From the Cyber Torah Archives

There is a well known joke about a man lost on an island. When his rescuers arrive after several years of hardship, they are surprised to see three buildings. Why did you build three homes, they asked him? Well, he replied, one was my home but the other two buildings are Synagogues. Still perplexed, his rescuers asked, "But why did you need two Synagogues?" "Well," he replied, "The first one is where I pray, and the other is the Synagogue I would never set foot in."

Its a funny joke, but much too close to home. Ten Jews, eleven opinions. We are truly an Am Kishei Oref - a stiff necked people. Like anything, it is a quality that has strengths and weaknesses. On the one hand, we are true to our ideals. We have persisted in the face of persecution and adversity for thousands of years precisely because we have continued to believe in God and to follow His path. As much as Jews have kept the Sabbath, the Sabbath has kept the Jews.

On the other hand, we continually fragment into ever smaller groups. Many of you may have been aware that a group of Conservative Jews were assaulted at the Wall in Jerusalem this past Tisha b'Av because they wanted to pray with men and women together. The police, who had promised to protect them, ended up forcibly removing them from the area surrounding the Wall. The Orthodox threw chairs at the group. They refrained from greater violence only because the Police removed the worshippers. I have an extremely hard time with violence inflicted by one Jew upon another. For two thousands years we have been taught "Kol Yisrael Aravim Ze l'ze, All Israel is responsible for one another.'

Israel now struggles with the ever widening gulf between the religious and the secular. Secular people perceive only the tyranny of religion, and the religious perceive only the most wanton examples of secular life. As a result, the secular Jews want to distance themselves from religion, and the religious want a theocracy. The threat of violence against these two ever hardening camps is real.

Here in the Hampton Roads area, we are insulated from much of this religious strife. We are willing to pray in each others Synagogues. Our JCC is a true community center. We comfort one another without regard to Synagogue affiliation. One of the beautiful aspects of this community is that I have seen people from several Synagogues at each Shiva house. People understand that these labels "Orthodox" "Conservative" "Reform" are important - but that comforting a mourner is more important. The same principle holds true for joyous occasions. The Talmud, in B. Bava Batra 14a comments on our Torah portion. The Torah, in a list of prohibitions against idolatry says, "You, Children of Israel, should be holy. Do not teetgodedu." What does teetgodedu mean? Modern Bible scholars think it refers to ritual cuts made on the face. The Torah is forbidding a particular action in which certain idolatrous groups engaged. The Talmud suggests a different possibility. When the Bible says "Do not teetgodedu" it means do not form agudot - separate sects. The Torah is warning us to retain our identity as a unified people. The Mishnah teaches that there are two types of arguments. The first are about politics, power, and position in the community. In such arguments, there are only losers. Arguments of this nature are destructive of the community. By contrast, there are arguments like all the famous disagreements between Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai which are "For the sake of heaven, l'sham shamayim." Such arguments are l'olam - forever. We record all the positions of Beit Shammai, even though we follow almost none of them, because they are part of our God commanded search for truth. Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel argued because of their love of God. Yet the Mishnah also records that they continued to eat together and marry one another despite sometimes fundamental differences in practice. They remained one people together sharing a search for holiness. Our different beliefs are important. We argue for them because we care about our identity as Jews. Yet we must remember two things. First, the arguments are worth fighting over only when they are lsham shamyamim - for God's sake. Second, when the arguing is done, we still need to be able to share our joy and our sadness. When all is said and done, we must not form agudot - sects - because we must remember that ultimately we are God's holy people.