Rabbi Harold M. Schulweis Sermons

Rabbinical Assembly Conference, 2000

by Harold M. Schulweis

Three weeks from tonight around the Seder table we will come face-to-face with the typology of our Jewish family: the wise, the wicked, the simple and especially the one who does not know how to ask “sheayno yodea lishnol.” More than any other, the silence of the fourth son unnerves me. I believe that he represents the major constituency whom we have to deal with both within and without the home, both within and without the synagogue. He is our silent majority.

He sits across my table, a reluctant participant in the procedure of the Seder. He follows the ritual of eating and drinking and when called upon will add his voice to a responsive reading. But it is without heart.

In his silence there is a gesture of passive aggression.

What lies beneath his muteness?

What does it mean that he does not know enough to ask?

He is not a “tam,” not simple, nor a simpleton, nor naive. He is part of the 90% of our children who attend colleges and universities. He is articulate in all matters - politics, economics, computer science but when it comes to Jewish concerns, matters of Jewish belief, convictions, philosophy he is struck dumb.

He is not a “tam” and far from a “rasha.” There is no apostasy in him. He does not shake his fist against the heavens nor raise his voice to ask a dissenting question. There is little passion in him, one way or the other.

Do you believe in God? No.

Are you an atheist then? No.

Do you pray? No.

Are you opposed to prayer? No.

Are you Orthodox, Reform, Conservative, Reconstructionist? No.

Do you attend the synagogue? No.

Are you opposed to attending the synagogue? No.

Do you keep kosher? No.

Are you offended by kashruth? No.

He is a neither/nor Jew. My zayde would categorize him as a “ben klaim” — a sort of hybrid Jew, a cross between a chicken and a rabbit — “nisht ahin un nisht aher.” The sociologist captured him when in the Jewish National Population Study of 1990 he was asked “What is your religion?” 1.2 million born Jewish people answered “none.” Not Christian or Buddhist or Jews for Jesus, just “none.” We are dealing with a Jewishly born none-Jew.

The Jewish “none Jew” is fairly ubiquitous. Even if nominally affiliated within our congregation the fourth son is part of the largest minyan: the Seventh-day Absentists.

I meet him in the study. For the sake of his father and mother he brings his non-Jewish fiancé urging me for their sake to officiate at their marriage. He wants no conversion for his bride to be. He explains that he is religiously neutral. He wants only that I officiate at an interfaithless marriage. He is not that Jewish nor is she that Christian.

“What Bible do you read?” Queen Victoria asked her converted Prime Minister Disraeli. “Alas, dear Queen” Disraeli answered, “I am the blank page between the old and the new testaments.”

What lies behind the ominous silence of so many Jews? Whatever it is that Jews may talk about when they are together, it may be politics or anti-Semitism or the fears of mixed marriage, theological issues are not on the agenda. Jews, when they get together do not talk about God or prayer or revelation or miracles or redemptions or the problem with evil.

The muteness of the fourth son testifies to a theological black hole within us. He who does not know how to ask creates a spiritual vacuum, and human nature abhors a vacuum. The vacuum is foreboding. As C.S. Lewis put it tersely “When a person ceases believing in something, it is not that he believes in nothing, but that he believes in anything.” For decades now we have bemoaned the empty pews and sometimes the empty seat around the Seder table. The silent one, it is reported, searches for spirituality and for a taste of New Religion, a new way:  Est, Scientology, ARICA, Daytop, Meher Baba, Zen Buddhism. With them he is not mute. There is a bitter irony in his silence. This is Passover, the celebration of freedom. And freedom is demonstrated by the question. Slaves do not ask. The fourth son does not ask.

Sheano yodea lishol. What does it mean that he does not “know” how to ask? It is not because he lacks the knowledge to ask. He does not ask because he does not believe that we know how to answer. He does not believe in the answers he has heard.

Why this incredulity? Who silenced him? Who shut him up? What ever happened to the first eager questions he asked as a child in our religious schools? What happened to the excitement, enthusiasm and marvel which in those early school days were filled with questions? Questions are the birth pangs of wonder, and out of wonder philosophy and faith emerge.

Ask him now in his adult years what he recalls of his Jewish training and we are greeted with the melancholy tales of boredom and irrelevance. Ask him how his schooling shaped his concepts of God, the meaning of prayer or the biblical narrative and you will hear a version of Judaism crudely anthropomorphic, a tradition devoid of poetry, spirituality, wisdom or philosophy. Where did he receive this infantilizing idea about a punitive God, devoid of love, or the idea of prayer indistinguishable from miracle, or of a people narrowly provincial or a ritual mindlessly obeyed? What has he been taught?

