A Comment That Demands to be a Post

This post is based on a comment to my previous post. You need to read the original post and the comments to fully appreciate Alan’s point of view.

A Jew in Full

The comments by

Alan Mairson

, with my replies:

A few thoughts…

Your “next year in Jerusalem” riff is almost a word-for-word echo of what I say at the end of every Passover seder I’ve attended over the past 35 years: “For almost 2,000 years, our mantra of ‘next year’ was nothing more than a wish because we didn’t have the ability to return. But now we do, yet we still say ‘next year’ as if something is still standing in our way. Why are we saying something we clearly do not believe?”

At this point, you would say: “Pack up and go!” But I experience this tension and ask myself: What exactly is going on? Why are roughly half of my Tribe in the land and half are still outside of it? What’s G*d telling us right now?

Normally, I do not like people putting words in my mouth, but I will make an exception for “Pack up and go!” That is what I say, though in a more nuanced manner. American Jewry should come to Israel, but only in organized groups, ideally in a group large enough to inhabit a new town. If not that, then in a group large enough to inhabit a neighborhood of a town, or an apartment building. This is needed for mutual support.

I would also suggest that the only question that Jews of the Diaspora should be asking themselves is: “Is it going to get worse, to the point that I and my loved-ones are threatened?”

You write: “The Jews at Mount Sinai heard the words of the Almighty directly. Bill Berg did not.” That’s because the Jews at Mt Sinai had only three choices: Conquer the land OR go back to slavery in Egypt OR die in the desert. Bill Berg has another choice: He can litigate complex commercial real estate deals in Atlanta. You might think that’s the equivalent of Mitzrayim, but Bill doesn’t and neither do I. (That said, rooting for the Braves does seem like a form of slavery to me — all that tomahawking — but I acknowledge this is a subjective judgment.)

Alan, I’m not really following you here. I was contrasting the situation of a Jew standing at Mount Sinai, the lowest of whom experienced prophesy at a higher level than Ezekiel the prophet, according to Jewish tradition, with the situation of Bill and the rest of us, existing in a world where the presence of God has been shrouded for over two thousand years. Bill was given a watered-down version of the prophetic call for a return to Zion by a brutish interlocutor, drunk with his own certainty and on his weariness after a long night.

Think of it another way. If when you say “Next Year in Jerusalem,” you receive in reply a voice from heaven saying “Pack up and go!,” you would be on the next flight to Tel-Aviv, no? Or if Bill, on that dark night, had looked up and seen me standing at the top of the trail, raised staff in hand, surrounded by a holy glow…he would be practicing law in Tel Aviv, I think. But the heavens are still silent, prophesies can be seen playing out in real time, but can be explained convincingly in antithetical terms.

The only constant is Jew-hatred, and whether it can be contained.

You write about DefCon3 and how your initial reaction was to scream at diaspora Jews: Get out now! Then you calmed down… but then, you write, Oct 7 happened. And then the aftermath. What’s the logical conclusion to this mess? That Jews in Israel remain vulnerable to the very danger that Israel was supposed to eliminate AND that diaspora Jews remain vulnerable to the very danger that Israel was supposed to eliminate. In the United States, ignorant college kids rally for Hamas and Jews get beaten up here and there; in Israel, 1200 Jews are slaughtered and everyone lives on edge, always ready to run to a bomb shelter or for the next war. Seems clear to me which situation is more dangerous.

All that said, I’m not blind to the looming danger here. The situation could get bad, and fast.

You write: “Are you yourself not thinking: "What will I do if it gets worse?" … Wouldn’t it be prudent to start thinking about a Plan B?”

My Plan B is Israel (I think). But to repeat what I said at the top: What’s Plan A? What’s the Story we’re in the middle of right now? How has the Plot changed in the past 75 years, and how should we as Jews play our role in it?

This is typical of Alan, his writing reaches a point where the only response I have is to just leave it as it stands. Maybe I would just say, perceived danger today might not be there tomorrow.

