simcha give them a doctor go out of my way to invite them to to approach the torah and say a blessing because they are jewish but hang on but not your nephew from your the the brother that married the catholic woman that's right because because once again what if he had enterprises there is a gap over there which is which which fits under the category of my religious practice of my of the boundaries of my religious practice and yet at the same time if if somebody comes and says i feel that i am part of it someone basically makes the same speech as as ruth the moabite who who basically said you know i am committed to a shared destiny and that's where i'm at now i do think that that can be weakened i find it much less compelling let's say um for and you know i don't i haven't thought long and hard for instance about the question of if i were an orthodox rabbi in the united states how would i relate to intermarried couples who wanted to be part of my community i know that i have colleagues who are really struggling with that question sure and i want to and and i'll admit i haven't worked it through but i would i will say that i would be much more challenged there to say that that you know this non-jewish person who married a jewish spouse who you know had has chosen to to bind their destinies to the jewish people you know i think i would have a harder time that i don't have that problem here in israel i don't i don't we're the majority remember that case recently where this um arab tv anchor i don't recall her name married an israeli tv personality recently just recently um and there was all these people making statements some of which were just downright offensive and everybody was really worked up about it and i saw one person i fortunately don't remember any names here who said basically what is everyone so worried about she's assimilating into our culture this is a shift that that the jews have not yet made here is that intermarriage in america means you're assimilating into the dominant culture which is not jewish intermarriage in israel means at least culturally we're not going to get into the religious question that that the non-jew is assimilating into and that's my question israeli culture jewish culture both this is our problem that's right well again you know i'd like to i'd like to just wonder whether whether we need to get too worked up about this problem because because four hundred thousand people are on you said four hundred thousand people who can't get married according to orthodox jewish law as it's construed by the organs of the state meaning the state the national identity and the religious identity are welded together and i added to that the fact that this year for the first time ever more people defined as not jewish immigrated under the law of return meaning as jews than has has ever happened the first time was the majority where are we going here that's that's that's a that's 100 true and nonetheless i'm not concerned and the reason i'm not concerned is that is specifically because of the work that we're doing here in other words the shared the shared project which is the state of israel like i said before is shared by many many circles and those circles overlap ultimately there's a certain level of personal autonomy in terms of who will choose to marry who who will require a conversion in order to get married it's a civil state to some degree that's right well yeah and and and it's heading to getting even in a more civil direction i have no doubt you you mean that in the civic sense as opposed to the um the interpersonal sense yes absolutely absolutely you know the the the the days of the hard line of the hardline draconian uh rabbanute i think are numbered and you know that's that's the work that i'm involved in the day today and i'm definitely optimistic and by the way i just want to plug for our listeners that if people are concerned about that issue that you should know that i am sitting in the room right now with someone who with all honesty has probably done more than any single other person in our generation to crack that monopoly and if this is something you want to know more about where should they go to find out so i don't forget yeah today i would send you to www dot that's c-h-u-p-p-o-t dot org dot il and there also is an english version of the website if you click the emg up at the corner and you can see an updated version of the work that we're doing here great and by the way send your cautious too send your hard questions i know that rob iron's not shy but i interrupted you so you're not worried you see we're moving toward a more civil direction i think there's an organic i think there's an organic path i also really you know over here i i do want to say and um you know this is this is my my soul my spirit my my theology speaking and i realize that not all the listeners might identify with it but i i passionately believe in god i passionately believe in torah i think that um religion is being misrepresented by most of the orthodox world certainly the the establishment the established orthodox world here in israel is being misrepresented i'm optimistic that the jewish people ultimately will rediscover the covenant of god is something which is which is um which is crucial for our identity i mean as there's more and more uh you know enlightened and i say enlightened light filled as light you know light-filled messaging love-filled messaging coming from the from from from the world of torah i think it will be it will become clearer and clearer that it's that it's a very powerful and compelling vessel for what it is that we that we seek to bring to the world so i think that that ultimately what we need is right now we need more moderate orthodox rulings in order in order for them to be more inclusive i think we need to let go of the exclusivity i think we need to trust more in god also something we've discussed you and i have discussed in our previous podcast series yes for sure um we have to trust more than god and be less caught up in control and i think that um like if we take that approach then when a holistically jewish israeli desires to marry an israeli who is in dissonance on that level that is something which can be addressed that is something which can be which can be you know as as long as the as long as the individual is is eligible for conversion in one of the independent orthodox conversion courts which are more flexible and more inclusive in terms of who they're willing to convert that's not work that i do but i have admiration for other organizations that are doing that work then then there's a they have an address for a conversion they have an address for i'm i am absolutely convinced that they will draw closer to torah not that they will become orthodox this is not a cure operation but that it will broaden and strengthen the shared the shared identity um you know that overall the process can be one out of divergence but of convergence to a stronger shared identity so unbeknownst to you you just hit on a major theme of the earlier section of the show when i sort of gave our listeners a piece of my mind and i want to lay it out for you and in the last couple minutes here maybe you can just give us your thought that a lot of what i hear you saying is about the gatekeepers that right now in the dissonance between the israeli national identity and the jewish religious identity which exists and i do want to really emphasize that you're really only speaking to the situation here in the state of israel and there's a big question for you they for for america in particular where there's a tremendous mixture and identity is very fluid in general in american culture and the orthodoxy is is on one hand um the minority numerically on the other hand culturally and communally but you see like this is probably the strongest most active element and so there's there's no mix going on across the seas there