Jewish Wisdom is vast and universally valuable. Rabbi Irwin Kula,the President of CLAL, once said to me, “Judaism is an ancient wisdom tradition with as much (if not more) to offer than any other wisdom tradition on the international marketplace of ideas.” If this is true, why isn't Jewish wisdom more celebrated and studied worldwide? According to Rabbi Kula, the problem is that most of Jewish wisdom is inaccessible to the average person. The Jewish religion has not adequately evolved the language to communicate these ideas to a wider public. Even when in English, Jewish wisdom is cloaked in ancient styles making the true wisdom of ancient Jewish texts too obscure for the uninitiated to appreciate.
The Jewish community is not adequately translating these ideas and lessons in a way that is open and accesible to all. The Orthodox world has the closest relationship with ancient Jewish wisdom and the most proficiency in reading and understanding our ancient texts, but we do not have proficiency or desire to share the gifts of Torah with the world.
Why not? There's no easy answer to a question like this, but I believe that a lot of it has to do with the culture of survival that has evolved in the Orthodox community.
If you take a close look at the larger Orthodox world, we seem to be motivated by a fear of annihilation, both physically and spiritually. These fears are prevalent in all parts of the Orthodox world, from the Chareidi side on the right to much of the Modern Orthodox community on the left. In February, Naomi and I were fortunate enough to staff a shabbaton for Orthodox college students with Lord Rabbi Jonathan Sacks. After Shabbos dinner, Naomi and I got the opportunity to escort the Rabbi Sacks and his lady wife back to their apartment. On our walk, Rabbi Sacks remarked to me, how he felt that Orthodox world is inwardly focused to an unhealthy degree, it’s bad for our neshamot, he said...it’s bad for our souls.
Most of the Orthodox world is obsessed with itself. We are obsessed with questions about who is really orthodox, who is in/who is out, who can we associate with, who has anything of value to offer our spiritual and intellectual perspectives, who do we deem important enough to try to influence and inspire w/o being patronizing. Most of the world is oblivious to the genius of Jewish wisdom, because most of Klal Yisrael is alienated from Orthodox Judaism.
In the parsha we read about the physical numbers of the the Jewish people, in connection to this census, the Haftorah begins with the following verse, “והיה מספר בני ישראל כחול הים אשר לא ימד ולא יספר - And the number of the people of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured nor counted.” There is a logical inconsistency in this verse. The gemara (Yoma 22b) points out that, although the sand may be numerous, it is not immeasurable; it might take a while to count it all, but there is a finite number. The second part of the verse which says that they cannot be measured or counted is describing an infinite measure. These two descriptions, being as numerous as sand, and being immeasurable are not talking about the same thing! So which is it? Is the measure of the Jewish people finite or infinite?
The gemara explains that the first part of the pasuk, the finite measurement, is describing when the Jewish people are not doing רצון השם - the will of God; while the second part of the pasuk, the infinite measurement, is describing when the Jewish people are doing רצון השם - the will of God. This explanation is still lacking. Although being compared to the sand of the sea may not be as Grand as being immeasurable, it is not the description we would expect to be used when discussing the Jewish people as not doing God's will.
To get a better understanding of this Gemara, we need to understand what is meant by the infinite measurement of the Jewish people, and we need discuss the concept of רצון השם.Last shabbos, I was again privileged to hear Rabbi Sacks speak. He was the scholar in residence at the Riverdale Jewish Center. Since we were in Riverdale, I went to hear him speak at a special seduah shlishit question and answer session. One of the questions asked was, after his first extended stay in the US, what are some of his critiques of the American Jewish community. He pointed out that the American Jewish community is the best in the world at defending Jews. We have built institutions better than any in the world at protecting the the Jewish people, defending Jewish interests, and fighting anti-semitism. Yet, with all of that, we have totally failed as a community to create leaders who are purposely and effectively transmitting Jewish wisdom to the broader population. The Jewish community has failed, so far, to inspire anyone beyond its own borders, and if you look at the recent Pew survey, it's failing to even do that.
