Judaism Without Borders

First published in Yalla, a Jewish-Arab student journal.

Dear Judaism,

I know it’s not been that long since we saw each other last, since I donned my tzitzit and said my morning benedictions in the after-shower cool of my shuttered bedroom. And when I walked outside today, it hadsn’t been long since I blinked at the sunlight and said shehekhiyanu for the first warm day of spring, “Blessed are You, O Divine One, who keeps us alive and brought us to this season.” It’s hardly been a long time since I stood on the subway platform and watched the myriads of ethnicities hustle and bustle in New York City, often fervently, on their ways to work—a sea of uniqueness all coined in the image of your Original Source.

But matters deserve this letter anyway, something it’s taken me a long time to muster. Inside me a million emotions churn and tide, though by looking at my face you would never suspect. Only the Old Man Upstairs really knows this internal trepidation, so forgive me for keeping it to myself so long—good friends always share their feelings with each other, even angry feelings, especially hurt feelings.

I know that you know, dear Judaism, that I’ve been to the Holy Land just recently. Although two years ago isn’t really “just recently,” the power of that experience guides my steps each day. It was a turning point for us.

You know we didn’t meet first in the Holy Land, because we’ve been partners since I was six, since I first felt the breath of a divine Voice, since my daddy first took me to Yom Kippur services with him, since I could hum Shalom Aleichem. You were there from the start, filling our home with Sabbath melodies on the cassette player, or arriving in boxes from in California, along with matzah ball soup mix, because there weren’t any Jewish food stores in Oklahoma, or Nebraska, or Colorado, or Texas.

It wasn’t easy, was it? Being the only Jews in those places. Most of the time it was just you and me, kicking rocks into the street on Easter Day, making Hanukah paper hanukiahs while the rest of the class made Christmas chains. But it was fun, too, being the only Jews in those places. You and me, we taught every class in those elementary schools how to play driedel. Those were great moments.

Since the beginning, you’ve been my friend. So as my friend, I think we need to talk, I think you need to realize some things.

Dear Judaism, I went to the Holy Land to learn a little more about you, about myself, about our people, but I didn’t like what I found. Not two weeks into my stay, I took a tour of the West Bank and I didn’t like it one bit. The next four months are a blur to me, a whirlwind of turbulent reeducation—security guards at grocery stores, checkpoints at roads, walls between houses, graffiti saying kill the Arabs, graffiti saying kill the Jews, towers with flags, flags everywhere.

Dear Judaism, you lied to me. You told me that I could be good and right and just. But in Israel, in Palestine, I couldn’t. My mere presence in the territories spoke to privilege that I could travel freely, when others couldn’t. My returning home every night demonstrated how privileged I was to have a room to myself. My purchasing of falafel sandwiches every afternoon was evidence enough that I didn’t lack for food or money. Even the neighborhoods I lived in were secured by blood and strife. There was no escape, no innocence.

Dear Judaism, you have a dark side you never told me about. You never told me that Jews could be wrong, never told me about Hebron. There, I saw the bricks and bottles thrown from rooftops onto the Arab street, saw the turrets and glinting guns everywhere. Outside of town, I saw the scour marks and holes in walls left by Kiryat Arba settlers who violently evicted a family for a night in order to celebrate Sabbath, all under the guidance of you and their rabbi. These aren’t like the Jews of Sunday school, of Grandpa’s family in Poland. I never thought you could be a part of athe problem like this.

But more so, I saw you abused. I watched people use you. It hurt me. It hurt to watch them scream your name as they rallied—“Wherever we stand, we stand with Israel!”—never mind that they stood across the line, the Green Line. It hurt to watch orange bands encircle tanned forearms, ballpoint pens scribble serial numbers, while demanding what God gave to them—someone else’s trees. And you did nothing. You let them use you.

It is said by our sages that insight is like a burst of lightning. If so, then those few months were a thunderstorm, rolling over the hills of Judea and shadowing the glittering streets of Tel Aviv. At unsuspecting moments, cracks of insight would shred a pleasant afternoon. To open a prayer book invited a deluge, as the pages begged to be lived earnestly and as every niggun turned into the Song of Songs. You can’t keep insight like this in a cup, in a journal, even in the deepest corners of your memory. I learned a lot about myself those months. I think it’s time you learned something about yourself, too.

