Who is in and who is out? Who gets to remain inside the camp, and who has to wait outside? When you come right down to it, that is the subject of this week's Torah reading. On the surface, we are continuing the topic of ritual purity and impurity which began in last week's reading. A major part of this week's parasha describes how an "afflicted" and "impure" individual must remain outside the Israelite camp, and only once they have become pure again may they reenter. Even once they're back with the in-crowd, sometimes they must actually remain outside their own tents for seven additional days! 
With this week's reading, it's easy to get bogged down in talking about disease and uncleanliness; but again, to me it's really more about who's in and who's out... and who gets to decide. Just like in ancient times, today we still judge one another, creating divisions rather than dialog. Within the Jewish world, we often feel the need to measure up to a standard of holiness or perfection, jumping through hoops to appease those considered more "pure" or "righteous" than us. When it comes to aliyah, conversion, marriage, and prayer (among other issues), one group makes all the decisions, and pushes everyone else around. Today I would like to add my voice to those who push back.
I was inspired by two recent articles: "Toward a more assertive liberal Judaism" by a former professor of mine, Alex Sinclair, and "Warning: Fundamentalist Morass Ahead" by the Executive Director of the Masorti Movement in Israel, Yizhar Hess. Both authors indicate that Israel is turning into a fundamentalist state, where the Orthodox agenda dominates all aspects of political, social, economic, and military life. And they warn that this crisis is quickly (and
somewhat quietly) swallowing up the entire country. Sinclair writes, "It is Orthodox Judaism that is the main force leading to the destruction of the Jewish people's unity," and he goes so far as to compare liberal Jews (that's us!) to abused spouses who allow the Orthodox authority in Israel to insult us, refuse our conversions, take our money and give nothing back in return; and yet we don't speak up because we don't want to disturb the status quo.
Hess writes, "When a full 13% of all 18 year-olds declare that Torah-learning is their life's work, and as a result the army must cut back on the number of pre-academic programs and public service programs it supports because there are not enough soldiers, something is rotten." There is a line being drawn of who is in and who is out. The Orthodox leadership in Israel is trying to muscle out everyone else; turning us into lepers waiting outside the camp, hoping and praying that we will "fit in" to their rules and be allowed to come home. Why? It is our country as well, and we need to speak up, loud and proud, if we want there to still be a homeland for us to return to.
Towards the end of his article, Sinclair writes, "we liberal Jews must be more prepared to dispute the fundamentalist orthodox position in our dialogues [sic] with orthodox friends and colleagues." In order to dispute, we must know. Please think about these questions: If you're a liberal Jew, do you know why? If you care deeply about Israel, but have no intention of making aliyah, can you defend your position
with pride and confidence? Sitting idly by is not an option, because the situation is devolving quite rapidly. Israel is our country as well. We are not lepers, and we simply don't have the time to wait for a priest to come and declare us pure. We are pure right now, let's get up and tell someone.
Photos in this blog post:
1. CC image courtesy of Gabe Photos on Flickr
2. CC image courtesy of Alasdair Middleton on Flickr
3. CC image courtesy of Simply Boaz on Flickr
4. CC image courtesy of leah.jones on Flickr
No comments:
Post a Comment