At his Bar Mitzvah, he dutifully memorized the Haftorah, with or without the Cantor's tape. And even if he learned the trope, ask him what a prophet is, what this uniquely Jewish religious hero does and you will draw a blank spot. He recalls the Bat Mitzvah as a musical reading performance. Calamity strikes the tone-deaf.

Have I anything to do with creating this silent Jew? He is after all a product of my schools. When did he start not asking? I think back on my own early Jewish education. My zayde was my first teacher. He taught me Chumash and Rashi and later Gemara. He answered my questions but only some questions, only those that had to do with translation and the literal texts. But when I asked him questions that I suspect all of us had, about the speaking serpent of the Garden of Eden or the menagerie of animals packed in Noah's ark or the abdominal hospitality the whale offered the fugitive Jonah —  he smiled benignly, gave me a “knip in bekel,” pinched my cheek and whispered “Shpeter” — later. When I asked him what kind of God orders the murder of his child and what kind of hero accepts the command, or whether God “really” answer prayers, and if so, how come so many worthy petitions were not answered, zayde fell back on his standard response, “Shpeter” — later.

Only later never came, not before or after the Bat Mitzvah. Later is the strategy of aversion, procrastination and delay. “Shpeter” echoed throughout my background in Hebrew School, in Yeshiva and I hear it today repeated by the teachers of Hebrew school and Day school.

Mind you, they are fine teachers, good people, language teachers. Dovray Ivrith -- who speak Hebrew fluently and know the subtleties of “dikdook.” But they are hardly prepared to deal with philosophical and theological questions. It is one thing to translate “Hakelev Amar hav-hav” and to learn that Jewish dogs don't bark “bow wow.” But another thing to anticipate and answer the type of questions which inevitably arise in teaching the sacred texts of Siddur and Torah call for Jewish philosophical and theological sensitivity. The questions of our youth are consequential. Consider the “really” questions. The youngsters are not simply asking did God “really” speak, did God “really” split the sea, and afflict the Egyptians with blood or frogs or the slaughter of the first-born. The youngster is asking about Judaism's interpretation of reality. “Really” questions ask about reality, about what Judaism understands about the real nature and human nature and history. Beneath his “really” questions are questions of credibility. What can I believe? What can I trust? Upon whom can I rely?

My zayde's voice, “shpeter,” echoes in the teacher's rationalizations. “You see, the children are too young to discuss such issues. It's not age appropriate. They do not have the conceptual apparatus or the linguistic facility to deal with such questions. We can hardly squeeze this into our crowded curriculum anyhow.” These are part of the pedagogic arsenal to delay, postpone, evade, side-step. I have wondered why in secular life we no longer answer the youngsters' questions about sex and conception and birth with a story about a stork flying over the chimney or why do we not answer them with “later.”

There are other ways to create aino yodeah lishol muteness. One of the ways is to answer the variety of questions with an invisible instant omniscience and quick piety. It occurs during the earliest years. Why is the sky blue? God. Why are babies born? God. Why did grandpa die? Why was there an earthquake? God. You remember the celebrated anecdote that refers to a Sunday school teacher who uses God to explain almost any question. Once she asked the children “What is a small, brown furry animal who hides acorns during the winter months?” An eager child raises his hand and says “I know the answer is God but it sure sounds like a squirrel.” The child has caught on. It is bad theology that uses God as a short-cut, to cut off real questions.

The seeds of muteness are planted early. When Susie prayed for a doll for Chanukah she didn't receive it, she asked her teacher whether or not God hears prayers and whether or not God answers prayer. The teacher dutifully said “God indeed hears and answers prayers.” “But,” says Susie, “He didn't answer my prayers.” “Yes He did” said the teacher, “He said 'no'.” That terse theology will shut up Susie but it is not only perpetuating a false rabbinic theology, it will harm Susie the rest of her spiritual life. Years later, when Susie's mother was dying in the hospital, she prayed for her recovery. Her mother died. Did God say “no”? And if so, was it because of something she had done or something that her mother had done? The early answers in the formative years form building blocks out of which Susie's religious credulity is shaped. There is a short line that leads to the answer about praying for a doll for Chanukah and the trauma of Auschwitz. The answers we give early have an after-life of their own. Flippant answers can create the ominous silence of disbelief.

Prayer is central to Jewish education and belief. When will Susie ever hear in her Jewish education, the limits that rabbinic theology places upon prayers. Will she ever learn the Rabbi's reality principle that prayers are not magic, that, for example, the irreversibility of time must be respected, that for example, to pray for a sex change after conception is a tefillah shav -- a vain and blasphemous petition. Hatzoek l'sheavar harey zu tefillat shav.

