Why Be Jewish: Engaging the Sacred Pt. 3

One possible answer to the question "Why be Jewish?", the title of a yearly conference hosted by the Samuel Bronfman Foundation, is the following: "To get to spend two days with such a smart and challenging group of people." At various points over the two days, I found myself thinking about friends, family members, students, or colleagues of mine that would have particularly appreciated certain presentations, texts, or comments. Even – or especially! – for those of us who work in the Jewish world, the opportunity to engage openly and honestly with texts and ideas is precious.

But it is also true that many of us go to MANY of these types of gatherings — and, truth be told, we are sometimes wondering why we took the time to attend…

So I want to share two reasons why, for me, this convening was particularly nourishing to my brain and my soul.

The first reason was the diversity of age, religious background, and general zeitgeist of the participants. I also really appreciated the gender balance not only in participants but in presenters and speakers. For me, and I think for many people my age or younger, when public forums lack diversity and gender balance, they feel irrelevant to my life. They feel like someone else’s Judaism, someone else’s wisdom. Plus, true diversity leads to a richer conversation. When any of us is called in to be the "token" – woman, young person, representative of our movement, gay person, etc – it is hard to be fully ourselves in all of our complexities and contradictions. A conversation of equals, over sacred text, where we each can bring what we have observed and what we wish were true, speaks of a Judaism that is both complex and secure in itself. The second reason are the pieces of wisdom that were taught by my colleagues. As I am heading into Shavuot, and thinking about how to realign myself in order to be open to revealed wisdom, I will be thinking about Avital Hochstein’s beautiful teaching on the Holiness code, and its odd shifts from mitzvoth that are incumbent on the individual and those that are incumbent on the collective; on Margie Klein’s dream to meld the ecstatic davening of the Karliner Chasidm with the change-making courage of her fellow participants on the Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride – may it come speedily and in our days!; Shai Held’s astute observation that after a life of engaging the "big Questions", the Rambam began spending more time with his patients because what does engagement with Torah teach us, except to go out in the world and do chesed; Shimon Felix’s observations on the ways in which his own spiritual life has changed over several decades, and how social justice has become present in his Judaism in a more pronounced way.

Finally, I will carry with me Sharon Cohen Anisfeld’s teaching that there can be no discussion of the sacred that is not relational. This is for me the central question of my own Judaism. And so, back in my office, staring at my computer screen, I am left with that ongoing question of how to harness my awareness of the Sacred into actions that help to redeem the world.