One week ago many of us gathered together to celebrate Thanksgiving. It’s a family holiday and we all cherish the opportunity of sharing table time. However, even as many of us were decorating our tables and beginning to bake and cook, many Jewish people were nearly weeping over the travesty done, one week prior, by Israel security personnel who nearly succeeded in blockading Reform rabbis and laypeople from entering the Kotel plaza. In commemoration of the ordination of five Israeli Reform rabbis, a delegation from the United States had traveled to Israel. After the ordination ceremony at the Hebrew Union College in Jerusalem, a group of people had walked to the Kotel to pray. Carrying a Torah in his arms, Rabbi Richard Jacobs was accosted by security personnel. Eventually, he and a group of people managed to enter the Kotel plaza. Most painfully, the newspaper articles indicated that Jewish people had struck other Jewish people intending to pray. Such shocking and disgusting behavior!
This comes on the heels of protracted negotiations which first began 5 years ago. Some of us remember Anatoly Sharansky, head of the Jewish Agency, as having been instrumental in negotiating the establishment of a section for mixed-gender access to the Kotel. After four years of painstakingly complex negotiations between representatives of the Conservative movement, Reform movement, Women of the Wall and the Israeli Government, a decision to share the Kotel plaza had been finalized.
About 5 months go the Israeli government reneged on its promises to allow Conservative, Reform rabbis and mixed groups opportunity and access. Championing the Orthodox party line the large men's and smaller women's sections will remain for the foreseeable future. In light of this exceptionally disturbing, painful and offensive decision many Jewish people now see themselves as cut off from the holiest site in the world.
Divisions between Jews have been the stuff of legend and history for centuries. During the Second Temple we saw conflict between Pharisees, Sadducees, Sicarii, Zealots, Am ha-aretz and others. During the Maccabeean period, soon coming to mind when we celebrate Chanukah, conflict arose between Hasmonean loyalists and assimilationist Jews who wished to become more Syrian at the expense of being Jewish. The well-known joke of a Jewish man marooned on a desert island with two synagogues no longer brings laughter to my face. Such divisiveness emerges from people who are more devoted to principle than human beings.
And which principle could be greater than human beings?
Not only in the American public sphere is there a loss of civil discourse. In Israel, and between Israel and many American Jews, we see walls rising-walls cutting off our breath and even the sight of each other. Such walls of ‘principle’ only promote violence and destruction. We can no longer live this way; solely hearing our own opinions and inserting fingers into our ears as we did when we were children. For Jews to survive (and all of us, too) we must be able to open our minds to the possibility that someone else has a legitimate viewpoint.
This week Jews throughout the world read Parshat Vayishlach. With great anxiety and fear, Jacob journeys towards his estranged and aggressive brother, Esau. Drawn home, Jacob anticipates an extremely hostile reunion. As he approaches the old homestead, he does not know if he will survive the potential conflict. Astoundingly, Esau welcomes him warmly and offers to travel alongside. Perhaps Jacob, wounded from his immediate conflict with the angel and still suffering the scars of 20 years of carrying fear, resentment and grudges in his heart, cannot bear such a life and therefore steps way from Esau.
Both brothers had harbored distrust and enmity. Ultimately, each had encountered the other and the resulting encounter surprised them both. Like all of us Jacob and Esau had desired to come home. It is one of the greatest human emotional needs. Will we ever be able to establish a shared home?
Shabbat Shalom.
Rabbi Steve Silberman
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