The teachers of our schools may offer prayer-reading skills, but language fluency from the Siddur will not answer the serious child's questions that probe the presuppositions of prayer.

How will those who teach prayer answer Susie's predictive question: Can I pray for an “A”? Will they not impulsively answer “yes,” will they take the occasion to explain that Jewish prayer is not magical thinking, that while the goal of magic is to get an “A,” Jewish prayer is interested in cultivating the character of the petitioner. Will Susie learn that prayer, unlike magic, is not for the indolent, that getting an “A” is not the proper motivation for prayer; that prayer is not a short-cut to the acquisition of an “A,” but is meant to encourage Susie to study, to master the subject, not to achieve the “A” by hook or crook, that prayer is “avodah”; work “Arbeton oif sich,” essential for the development of her respect for Jewish spirituality. Should the answer come later? Will they ever come later?

When the 1994 earthquake hit our area, Jewish children and adults, asked whether God was angry with us, whether it was “bashert,” God's verdict, God's punishment. Where did they learn that conclusion? It is too common a response to ignore. Does it reflect Jewish theology?

When and where is the time and place for that remarkable rabbinic discussion in Avodah Zarah 54b: Suppose a man steals a measure of wheat and sows it in his own field. “Din hu shelo titzmach” -- It would be right that the wheat not grow. After all, it is stolen seed. But they conclude “Olam k'minhago noheg -- nature pursues its own course. And nature is morally neutral. The Gemara continues: Suppose a man has intercourse with his neighbor's wife. “Din hu shelo titaber.” It would be right that she should not conceive. But Olam k'minhago noheg, nature pursues its own course.

The shifting plates beneath the California earth are not moral judgments, not “acts of God,” nor divine judgments, not bashert. Geological causes and consequences are not divine curses and punishments. Olam k'minhago noheg. This rabbinic reality principle introduces a theology that our young should learn not “later,” but before they enter the college world.

For we are told that college is a “Jewish disaster area.” Why a disaster area? Scholars like Nathan Rotenstreich, Julius Guttman and Abraham Joshua Heschel have shown that Kant, Hegel and Fichte inherited their caricatured knowledge of Judaism from Spinoza's Tractatus Theologica Politicus. For these philosophers, Judaism was no religion and the Bible was not interested in the truth. There is no philosophy or theology in Judaism. There is only law and obedience. The Bible contains, as Spinoza avers, “No lofty speculation nor philosophic reasoning, but only very simple matters, such as could be understood by the slowest intelligence.” Moreover, that understanding of Judaism was corroborated by Moses Mendelssohn for whom the essential uniqueness of Judaism was nothing but “geoffenbarte gesetze” -- revealed legislation, laws, commandments and regulations which were supernaturally given to the Jews by Moses. From this Kant concluded that Judaism is “eigentlich keine religion.”

Youngsters are sent to college philosophically unprepared, undefended, unarmed before the Spinozists and Kantian distortion of Judaism. If the university is a disaster area it is because the Jewish foundation is so poorly laid. How were they trained to answer? There is no “da mah l'hashmik,” sheayad lishol finds its entry.

Have we not inadvertently conspired with the caricature of Judaism as devoid of philosophy by declaring that Judaism is not concerned with theology but only with deed?

Have we succumbed to Spinoza's caricature by regarding theology and philosophy as of little importance, and reduced Judaism to a behavioral orthopraxy alone? Have we been trapped into what Solomon Schecter once called the only Jewish dogma: that Judaism has no dogmas? And from that anti-dogmatism jumped to the conclusion that there is no place for Jewish theology in our Jewish education.

Have we turned the conjunction naaseh v'mishma to a Maaseh v'nichna nishma ? Naaseh vnishna — just do it. The result of such orthopraxy is the dismissal of Jewish philosophy. Real Jewish education is reduced to a behavioral orthopraxy which contends that “people believe what they do more than they do what they believe; and people feel what they do more than they do what they feel.” If this is the logic of our Jewish pedagogy, then Spinoza's caricature seems correct. If Judaism is nothing but behavioral obedience to law, then my zayde's and Hebrew teachers' “shepter” is justifiable. Who needs religious thinking? We can ignore the religious question.

Teach them, what Heschel called “sacred physics” -- But at great risk. For them, for example, the spiritual and moral significance of kashruth is reduced to “pots and pantheism.” The liturgical and ritual life is threatened by what Isaiah called, Mitzvoth amashim melumadah, the very type of ritual by rote that leaves the fourth son dumb- struck.

