Where Do You Draw the Line?

Where Do You Draw the Line?

This summer, I was privileged to participate in the annual Rabbinic Training Seminar (RTS) at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem. The seminar is a 10 day learning experience which brings rabbis and scholars from around the world to study, reflect, sing, and dream together while exploring complicated issues facing the Jewish world today. This summer, the theme of our learning was focused on the question, “What is a Jew?” Unlike the familiar and expected theme of “Who is a Jew?” this subject confronted the most pressing social concern of our day; that of boundaries and distinctions. By studying the texts and discussing the prevailing theories of identity, we learned that the lines we draw for others and ourselves can become fluid and indistinct.

Jewish Community Day at Dodger Stadium is a great example of boundaries and their fluidity. At best, thousands from the affiliated Jewish community show up to a stadium of more than 50,000 spectators. We feel that everyone is Jewish that day, even if the roughly 45,000 other fans have backgrounds from Asia, Latin America, and Sherman Oaks. In an instant, our identities can snap crisply back into boundaries where Judaism is unique to all other expressions of faith in the world today.

There were many accomplished scholars who ascended the dais at the Hartman Institute to present their perspectives on the subject to over 200 participants. In one session, we were reminded that the most impressive heroes of our tradition, like Yitro (Moses’ father-in-law) and Ruth (daughter-in-law of Naomi and biological ancestor to King David) were both what we might call non-Jews. We learned that the qualification for a Jew is less defined by biology than by expressions of loyalty and commitment. By exploring these tremendously ambiguous lines of identity, we left more well prepared to return to our communities and confront the great challenges of what is a Jew and who can be a member of our ‘family.’ In truth, this subject is not a Jewish issue alone. The tides of social change are shifting, flattening what were once classical forms of identity, like culture, religion and gender into new definitions of identity - identities that cross these lines which bound us together and separated us in the past.

Here at Valley Beth Shalom, I’m reminded of one of Rabbi Schulweis’ teachings about the boundaries of the self and the other. He wrote:

So much of my life I live for others. So much of my life I rival to excel others and to become like others. It is a vain ambition. The words of Rabbi Mendl of Kotzk address my search. “If I am I because I am I and you are you because you are you then I am I and you are you.” “But if I am I because you are you, and you are you because I am I, then I am not I, and you are not you.” “Everything in the world,” the Rabbi Mendel said, “can be imitated, except truth. For truth that is imitated is no longer truth.” Whom dare I imitate and what self-deception would I perpetuate? God does not create clones. God does not create redundantly. There are no spiritually identical twins in the world. It is a precious and difficult wisdom to come to recognize that I am unique and that even my stumblings are unique. To preserve the singularity of my being is to overcome a lifetime of imitation. At the end of my life, God will not ask me why I was not like another, but why I was not myself.

After 10 days in Jerusalem, surrounded by colleagues and vibrant learning, I learned that to draw healthy boundaries, in whichever shape they may be drawn, begins with a healthy sketch of myself. A strong identity, a strong Jewish identity, is formed when I can draw myself well, hopefully with lines and curves that make space for others. Our text tradition has long supported this dream and I hope this dream is one we can realize together here as well.