I look to Moses: He remained outside the land, but fully realized that someone must conquer it. And that’s precisely where we are: You’re in the land, and I am not.

You challenge me: “the burden is upon you to posit an alternate story, as you yourself have been telling us.”

Here’s my Story, radically abridged: the G*d of Israel, the G*d of History, needs a people to represent him in history. Enter Abraham and his extended family. (The monotheistic torch was available to whomever chose to pick it up and run with it, and Abe did.) … The G*d of Israel also needs some benchmark to prove that He is The One. If the people of Israel survive, then the G*d of Israel is still in the game and his Name is still in the mix; but if His people disappear, then His voice from Sinai will fade away along with any Earthly hope for redemption.

But He adds an extra historic benchmark that will make it obvious to the nations of the world that He is the one true G*d: The promised land. The moment when His people enter the land and settle there, His promise is fulfilled. When the Israeli flag goes up in 1948, G*d says: “Nice job, guys. Really well done. It was a long road back, and you went through hell to get here, but you did it. And the great thing is: Everyone else can see it happen. The establishment of the Third Jewish Commonwealth is a sign to all with eyes that can see and ears that can hear that Hope is not a mirage, that human history has a point and a purpose, and that one day the world will be One and My name will be One. Gotta admit, tho: This fact that I’m still a Presence is driving people absolutely nuts! LOL.”

Well…

Shorter version: The proof that the G*d of Israel exists is that the people, the nation, and the land of Israel are still in the chat. We haven’t gone away because we never abandoned G*d… and He never gave up on us.

That, I think, it why Christian Zionism is such a potent force. They see our Story as an affirmation of their Story. …. BTW: It was a Christian Zionist who made me a believing Jew. I tell the story here:

Welcoming the stranger

When I asked you about the Third Temple, you wrote: I'm kind of like a "black hat" Jew on that one. Let's wait until it descends from the heavens. And let's wait until a voice from heaven says "start up the animal sacrifice.”

Applying your logic re: “next year in Jerusalem” — we’ve already heard a voice from heaven tell us “to start up the animal sacrifice.” He said it once and doesn’t care to repeat Himself. You, the Black Hatted one, refusing to break ground on the Third Temple makes you sound like the Orthodox Jews who rejected the Zionist project because they were waiting for a signal from G*d; only the Messiah could lead us home. So… don’t be like those anti-Zionist Jews; be like Jabotinsky & Ben Grunion and Build That Temple! :-)

I kid, of course. Such a project would require razing the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa Mosque, which would aggravate the neighbors. All hell would break loose. And so you and I stand at the base of The Wall, staring up at the Golden Dome, wondering: What now?

And I voice from the heavens says: Go talk to your brother Ishmael.

Freud was wrong

That’s my Story.

Your story can stand as is. Whether or not it will continue to be a Jewish story depends less on imaginary edicts of the Israeli Rabbinate, and more on the potency of the story through the generations. Do the second, third and fourth generations remain in the fold? A bike trip through the Bible belt might strengthen their Judaism, but isn’t it more likely that it will not?

What’s yours? “All diaspora Jews return to Zion…” and then what?

Here’s an idea: What if the Orthodox rabbinate in Israel declares that all of us diaspora Jews are heretics. They reclassify us as non-Jews. Membership in the Club is immediately cut in half. The best part: All the Jews have already come home! There’s no one out here holding up The Show. The Ingathering is finally complete! Now what?

I don’t believe that what’s really needed is that all the Jews return to Zion. I think most of the pieces are already in place for a big spiritual breakthrough without another 7 million Jews assembling in the Promised Land… and without building the Third Temple.

The way I read this Story, G*d is just sitting there, waiting for us to turn back to Him. We’ll exhaust every possible alternative, of course, but we’ll get there… eventually. I hope.

I too, hope.

Thank you Alan for this dialogue.

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My first encounter with antisemitism, and the story of a wonderful Jewish musician.

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I wrote this almost two years ago. I wish I had given it a less flippant title. It deals with the political turmoil in Israel before the war broke out.