I note the smile on the lips of the silent one as we come to the Haggadah recitation of the ten plagues. Rabbi Yehudah abbreviated the plagues, so some suggest, so as not to focus upon the punitive aspect of the redemption. But he is followed by Rabbi Yossi who argues that not ten but fifty plagues afflicted the Egyptians. And in turn he is followed by Rabbi Eleazar who insists that there were two hundred plagues. Rabbi Akiba then ups the ante and raises the amount to three hundred plagues. All of this is followed by “dayanu.” What does he take us for? Does he take their inflation of the number of plagues as confirmation of the Grand Inquisitor, that all religions rely solely on “magic, mystery and authority”; that Judaism is nothing but a tale of miracles. I would shake him. “At ptach lo.” I would open him up. What does he take us for? My anger turns to sadness. What a pity that in all his years in Hebrew school and even Day School, he was never taught for example, the revolutionary Mishna from Rosh Hashanah. He should have learned not from Feurbach or Hume, Dewey but from the Mishnah itself the rabbinic suspicion of miracles and the distinctiveness of “nes.” Consider the theological implications of the commentary on Exodus 17:8 “Then came Amalek and fought with Israel in Rephidin and Moses said 'Stand on my side and lift my hands.' And Aaron and Hur held up the hands of Moses and when his hands rose the Israelites prevailed.” Clearly a miraculous event written unambiguously in the Torah. But our sages will have nothing of that. They ask “Do you think that the hands of Moses guaranteed that victory? Do you think that the destiny of a people in its struggle for meaning and survival depends upon the arms of Moses?” “No,” they argue, “the entire event must be understood figuratively. What it means is that when the people looked up to Moses and the mountain they were looking toward the ideals of Torah therefore they prevailed.”

That very same Mishnah continues with another prima facie miracle recorded in the Bible. In the book of Numbers 21 the people of Israel in the desert are dying because scorpions are poisoning them. God says to Moses to make himself an icon, a brazen serpent so that all who looked upon it would be healed and saved. And those who did not would die. Make for yourself a brazen serpent. Again the rabbinic sages would not accept this miracle. And they ask “Will this brazen serpent kill or make alive?” Though it is biblically reported, the rabbis will not concede. Additionally, we read in the second book of Kings 18:4 that very same icon the brazen serpent of the desert was placed in the temple and there the people burned incense to it. Then a great king by the name of Hezekiah smashed the icon to pieces and for this he was praised.

A Jewish “Nes” is not a miracle. “Nes” is not a violation of the laws of logic or the laws of nature. “Nes” is a sign, an “oth,” a “mofeth.” In the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Bible it is called “semeion” which means sign. A “nes” is an event that signifies something of significance, something that makes an important difference in our lives and in the lives of our community in which we have an active part.

“Israel is not redeemed except through the work of their own hands.” We have important allies to call upon to fight against the growing anti-intellectualism and theurgy in our society that affects our young and old. I would have them study Maimonides' Guide (Part III, Chapter 6) where he courageously inveighs against those who turn the Jewish “nes” into magic. Let them read the master. “If you explain to some pious sages that God sends a fiery angel to enter the womb of a woman and form a fetus there, they would accept it as a miracle for they understand that the angel is a body formed of burning fire whose size is equal to a third part of the whole world. But they would be repelled by the explanation that God had placed in the sperm a formative force shaping the limbs and giving them their configuration. They would foolishly shirk from the idea that this nature force is what is meant by angel.

The transmission of Jewish theological wisdom must happen before college. How else shall we prepare the silent one to answer those Western philosophers who maintain that Judaism is nothing but obedience? Again, has the silent one ever been taught the heroic dissent of the prophets? Has the silent one ever heard of the role of conscience within our rabbinic tradition? Why has he never been taught that remarkable stunning encounter between the religious heroes and God -- Abraham, Hannah, Elijah, Moses repeated in rabbinic literature? Was he too young or immature to be taught Moses' confrontation of God Himself as recorded in Bamidbar Rabbah 19:33. Moses has descended from the mountain with Commandments which included the statement that the Holy One visits the iniquity of the fathers upon the children. Moses appeals to God in the name of God and God's conscience. “Sovereign of the universe, many are the wicked who have begotten righteous men. Shall the latter bear the iniquities of their fathers? Terach worshiped images, yet Abraham his son was a righteous man. Hezekiah was a righteous man though Ahaz was his father. Josiah was a righteous king yet Amon, his father was wicked. Is it proper that the righteous should be punished for the iniquity of their fathers?” The response of the Holy One is powerful and resonant in our tradition. The Holy One, blessed be He, says to Moses “You have taught Me something. By your life I shall cancel My words and confirm yours.” As it says in Deuteronomy 24:16 “The fathers shall not be put to death for the children neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers.”

