Are we unified? Really?

I recently read a piece that was penned by a respected lay leader of the Orthodox Jewish community that puzzled me greatly and hurt me somewhat as well. The individual, based on his experience, which I honor and accept, extrapolated from his reality to the larger arena and posited that in the Jewish religiously observant world of today, people are accepting each other and that there is more unity than in the past, with the fear of this stated unity leading to complacency and ultimately lack of interest and blindness to challenges that may thwart or threaten it. He observed that what he saw were friendly disagreements and that the more serious rifts of the past were no longer apparent.

Totally acknowledging that individuals have various experiences and definitely allowing that the writer believes himself to be correct in his own perceptions of what is happening in the larger world based on his life and the differences he has observed, I would say that my experience has been precisely the opposite. Differences of opinion and perception are fine and we should value and treasure continuums of such points of view, respectfully and carefully acknowledging both what we share and where our differences exist. This is what I was taught as part of my Jewish learning and this is what I share with others and live to the best of my ability. My challenge is for all of us who are perceiving that there is more unity and less discord in our own silo of the faith groups to which we belong to consider who we are including in those groups, as well as who we no longer include there. I did in fact send a Letter to the Editor (which I hope will be published, but understand it may not feel comfortable for the publication to do so) indicating that as a child of the sixties and seventies, in terms of my most formative years, I remember much more unity and less exclusion or judgment in my experience of the same world. I remember a time when people did not have to define exactly where they stand on the continuum of religious observance, such as seems to be the accepted standard today as exemplified in occasional conversations to surveys that are taken to shuls (synagogues) and communities in which one feels that they are accepted and valued. I know from many friends and colleagues located in various areas geographically and other faith communities, that I am not the only one who is experiencing profound rifts in our communities of faith where they did not exist in past decades; and a recalibration of those communities to exclude those not “on the correct side of the rift.”

This is what I have experienced. In the sixties and seventies, it was enough to say that one was Jewishly observant. There was respect and I never felt “looked down upon” or questioned about my sincerity with regard to my religious observance. This was true regarding people with whom I had contact that were both to the left and to the right of where I hold on the religious spectrum of observance and belief. I was educated with this value of acceptance and the standard of learning from each other, and then experienced it throughout my years of university and in the first community in which I lived as a young married adult. Today my children do not have that option, unfortunately. I am blessed and feel a great deal of gratitude that they have indeed found communities of meaningful Jewish living and observance that work for them. That being said, it is often made quite clear to us where we belong and where we do not. In my own work with LGBTQ Inclusion in the Orthodox Jewish world, I have come across some amazing ROCK STAR Rabbis and Kehilot (congregations/communities) that are exactly what I remember and what we should be. In my own learning as a Jewish educated woman who teaches text, I have come across the same. I have also been embraced by those in the Orthodox Jewish world who appreciate the work I do in Interfaith and Intra-Faith (among faith communities and within the larger Jewish one, respectively) dialogue and learning. That being said, I know very well that I and many with whom I work are not experiencing what the writer of the article to which I responded has – in fact, we are told “you are not really Orthodox” and other statements that are similarly derisive have been part of our lives in recent years.

What do we do about this? I suggested in my letter that there needs to be ongoing discussion. Are we still including everyone in our religious faith communities who deserve a rightful place there or are we excluding those with whom we disagree and therefore defining our communities more narrowly, resulting in the perceived unity indicated? How many other faith communities and members of those communities are experiencing this manner of exclusion? We are taught that it is easy to have civil and respectful conversations with those with whom we agree; but we are to challenge ourselves to have those same types of interactions with those with whom we disagree. In our world which is increasingly polarized, one way to protect oneself is indeed to decide who is “in” and who is “out” to achieve such unity. But this is not unity, it is a selective form of false consensus. How do we “check in” with each other to listen to and understand our various positions and to pride ourselves on living in an honest and genuine way with all people – whether we are talking about humanity, citizens of our country, members of political parties, adherents in our faith community, and in general, any grouping of which we are part? When we have forgotten how to see each other, that is truly SEE each other and our true authentic selves, we can no longer even hope to aspire to the standard of “loving the other as oneself.” I think we can all learn from the teaching in the Koran that God could have made all of us the same but chose to make us different from each other so we could learn from each other to better ourselves. I don’t believe false or “selective” unity is the goal, but rather what is identified in the Talmud as Tarbut HaMachloket, an honest unified culture of discord. Let us all honestly strive for that together.