Guest Post: Rabbi Arik Ascherman
"Even though we have arrived in the Land, we are still on the way to Sinai."
This week I have invited my friend and teacher Rabbi Arik Ascherman to publish a guest post on this blog. Arik is the executive director of Torat Tzedek (Torah of Justice) and the former head of Rabbis for Human Rights. Unlike most nonprofit executive directors, Arik spends most of his time in the field and away from his computer, accompanying Palestinian shepherds threatened by settler-state violence in the occupied West Bank, or organizing alongside Jewish Israelis in the fight for affordable housing. He is a veteran leader in the anti-occupation movement (celebrated by Jews and Palestinians alike) and a personal inspiration to me and many of my likeminded friends who sometimes feel compelled to put our bodies on the line in order to protect God’s image in every human being.
I have been blessed with many role models, mentors, teachers, and sources of inspiration, two of them being Al Vorspan and Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel.
Al Vorspan was a long-time force for social justice in the Reform Movement. I grew up on books that he wrote, and he would bring tears to my eyes when he would come through Erie, Pennsylvania to speak to us.
In the preface to “Jewish Values and Social Crisis: A Casebook for Social Action,” Vorspan wrote, “I believe that my generation has messed up America-and the world. I believe that young people are inheriting a world that is sick, torn and troubled. I believe that the dreadful problems or our time–war, poverty, racial strife, hatred—are, despite everything, capable of solution. I believe that the ethical values of Judaism, as they were tested and refined through Jewish history, have something important to say about these problems and to the real world in our time. I believe that Jewish values can contribute to the social revolutions of our age and I believe, very deeply, that the world is in need of Jews who know, understand, and live by Jewish values. I believe that being Jewish is not merely an accident of birth, but rather a high calling, a moral challenge, and eternal refusal to cop-out on scene, and ever new mandate to take the work in our hands, as co-partners with God, and beat it into better shape on the anvil of life.”
Vorspan wrote this textbook for young Jews like myself, but he was also a coalition builder. He believed in the role and responsibility of all humanity to build a better world.
Heschel needs less of an introduction. He marched with Martin Luther King Jr., influenced King to speak out against the Vietnam war, and was at the forefront of many additional social issues. His small book on the Sabbath as an antidote to technological civilization had a huge impact on me as my Shabbat observance evolved. A few days before his death, he concluded an interview with a request that he could deliver a message to young people:
“Let them remember that there is a meaning beyond absurdity. Let them be sure that every little deed counts, that every word has power, and that we can do, everyone, our share to redeem the world, in spite of all absurdities, and all the frustrations, and all the disappointment. And, above all, remember that the meaning of life is to live life as if it were a work of art.”
I don’t think there is a clear-cut answer whether “my generation” has messed things up even more. On issues such as climate change, we certainly have. The need is greater than ever to keep our place in the cosmos in perspective in light of the awesome power that technological advances have given us. In other areas, we have been better partners with God moving forward along the arc of justice in accordance with God’s Plan for the repair and redemption of our world.
Ultimately, I identify with Heschel’s “everyone.” While I frequently ask myself whether I have done/am doing all that I could have done/can do to improve the reality I inherited, I don’t believe that it is the responsibility of any one generation to repair and redeem the world. “Lo aleikha ha’mlakha ligmor.” - “It is not incumbent upon you to finish the task, but neither are you free not to do your part.” Furthermore, there is no clear-cut line where the work of one generation ends and the work of another begins. While there are situations in which we must know when not to get in the way, and allow others to move forward, all of us on this planet at any given moment in time share a collective responsibility .
The holiday of Shavuot that we celebrate this Sunday (Sunday and Monday outside Israel) offers several lessons about the continuum we are a part of. We believe that Shavuot is the anniversary of God’s Revelation on Mount Sinai. There are those who say that one of the reasons for the tradition of staying up all night studying Torah is to be awake when on this night the Torah again descends from the heavens. However, we are also taught that Torah is constantly descending, if we choose to receive it. Beyond the one-time revelation, or even the annual anniversary, there can and ought to be a continuous process of Torah being given and received. At any and every moment, we can choose to accept and act upon our responsibility to work for a better world.
