Egypt
Babylonia
Greece
Rome
Byzantium
Medieval Christendom
Medieval Islam
Nazism
Communism
These were, over time, the most powerful civilizations and ideologies in the Western world. Intellectually, and sometimes physically, they challenged the Jewish people, each in their own way.
And they each failed. We are here, they are dust. And that presents us with two questions: “How?” and “Why?” As we will come to see, those two questions are in fact one.
The “How?” question is truly perplexing. We, who have lived to witness the State of Israel develop one of the most powerful militaries in history, could be forgiven for thinking it was always thus, but no. From the time of the rebellions against Rome 2000 years ago until the modern period, we were without an army so we could not defend ourselves with arms; we were without sovereignty, so we could not develop any other kind of effective defense; and we were without the kind of vast wealth and resources that would be needed to buy survival.
So, nu? How? Mark Twain expressed his great wonderment at this in exquisite fashion. Of the Jewish people he wrote, “He has made a marvelous fight in this world, in all the ages; and has done it with his hands tied behind him. He could be vain of himself, and be excused for it. The Egyptian, the Babylonian, and the Persian rose, filled the planet with sound and splendor, then faded to dream-stuff and passed away; the Greek and the Roman followed, and made a vast noise, and they are gone; other peoples have sprung up and held their torch high for a time, but it burned out, and they sit in twilight now, or have vanished. The Jew saw them all, beat them all, and is now what he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities of age, no weakening of his parts, no slowing of his energies, no dulling of his alert and aggressive mind. All things are mortal but the Jew; all other forces pass, but he remains. What is the secret of his immortality?”
Well, listen carefully, because now I’ll tell you the secret.
The secret is…thought. The life of the mind. And not just any thought, but thought that is purified and refined in the crucible of Torah. Let us take the example of Rome for illustration. We fought valiantly against Rome. We rebelled in the great revolt of 66, and again during the Bar Kochba rebellion about 60 years later. If I am not mistaken, no people in the vast Roman empire—with the possible exception of the Gauls—ever rebelled twice within so short a time. And at no time had the Romans faced such a military challenge. During the Bar Kochba rebellion, they literally threw half their army at us, and were mauled so badly that Emperor Hadrian, in writing to the Roman Senate, did not employ the opening phrase commonly affected by emperors: ‘I and my legions are well.'”
But still, in spite of all our efforts, the Romans did prevail. The diaspora Exile began in earnest. Yet within a few centuries, the Roman empire had collapsed, while we went on to a period of great cultural creativity, generating the Talmud and much of the Midrash, the bulk of our rabbinic legacy.
So what happened? In spite of our considerable military prowess, the Romans were simply unstoppable. Militarily. But after the conquest, the battlefield shifted to the world of ideas. And defeating Romans in that arena was child’s play.
Heinrich Heine was one of the greatest German cultural figures of the 19th century. You may have heard the statement, “Where they burn books, they will ultimately burn people.” It was Heine who minted that phrase. This is what he had to say about the power of Jewish thought. Referring to the idea that Jews are “the people of the Book,” he wrote:
“A book is their very father-land, their treasure, their governor, their bliss, and their bane.
They live within the peaceful boundaries of this book. Here they exercise their inalienable rights. Here they
can neither be driven along nor despised. Here are they strong and worthy of admiration. Absorbed in the city of this book, they observed little of the changes which went on about them in the real world: nations arose and perished; states bloomed and disappeared; revolutions stormed forth out of the soil; but they lay bowed down over their book and observed nothing of the wild tumult of the times which passed over their heads… I see now that the Greeks were merely handsome striplings. The Jews, however, have always been men, strenuous and full of power, not only at that time, but even at the present day, in spite of eighteen hundred years of persecution and misery. … [they are] martyrs who have given to the world one G-d and a moral law, and have fought and suffered in all the battle-fields of thought.”
One G-d and a moral law. That is the secret. Thought.
So why do I rehearse all this history today? Because we have forgotten our power. We have forgotten its uniqueness, its originality, its vitality. We have allowed it to dissipate, to be spent on trivial sloganeering and unthinking political rhetoric. When I was growing up, before I had any idea of the richness and vitality of Judaism, I was convinced that Judaism was the Democratic party with holidays. It’s only gotten worse since then. Many of our young people have no idea about the treasure that is their heritage. And as a result, they are listening to empty-headed “influencers” instead of people immersed in the wisdom of the ages. In the same way we adults listen to so-called pundits who over and over again have been shown to be self-serving liars.
It is time for us to awaken from our slumber, and recognize the power that is in our hands. We are, as Rabbi Heschel described it, messengers who have forgotten the message. As a result, we are not only failing in our historic mission to bring that message to the world, but because we have forgotten our past, we are subjected to criticism on the basis of our very own ideas. The world talks down to us, as if it is their place to remind us of the most basic moral principles which we introduced to the world.
