Hear Oh Israel, “Can’t we all get along?”

As a child in Iran, I recited a poem wherein Moses witnesses a simple shepherd offering his prayers to God: “Where are you my God so I may offer myself as a sacrifice?  If you have torn clothes, I will sew them for you.  I want to sit by you and comb your hair, brew you tea and ensure your comfort.”  Moses, angry, yells at the shepherd, reminding him that God has no body, wears no clothes.  The Sheppard puts his head down in shame and walks away in tears.  God appears to Moses that night: “You are here to close spaces, not to create distance.”

Since the publication of the Pew Research, and recent responses to the aftershocks and sub-analysis made by many authors including Daniel Gordis’ “Requiem for a Movement” I have been saddened to see the finger pointing, ridicule and celebration of the burial of certain sects of Judaism.  I’ve been reminded of the games politicians play with statistics during elections.  Have we really reduced Judaism to political battles between lobbying movements ensuring their own success? 

Having grown up as a Persian Jew, we had no movements!  You were either a Jew or not.  We coexisted on the bell shaped curve of observance, as the wide range of Jews do in the US even within proclaimed movements, and our rabbis were “Orthodox.”  We argued back and forth about the validity of the rituals in the modern age.  We asked “Did Moses have a car to drive in the desert on Shabbat?”

The movements that I met when we arrived in the US seemed hypocritical.  Why does a rabbi talk on the microphone and allow a full band to play on Shabbat but refuses to drive home?  When I arrived in college, on Passover a professor asked me to go to lunch with him and as I sat down, I was shocked to see him eat Matzah with shrimp.  I was equally surprised to see young friends run out of Shabbat services periodically at a modern Orthodox temple to do 80 proof alcohol shots by the numbers at every Kaddish interval.

Being an “outsider” has major advantages.  You ask yourself “Who am I to judge the majority?” before you offer any opinion.  It’s been years since I have assimilated into my current colorful Judaism, but I have always taken pride to meet another fellow Jew regardless of denomination.  I had my Bar Mitzvah in an Orthodox Ashkenazi temple in Manchester England when we left Iran.  My parents have mostly attended Sephardic services.  My family and kids belong to the Reformed temple at Steven Wise.  I attend Conservative services at Sinai Temple.

Judaism is a complex language of connecting to God.  We should celebrate the many roads taken to get there.  The central decree of our glorious religion is the Shema.  Muslims say “Ashad” declaring their belief in Muhammad and that is enough.  Christians accept Christ and that is enough.  We say the Shema- not a belief in a person but in the One God, and that certainly should be enough.  When I was younger, I heard the Shema as “Listen, worship only one God, no other gods.”  As I get older, this meditation has transcended to “Listen my Jewish children, our God, the God of Israel is the same, only One, regardless of the road you take.”  If you listen, the Whisper “come back to me” is uttered by One God.  In other words, many movements, same One God.

There is a remarkable story of Jewish children lost in WWII and taken to a school by a priest.  Later when a rabbi comes back to claim the children, the priest denies the presence of any Jewish children in that school.  The rabbi asks for a minute with the kids, which he is granted.  He stands in front of the class and slowly, out loud, begins to recite “Shema Israel” when the Jewish children chime in and finish “Adonai Eloheynu Adonai Echad.”

Then there is humility.  There is a mathematical formula that dictates when looking at 1, 10, 100 or 1000 all are equal when compared to infinity.  I hate to say this, but do you think an anti-Semitic gun pointed toward a Jew would stop to ask 613 questions to see if there is a passing grade before firing hatred?

So why are our children looking outside our religion?  Imagine a house where the parents are continuously fighting and where there is no Shalom.  Does that build confidence in a future marriage?  Our primary job as parents is not to teach our children to deal with a cruel, cunning world. Our task is to cultivate what all children know- that this is meant to be a world of wonder, of kindness, of imagination and of love, all found within the wisdom of our Sages.  When we argue to win, not to elevate, we undermine authority and significance.  Children are watching, paying attention.  Further, “Know before Whom you stand.”  God is watching too.

To place boundaries amongst Jews is to step into God’s shoes and judge.  The commentaries on the Books of Moses are civil discussions between opposing views.  The discussions always weigh on the side of kindness.  God does not fit in a box of chocolates.  People have a change of heart all the time.  We are born in one day and die in one day.  God can make anything happen in one day, specially the shift of human heart.  If the goal of praying as a Jew is to draw closer to one another and as a result to God, then I can assure you any difference between us is made in the image of our human narrowness and not in God's infinite Love. When religion is without love and kindness it has been corrupted by a virus of man’s ego.  The strength of the people is in the celebration of its diversity. 

No Jew should ever celebrate the death of another’s beliefs. We are all on varying levels of climbing toward and descending from God, as in Jacob’s dream.  In the ascent we should show gratitude;  In the descent we should take the hands of the fallen and help them ascend again.  God was perfect and decided to make room for imperfect man and create us out of His Love.  He has entrusted (Mode Ani)  in each of us His Spark which we will return to Him.  In returning that Spark we must take care not to blow out the pilot of hope in another.  That which lifts is Holy, and that which pushes down is not.

Our Torah, our Tree of Life, has many branches, but One trunk.  The Torah does not divide Jews by movement.

May I suggest when you meet a fellow Jew, rather than judging their road back to God, imagine your eyes closed, your hand covering your eyes, reciting the Shema, and in front of you the other greeting you the same.  You cannot see physically, but you can visualize spiritually, both under God.  Open your arms and your mind to love your neighbor.  Ahavat Israel is the love of all Israel with all her colors, not what falls on our side of artificial boundaries.  We are here to draw closer, not create distance.

If there is to be a movement, it should be away from hate and towards love, away from distance and towards One God. Am Israel Chai.