The real Jewish Journal

Rob Eshman does not need defending. Yet during his conversation with Rabbi David Wolpe following Friday Night Live last week, I wanted to stand up and speak out.  But I didn’t have to. Rabbi Wolpe rather eloquently took to the task and fended off the firestorm.

It was a highly charged evening—beginning with a particularly moving FNL service and followed by a heated discussion, not between Rob and Rabbi Wolpe, but projected onto them by the impassioned feelings and provocative questions posed by the audience.

Is The Journal biased to the ‘left’? Which side is morally justified, the Israelis or the Palestinians? How could you suggest Jewish women in their 30s and 40s should date non-Jews?

Good questions. Tough questions. But asking them means getting an answer, whether you like it or not.

The truth is, you can only really edit a Jewish publication, if you love being Jewish, if you love Israel with your soul. Yet among the crowd gathered at Sinai Temple late Friday night, The Journal’s support of Israel was challenged; its “service” to the community was challenged. I thought: if only these people visited The Journal, they would feel how much love there is…

Real love is not unbiased love. Real love is complex; it’s complicated. And really loving something or someone is not believing in their perfection or in their flawlessness, but in learning of their weaknesses and accepting their vulnerabilities—and challenging them to grow. Robert Frost once said, “I have never learned anything from any man who has agreed with me.”

The service of The Jewish Journal to the community is both to celebrate our great love of the wisdom tradition that is Judaism, but also to challenge it – to love it more deeply because we recognize all of its facets and flaws. In acknowledging those issues, in reporting on what is taxing and stimulating and tough in our Jewish community, we penetrate the core. The love then becomes a profounder love, a spiritual love, a real love. That’s when dialogue happens. That’s when debate and discussion happen. That is what unites a community. Unanimous agreement isolates it.

Read The Jewish Journal. Disagree with it. Write a letter to the editor. Isn’t that the mutual exchange of a relationship? The essence of participating in a community? Actually, it sounds more like family dinners at my house.