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At our Greenleaf service, we discussed this issue of Diaspora at some length agreeing that, in general, our history, our heritage, our rituals, our worship, our strong sense of education, our worship, and, perhaps most importantly the communities Jews have formed in Diaspora have kept us together as a people.
So while many of us have a deep reverence for Eretz Yisrael, and while many Jews continue to see Israel as the epicenter of our people, it’s also clear that the Jewish Diaspora is here to stay. These two worlds, in fact, complement one another in some strange and ironic ways. Many Israelis who lead secular lives because the practice of Orthodox and Ultra-Orthodox Judaism does not meet their spiritual needs (see Paul’s column on the challenges facing the Reform Movement in Israel), are surprised to discover a deep and meaningful spirituality when they encounter non-Orthodox worship in Europe and the United States. At the same time, genuinely open-ended dialogue about Israel and Palestine, frequently stifled in the U.S., is alive and well in Israel itself.
So what allows us to create and maintain a healthy and yet connected Jewish Diaspora? Surely not the mentality of the early years of the 20th century when the assimilationist German Jewish editors of the New York Times were embarrassed by Theodore Herzl and the new Zionism, tried to ignore it, and, when pressed, would insist that America is the new Zion for its Jews. Probably also not, at least for Jews in this country, the mentality that we are ever on the edge of destruction, and only in Israel, among our own, can we be safe. Indeed, we remember well the challenge presented to us as American Jews by Reb Robert Levine at our Dedication last year: remaining a vibrant and connected people despite the absence of overt persecution.
A healthy Diaspora, I would suggest, is one where diversity among Jews exists and is encouraged, but where, within this diversity, we are connected by an active (not a passive) sense of Jewish identity. A healthy Diaspora is characterized by a desire not only to maintain but also to renew that sense of identity by choosing to learn together, worship together, support one another as community and continue weaving together that golden thread of tikkun olam, of healing the world, our great mission. A healthy Diaspora, in fact, may just possibly, in time, become one where primacy is given not to the concept of Diaspora itself (which can connote the hierarchical or centrifugal), but rather to a set of Jewish communities around the world, Israel included, which care deeply about one another despite or because of their diversity, support one another, and pursue collectively our common purpose. I like to think that our little community in southern Vermont would fit well into such a picture.
B’Shalom,
Jim
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