Jewish Every Day II - Thinking Jewish
Rosh Hashanah Sermon, September 13, 2007
Rabbi Bruce Kadden

I’m sure that most of you remember the scene from Fiddler on the Roof in which Mottel the Tailor and Tzeitel tell Tevye that they have promised each other they would marry.  Tevye carefully weighs out the alternatives as only he can do:

          “On the one hand, what kind of a match would that be, with a poor tailor?”

          “On the other hand, he’s an honest, hard worker.”

          “On the other hand, he has absolutely nothing.”

          “On the other hand, things could never get worse for him, they could only get better.”

And a little later in the film a similar scene occurs after Perchik and Hodel announce that they are in love.  Tevye says:

 “Love.  It’s a new style.

          “On the other hand our old ways were once new, weren’t they?

          “On the other hand, they decided without parents, without a matchmaker.

          “On the other hand, did Adam and Eve have a matchmaker?”

Tevye illustrates the uncanny ability of Jews to look at both sides of an issue.  Reading Jewish literature, one cannot help but be impressed with the presentation of differing and often contradictory opinions one right after the other.  Virtually every page of Talmud contains at least one and often several differences of opinion between two or more great sages.  Even if a rabbi had been dead for centuries, someone could still argue with him through the text, as if he were sitting right in the room.  And when the deceased runs out of arguments, his contemporary counterparts will offer statements that he could have said in defense of his position.

As it is said, “If you have two Jews, you have three opinions.”  Arguing about issues is just one example of Jewish thinking.  What does it mean to think Jewish?  Do we Jews have a unique way of thinking, of looking at the world? 

If we look at our Jewish tradition, I believe that one can argue that there is a Jewish way of thinking, a way that Judaism teaches us to think about the world.  There are at least three components to “Jewish thinking.”  First, Jewish thinking means asking questions.  Second, Jewish thinking means accepting paradoxes.  Third, Jewish thinking means looking at the world as it ought to be, not just as it is.

In making these claims about Jewish thinking I do not mean to imply that we Jews are the only ones capable of thinking like this.  There are certainly many non-Jews who think in these ways, just as there are many Jews who do not think in these ways.  However, what I want to suggest is that as Judaism developed, certain ways of thinking become ingrained in Jewish tradition, became a significant component of Jewish thought and remain crucial to understanding what it means to be a Jew.

Thinking Jewish first of all means asking questions.  If there is anything we Jews have mastered it is the art of asking questions.  It was once suggested that a Jew is someone who answers a question with a question.  And although we are known as “the people of the book” we could just as easily be known as “the people of the question.”

Whereas some religious communities discourage questions, Judaism expects them.  Whereas some religions avoid critical thinking, Judaism embraces it.  To think Jewish is to ask questions.

You may have heard the story of Isador Rabi, a Nobel Prize winning physicist.  He was once asked why he grew up to be a scientist.  He said that when most children got home from school their mothers would ask them:  “Did you learn anything interesting today?”  But Dr. Rabi said that his mother was different.  She always wanted to know:  “Did you ask a good question today, Izzy?”

Asking questions opens the door to learning.  It is an invitation to sharing ideas and dialogue.  It is an admission that we don’t know all there is to know and that there is more out there worth learning. 

Judaism’s tradition of asking questions has its roots in the Torah.  When Adam and Eve hid themselves in the Garden after eating of the fruit from the tree of knowledge, God could have simply admonished them for their misdeed and for trying to hide it.  Instead, God asked them:  “Ayeka/Where are you?”  The rabbis point out that God, of course, knew where they were.  Asking “Where are you?” was not for the purpose of finding them, but of engaging them in conversation and giving them the opportunity to repent. 

We can ask questions of our parents, our teachers, even of God.  When God was going to destroy Sodom and Gemorrah, Abraham immediately challenged God:  “Will You sweep away the innocent along with the guilty?  What if there should be fifty innocent within the city; will You wipe out the place and not forgive it for the sake of the innocent fifty who are in it?” (Genesis 18:23-24)

Abraham is the first in a long line of Jews who have questioned God, challenged God, argued with God.  Where other religious traditions might consider such words inappropriate at the very least and blasphemous at the worst, Judaism considers them a natural part of our relationship with a God who cares about us and about whom we care.