One of the names for Shavuot in the Talmud is “atzeret Pesakh,” the end of Passover. When Moses first meets God at the burning bush, he is told that after the Israelites had been freed from Egypt, they would return to the very same mountain to receive God’s Commandments. Traditionally we count the 49 days between the day after the Passover seder and Shavuot on the 50th day. When my children were young, we would march around as we counted, imagining ourselves in the desert on the way from Egypt to Sinai. However, there is also an agricultural significance to the “counting of the omer,” connected to the annual barley harvest and the need to bring an offering of barley to the Temple. While on the one hand, we are counting the days we are advancing towards Sinai–an event that in the Biblical narrative takes place before we arrive in the Land of Israel–we are also specifically told to do this counting “When you enter the Land” (Leviticus 23:10).
Even though we have arrived in the Land, we are still on the way to Sinai.
This is our situation in Israel today. On the one hand, we have “made it.” We have returned to our ancient homeland and established a thriving and vibrant state. And, we have so much to do. Our state is not fully living up to the dreams we had for our country when we wrote our Declaration of Independence:
“THE STATE OF ISRAEL will be open for Jewish immigration and for the Ingathering of the Exiles; it will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or gender; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions; and it will be faithful to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.”
The reality is that we are oppressing and dispossessing the Palestinian people in the Occupied Territories. Those Palestinians living within Israel’s borders as citizens are also severely discriminated against. In addition, inequality and injustice exists between Israel’s Jewish citizens. Much remains to be done to achieve socioeconomic justice.
While I can point to definite achievements and improvements during my years leading Israeli human rights organizations, we have also seen so many setbacks and backtracking. As a result of the Israeli High Court decision we won in 2006 (Morar v. IDF High Commander in Judea and Samaria [sic]), many Palestinian farmers now receive army protection to access their lands that they had been prevented from accessing for many years previously. While the court ordered access during the entire year, today that access is largely limited to the olive harvest and plowing seasons. This year we have had to fight to get the army to protect the plowing.
While in 2000 the Israeli High Court Justice Dalia Doerner angrily rebuked the Israeli army for expelling the residents of the South Hebron Hills, and permitted them to return home, today’s High Court recently greenlighted Israel’s intent to again expel them. While we manage to create pockets of resistance that allow farmers and shepherds to hold on to their lands, the overall picture is one of advancing dispossession.
In the 1990s, Israel passed one of the most progressive national health care bills in the world. Today, its promise is compromised by underfunding.
Perhaps more important than any specific court ruling or policy, is the national ethos. The fact that most Israelis truly believe we have the most moral army in the world, indicates that Israelis aspire to having the most moral army in the world. The fact that I can still believe in the basic goodness and decency of my fellow Israelis gives me hope, and allows me to continue year after year. However, not only do most Israelis live in a self-created bubble allowing themselves to ignore the reality in the Occupied Territories, but even those who understand that injustice is rampant are experiencing “Occupation fatigue.” They don’t see a solution in the offing, and want to focus their attention elsewhere.
We are still in the desert, doing our best to get to Sinai. The message of both Vorspan and Heschel is that we must “keep our eyes on the prize” not only between Passover and Shavuot, but throughout the year and every year, in a sacred covenant between the generations. We would do well to remember the teaching of the 19th century Rabbi Shimshon Rafael Hirsch on the counting of the omer:
“You have already celebrated the festival of your freedom. You have already given thanks to God for the independence that you have been privileged to receive, dwelling in your Land and eating from the bread of the Land. You already achieved the freedom and the wellbeing of independence, that generally are thought of as the ultimate goal of all national aspirations. However, you are to see yourselves as only at the outset of your national purpose; Now you must begin to count towards the achievement of another goal. As it is stated differently in Deuteronomy 16:9, ‘Start counting the seven weeks when the sickle is first put to the standing grain. Where others finish counting, you must begin your counting.’ ”
Khag Sameakh. This Shavuot may we all receive the Torah and inspiration to continue towards Sinai.
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