The point that the gemara is making about the immeasurable potential of the Jewish people is that our influence can be so much greater than our mere numbers. When the Jewish people are inspiring others, when Jewish wisdom is being adopted by average people to make their own lives more meaningful, there is a little piece of the Jewish people spread all around. You can’t measure this kind of influence.
How does this relate to fulfillment of God's will discussed in the Gemara? In a sermon from 1966, Rabbi Norman Lamm connects the Gemara's commentary on the verse from our haftorah to a teaching of the Chassidic Rabbi, Rabbi Tzadok of Lublin.
Rav Tzadok distinguishes between two terms: רצונו של מקום and מצוותו של מקום, the will of God and the commandments of God. These are two different ways of being Jewish, similar, but not the same. Rabbi Lamm attaches these concepts to the Gemara. When we fulfill the commandments of God, we are many, but measureable; when we are serving God in the way that not only fulfills commandments but also fulfills the will of God, then we are immeasurable.
When we approach Judaism as a list of laws, when halacha is the ceiling without any potential of going above and beyond in our fulfillment of the mitzvot, when our focus is only on fulfilling God’s commandments; then we fulfill those commandments, but that does not mean that we are fulfilling the will of God. This kind of approach to religion is primarily focused on simply checking things off of a checklist, sometimes at the cost of other people or the big picture according to Judaism. It is an observant lifestyle, but not a spiritual lifestyle. It isn’t the fulfillment of God’s will in this world.
Fulfilling the will of God is bigger than just robotically performing commandments. When halachah is the floor and not the ceiling, when Judaism is a spiritual discipline, when the Mitzvot purify us and encourage us to reach above and beyond in our moral behavior, when doing mitzvot helps us grow, not just as a Jew but as a human being; Then we are fulfilling God's will. Doing the will of God means we do mitzvot in a way that is inspired by the Torah values of doing what is right and just, pursuing justice, being holy and many more Torah Values.
Jewish life is so beautiful, Judaism is such a complex intellectual system. The Torah isn't just a list of laws, its wisdom is universally valuable for navigating the big questions of humanity. Doing the will of God means sharing that wisdom, creating a world influenced by Torah, fulfilling the call to be a light unto the nations.
When all we think about is doing mitzvot, and mitzvot alone, then we’re measurable. We have clear boundaries and clear numbers. You want to know how many Jews there are in the world, do a survey and count, you get pretty close to an exact number and that's all we are is tiny number that is barely perceivable in the world. We have little to no impact on anyone beyond ourselves. That's not the fulfillment of God's will.When we are fulfilling the God's will, you can't look at our numbers to understand our presence in the world.
Although, in this week’s parsha we read about a time when the Jewish people were counted, we know that the Torah forbids us from counting Jews. To get an accurate census of the Jewish people we counted each person's donated half shekel, and not the person. One of the reasons for this method of counting is so that we aren't led to believe that our strength lies in our numbers. Ideally we should be much stronger than our actual numbers would tell. We make this true by spreading beyond our borders and inspiring the world.
Too much of the Orthodox Jewish community today is defined by fear. The fear of anti-semitism and fear of assimilation is rampant in our community, it is often the dominant motivation to our approach to Jewish life. To many, Jewish identity is a negative identity. Meaning, a person feels I have to be jewish because of anti-semitism. Or every big question that arises from our confrontation with a modern world is stifled because of a fear of assimilation. We justify dismissing or shaming the big questions by labeling those who struggle and lacking fear of God or we even call them the enemies of Torah. We deprive our children, our communities and the rest of the world of seeing the true beauty and complexity of a Torah that is intellectually at least as complex, rigorous and inspiring as any other intellectual system, if not more so. We teach our community that Judaism can't deal with the difficult questions of life. We send a message to those not comfortable with this approach that they have no place in the Orthodox community. We do Judaism and the world a disservice by this cowardly approach.
