"The Guilt of a Jewish UU"

OPENING WORDS
Rabbi Shira Stern:

"We can't afford to study Judaism for study's sake. We are compelled to impart what we can to the next generation or we will become accustomed to the deterioration of Judaism. It's critical for those of us who love Judaism to share it with the next generation, and by sharing it, we insure that it will be passed down. The most important thing in my life is to make sure that Judaism is passed on in a way that makes it a living history."

READING
From World's Fair by E.L. Doctorow:

I was confronted by two boys with knives. . . .

"You Jewish?" the thin one said.

"No," I said. He grinned, reached forward with his free hand and stripped my books from me.

"Jewboy," he said, "I'm going to cut your ears off. What do you say at confession?"

"What?"

"Let's see you cross yourself." I did not know what this meant. He pushed the knife point into me.

"Where's your money?"

"Come on," the fat one said. "Hurry it up" . . . . The thin one grabbed my jaw and banged my head against the fence.

"F*** you, Jewboy," he said. They ran across the street, laughing. . . . For weeks afterward, whenever I went out, I looked for those two boys. . . . I struggled to understand [why they] would shove a knife into my belly.

SERMON

Jewish guilt — it's famous. There's guilt for not paying enough attention to your parents, guilt for being too successful, guilt for not being successful enough and, of course, there's always Portnoy's guilt.

I carried around my guilt for years — guilt for being a Unitarian Universalist. I tried hard to figure out why I felt guilty. I've always realized it's got something to do with the idea of turning my back on a tradition that's survived for over three thousand years. But I also know that makes no sense. I turned my back on Judaism a long time ago, when I realized I didn't believe in it. Becoming a UU made no difference. I'm no more and no less a Jew now than I was when I had no affiliation.

Of course, part of the guilt is a reflection of the attitude of other Jews. Not many Jews get upset because I don't belong to a synagogue — most of them don't belong either. But they do get upset about my affiliation with another religion.

There's not much logic to it. My son doesn't know or care the least bit about Judaism — or any other religion. But he's not considered a lost Jew. My daughter speaks Hebrew, has a thorough grounding in Jewish history and liturgy and a strong sense of identification as a Jew. But because she's a committed Unitarian Universalist, she's considered lost.

That inconsistency is because the one word "Jewish" represents both a religion and an ethnic identity. Not joining a synagogue is simply rejecting the religion; joining a church is seen as denying the ethnic identity.

So I vehemently identified myself as a Jew. I had to prove to myself and everyone else that I was a UU because I believed in it, not because I wanted to avoid being Jewish. That didn't get rid of the guilt; I was just being defensive about it.

When I moved to Los Angeles 35 years ago, I decided to try Judaism once more before joining a UU church. So one day I went to a meeting on Reconstructionism. I knew very little about it, only that it was a branch of Judaism I could accept theologically.

To understand Reconstructionism, let's take an oversimplified look at the three major branches of Judaism. The orthodox Jew says the law, as stated in the Torah and the Talmud, is the word of God and is to be followed literally. The conservative Jew says the law was divinely inspired but is evolving. The reform Jew rejects the law as a command for modern living.

Yet reform services don't speak to the actual beliefs of most reform Jews. They consist largely of recitation of prayers — mostly in Hebrew — prayers of thanks to the type of omnipotent God that few reform Jews believe in. For example, the exodus is commemorated with praises to God for having rescued our ancestors from Egypt, instead of as a remarkable achievement of the human spirit.

The Reconstructionists take a more humanistic approach to religion than do the reform Jews. But they're more like conservative Jews in their practices. Many of them follow the law, not because God commanded them to, but because the law has kept Judaism alive. Like the conservatives, they believe in an evolving law, but the process of evolution is through the people, not through rabbis and religious leaders. Individuals and congregations decide what law is important to them. They are continually in the process of "reconstructing" their religion. Like UUs, Reconstructionists put deeds before beliefs, and social activism is important to them.

It seemed to answer my dilemma. As a Reconstructionist I could be honest to my beliefs and not feel guilty about deserting Judaism. Discovering I had that option meant I had to confront my choice on other than theological grounds. If I joined a UU congregation again it could no longer be simply because I didn't believe in Judaism. This time I would be rejecting the culture as well.

This thinking led me to a better understanding of why the guilt was so strong. My entire education in Judaism was geared, not to its theology, philosophy or even ethics. No, my education was geared to history, and the moral of all the history lessons was the miracle of Jewish survival.

The first survival, the one Passover celebrates, was the exodus from Egypt. Centuries later the twelve tribes of the kingdom of Israel split into ten in the north and two in the south, that were called Judah. The ten that were still called Israel were taken into captivity by the Assyrians. They disappeared from history and only the two of Judah survived, which is why the Hebrews became known as Jews.

One hundred fifty years later the Babylonians destroyed the temple and took the two remaining tribes into captivity. They survived, returned to Palestine 70 years later and rebuilt the temple. They were then conquered by Persia, then Greece, and after a period of independence, by Rome. The second temple was then destroyed and the diaspora — or dispersal — began.

Throughout the Christian era the story of survival continued to be remarkable. There were isolated periods, such as eleventh century Spain, when Jews rose to positions of favor, and Jewish scholarship flourished. But by and large, throughout Europe, Jews ranged from a position of being precariously tolerated to being persecuted or exiled. From the 13th to the 18th century they fled from one European country after another. They returned, but until the 19th century not a single country in Europe accepted Jews as citizens.