The chutzpah is unbearable.
When someone accuses us of taking Palestinian life for granted, we don’t need to run away screaming with our hands over our ears. Instead, we need to remind them that we are the ones who invented the phrase, “When you take a life, you destroy a whole world.”
When some protester tells us that we dehumanize Palestinians, we shouldn’t cower in the corner. We should remind them that we are the ones who introduced the world to the idea that all human beings are created in the image of G-d.
When we are criticized for being too privileged, we should respond that we are the ones who first demanded that the privileged must take the interests of the widow, the orphan, and the stranger to heart.
When someone lectures to us that we are insensitive to the needs of the environment, we should point out to them that in “the Book,” virtually every law aligns with the ecological demands of ancient Israel. As opposed to, say, Florida, where it is forbidden for government officials to say the words “climate change.” Wonder how that’s working out for them.
When someone tells us to fear the stranger, it is up to us to declare that love for the stranger was, and is, a uniquely Jewish idea. During the biblical period when we introduced the idea—and I daresay in many ways up to the very present—we were the only people on the planet who took the idea seriously.
When we are told that “real” Americans must allow their personal liberties to be curtailed for authoritarian purposes, we must proudly affirm that the words “Proclaim liberty throughout the land” inscribed on the most iconic American symbol, the Liberty Bell, are from our book of Leviticus.
When Martin Luther King passionately declared, “we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream,” he didn’t come up with that himself. He took it from us—more specifically from our prophet Amos.
When confronted with corruption at the highest levels of the judicial system, it is up to us to declare, “You shall not side with the mighty to do wrong. You shall not give perverse testimony in a dispute so as to pervert it in favor of the mighty.” Please note: the Supreme Court doesn’t appear to have gotten the memo.
Not only do we make these moral demands of other people. We make moral demands of G-d Himself. “Shall not the Judge of all the earth deal justly?”—a principle of particular relevance today, when we stand before the heavenly court.
And the same could be said for a vast array of other ideas like: “Am I my brother’s keeper”—you betcha.
Now, I want to make it clear that I am not suggesting that all Jews are somehow moral virtuosos. We all know that isn’t true. But what I am suggesting is that, in Judaism, we have a moral and intellectual treasure that is unparalleled and unequaled, and the denigration of Jews and the Jewish heritage is anti-semitism at its very worst—a warrant for genocide. We should respond to our critics with these reminders that a very great part of Western civilization comes from us. We should, and we could—if we only knew it and lived it!!! But we don’t.
Wake up from your slumber!!! Remember who you are and what G-d wants you to do. The how we survived is the same as the why we survived—to become a holy people, for the Lord, our G-d, is holy; and then to spread G-d’s word to all humankind. Not to become Jews, but to become decent human beings.
It is not only the ideas themselves that are important. It is the process of thinking about them that matters—with respect for each other, with acceptance of complexity, and with passion.
With respect for each other: contrast the trivial tit-for-tat screaming matches that substitute for reasoned discussion these days with the rabbinic dictum, “These and those are the words of the living G-d.”
With acceptance of complexity: It is profoundly insulting that we are offered cartoonish memes, “Israeli apartheid” or “the jury is out on global warming,” to name just a few, that are mendacious in their oversimplification. And this is the kind of garbage offered to a people that brought Talmud, arguably the most complex literature on the planet, into the world?
And finally, with passion. Have you ever wondered why in the army you will find endless emphasis on detail—the bed must be made exactly right, and so forth—and endless drills? So that when the time comes, people will have such focus of mind that they can execute their orders flawlessly. So too with ice skaters. Why does someone who can perform a quad axel followed by a triple toe loop (not that I know what any of those are) have to go through compulsory training doing circles and figure eights? Because if you lose the ability to do simple circles and figure eights, sooner or later you will lose the ability to do your axels and toe loops.
So, too, with Jewish thought. It’s not just something you pick up in Religious School and then get to neglect for the rest of your life. It is an endless challenge, especially if you want to put Jewish thought on the world stage where it belongs. Pablo Casals, the virtuoso cellist, practiced six hours a day well into his nineties. When asked why he continued such a rigorous training schedule, he replied, “Because I think I’m making progress.” That’s the kind of passion Jewish thought demands.
So, to sum up. We Jews have given the world many of its most important, indeed, most precious ideas. Unfortunately, we have stopped trying to valiantly and vigorously put forward these ideas, and instead have sleepwalked into a world where the trivial is regarded as profound and the fervent is confused with the philosophical. We need to awaken from our slumber. Immerse ourselves once again in the life of the Jewish mind, and return to our role as the or lagoyim, the light unto the nations.
So in keeping with the Rebbetzin’s admonition that there must be a concrete takeaway to every sermon, here it is: Go learn. And insist that others learn as well.
And let us learn together. Amen.