Our Pervasive and Threatening Identity Crisis

I often deal with identity issues in many avenues of my professional life. I am finding an increased exhaustion and frustration among a growing number of our young people and rising adults in terms of feeling pummeled by negative messaging, conflicting accounts of important matters fueled by political biases, exclusivity that does not include all, insensitivity to important social justice and human rights issues that are important to them, and so on. I am constantly reminded in my Multi-Faith work that religious/faith communities are all feeling that their respective rising adults are slipping away from them and feeling that religious teachings and community are rendering themselves irrelevant as the issues important to our 20- and 30-somethings are not adequately addressed in their eyes.

This correlates with what I am finding to be the case in my work with LGBTQ+ individuals, addressing Jewish identity in our 20- and 30- somethings, and in general through the articulation of my colleagues in the religious/academic leadership world. Our younger adults are feeling that their religious traditions are NOT responding to what is critical in their lives. This is so sad to me as I know that in my Jewish world, the focus on the one who is disadvantaged, the immigrant, the stranger, the one without family, the one without economic stability and security and all other disadvantaged individuals are to be cared for and tended to as part of our communal responsibility. I love that the very notion of TZEDAKAH is that G-d distributes resources so that we partner with G-d to insure that they are shared equally.

In the Jewish calendar we are beginning the year of 5782, and this is a year of Shmita – during which the land must rest, we free those from debts that are owed, and social justice and concern for the land are to occupy our minds as we consider our many blessings and the gratitude we are to have for them – in short, this is an opportunity to REBOOT. My husband and I just spent Rosh HaShana at Isabella Friedman Retreat Center where all of this is fundamental to the philosophy of this incredible and special space. It was and always is a wonderful experience as the Adamah cohort – an intentional group of environmentally conscious 20- somethings spend the Chag with those of us davening and participating in meaningful Tefillah(prayer and reflection). Meditation, consciousness of the land, Tefillah, the beauty of nature, healthy and delicious farm grown food, and a spirit of community of diversity come together in a way that too many of us seldom find. I think it is in this context that we can shepherd and protect our children’s and the next generation’s meaningful and multi-faceted Jewish identity.

In our very fractured political environment, we MUST be collectively mindful of too many people that are suffering from not being included, from all of the inequities that are part of our world – social, racial, economic, regional, political, etc. – and use this Shmita year to think carefully and consider our own intentional use of the land, our intentional interactions with each other, our intentional concern for those less fortunate than we are. In the year of Shmita, in which there are so many acts of social and economic justice indicated, how do we bring these very real problems in our world and our Jewish sensibilities together in a way that will allow us to share a platform of concern with our 20- and 30-somethings who ARE our Rising Leadership? This is the way we will begin to heal the rift that is widening precipitously in our reality.

A 30-something Jewish community professional writes as follows regarding identity issues and the impact on the challenge to them by Anti-Semitic rhetoric and tropes:

I live in a progressive, often queer, often multi-racial, Jewish community where we are dealing with such intense political and social unrest and have become deeply committed to the vision of a progressive, multi-racial democracy in the United States, our home, where we live. In this reality, my read on the tension between progressive Jewish engagement and perspectives on Israel is that a lot of younger progressive Jews feel much more committed to making our diasporic American context better and more just. This is our home…on top of that many of those people would say that one strategy to fight antisemitism is to be aligned with other fighting for the same multi-racial U.S. democracy that Jews need in order to survive and thrive.

We learn in Pirke Avot that It is not upon you individually to solve all of the problems but you may not desist from doing your part.

We are in the midst of the Ten Days of Repentance/Aseret Yimai Teshuvah. How will we do better this year? What will we individually and collectively do to insure and facilitate the continued identity of our leaders of tomorrow? Let us remember to engage in conversation with each other, show that we care about more than ourselves and can agree to disagree. Let us remember that our younger community’s concerns are our concerns as our future is in their hands. My prayer is that we go into this Shmita year, not bemoaning what is often perceived as the loss of identity among our younger Jews but claiming the identity and issues that they have taken on – social justice, proper and measured use of the land, acceptance of all who come in our gates, not judging others, and so on – all fundamental Jewish teachings that unite us as a people and formulate the basis of the identity that claims us all.