How many are lost as a result? how many people are led to believe that Torah is only for the closed and small minded? Too many people choose to dissociate as a result and end up assimilating because of our fear of assimilation. Many of my friends, people I grew up with, went to yeshiva day schools and orthodox Jewish camps with, have rejected the Judaism they grew up with, because they were never taught how to struggle with life's questions and see the wisdom of the Torah. They feel that they outgrew Judaism.
How many opportunities will we miss to keep our children inspired? How many others are we, as a community, failing to inspire to see the beauty and complexity of the Torah?
Is this perspective on the state of the Orthodox world correct? If you look at the recent Pew report, the orthodox community seems to be doing much better than any other branch of Judaism in terms of retaining numbers and growth. For many orthodox Jews, this simple fact about numbers is a point of pride. When Rabbi Steve Weil, the outgoing Executive vice-President of the OU, was discussing the Pew survey at a professional conference Naomi and I attended, he said what worries him most about the Pew report is Orthodox triumphalism. He’s worried that the part of the Jewish community most concerned with doing mitzvot and connected to Torah will see the numbers and think “we’ve won,” by doing this, they’ll miss the most important lesson from the Pew report. That lesson is that the Orthodox haven’t won, rather, the entire Jewish community has lost.
Around 60% of Jews identify with Judaism as a culture and not as a religion and around 70% of Jews are intermarrying. Bagels and lox and, matzah balls have a greater influence on the identity of Jews than Torah! No one has won when that many Jews want nothing to do with the Torah. The Torah is the birthright of all the Jewish people, whether they are religious or not. The system of Torah has value and teaches meaning, even if a person chooses not to see it's divine nature. And yet, most Jews want nothing to do with the Torah.
When Jews are ignorant of Jewish wisdom, when learned Jews are more concerned with protecting themselves than inspiring others, Judaism’s influence on the world is limited because God’s will is not being done. So what do we do? It's so easy to lose our appreciation of mitzvot and their greater meaning when we do them habitually over and over again.
I'd like to suggest some simple recommendations to help inspire ourselves and others:
do we simply do mitzvot like items on a checklist? Let me start with one mitzvah and think about how to make it more inspiring to me. Or, let me think about how I can share my shabbos experience with people who haven't experienced the beauty of shabbos before.
Do Jewish values - which aren't codified in halacha so there's not defineable action - do they inspire us to action and impact our Jewish identity? If I'm not sure, let me try discuss with my family and practice articulating, what Jewish values are most important to us. Or, pick a book about Jewish values and then pick a family member, a friend, or a colleague once a week get together in person or on skype to read and discuss. Don't wait for someone else to get started, if you ask, I guarantee someone will love the opportunity to do this with you.
When is my way of being jewish motivated by fear? Sometimes there is a need for that fear, anti-semitism and assimilation are real, but we err on the side of caution too often, do we ever evaluate when we are making decisions based on fear? If we find that we don’t, we should try removing ourselves from our comfort zone and trying one of these suggestions with someone who we wouldn't normally associate with on that level, a non-orthodox family member, friend or colleague, or even a a non-Jewish acquiantance. And try doing it in a way that doesn't assume your way is right for the other person, but in a way where you both have something unique and valuable to offer the other.
Let the Torah speak for itself, share that torah with others, you will inspire and be inspired!
The haftorah echoes the bracha given to Avraham that his offspring will be as numberous as the sand, but they also have the potential to be immeasurable. When we fulfill this bracha, we can fulfill another of God's promises to Avraham, ונברכו בך כל משפחות האדמה - all the nations of the earth will be blessed through you. We do this by living a life of Torah that is inspiring and inspirational. The Torah is often compared to a flame, because sharing it doesn’t diminish the original flame in anyway, it simply spreads more light. That light needs us to spread it around.
May we all be blessd to live an inspired and inspiring Jewish life.
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