at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion addressed these issues directly. <\/span>Before a sanctuary filled with newly minted or soon-to-be Reform rabbis, cantors, educators and other Jewish professionals and their families, Chabon told these future leaders of Reform Judaism that since the last of his children\u2019s b\u2019nai mitzvah, his retreat from religious practice has been near total. He contended that Judaism, like every other religion, is one giant interlocking system of division intended to enforce the division between, among other things, Jews and non-Jews.<\/u><\/u><\/p>\nChabon touched upon the very heart of Jewish distinctiveness and peoplehood.<\/u><\/p>\n
\u201cAn endogamous marriage is a ghetto of two,\u201d he said. \u201cI want [my children] to marry into the tribe that prizes learning, inquiry, skepticism, openness to new ideas. I want my children to marry into the tribe that enshrines equality before the law and freedom of conscience and human rights. \u2026 There will be plenty of potential partners for my children to choose \u2013 a fair number [of whom] are even likely to be Jews.\u201d<\/u><\/u><\/p>\n
Such is the wounded state of Jewish liberalism today that in response, Chabon received a rousing ovation from most (but not all) of the crowd of students about to embark on their first full-time positions in Reform synagogues, supported by many of their professional mentors.<\/u><\/u><\/u> <\/u><\/p>\n
Under what theory of liberalism are we required to discard attachments and loyalties to Jews? What is this new Jewish progressivism that asserts that the acceptance of others requires the negation of self? Is a marriage between two Catholics, Hindus, Muslims or Universalists illiberal? Is a marriage between two indigenous Australians, eager to preserve Aboriginal civilization, illiberal?<\/u><\/u><\/p>\n
To care about fellow Jews, to feel connected to the Jewish people and to be attached to the Jewish state are not proof of ghetto Judaism. In fact, not to be committed to these values is evidence of Jewish decline.<\/u><\/u><\/p>\n
Don\u2019t liberals believe in diversity, in a pluralism of communities? Don\u2019t we believe in the dignity of human difference? Or do we believe in diversity for everyone but Jews?<\/u><\/u><\/p>\n
We didn\u2019t build walls to keep people out; they built walls to keep us in. The goal of the particular existence of the Jewish people is to bring light to all the peoples of the earth. God \u201cappointed you to be a light to the nations,\u201d Isaiah preached, \u201copening eyes deprived of light, bringing prisoners, and all those who sit in darkness out of their dungeons.\u201d The point of the particular existence of the Jewish people is to promote the dignity of all people. Jewish chosenness never implied superiority. To the contrary, we were the lowest of nations. We were slaves.<\/u><\/u><\/p>\n
We liberal Jews never seem to speak about Jewish solidarity anymore. We speak about our obligations to the world with profound conviction and eloquence, but never seem to speak about our obligations to Jews. Thus, for many Reform Jews, \u201ctikkun olam\u201d implies everyone in the world except Jews. It is rare to meet an American Reform youth or activist who considers tikkun olam to include the obligation to assist, say, impoverished Jews in Israel or the former Soviet Union. A Reform tikkun olam mission would more likely travel to a poor African village than a soup kitchen for Jews in Ukraine.<\/u><\/u><\/p>\n
The irony is that the very concept of prophetic values emerged from the Hebrew prophets, who were fierce particularists. At no time did they abandon the Jewish particular in favor of the universal. To the contrary, the universal was a function \u2013 a product \u2013 of the particular. The impetus and urgency of prophetic morality was an outcome of the centrality of the Jewish people, not its negation.<\/p>\n
The growing inclination among liberal Jews to de-emphasize Jewish distinctiveness is the gravest threat to the future of liberal Judaism. For what are the prospects of the continuity of the people if the people are not committed to its own continuity \u2013 and does not even agree philosophically that it is a legitimate objective and a social good? Is it possible to sustain the Jewish people without being committed to the Jewish people? Can Judaism survive without Jews?<\/u><\/u><\/p>\n
It is the will to Jewish distinctiveness that ensures Jewish distinctiveness. It is the will to continue that has led to continuity. There is a ferocity to Jewish survival instincts, an indomitable sense of Jewish destiny. When these are lost, the future is lost.<\/u><\/u><\/p>\n
In the modern world, those who are not committed to Jewish survival will not survive as Jews.<\/p>\n
(Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch is the senior rabbi at <\/em>Stephen Wise Free Synagogue<\/a><\/i><\/span>, a Reform congregation on New York\u2019s Upper West Side. This op-ed is adapted from his 2018 Yom Kippur sermon, <\/em>\u201cFrom the Ghetto.\u201d<\/i><\/span>)<\/i><\/p>\n
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