Loyalty Means Love Not Agreement
What follows is my Yom Kippur morning sermon in which I suggest love should precede agreement. We should cultivate Ahavat Yisrael, love of the Jewish people, as a foundational value that transcends disagreement and prevents divisions.
A favorite Jewish joke. Here it is. A Jew was once shipwrecked on a deserted island all by himself. Somehow he managed to survive for many, many years. Remarkably he found food and water and even managed to build a shelter offering protection from the weather and storms. Then one day he was miraculously spotted by a passing ship and rescued. The rescuers were very impressed with his survival skills. One asked, “Moshe, I noticed there were several shelters on your small island. It is unbelievable you were able to build a home for yourself. But what are the other buildings?” The man answered, “The second one is my synagogue. Everyone needs a place to pray and so I built one for myself.” “Then what, Moshe, is the third building?” “Well, that is obviously the synagogue I would never set foot in.”
We are a strange and passionate people. There are so few of us. There are just under 16 million Jews in the world. We are but 0.2% of the world’s population. And yet we have so many divisions. As the other joke goes. Two Jews, three opinions. There are Sephardi and Ashkenazi and that special group Long Island Jews. There are the Satmar and Lubavitch, Likudniks and Bundists, Jews for Racial and Economic Justice and the Zionist Organization of America. There are Reform, Conservative, Orthodox, Reconstructionist and Renewal Jews. There are more synagogues, and organizations, that we won’t set foot in than those we will. Have you ever gone to a bookstore before Passover to see how many haggadahs there are? There is one for every type of Jew. There is the Haggadah of Contemporary Voices, the Haggadah for the Liberated Lamb for vegetarians, the Human Rights Haggadah, Sammy Spider’s First Haggadah and of course the Maxwell House haggadah to name but a few of the hundreds available.
We are so few, and yet we are so divided. On Rosh Hashanah I spoke about our fear of antisemitism. This morning I want to speak about another danger: our divisions. This is also a threat. To be sure these divisions have accompanied us since ancient times. Back then there were the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Essenes and of course the Zealots of Masada fame. They battled each other ferociously. In rabbinic times there was the House of Hillel and the House of Shammai. They did not really like each other very much. Today, family seders are divided. Thanksgiving dinners have become shouting matches or occasions where families broker an agreed upon truce. No politics this year. No talking about Israel.
There is no doubt that today’s fault line runs through Israel. There is AIPAC on one side. And JStreet on the other. There is IfNotNow accusing Israel of apartheid and Zioness working to call Abdul El-Sayad to account. There are devout Zionists in one corner and the growing and equally devout anti-Zionists on the other—and every shade in between. As much as I am afraid about this resurgent antisemitism, I also fear our divisions. And so, this morning I wish to speak about this other fear and even more importantly what we can do about it. I feel like our community is fraying. I am struggling to find a path through these disagreements that will not lead to divisions. I am working through this too. This sermon is a challenge to me as well. I want to dwell on this question. How can we prevent our divisions from ripping us apart?
Truces that declare no talking about politics or no talking about Israel are the wrong approach. They stifle our Jewish creativity and Jewish genius. They will not work. We have never had one response to historical traumas. We have always embraced disagreements while working to shun divisions. We must work harder at keeping everyone at the table. We must avoid the temptation of pushing people away by saying things like “He is not really a Zionist.” Or “They are destroying the Jewish people.” We need to embrace all kinds of Jews. I know it’s exhausting and maddening but we have to keep at it. We have to learn how to embrace the disagreements while not allowing them to become divisions.
The tradition provides us with a solution. It is called Ahavat Yisrael—love of the Jewish people. These days love is what is demanded of us. We must not allow our disagreements to create divisions. Our tradition loves disagreements. It rejects divisions.
Do you know why we have Elijah’s cup at the seder table? It’s because the rabbis kept arguing about whether there should be four or five cups at the table. Some said there should be four because there are four verses that point to the redemption. Others said there should be five. And so, the rabbis said in essence, let’s compromise. We will make it four and a half. We will fill Elijah’s cup with wine, but we won’t drink from it. When Elijah comes to announce the messianic time, he will tell us who is right. For now, we can all sit at the same table. Otherwise, we will have seders for four cuppers and another set of seders for five cuppers. To put it in today’s language. We should not have Zionist seders on the one side and anti-Zionists at the other. When we construct our tables around agreement, when we only welcome those whose opinions do not offend our feelings, then we are throwing away the very essence of what makes us Jews. We all belong at the same table. And that means everyone’s sensibilities will be offended at one point or another. If we only surround ourselves with like-minded Jews, we will lose the bonds of peoplehood.
