In Praise of Unity Without Uniformity

This past winter, Sinai Temple hosted a basketball team consisting of teenagers from the destroyed kibbutzim on the Gaza border. 

After they attended a Laker game, I told them they would attend Shabbat services. 

They responded, “Rabbi, we are secular, we don’t do synagogue.”

That Shabbat, the team reluctantly arrived in t-shirts and shorts and refused to enter the sanctuary. After gentle urging by host families, I watched as they gradually opened prayer books and recited the Shema. At the conclusion of services, the entire team led the congregation in Am Yisrael Chai.

When they returned to Israel, I received a note from a mother that read, “My son wants to thank all the amazing open minded religious people he met.”

In other words, this mother was acknowledging the radical center of Judaism we provided, a place where all Jews can express their Judaism in a pluralistic manner and develop a deep bond between Israel and the Diaspora. 

This is a common sentiment when Israelis attend Conservative synagogues in America for the first time. 

Sinai Temple is a proud participant in the shinshin program, where recent high school graduates defer a year of IDF service and teach Diaspora Jews about Israel. 

However, the surprise to the shinshin is how they learn more about their Judaism in Los Angeles then they do in the land of Israel.

One day our shinshin came to the clergy and asked, “How can I have a bat mitzvah just like the girls I see wearing a tallit and chanting from the Torah?” Before she left, that is exactly what she had.

Israel has much to teach the Jews of Diaspora. Yet there is one lesson that the Diaspora continues to teach the Jews of Israel: the fact that we can respect our religious differences while keeping our common beliefs; that we can have unity without uniformity. Indeed, when Herzl gathered the first World Zionist Congress, a diversity of Zionists filled the room.

In 2007, as a rabbinical student in Jerusalem at Machon Schechter, I volunteered in the Masorti special needs bnai mitzvah program. One child was nonverbal and spoke through an electronic keyboard, one child was confined to a wheelchair and another child was deaf. Over that year of study, no one asked if they were Orthodox, Conservative or Reform. All we asked was: “What would it take to ensure they had a meaningful simcha like any other child?”

We faced many hurdles as we drew closer to the ceremony. More observant families were not accustomed to egalitarianism, and secular families were not familiar with synagogue ritual.

Yet, that day will forever be etched in my mind, created by the radical center of religious pluralism. 

Each family attended. Each child had a bar and bat mitzvah according to their needs, and all of us together held hands, shed a tear, and danced the hora. 

These stories are a few of many that happen every single day in the land of Israel. They are not plastered on social media, but they change innumerable lives for the better and ultimately inspire the next generation of Jews in Israel to be deeply connected to the land, to God, and to Jews around the world.

Our world is divided. Right and left, Jewish and not Jewish, religious and secular. 

Some may give up hope, but a strong radical center of Judaism enables us to reach out into both directions, accept multiple truths, and say, “Yes, you are right, and I am right too! We can do this together!”

I am not an Israeli citizen, and I have never enlisted in the IDF.  

I am a Diaspora rabbi who deeply cares about the future of the Jewish people. That is why I commit myself to preserve religious pluralism in Israel, so that my children will feel as Jewishly comfortable in Haifa, Eilat, and Jerusalem as they do in Los Angeles.

However, I am a Zionist, I am a Jew, and I am a Diaspora rabbi who deeply cares about the future of the Jewish people. That is why I commit myself to preserve religious pluralism in Israel, so that my children will feel as Jewishly comfortable in Haifa, Eilat, and Jerusalem as they do in Los Angeles; so that athletes in Eshkol and special needs students in Jerusalem will understand that we are am echad, one nation of Jews.

This year, I am honored to vote in the World Zionist Congress elections, where you too can continue Herzl’s tradition from 137 years ago and ensure the religious center of Judaism will continue to thrive for generations to come.  

Am Yisrael Chai.

Rabbi Erez Sherman is Senior Rabbi of Sinai Temple and is running on the Mercaz slate in the World Zionist Congress elections.