Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove
November 18, 2006

The General Assembly (GA) convened this past week in Los Angeles.  Sponsored by the United Jewish Communities: The Federations of North America, over 5000 lay and professional leaders gathered for the largest annual meeting of North American Jewry.  I was in Los Angeles with my wife who attended the conference.  Given the host city of LA, I used the time to bring my children to their grandparents and grant myself an annual reminder of why I don’t live in LA. 

While I didn’t hear the speeches, I have read some of them and, like you, read much of the Jewish press.  The history of the recent conference itself made the news.  Originally it had the LA theme “Be With the Stars,” but after Israel’s war with Hezbollah the UJC decided to put Israel at the forefront, and changed the theme to “Together on the Front Line: One People One Destiny.”  The agenda was there for all to see, it was intended to intensify the connection between North American Jewry and Israel. 

And, sure enough, Israeli leadership was trotted out.      Israeli Knesset members were so well represented that many top officials quipped to each other that they may as well hold a cabinet meeting.   Two Israelis caught quite a bit of attention.  On Tuesday, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert harped on the convention theme stating: “Our lives are interconnected.  Our fates are intertwined.  Israel and the Jewish Diaspora are one. Your success is our success. We may be separated by an ocean, but our hearts beat together always.”  Equally reported however was a comment made by Zev Bielsky, the chairman of the Jewish Agency for Israel who said to the Jerusalem Post:  “One day the penny will drop for American Jews and they will realize they have no future as Jews in the United States due to assimilation and intermarriage.”  Realizing he had veered from “One People One Destiny” talking points, Bielsky later sought to clarify his intent, but to the best of my ability, stood by his remarks.  A rather striking comment from the professional leader of the agency committed to the health of world Jewry.

In the wake of the GA, I want to use these observations to frame my comments this morning.  How would you describe the condition of the Israel Diaspora relationship?  Olmert and Bielsky were speaking at the pep rally.    The actual game you should know, is happening right now - and it is being played by us, the future of the relationship is ours to determine.  It is a demographic fact that sometime in 2006, for the first time in thousands of years, the number of Jews in Israel will surpass the number of Jews in the Diaspora – no matter what definition of Jewishness you use.  But more than the numbers, the substantive question ultimately is our ability to accurately diagnose our relationship with Israel.  Who is right, Olmert or Bielsky?  Both or neither?  Are we really “one people, one destiny”? And if so, who is that people and what exactly is our shared destiny?

This morning we read the base text to this question.  In a protracted and rather wearisome process of negotiation, Abraham purchases the first plot of land, mearat hamachpela, from Ephron the Hittite in order to bury his wife Sarah.  The procedural overkill was not missed on our commentators who understood this story to be an expression of the forging of our people’s ancient bond with the land. In the words of the midrash “This is one of the [places] that the world cannot taunt Israel saying these are stolen lands” (Bereshit Rabbah, 79,7)  And so, from the Bible through the Byzantine period, Jews were allowed to pray within the area.  In 1267, after the Arab invasion, Jews and Christians were forbidden from entering the cave.  A situation which was not rectified for exactly 700 years, when Hebron was liberated by the IDF in June of 1967 making it available for the prayers of Jews, Christians and Muslims (Sarna, Genesis, p. 159).

And while all acknowledge the significance of this narrative to our claim to Israel, every generation has used it towards different purposes.  Two examples stand out. Ibn Ezra, born in Toledo in 1092 explains that the point of the story is a gesture to signal the high esteem of the land and the fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham dating back in Genesis chapter 12. Ibn Ezra, who lived his entire life in the diaspora, held a sort of passive Zionism, his vision of return was akin to how Christians view the second coming.  A hundred years later, Ramban took issue with Ibn Ezra’s interpretation.  Ramban was infused with a deep love for Israel and refused to understand this passage as did Ibn Ezra.  The purchase of the land was not to establish a burial plot, or merely praise the land, the purchase of the land was intended for living Jews.  God’s promise would only be fulfilled by aliyah to Israel, and it should come as no surprise than Ramban eventually left Spain to make Aliyah to Palestine.  To Ramban, Jewish life outside of Israel was somehow less than complete and sooner or later, the penny would drop, and the end of Diaspora Jewry would come. 

Ramban and Ibn Ezra, Bielski and Olmert, these are the two poles of the debate.  As Shlomo Avineri writes, at the root of Zionism lies a paradox.  “On the one hand there is no doubt about the depth and intensity of the bond between the Jewish people and the Land of Israel.” On the other hand, Avineri explains, for all its cultural and religious intensity, Jews did not emigrate to Israel.  It is no wonder that in Bernini’s medieval depiction of the Jews he chooses the image of a turtle - an animal that carries all of its belongings and home on its back.   And, even with the beginnings of Aliyah and the establishment of the state of Israel, the push and the pull to Palestine and then Israel has not been complete.  We in this room have made the decision to live in North America. And, this being the case, we, like Ibn Ezra, like Ramban, like every generation of Jews, must seek to understand the relationship in all its strengths, weaknesses and subtleties.

I believe that years from now, sociologists and historians will look back at this moment and call it a transformational moment in Diaspora – Israel relations.  On the cusp of 60 years of a State, we are experiencing growing pains which we must be honest about.  Let me share with you few data points - cultural, political, religious and philanthropic - which I think will impress upon you what I mean.