Our ancient rabbis were afraid of division. They were not afraid of disagreement. The rabbis were masters at compromise. They were terrified of certainty. They believed certainty divides families. It fractures communities. Sure, each rabbi was certain of his, or today her, opinions, (do I come off as uncertain?) but when we are together, we shun collective certainty. Instead, we debate with each other. We listen to each other. We broker compromises that allow all opinions to remain.
The rabbis modeled Ahavat Yisrael—love of the Jewish people, love of all those who are part of the Jewish community. They also provided countless warnings about writing people out. Here is the Talmud’s most famous story illustrating this point. It begins with a disagreement about an ordinary item and ends up in a tragedy that shatters family and divides community.
One time the rabbis were arguing about whether an oven was kosher or not. (Babylonian Talmud, Bava Metzia 59b) The majority ruled it was unkosher. One rabbi, Eliezer ben Hyrcanus, disagreed and ruled it kosher. He gave all sorts of reasons why, but the majority still rejected his opinion.
He became enraged and started performing miracles to prove his point. He made a stream run backwards and started to bring the walls of the yeshivah down on all of them. The majority held their ground and said miracles don’t matter; this is an earthly debate. A heavenly voice then said Eliezer is right. The rabbis rebuked heaven by quoting this morning’s Torah portion that says, “Lo bashamayim hee. It is not in heaven!” The majority was not persuaded by miracles. Reason is how arguments are made. Eliezer the miracle worker became even angrier. The majority then ruled that he had to be kicked out of the rabbi club. He had broken the rules of how we are supposed to argue. He had tried to bring heaven down on his side. They excommunicated him.
And here is where this fanciful tale offers us a warning for our own day. Eliezer was so saddened that his colleagues had ostracized him that a third of the world’s crops were destroyed. Then because of Eliezer’s miraculous powers Rabban Gamliel, the head of the rabbinic court, almost drowned in the ocean, but at the last minute he saved himself by shouting, “Master of the universe I took this action for Your sake so that disputes would not proliferate among the Jewish people.” The leader’s attempt to squelch disagreements appeased the ocean’s fury. Leadership is indeed a noble calling. Keeping the people on the same page is an admirable goal. It requires difficult decisions. Sometimes it means deciding who gets to stay and who must leave, who is in and who is out. But at what cost? What is the cost of squelching disagreements? What is the cost of kicking someone out? What is the cost of creating divisions? The Talmud continues.
Ima Shalom, the wife of Eliezer and the brother of Gamliel, appears. This was a family squabble. These rabbis sat at the same Passover table! She instructed her husband Eliezer not to be so depressed. He should take pride in his learning and lift his head. “Don’t be so downcast,” she advised him. But that did not last too long. After some time passed, he began to dwell on how his colleagues mistreated him. His sadness consumed his prayers. The ocean’s waves grew larger. Gamliel’s boat capsized. Ima Shalom shouts, “My brother has drowned. Eliezer, you killed my brother.” End of story.
Apparently, Eliezer had one more miracle left up his sleeve. His prayers were so strong that they made the waves crash down on Gamliel’s ship. The Talmud suggests his prayers were so powerful not only because he could bend heaven to his will but because they contained his pain and heartache. His brother-in-law is killed. And now their family seder table holds an empty chair.
They cast one person out and ended up casting another out. It is a terribly tragic legend. The Talmud’s story offers an important message. It is a warning. Even when your reasons might be sound, be careful before throwing someone out. Once someone is kicked out or banished, everything begins to unravel. There might be unintended consequences. Then more people will end up being absent from our tables. Today, there are many, most especially our young people, who have misgivings about Zionism and profound doubts about Israel’s actions. Rather than dismiss them as misguided we should welcome them to the conversation. Rather than allow Jewish leaders to cast them out we should live up to the value of Ahavat Yisrael, loving others.
The Talmud does not give us advice for how we are supposed to resolve the challenge of those who hold views contrary to the majority. It does not tell us how to handle the lone dissenter who becomes defiant and belligerent. It says instead, “Beware. You may be tempted to throw him or her out, but if you do you will unleash terrible forces that will grow way beyond your control.” I hear their ancient warning. I heed their counsel. We must insist love comes first. Better we keep him or her at the table.
How many times have we wanted to walk away from an argument? How many times have we lobbed social media posts at one another in furious text message exchanges? How many times have we been tempted to unfollow someone or remove someone from a group chat or silence one of those text messages? We think to ourselves, “Oh my God. Will they just stop already. Will they just go away.” I know it’s hard. I know it’s maddening, especially when you think they are so terribly wrong or misguided or even dangerous. All we want to do is throw them out.