but nevertheless a lot of your what i hear you saying is speaking about the gatekeepers and the people who decide who is a jew and this is a big discourse it's not a new one by any means it's one that in the jewish story we've been following since the maccabees my contention is that the question first arose there actually we can talk about it sometime um but i'm actually feeling in my kishkas that this discourse though it's important because you're a pr you're a social activist you're in the field the gatekeepers matter like i heard you say with a more moderate pisgah dean more loving and accepting approach and that that's a healing process that will help us bridge that gap and there might be tactical gaps which are unoriginal but those could be dealt with on a social level too but i'm i'm a loof match i like the ideas and so what i'm interested in is shifting away from who is a jew to what is a jew and through that taking a bit of the power away from the gatekeepers and putting it into the hands of the mission drivers meaning i think a lot of the question that we're holding is that we are a people with as you said a covenant and you use the term i didn't ask for articulation because we've said jew we said israeli and he threw out israel and this idea that israel which is a um a spiritual entity in our tradition right has an intimate relationship with with ramanujan with god that plays itself out in the physical manifestation of the jewish people but it's more than that right so i wanna i'm gonna let you have the last word here when i pose the question so if we move away from the gatekeepers in this question of the definitions of who is a jew and we move toward a question of what our mission is then from the last couple of minutes we tell me what's a jew what's our mission what are we here to do and can we use that as a kanemi dies as a standard of measure for how we begin to bind all these very broken fragments of our people together i think that ultimately when we talk about covenant and we talk about brit the the the sense of partnership that we have had with the creator of the universe in our in our own kind of perception of ourselves and whether you want to take that literally or whether you want to view it mythically i think i think ultimately has been articulated in modern day um in the secular jewish vision as well um in in in in carrying a sense that we are meant to be an example exemplary society for all of the world and you know i think that that that that sense of of um commitment to life and the world and and um a commitment to to justice a commitment to to to um to to progress a commitment to a soul a commitment to life there was a the the place where we s where we have sought to be an exemplary expression of what it means to be a human being and what it means to be a human society i think is really what being what what being jewish has been about throughout history and i think that that's something that we that that i feel i share with humanistic jews as well in other words the the drive that they have to be active humanists and to realize the full potential of humanism um or socialists in other words there's a certain drive that we have for a certain care that we have a certain a certain desire to not compromise on what on the things that we care about stiff naked people that we are that's right and i feel like i feel like that that those are the elements which will stand us ultimately in good stead because because i think that the the um you know my sense of of what monotheism was about was really about insistence that all good things converge at a certain point and and um and whether you want to call that god or not you know i'm not so sure that that that we need to get stuck on that while we're on the path um as long as we're all involved in good works and and good works are our works that seek to to promote light and that's and that don't seek to control and hold back um i think that that's what that's what it means to be a jew by the way i think that's what it means to be a human i think what it means to be a jew is to be an exemplary human and match a mensch and and so ultimately you know being a jew is no different than being than being then being a human being um but what it what it is it certain it's a certain covenant you know with you know again whether for some of us it's with god and with some of it some of us it's with destiny but in some of us with each other in the national conference it's very important it's a certain covenant for to to to simply do our best and um and i think so far we you know if you look at the big picture we're doing we're doing a fairly good job of it i think we have a long way to go um i think the state of israel is a unique challenge and we're still we're still in infancy we are still immature and i think that our critics around the world um have you know have have a lot have a lot to say that we that we would do well to observe i think they also would learn a lot about you know i think those who seek to educate us you know to presume to educate the jewish people at this point is a little bit subjects of of of um of uh mercy building a society justice yeah the whole righteousness thing is um you know i have i've i i sometimes lack patience with that and at the same time i also still see the manifestations of our own trauma from our experiences and sometimes we inflict on others things which we would which we would do well to grow past so it's so we've got a long way to go but but working on it so so this is the mission as i hear it that the jews are just like everybody else only more so that we as a people are meant to be exemplary human beings and um i'll offer this thought for you and i hope it's a healing thought because part of my mission in season three and life in general is to really heal some of that trauma and the way we tell our stories i think that it might just be that this gap between the israeli and the jewish between israel the state of israel and the jewish people might be best served by return to tribalism it might just be that what you're talking about here most broadly construe the jew as an exemplary human being is israel and that we also have the state of israel and within that there's the tribe of judah and that if we learned that each tribe contributes its particular essence of expression to that wholeness of mosaic which is the divine will as it unfolds through our people and creation we would be best served by putting down the things that divide us to the extent as you said not going to do a wedding for someone who i don't deem to be a luckily jewish but i might embrace them not only as my fellow israeli but as my fellow jew it's a tough but it's a question but putting down those differences and seeking the things that unite us in order to get on mission which is after all to fix the world okay reverend thank you so much you are rabbi aaron lewis again founder ceo of the hashikaka parties folks who want to find more about that project you can go to the website that we mentioned before if it was too much verbiage for you to write down quickly you can always send a message to me at ralphmikefoyer gmail.com or you can find me rav mike uh what's called rob mike foyer at facebook or the jewish story podcast at facebook and as long as i'm doing the roll down here i want to thank all the folks who give their hard-earned money help make the show free keep it widely available and just to make it happen i want to invite you to join them now go to jewish story dot co up in the upper right hand corner you're gonna see a button that says be a patron click on through for a little bit of per podcast support i want to thank the land of israel network that's the land of israel.com for creating a platform that allows me to reach so many wonderful people i want to thank the paradise institute p-a-r-d-e-s dot org dot il for building an educational institute allows me to touch