Dear Judaism, the pages of our sages in your care talk a great deal about treating our neighbors as ourselves. You once spoke to me about universal dignity, each person coined in the image of our Creator, and “He who saves a life is as if he saved the whole world.” But there is a discontinuity of your words in the Holy Land. Now you’ve lost the innocence you never had, and with it all the power except the power you shouldn’t want—of want and wanton violence. All the teens who explode in anger and shrapnel on crowded streets are worlds which our goodwill failed to reach. All the teens in orange rallying for the redemption of the land, that power could be wielded for a just end. See, we could be there, you and I, in the camps and the Arab street—and the yeshivas too—forging partners.

See, you’ve lost the emphasis on goodness for legalism, you’ve lost the love of God for the fear of breaking kashrut —because it never meant “fear” anyway but “awe” and I don’t see your people in awe of much. Spiritual purpose is supplanted by shallow pride and you’re losing a whole generation to Heeb and hip t-shirts. What good is’s a shirt when what’s underneath it is hollow? Me, I’d rather be hallowed and than hollow, but that message doesn’t ring with young Jewry. They’re losing touch because you aren’t touching them where it counts. You’ve allowed yourself to be about too many limits. In Hebrew school, we’re taught that the word for holiness comes from “separation,” but we’re so holy now all we have are split hairs.

Dear Judaism, in fact, I’m tired of lines and borders and exceptions. I’ve had enough. I’m not a little boy anymore. And neither are you. Eternal souls that we are, we grew up together, since the Big Bang and before. And now God is the child, looking up at you and me, asking, “What are they doing to each other? Why won’t you do something?” So enough is enough. Because you haven’t, I’m drawing the line.

It’s time you stand up. Stand up—stand up!—against those who treat land as more valuable than life. How many more must die before you take a stand, before you draw the line. How many Biblical justifications are you going to let slide past before it’s one too many? How many rabbis are you going to let invoke your Eternal Mover’s name as they wield a weapon?

You need a hero. You need a new hero. Your older hero is a man with a beard with a book with a beshert, bringing chasidut into the home. Your old hero is a man with a shaved face with a sharp rifle with a spade, bringing yiddishkeit into the land. But what good is your chesed if it stays in the home? And what good is the land if you must pay lives to posses it?

You need a hero who will take up arms, who will fight fiercely, who is willing to give his own life…for forgiveness. You need a hero who will marshal up an armada to march to the front lines, be they Green Lines or blue lines or red lines, and deliver a blitzkrieg…of charity. You need a soldier of tzedek, a hero of chasidut, a captain of kavanah. You need a yeshivabucher of the beit midrash of the olive branch, in the model of the forefathers: “Who is a hero? One who makes an enemy into a friend.”

There’s only a few Jews willing to do it, to draw lines, cross lines. A Rrabbi pushed down by soldiers and kicked because he was brave enough to cross the line—the tear gas line. At the Bedouin summer school a few go every day ostensibly to teach English, but really to prove that not all Jews carry guns—the lines of assumption. A cadre of Torah-starved students who dare to study Talmud as applied to occupation—the lines of political correctness.

Breaking the rules is part of growing up, and there is a whole new generation aching to do some breaking. Judaism, you could be a new revival, a new paradigm, in the lives of a bored and distracted youth—a deep connection between the heart and the hands, a power for prosperity. Faith heroes and heroines are waiting in the wings for you to prove that Judaism can stand for more than land and law, but also passion and compassion.

Dear Judaism, heroes are parts of fairy tales, and this sickly world is reality. But in the absence of heroes and heroines, who else will stand up for you? It is time those of us who have felt the thunderstorm, who have crossed the lines, who have wept in compassion for both sides, inaugurate a change in you, dear Judaism. It is time to inaugurate a new Judaism, a new Jewish hero: the peacemaker and a Judaism without borders.

Sincerely,

[KFJ]