Wednesday, September 21, 2016
Elder of Ziyon
There's nothing quite like a rabbi who tells Jews to give
services a miss at Rosh Hashana time. (Unless it's a rabbi who plans a trip to
Israel for his congregants which includes a pilgrimage to Arafat's
tomb, but I digress.) This time the rabbi leading sheep astray is Jay
Michaelson, who, in his piece for The
Forward, Why You Shouldn’t Go To Synagogue On Rosh
Hashanah This Year, told Jews, Jews to stay away, come again another
day.
Such as Sukkot, when we have those cool outdoor huts for instance.
Because Rosh Hashana? According to Michaelson, it's an "epic fail."
Michaelson refers to Rosh Hashana services as big business,
speaks of "kitschy mass performances that even your rabbi probably finds
uninspiring," and urges you to stay home from shul come Hell or high water:
"There are at least three reasons for you to avoid your local temple or synagogue this Rosh Hashanah. First, the holiday’s themes and liturgy focus on the least believable, most misunderstandable aspects of Jewish theology. Sure, introspection is great, and asking for forgiveness from friends and relatives can be extremely powerful. But the Man in the Sky with the big Book of Life? The Birthday of the World? Who are we kidding here? Does anyone believe this stuff?
And yet, here we are again, listening to authority figures drone on about them, standing up, sitting down, praying to a deity we don’t believe in. No wonder half of American Jews are leaving the fold — this fold sucks."
It's kind of funny, a rabbi asking if anyone believes in
this stuff. If he doesn't believe in "this stuff" and thinks our fold
"sucks," then in what sense is he a rabbi? Or is there something I'm
not seeing here??
To give the devil his due, it's important to point out that
Michaelson specifies that the shul
you should not go to is non-Orthodox. Which implies that he thinks the Orthodox
have something going for them that the non-Orthodox do not. Which leads one to
wonder: why is he not Orthodox?
But then, not everyone can be as wise as Michaelson, who
used to write a column for The Forward
called The Polymath. And then there
was the column that made him (in)famous: How I'm Losing My Love For Israel.
Oh woe to be Michaelson with his wrestling and his torment!
"I admit, it has become simply exhausting to maintain the ambivalence, the hugging and the wrestling, the endless fence sitting. My love of Israel has turned into a series of equivocations: 'I do not support the expansion of settlements, but the Palestinians bear primary responsibility for the collapse of the peace process in 1999.' 'The Israelis acted overzealously in Gaza, but they must be entitled to defend themselves against rocket attacks.' 'Yes, the separation wall is odious, but it is also effective and necessary.' Yes, but; no, but; defend, but. At some point, the complexity and ambiguity wears one out, particularly when the visuals on the anti-Israel side are so compelling, and so stark: walls, tanks, checkpoints."
Why must Michaelson sit on the fence? Why must he
equivocate? Why would a rabbi not support the building of home in Judea and
Samaria, the indigenous heartland of the Jewish people?
In what alternative world can Israel be called
"overzealous" in its response to having over 10,000 projectiles shot into
civilian Israel??? Why would Michaelson parrot the lies of the enemy of the
Jews and call the Security Wall a "separation wall?" In what sense is
it "odious" for the sovereign State of Israel to protect the lives of
Israeli citizens, Michaelson's fellow Jews, with any and all means possible?
The "complexity" Rabbi Polymath sees is imagined.
It's really quite simple. It's our land. They are lying and also killing us in
an attempt to steal it away.
Really, really cut and dried. The good guys and the bad
guys. A rabbi, of all people, should know the truth about his land and his
people. And the truth about their enemies, the terrorists who murder them.
There is no need to feel or see any ambiguity here. The
Torah says: "For all the land you see, to you will I give it, and to your
seed forever." [Genesis 13:15]. The Talmud says, "If one comes to
kill you, rise up and kill him first."
These are basic Jewish precepts. Presumably Michaelson
learned these precepts in rabbi school. On what basis can a rabbi—can
Michaelson—possibly see "ambiguity?" For all that there are
"streams of thought" in Judaism, there is the Torah. And the Torah is
perfectly straightforward on these issues, clear as cool, blue water flowing
from a rock struck by a staff in the desert.
Rather it is Michaelson himself, who is ambiguous and
complex. From the Wikipedia
entry bearing his name we learn that Michael is "a teacher of jhana
meditation in the Theravadan Buddhist lineage of Ayya Khema" and that he
is "openly gay and often works in
the intersecting fields of LGBT people and Jewish traditions."
Now there's ambiguity
for you! A practitioner of a faith that sees homosexual activity as a grave sin
who claims an intersection between the LGBT world and Jewish traditions. A loch
in kop.
We get it: the Conservative and Reform have boring services.
But why tell the people to stay home, when even you, Michaelson, acknowledge
that the Orthodox have them beat. And we do.
Rabbi Michaelson, my heart breaks to think you came so close
to telling them the truth. You sat on that fence and said not to go to a
non-Orthodox service. What you didn't say was, "Come to an Orthodox
service, if you want to see the real deal, feel
the real deal."
You could have said, "If you want to feel Rosh Hashana
as it is meant to be, get up while it is velvety dark, still, and quiet, to
pray with the faithful at a Vatikin sunrise service. Pray alongside the serious
daveners; those who care more about the quality of their prayers than their
clothes. Sing jubilantly to your God with those who can sing and those who
cannot and crown Him King as one. Prostrate yourself full length on the ground
on a scarf you've brought with you for that purpose, so you shouldn't kneel on
the ground (Jews don't do that). Cry to the sound of the shofar.
"And be home by 10:30 a.m. MAX."
Rabbi Michaelson, come to the Vatikin minyan in Efrat. God
willing, I'll be there at sunrise with my black Isotoner ballet slippers (I
shouldn't have my prayers distracted by aching feet). Why not join me there
(but on the men's side, of course)? I promise it will all make sense. And it
won't cost you a thing.
The sunrise minyan is free.
h/t Reena
Ribalow for doing some of the digging on this story.
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