Culturally, you may recall the brouhaha wrought by A.B. Yehoshua’s remarks a few months ago at the AJC centennial Symposium.  The famous Israeli author basically said what Bielski said, telling American Jews they treated their Judaism like a hobby and it would disappear some day.  His remarks caused a storm in Diaspora Jewish relations as both Americans and Israelis took sides, from vigorous agreement to name calling. On the one hand we love to say ‘one people, one destiny’, but the ugly truth is that many Israelis understand American Jews to be religious dilettantes, and many American Jews believe Israelis are either religious fanatics or Hebrew speaking goyim.  What does it mean to have an honest relationship which avoids name calling?

Second, politically. American Jews are increasingly unsure of how to support Israel.  I made mention of this a few weeks ago, how can we be partisan critics of Israel?  With a creedal passion we pledge our support, but know deep down that our tactics must be slightly more sophisticated than “Israel: Right or wrong.”  It is not OK to accuse every critic of Israel of Anti-Semitism.  Indeed we should take pride in Israel’s willingness to consider its missteps, an act that its Arab neighbors would never dream.  What does it mean to be a partisan critic of Israel?

Third, religiously there is a split taking place.  You may recall that this past year, the chief rabbinate of Israel announced that only a limited number of Diaspora Orthodox rabbis were approved to oversee conversions by the Israeli rabbinate.  For years, Reform and Conservative Jews knew that they were not recognized by the Israeli chief rabbinate, but this would be the first time that Orthodox Diaspora rabbis were placed in the same suspect category.  Any sociologist of religion knows that religious life inevitably takes the shape of its host culture.  And if you hope, as I do, that both Diaspora and Israeli Judaism will last for thousands of year, then what do we do if and when two very different religious traditions emerge. What does it mean to share a faith - one in the Diaspora and one in Israel.

Finally, and here I must reach back a few years.  Many of you may recall the remarks of Yossi Beillin, the Israeli Knesset member who outraged pretty much everyone by telling North American Jews to stop giving to Israel, because we need the money more than Israel does.  I am deeply proud of the efforts of the Israel Emergency Campaign – Chicago, to its credit raised a disproportionately large amount of the national total.  And yet, check writing, sloganism and emergency solidarity missions must always be phrased as the beginning but never the substance of the relationship.  We need to create a language of a Diaspora – Israel relationship which speaks to our highest ideals and our long term aspiration, not merely a reactive posture that puts out fires every few years.

Cultural, political, religious, philanthropic, the list could go on, but the point is the same.  There are tectonic shifts taking place in the Diaspora-Israel relationship and the stakes are very high.  We dare not avoid the questions and we refuse to simply use the same answers of past generations.  Given our commitment to Israel, every generation of Jews has an obligation to do two things. First and foremost, we must instill in our children and community a deep and abiding love for Israel.  The claim to the land is the starting point. There are far too many Jews who don’t know why they should love Israel, never mind what it means to have a subtle and multi-dimensional love.

But second, we, like every generation, have an obligation to rearticulate what that relationship is.  We need to be attentive to the spirit of the day, the needs of Israel, our own needs, and construct a relationship which is both based in reality and speaks to our highest ideals.  We should do all the things the clergy spoke of on the High Holidays: we should go, we should give, we should advocate for Israel and we should learn about Israel.  But Israel is very different place than it was 60 years ago, 40 years ago, 20 years ago, even 5 years ago.  If being a Conservative Jew means anything, it means that we begin every Jewish conversation with the question of what is the timeless Jewish ideal and what are the needs of the time.  The timeless Jewish ideal is our love for Israel.  The needs of our time, well, that is in flux, and we allow for the possibility that it may be different today than it was yesterday and will be tomorrow.

I want to conclude with a modern midrash than I recently heard from a French Jewish public intellectual, Jean Christophe Attias.  One of the most famous rabbinic ethical conundrums is referred to as shnayim shehayu mehalchim.  “Two men who were walking.”  Two men were walking in the desert.  One was carrying a goatskin full of water.  If they both shared the water, both would die. If only one drank all of it, he could survive to the next village but the other would die.  One rabbi, Ben Petora thought both had better drink and die, so that one could be spared the sight of the other’s death.  Rabbi Akiva came and taught the verse from Leviticus “That your brother may live with you,” understanding it to mean that your own life is more important than your neighbor’s.  (b. Bava Metsia 62a)

The two men are Israel and the Diaspora.  If, as Ben Petora counsels, we are overly attentive to each other, our own pressing needs will not be met and we will both perish.  On the one hand if we attend only to our own needs, our brother will die, a possibility neither we, nor Israel should dare entertain. 

Neither in its original formulation, nor in its application to Israel-Diaspora relations, is Rabbi Akiva or Ben Petora satisfactory.  The most important thing I have to say about the story is that the two men should have planned better before they set out on their journey, discussed what they needed to sustain themselves, and made sure that the goatskin had enough water for the trip. 

It is incumbent upon Diaspora Jewry to construct a vital center of Jewish life, able to stand on its own and offer insight and support to Israel.  It is incumbent upon Israel to create, sustain and defend a vital homeland for Jews.   We are setting out on a new journey and I am fully optimistic that there is enough water to get us to the next way-station if we make the right decisions here today.  From the first claim to the land there have been two constants, our obligation to Israel and our internal debates about what that obligation means.  We may not have all the answers, but we commit ourselves to building the future relationship together.
Shabbat Shalom.