Most Jews kept in their own communities, usually by government edict, but if not, often by their own wishes. And just when Jews thought the modern world finally accepted them, along came the holocaust.

After being steeped in that history it's no wonder I found it hard to turn my back on it. It's a history laced with contempt for the convert. Those who leave Judaism are saying that their ancestors' sacrifice and hardship were for nothing.

So now I could become a Reconstructionist and not be the end of that line of survival. But the idea didn't appeal to me. I realized I didn't believe in the very thing I thought was so important — maintaining Jewish identity.

That's a paradox for all liberals. Ethnic is in. The UUA has come down strongly on the side of preserving cultures. Members of its committees are required to "demonstrate functional competency in multi-culturalism" — even though I'm not sure exactly how one demonstrates functional competency. Cultures aren't static — they evolve and merge.

In society's embrace of cultural differences we've gone to some extremes in advocating the mosaic instead of the melting pot, like leaving children in foster care rather than allowing them to be adopted by parents of a different race. I see amalgamation, not separatism, as the inevitable goal of an integrated society.

Being among one's own is a lot more comfortable. It's like a sense of family. When I meet a Jew we already have a bond — a sense of shared experience. I assume it's not unlike the comfort African-Americans feel with other African-Americans, Italian-Americans with other Italian-Americans. Sometimes WASPs tell me they miss having an ethnic identity, a group where they belong by right of birth.

But belonging to something often means that others don't belong. And Judaism is one of the belongingest groups of all, with its own languages, its own jokes (with Yiddish punch lines, of course) and a membership that's virtually limited to a birthright. (The religious law says converts are supposed to be fully accepted as Jews, but they're usually identified as converts.)

Of course, wanting to belong is a basic human urge. But when I thought about joining Reconstructionism, I realized that my greatest feeling of belonging is among UUs. And among them I don't have the feeling that others are being excluded. We don't call people converts.

I grew up in such a parochial Jewish environment that I saw the issue of survival as something of concern only to Jews. But of course every group has an urge to survive. And when groups do survive for more than a few generations, it's usually because society is divided, segregated. We liberals want it both ways — let's preserve separate cultures and let's eliminate prejudice. We bemoan the loss of the Hawaiian race and culture, while admiring Hawaii as a society with little discrimination. We can't have it both ways. Only when we give up our little pockets of ethnicity will we all live together in harmony.

The two French territories in the Pacific provide an example. In New Caledonia the French settlers stayed aloof from the native Melanesians. There was little intermarriage and the islands have been torn by racial and political strife. In French Polynesia the European settlers and the Tahitians accepted each other. Many Tahitians are now a mixture of French and Polynesian descent and there are no racial problems. It doesn't matter which came first, the chicken or the egg. The two are inextricably tied together.

I think segregation is a primary reason for the survival of Judaism. In China, the only country with sizeable Jewish immigration and no discrimination, the Jews assimilated. Their descendants are only now being identified through DNA.

The Jewish culture of China is seen as having died. But cultures don't die; they fuse. One of the wonderful things about UUism is its ability to borrow what's best from other cultures and religions, and build on that.

As cultures and races become more diluted, there's less discrimination. With less discrimination, there's more intermarriage. The process feeds upon itself. I wonder if those who mourn the loss of the Hawaiian race would tell a young Polynesian, "No, you may not marry the Chinese/German you love. Our culture must survive."

That’s what Jews do. All branches are agreed that they don't want their children to marry non-Jews. Many orthodox Jews mourn them as dead and never see their grandchildren. The only way to prevent intermarriage, or the heartache of giving up a loved one, is to keep people segregated. Integration has got to be a better goal than ethnic survival.

Yet, emotionally, I am still very much a Jew. Perhaps the best way to explain it is in the reading from Doctorow. When I was about twelve I ran into an incident similar to that he describes. Things have changed. I doubt that my children have ever been called a Christ-killer, as I was that day.

In no country have Jews ever been as accepted as they are in the United States. But I grew up in a world in which we knew what neighborhoods we couldn't live in, schools we couldn't attend and jobs we couldn't aspire to. Most of these restrictions are gone, but the insecurity lingers. My earliest childhood memories are of being in a war that would determine the fate of the Jews.

That may seem terribly inconsistent with what I've said about cultural integration. Remember, that's a goal. It hasn't happened yet. I anticipate that in a few generations my descendants won't consider themselves Jews. But I hope that they, along with everyone else in the world, know something about their Jewish heritage. I hope they will also know about other cultures —through enduring traditions like Purim and Christmas, revived ones like Beltane, and new ones like Kwanzaa.

One thing my descendants don't need is ethnic pride. I really don't understand ethnic pride. Why should I be proud to be a Jew? I had nothing to do with it. I'm proud to be a Unitarian Universalist — that was my choice.

I'm proud to be a member of a religion that's been a pioneer in the equal treatment of women, a leader in abolition, and then in race and sexual orientation equality. A religion that believes in everyone else's freedom of religion. A religion that welcomes everyone into its membership, and welcomes them without insisting they first take an indoctrination course, or renounce their former religion. A religion that places its emphasis on this world, not the next one.

This is my religion. Judaism is my ethnic group. If it remains the ethnic group of my descendants it will probably mean that Jews have continued to be the outcasts of society. Because that's the price of survival.