Questioning opens dialogue; it initiates a process of give and take, of search for answers.  And although many questions can be answered clearly and straightforwardly, many others –particularly those that are most valuable—are not easily answered.  Rather, it is the search for the answers, the exploration, the give and take, which is most valuable.

As I have pointed out before, the Talmud, that vast collection of Jewish lore and teachings that more than any other book has shaped Judaism, begins with a question and contains questions on virtually every page.  The rabbis of the Talmud questioned virtually every assumption; often their questioning was clearly not for the purpose of arriving at an answer to a matter of Jewish law, but rather simply for the sake of exploring a certain argument, whether or not it had any practical import.

The rabbis were most interested in training the Jewish mind to think critically, to notice apparent contradictions, to refuse to take anything for granted.    

Like the Talmud, midrash and biblical commentary are also built on the premise that asking questions is a valuable way of gaining understanding of a particular text.  Reading these texts is quite similar to playing Jeopardy, since the authors often omit their questions and simply offer their answers.  After reading a comment that is an answer, the first thing the student needs to do is figure out the question or in the words of my first teacher of commentary:  “Ma haba’ayah shel Rashi/What is Rashi’s problem with the text?”  Rashi, by the way, the medieval Jewish commentator par excellance, found problems with virtually every verse of the biblical text and every Talmudic passage.

And finally, there is that vast body of post-Talmudic literature known as Responsa:  questions asked by Jews in every generation that are not directly addressed in the Torah or the Talmud, and answered by some of the leading rabbis of each age.  This body of literature has been compared to case law, as each Responsa attempts to answer a particular question. 

The Passover Seder also contains important questions as part of its liturgy.  Now, when we ask the four questions, we do not immediately answer them, although we certainly could.   Rather, we allow the seder ritual, complete with readings and songs and foods and blessings to answer the questions.  And in so doing, we raise more questions, open the door to more discussion, leave room for continued give and take.  We thus demonstrate that rather than answering a question simply and directly, it is often better to offer open-ended questions and explore the answers.

The French Jew Edmund Fleg, in his well-known affirmation “I am a Jew,” has written, “I am a Jew because the faith of Israel demands of me no abdication of the mind.”  In other words, we are encouraged to think and to question and to search for answers.

A second aspect of Jewish thinking means accepting paradoxes.  A paradox, according to the dictionary, is “a statement that seems contradictory, unbelievable or absurd, but that may actually be true.”  The field of mathematics contains many paradoxes.  Literature, too, is full of paradoxes, such as George Orwell’s famous line:  “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.

In Jewish literature you also find paradoxical statements, such as this teaching from Pirkei Avot attributed to Rabbi Ya’akov:  “One hour of repentance and good works in this world is better than all the life of the world to come; and one hour of serenity in the world to come is better than all the life of this world.”

Or take this statement from the 19^th century European sage known as the Chofetz Chayim:  “The only whole heart is the one that has been broken.”  Or this Chasidic teaching about our importance in the world:  In one pocket we should place a slip of paper with the saying:  “You are but dust and ashes.”  In the other pocket we should place a slip of paper with the saying:  “For your sake was the world created.”

Judaism encourages paradoxical thinking; it allows us to accept seemingly opposite ideas and maintain them simultaneously.  In fact, I would maintain that Jewish thinking at its best requires us to embrace paradoxical ideas and when we fail to do so we often make an idol of one component of the paradox.

For example, I began this sermon with wonderful internal monologues from Tevye the milkman.  Elsewhere in the movie, Tevye has intimate conversations with God.  Though we might strive for such an intimate relationship with the Divine, most of us can only begin to approach what is second nature to Tevye.  He and God are on a first name basis. 

But here is the thing.  At the same time that Tevye can intimately converse with God, he –like all traditional Jews—believes in a transcendent God that is wholly other and that we cannot even begin to approach.  This is the God who sends a lightening bolt to consume Aaron’s sons Nadav and Avihu for offering a strange offering that God did not sanction.  This is the God who split the sea for the Israelites, allowing them to cross on dry ground, and then just as suddenly caused the sea to close upon the Egyptians, drowning them.

