Parshat Chayei Sarah: To be of...?

What does it mean to be 'of the world' and not at the same time? In many ways this is the task the Jewish people are charged with by God. Avraham, the father of the Jewish people, is called an ivri - Hebrew, the word essentially meaning "the other."

Indeed Avraham was vastly different than any other person residing in his time period. He believed in a unique single God that created humanity and deeply cares about the world and all of its inhabitants. He believed in a world of objective morality and had the courage to voice his sentiments even to God ("Will the Judge of the whole earth not judge justly?"). Yet, he was also very much of this world. He owned property, was married and had children and interacted with his neighbors and the cultures they were steeped in.

An incident in this week's parsha exemplifies Avraham's tension between otherness and non-otherness. In his negotiations to acquire a burial plot for his wife he states: "ger v'toshav anochi imachem - A stranger and a resident I am with you (23:4)." Within one sentence contains the core of the seemingly paradoxical existence that Avraham championed and the existence that was transmitted to us through the generations of Jewish faith.

To be of the world and not of it simultaneously means to live a life that fully appreciates the positives of the surrounding cultures. It means cultivating a discourse of respect and appreciation for people who are not Jewish and it means striving to be a model citizen in whatever country we live in. It also means staying true to our traditions, values and heritage and being above the fray of what is not so positive about the society we live in. 

The life we are called to lead, the life modeled on Avraham, is not a necessarily easy life nor is it meant to be. However, to be in the creative tension of "ger v'toshav" can help shape us into spectacularly vibrant, thinking, God-centered people who while rooted in our majestic mesorah are also civil and respectful central actors in the public square.

Esther Petrack and the Complexity of Modern Orthodoxy

I have to admit I do not watch the popular TV show, America's Next Top Model (ANTM). It is not that I am opposed to television - I am not, but reality television has never been my thing, especially when the show is all about modeling. However, even those of us in the Modern Orthodox community who do not watch ANTM heard about the Modern Orthodox model from Brookline, Esther Petrack. The video clip was circulated wide and far of the host of the show, Tyra Banks, asking Esther if she would be able to give up Shabbat to be on the show and Esther apparently replied with the famous words "I will do it."

Many pundits, both in the Jewish online and print media and in the blogosphere, took this as an example of the unrealistic life of Modern Orthodoxy. Many of them declared that Esther's words were testament to the fact that it was impossible to raise a child simultaneously in both the Torah and secular communities and that one would be sacrificed in pursuit of the other.

The newest report according to Esther's mother Marina is that Esther actually never said what she was made out to say. Rabbi Eliyahu Fink of the Pacific Jewish Center in California blogged about the incident and received an email from her mother in response. I encourage you to visit Rabbi Fink's blog to read the excerpts from her email but in essence what transpired was that the production team behind ANTM edited a much more lengthy response from Esther to Tyra Bank's question. In her more detailed actual response Esther outlined, according to her understanding of halakha, what she could do and what she would be unable to do. The editing team of the show for whatever reason chose to edit her response to appear as if she would wholesale forsake Shabbat for the television program.

Now that we have been given a more complete understanding of what occurred on the television program I believe we are left with an example of not the unsustainable nature of Modern Orthodoxy but rather the complexities of the lives Modern Orthodox committed Jews lead. I do not have to agree with every choice all committed Modern Orthodox Jews make in their negotiations between the world they live in and the world of Torah but I will never discount or not appreciate the thought and care that goes into making those decisions. To be a Modern Orthodox Jew is to fully embrace the messiness of life with all of its manifold and complicated interests.

It is not an easy life but most human endeavors worth doing have never been easy.

Parshat Lech Lecha: The Open Road

What a difference one parsha makes. We had ended last week's parsha with a discussion of the Tower of Babel. The Tower of Babel in the mind of Rabbi Naftali Zvi Yehuda Berlin (the Netziv) was world's first attempt at totalitarianism. Those intrepid citizens of the world decided to build one tower and one city as the catalyst towards the cultivation of one people and one world. Indeed, the Torah remarks that the language of all the inhabitants was the same and so were their thoughts.

The story of Babel is a warning about the dangers of too much uniformity and conformity. It is a story that cautions us about the difficulties in urban and settled life; how the rush to build a single city can very soon lead to the crushing of difference and diversity.

It is then all the more revealing that the parsha that follows last week's telling of Babel begins with the pre-political story of the Jewish nation with the narrative of Abraham. And it is even more revealing that the narrative begins with the command to "go forth from your land, your birthplace and your father's house." Abraham is told to pack his belongings, gather his family and begin sojourning to an unknown destination. He is thrust into the life of a wanderer. Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berdechiv, the great Chasidic teacher, is quick to mention that Abraham was not a nuisance or a vagabond but was a man intentionally journeying to a place he did not know, a mission drive life.

This is in stark contrast to the consolidation and fortification represented by the Tower of Babel. While there have been people throughout Jewish history who have led the life of spiritual wanderer, it is certainly not a normative nor prescribed lifestyle. However, perhaps the Torah by juxtaposing these two narratives together is teaching us to strike a balance between the rigidity of urbanization and the fluidity and potential of the open road. These two modes of life when existing as poles in tension and conflict with each other create for us the potential of spiritual discovery while providing the safety of rootedness. The challenge is not letting Babel and the call to "go forth" operate in isolation from each other but allowing them both to inform and deepen our lives.