Redefining Jewish Identity: A Call to Active Engagement
By: Rabbi Jordan Silvestri, Head of School
How fitting that the final parsha of the 2023–2024 school year is also the final parsha of the book of Vayikra. In Parshat Bechukotai, we are given a clear directive:
אִם־בְּחֻקֹּתַ֖י תֵּלֵ֑כוּ וְאֶת־מִצְוֺתַ֣י תִּשְׁמְר֔וּ וַעֲשִׂיתֶ֖ם אֹתָֽם׃
If you walk in My ways and you guard My commandments and you do them.
This entire parsha outlines the message that Hashem gives to the Jewish people. If you follow by commandments, if you live a Torah lifestyle and if you ensure that the society that we build together is a just and moral one you will reap the benefits. However, as the parsha continues, if you choose a different path you will find yourselves banished from the land of Israel, chased after by nations that are inferior to you and separated from the eternal source of connection to Hashem on this earth, the Temple. The parsha foreshadows the events that eventually take place in the book of Kings leading up to the destruction of the first Temple by Nevuchadnazer.
There is a rabbinic law stated in the Shulchan Orach that directs each Jew to review the weekly parsha, along with a commentary, so as both to familiarize oneself with the ideas within as well as to expose ourselves to new gems previously hidden from our intellect. As I was reviewing this year, a thought struck me. If this is Hashem’s call to action, does this in turn define what a Jew is?
Ever since October 7th, we have witnessed antisemitism across the globe at levels many of us have never experienced in our lifetimes. We have seen Jewish Day School enrollment increase specifically from students in public schools and private non-Jewish schools who are looking for a place to find safety, community and the values of a moral and just society. Ironic, isn’t it, that these hopes for a better place for our children align perfectly in what Hashem tells us in this week’s parsha?
In Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks zt”l’s book Arguments For The Sake of Heaven: Emerging Trends in Traditional Judaism, Rabbi Sacks grapples with this exact question. In 1946, Jean-Paul Sartre defined the Jewish people not by their communal ties of religious practice or homeland, rather by the “hostility and disdain of the societies that surround them.” To Sarte, being Jewish meant being the object of antisemitism and facing that fact unflinchingly. Emil Fackenheim, a well known Jewish philosopher of the 12th century, saw Judaism as the enactment of a 614th commandment to defy Hitler’s design of destruction and annihilation in an effort not to give him a posthumous victory. To others like AB Yehoshua and Charles Leibman, being Jewish meant an unwavering dedication to Zionism and the Jewish State of Israel. What’s missing from all of these definitions and many others like it? Any hint of the messages of Parshat Bechukotai.
The definitions of Judaism, whether provided by Jewish philosophers or outside purveyors, have little impact without the tenets of Jewish laws that both define and maintain a society of just people governing in a moral manner, a society that is built off a connection of meaning with Hashem rather than in response to the definition of others. To be Jewish is not to simply be the target of deep seeded hate or the staunch supporters of a Jewish homeland (albeit these and other notions have their rightful place in our religious identities as well). To be authentically Jewish is to be authentically dedicated to living a way of life that is founded on the words of Torah, grounded in a just and human law devised in Hashem’s image and, in turn, the perpetuation of these testaments generation after generation through passionate study, exploration and discovery.
It is not enough to simply state that we are Jewish. It is not enough to simply say that we stand for the State of Israel. Being Jewish without study and practice leaves us hollow and unprotected from an attack of assimilation. Being Zionist without an understanding of inner workings of the Temple, the laws that govern the agricultural calendar and the connections that exist between the land and the Jewish holidays leaves us forgetting what we are protecting and fighting for.
Being Jewish is not a passive expression of our identity. It is an everlasting commitment to a living identity that requires, as Hashem reminds us in this week’s parsha, a constant engagement with Hashem, expressed through Torah, Jewish law and practice. It is a journey, which has its ups and downs. If we stay true and dedicated, we will see the redemption that we yearn for. It may not come in our lifetime. However, it is our modeling that will enlist our children to carry the mantle thereafter.
Shabbat Shalom!