Not everything can be taught -- there are conflicts and questions we can anticipate, and which can help him live more confidently in a college or university.

We are challenged by the Jewish theological black hole. We are challenged by the lock-jaw of disbelief. The silent one has never been exposed to alternative answers to his questions.

The silent ones, it is reported, are searching for spirituality. But we must not be deceived into thinking that what they crave for are kameyos and red strings around their wrists, magic and gurus to whom they can surrender their minds and who find their bliss in turning their backs to the world. We pay attention to baaley tshuvah, chozrim b'tshuvah -- those who seek apodictic answers. God bless them. But there are others, a far larger group within us that must and can be reached. They are chozrim b'sheelah, baale shelah -- those who may return with the questions, prematurely buried in the classes that evaded the question. The baale she'eld search for a sane, morally responsible and socially responsive Jewish spirituality.

We need Jewish teachers who know Jewish philosophy. We need Jewish religious educators who have wrestled with the questions. They need to know how to answer so that the child and adolescent does not find their responses irrelevant, unbelievable or worse, immoral.

They need Jewish philosophy for the renewal of a thinking, moral Jewish faith. They need a philosophy -- not right, center or left, but one that treats the arguments seriously and draws insight from the entire Jewish philosophical tradition. I believe that much of the muteness of indifference comes from mis-education, from those caught in the vise of either/orism. The Bible is either literally true of false; revelation is either divine intervention or human invention; prayer either moves God or is meaningless; ritual is to be observed without rationale or doomed to obstruct intellectualization; to be a Jew is to either be loyal to your people or to humanity. He has been raised by split thinking. He is taught nothing of the richness of our tradition and leaves the synagogue believing that there is only one answer, one authentic view - and one which for him is unbelievable. Then he shuts his mind and his mouth. Muteness is his revenge. The Jewish teacher must be taught to apply Jewish thinking to the teaching of prayer and Bible. Pedagogic application of the wisdom of Maimonides and Halevi, Buber and Hirsch, Kaplan and Heschel, Baeck and Soloveitchik must be applied to help our young gain confidence in the wisdom, morality and spiritual views of Jewish faith.

Our internal crisis of belief will not be overcome quantitatively by throwing more hours at the curriculum. More than “where” and “how” and “when,” the deep questions to be answered is “what for” and that requires compelling rationale. We need teachers trained in Jewish philosophy to answer those kinds of inquiries.

Here the Rabbi ordained from a Jewish theological seminary plays a critical role. If our young people's teachers lack the Jewish philosophic and theological elements, the rabbi must train the teachers to know how to answer and how to listen to the question. We need to translate the genius of Jewish philosophers and Jewish theologians to help put life and depth into tefillah and ritual observance and the emotional life.

May I share with you my own experimentation with Jewish philosophical recovery at a series of Friday evening services? I invite to my pulpit, as it were, a variety of Jewish thinkers from J.B. Soloveitchik to Martin Buber, from Isaiah Leibowitz to Mordecai Kaplan. In my intellectual impersonation of these thinkers, I ask these religious cultural heroes to lead the services, to explain the prayers, to express the philosophical presuppositions of the prayers in accordance with their theological approach. In the congregation are many who have never heard the depth and variety of Jewish approaches to the kinds of questions they bear. But listening to the variety of these spiritual approaches to Judaism they experience the power of Jewish spiritual pluralism. Listening to the Satmar and Ahad Ha-Am conduct services with their philosophy they are helped over their either/or split thinking.

We rabbis are products of the Jewish Theological Seminary and we can help the teachers address the deep questions of their students. I think it is important to bring back to the Jewish curriculum, to the Jewish agenda on the pulpit and in the school Jewish cultural heroes who have in their own lives wrestled with the religious and spiritual questions and have spent their lives offering their approaches. For the sake of Jewish renewal and renaissance the time has come to study them, and with the community to offer shiurim of both the philosophers Rishnim and Achronim - Maimonides, Saadya, Halevi; a daf of Heschel; a sugia of Soloveitchik, an inyan from Buber and Baeck, a perush from Samson Raphael Hirsch. Jewish theology is no luxury. It is needed to re-awaken the dormant question and to expose it to alternative answers.

There are some who are afraid of the question or of cultivating the question. But as my zayde once said, “Fum a kashe ken men nisht shtarbem.” -- “From a question no one dies.” In this he was only half right. From not asking a question one dies; from asking a question, a people begins to live.

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