But when we do, we end up arguing only with ourselves. When we argue with ourselves, we only affirm our own opinions. We do not learn. We do not grow. We don’t win any arguments by throwing someone out. We learn nothing new by cancelling someone. We should always meet with others even with those whose ideas we find contrary to our most sacred principles. You can’t learn anything new if you refuse to sit down face to face. When we refuse such sit downs each side hardens their positions and becomes even more convinced of the rightness of their cause, and the righteousness of their ideologies. The bonds of peoplehood soften disagreements. Ahavat Yisrael, love, counters divisions.
The rabbis teach that Jerusalem’s Temple was destroyed not because of the Roman army’s overwhelming might but instead because of sinat chinam, baseless hatred between Jews. We stopped sitting at the same table. We banished one another. We said things like, “He is not really a Jew. She hates Israel.” People spend so much time accusing other Jews of being inauthentic or disloyal rather than trying to listen to one another. Can we stop feeling threatened by our fellow Jews? Can we try to be more loving of one another? Can we try to be loyal to our Jewish people?
This is a difficult time for the Jewish people. We need each other more than ever. Rather than surrounding ourselves with agreement, I want us to do one very important thing. Be loyal to the Jewish people. Despite our differences, and our disagreements which are profound, we need to hold on to each other. We need to double down on the Jewish people and our attachment to peoplehood. We need to work on loving the people Israel. Ahavat Yisrael. We need to love the Jewish people fiercely. This does not mean we agree with each other. That is never going to happen.
This never happened throughout our history. We are a people who has made arguing a central value. Do you think I agree with the Haredi rabbi who shouted obscenities at me when I joined a protest demanding women’s right to read Torah at the Western Wall? Of course not. But he is my people. Do you think I agree with anti-Zionists who shout that Israel’s very existence is immoral? No way. But they are all welcome at my table. They are my people. Love precedes agreement.
I think these days we have it reversed. We think agreement must come first, that if we don’t agree we cannot love each other. This is false. Remember Ima Shalom, the wife of Eliezer and the sister of Gamliel. She understood this. Her name means the mother of peace. Her husband and brother could not see it. They were too stubborn. They were so fixated on their interpretations and their opinions and their commitments that they could not see this essential truth. Love must come first.
I am terrified about our growing divisions. Of course, I am afraid about antisemitism and the threats Israel faces, and I have profound disagreements with how some Jews are navigating these challenges, and with whom some are allying themselves, but I am just as afraid about our divisions. Our fears of external threats sometimes get misdirected and focused inward at our fellow Jews. We attack each other when we should be looking outward. When facing external enemies, we need to be strong, and we need to be unified. We can be unified while still disagreeing with each other.
Let our conversations be more expansive and more inclusive. When it comes to family and people, we should never view each other as a threat or an enemy. Unity does not demand agreement. People are going to formulate different answers to today’s challenges. Some people’s answers drive me nuts. But vitriol rips us apart. Ahavat Yisrael. Love is what is demanded.
Criticism yes, absolutely. Antagonism, no. Disagreement, yes. Division, no. Ahavat Yisrael. Love of the Jewish people first.
Peoplehood demands love—and that means across disagreements. Ahavat Yisrael is really hard, but it is necessary and required even more so these days. It starts with our own families. It begins with those closest and extends outward. And that means sometimes I am going to be triggered at my own table. But my feelings of discomfort are not the arbiters of right and wrong. Feelings are important but they are not always helpful when arguing about ideas. What is so bad about being made to feel uncomfortable and unsettled at times? Feeling threatened is not always the same as being threatened.
Focus on one feeling instead. Love. But the rest of them: upset, disgust or anger let’s not spend all our time trying to avoid them. Feeling them are part of what makes us human. If love is there, you can handle those feelings, you can handle the feelings that come with profound disagreement. You can sit at the same table with someone who makes you angry. Hold on to our people even when they drive you crazy. I know how hard it is for families as they fight over whether this leader is an antisemite or not. I understand how trying it is to balance each and every person’s differing metric about what constitutes a threat. I know how painful it is as they wrestle over Israel’s actions and decisions. But it all works if we start with love, if we begin with Ahavat Yisrael. Love must be the opening assumption.
Our learning is dependent on love. Our strength is magnified by inviting everyone in. We invite all to debate every and any idea. This has always been our core principle. The welcoming table is what keeps our people alive. It is built on a foundation of love. We are strengthened by disagreement. The table must be wide enough to include all manners of opinions. And it must be open enough to include all disagreements.
We need to be attached to the Jewish people. We need more Ahavat Yisrael, love of the Jewish people. As long as we stay in the argument, we will remain one family. As soon as we throw someone out, we lose the ties that bind us to one another. I heed the rabbis’ warnings.
I desperately want to keep everyone at the table. And this means unity over vitriol. Not agreement. We’ve never had that. We never will. What these days require is love.
Disagreement yes, always. Division, no, never.
Ahavat Yisrael. We must love the Jewish people.
Love must precede all else.
Loyalty does not mean agreement. Loyalty means love.