Moses may be able to converse with this God, but we certainly can’t.  Abraham might be able to challenge this God, but I can’t imagine doing so.  Tevye’s genius is that although he certainly accepts this view of a transcendent God, he is –at the same time-- able to maintain an intimate relationship with this God, embracing the paradox.

Another example of paradoxical thinking involves the concepts of particularism and universalism.  Particularism refers to the idea that we Jews are the chosen people and as such have a unique destiny among the nations of the world.  It includes the idea that we have an obligation, first and foremost to support other Jews both near and far.

Universalism, on the other hand, refers to the idea that we Jews are part of the human race and have a responsibility to other human beings. 

The danger of embracing either universalism or particularism to the exclusion of the other has led to disturbing, even tragic consequences.  Many Jews who embraced universalism rallied to every cause:  civil rights, women’s rights, Palestinian rights, but not any Jewish cause.  Most consider themselves secular Jews or have left Judaism altogether. 

And many Jews who embraced particularism such as Rabbi Meir Kahane or Baruch Goldstein demonstrated a disturbing xenophobia that led to the spewing of hatred toward others and in some instances bloodshed. 

Only by embracing both poles of the paradox, both particularism and universalism, are we able maintain an appropriate equilibrium.  Naturally, some of us will lean more toward one end of the spectrum than the other.  But if we abandon one in favor of the other, we do so at our peril.

One final example of paradoxical thinking is Judaism’s view of the past and the future.  As I am sure you are aware, memory is an important Jewish value.  Rosh Hashanah, in fact, is called Yom HaZikaron, Day of Remembrance, testifying to the power of memory.  The Torah teaches that we must remember Shabbat, remember that we were slaves in Egypt, and remember what Amelek did to us.  More than any other people, perhaps, we have learned the importance of remembering the past. 

In Leon Uris’ novel about the Warsaw Ghetto, Mila 18, the rabbi declares that when a Jew says “I believe,” what he really means is “I remember.”  Historical memory is the glue that has kept our people together over the centuries.  As Rabbi Sidney Greenberg has written, “A Jew is born 4000 years old.”

But at the same time we remember the past, we also look ahead to the future.  The prophets envisioned a world where “nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.”  The rabbis fully developed the idea of the Messiah, who will come to redeem the world and more recently Reform Judaism has adapted this idea, speaking of our responsibility to help bring about the messianic age. 

But in order for this vision of the future to have a meaningful focus, it must be guided by memory, by our remembering the past.  Or in the words of the Baal Shem Tov, “In remembrance is the secret of redemption.”  We must embrace both aspects of the paradox.

A third aspect of Jewish thinking is looking at the world not as it is, but as it should be.  Rabbi Harold Schulweis, a leading Conservative rabbi, wrote:

          “Think ought.

          Not what is a Jew, but what ought a Jew to be.

          Not what is a synagogue, but what ought a synagogue to be.

          Not what prayer is, but what prayer ought to be.

          Not what ritual is, but what ritual ought to be.

          Focus from is to ought, and our mindset is affected. 

Is faces me toward the present; ought turns me to the future. 

Ought challenges my creative imagination, opens me to the realm of possibilities, and to responsibilities to realize yesterday’s dream.”

If we just look at the world as it is, we are tempted to be complacent and accept the status quo.  We can certainly be impressed with the beauty of nature and the selfless acts of many of our fellow human beings.  There is nothing wrong with appreciating and enjoying the present moment.  In fact, too often, we fail to do so.

But if we only focus our attention on the present, if we commit ourselves to living in the here and now, we forfeit the opportunity to change. 

To think about what ought to be, to reflect on our true potential and the potential of the world is to begin the process that can lead to significant change.

Judaism insists that we think about what ought to be.  To see the world through Jewish eyes means to recognize pain and suffering and evil and do something about it. Judaism does not allow us to be complacent, but instead expects us to be proactive.  We may not always agree on what ought to be done in a particular situation –we are after all Jews—but when we see something that we know is not right we are expected to act.

As we begin a new year, may it be a year that we think Jewish:

--a year of asking good questions;

--a year of accepting paradoxes;

--a year of thinking about what ought to be.

And may our thoughts in each of these areas lead us to a better understanding of each other and of the world and inspire us to study together, to pray together and to work together doing tikkun olam, on repairing our world.

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