Filed under: Thoughts of the Week
Torah reading Ekev, Deuternonomy VII, 12 – XI, 25, we read 10:12-11:25, and the haftorah, Isaiah, XLIX, 14-LI, 3
Last Shabbat, we had Bible and Bagel study before our services. In our community, we gather for this study brunch on the first Shabbat morning of the month. Rav Jeremy led us with a discussion of whether the Divine might be humble. This discussion echoed in the Torah reading. The Divine was seen as being patient with a wayward people, promising the rains in the right season, good harvests, strong children, a fulfilled life for those who follow the ordinances in the Torah. The haftorah, the prophetic reading, spoke of the Divine not forgetting the suffering people, would a mother forsaken her child. For those who trust in the Divine,there would be joy and gladness, thanksgiving and the voice of song.
During the past weeks, I have been reading Rabbi Mordechai Kaplan’s Judaism as Civilization. Initially written over 60 years ago, Rabbie Kaplan laid out a plan to allow Jewish Americans or American Jews to live in two civilizations – the ever-evolving civilization of religion, tradition, history, folkways, contemporary expresssions, pride in the accomplishments of other members of the tribe and the secular nation defined by boundaries in space and communities. Rabbi Kaplan called for a strengthening of Judaism in the home, the community center, the synagogue – the gathering place. He also suggested that Jews, a strange shortened form of those from the tribe of Judah – just a historic surviving subset of a larger people – who be active, local members of their secular communities. Compromises – like allowing one to break bread with one’s neighbors, to join in the secular holidays of a nation – Thanksgiving, Memorial Day, July 4th – should be encouraged as long at they don’t stretch beyond one’s comfort zone.
Trust was needed when our close ancestors, 200 years ago, were allowed to participate in the larger national community and trust was needed when some of our community formed our own nation or returned to enclosed communities. The compromise to accept the best of the two civilizations and to mold one’s own world requires one’s trust that the Divine will continue to support and care for the short-lived beings that are here to serve each other, to learn, and to strive to make a better world without harming others.
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