In Other Words . . .

When there are no words, turning to someone wiser helps. I share the sentiments expressed by Rabbi Rubenstein of Harvard University Hillel to the incoming students. I offer it to you with his permission:

. . . "Our time is a fraught and contested one: the headlines from America to Israel and across the globe surprise and worry us; we get our news from diverse and irreconcilable sources; the frameworks through which we have long understood the world now come up short in helping us navigate our rapidly shifting reality. 

How are we to move through these times - together, as individuals and a community - and not merely live, but make choices and, when necessary, sacrifices of which we are proud? Two very different approaches recommend themselves and - as it always does - the Jewish tradition holds both of them, “these and these are the words of the living God.” So we live them both at Harvard Hillel.

One stance is to seize the day, roll up our sleeves, and enter into the fray - to be, as Teddy Roosevelt put it, “in the arena.” Confronted by forces of hatred or intolerance, we organize, recruit allies, strategize, and fight to win. Jews - from at least the time Esther, and certainly since Herzl, have been consistent, energetic, and effective political actors. From building a state to creating and sustaining the organs of communal life and advocacy in America and elsewhere - our people knows the work of accruing and deploying power, in tune with the times and responsive to emergent stresses and possibilities. 

And there is another stance, one with at least as deeply-rooted a tradition in Judaism: the retreat from politics into the timeless cycle of holidays and the eternity of the Torah. Captured well by Arik Einstein, this tradition goes very deep: I remember my teacher Seth Schwartz asserting that the most stable and distinctive feature of traditional Rabbinic writing - from the Mishna through the modern giants - is that it is nearly impossible to discern anything about the political climate of the piece or its author. A given responsum could equally have been written under the Hapsburgs, the Czars, or during the Risorgimento; any piece of Talmud could have been produced under Roman (pagan or Christian) or Persian rule - each is defined by an internally-defined set of rules and ideas, a chain of teachers and students that stands impervious to the headlines and upheavals of the day or even the era." . . .

A minsister I know used to end each Sunday service this way:

"Peace, Shalom, Shanti. Now go and do as you see fit".

Amen!