PASSOVER JEWS VS. PURIM JEWS
Kol Nidre 5774
Rabbi Elliot Strom
Tonight is Kol Nidre -- the most sacred evening of the Jewish year. Kol Nidre sends out a kind of signal to us, no matter where we are, no matter WHO we are, that says simply “come home.” And so we do. Like homing pigeons sensing some irresistible, almost instinctual impulse, we come here – even if we haven’t entered these walls since last High Holy Days – here to pray, to think, to examine ourselves, here to wonder about our future, as individuals and as a people.
That’s why tonight, on this most critical evening, I want to talk with you about an issue that is, for me the single most important one facing us at this, the onset of the New Year. To do so, although it may sound a little strange, I want to focus not on Yom Kippur but rather on two other holy days in our Jewish year – Passover and Purim.
So tonight, let me ask you a question: Are you a Passover Jew or a Purim Jew?
Not sure how to answer? Not sure what I mean? Let me explain.
Recently I read an article by Israeli columnist, Yossi Klein HaLevi, entitled “Passover Jews vs. Purim Jews.” In it, he says that all of us – Israelis and American Jews – are either one or the other, Passover Jews or Purim Jews. Then he goes on to explain what he means and what it tells us about ourselves and our world.
HaLevi begins by telling about his travels this last spring through North American Jewish communities on a lecture tour immediately after the Israeli elections. He says that when he traveled to different Jewish communities in the country he felt like he was in a time warp.
When he went to Orthodox communities, he felt like he was back in the 1970s and 80s before the First Intifadah convinced most Israelis that the occupation is a mortal danger to the Jewish state. Instead, he says, right-wing American Jews today continue to insist that Israel go on building settlements on the West Bank and creating what they call “facts on the ground.” Because, they say, there is no partner for peace.
But then, when he went to more liberal Jewish communities, he felt like he was back in the 1990s before the Second Intifadah convinced most Israelis that a one-sided, unreciprocated peace process is a mortal danger to the Jewish state. Instead, he says, left-wing American Jews today continue to insist that a peace agreement is always within reach and ultimately just a matter of Israeli will and that time is quickly running out for a peace agreement.
What he tried to explain to both groups, he says, is that the great majority of Israelis have now internalized this classic left-right divide and agree BOTH with the left’s anxiety over the occupation AND with the right’s over a delusional and perhaps self-destructive peace.
For most Israelis, he says, -- and listen carefully to this! -- a Palestinian state is BOTH an existential necessity AND an existential threat. When asked by the polls if they support a two-state solution, over 70% of Israelis say yes. But when asked if a two-state solution will bring real and lasting peace, upwards of 80% say no. In other words, Israelis WANT to be doves but feel they HAVE to be hawks. And so – even with a faint glimmer of hope over the current peace talks – they wait for things to improve with little so far to talk about and little to do.
OK, that’s Israel. But what about America and American Jewry?
According to HaLevi, while Israelis have coalesced around the middle, American Jewry is divided into two distinct and increasingly hostile camps. One is left of center and usually secular or in the more liberal denominations and the other is right of center and often more traditional, more Orthodox.
Halevi explains this split by telling us that Jewish history speaks to us in the voice of two sometimes contradictory biblical commandments to “remember.” The first voice, he says, commands us to remember that we were strangers in the land of Egypt – as we do at seders every year. The message of this commandment is “Remember that we were once slaves and therefore don’t be brutal, don’t be the oppressor. Have compassion for the powerless and vulnerable.” This he calls the “voice of Passover” or “the voice of liberation.”
But there is also a second voice, he says. This one commands us to remember how the tribe of Amalek attacked us in the desert without cause -- as we read on the Shabbat just before Purim. The message of this commandment is “Remember how vulnerable we’ve always been and don’t be naïve. Don’t be a sucker. Don’t forget that we have real enemies who mean us harm – so be prepared, resolutely prepared to defeat them for our own survival.” And this he calls the “voice of Purim,” or “the voice of vigilance.”
The left wing, he says, are almost universally “Passover Jews,” motivated by sympathy for the oppressed while the right wing are almost entirely “Purim Jews,” motivated by alertness to threat. The problem is: while both voices are essential and authentic, most of us hear only one. And that is truly dangerous. Because, when we hear only the “voice of Purim,” it can make us paranoid, brutal, blind to opportunities for peace. And when we hear only the “voice of Passover,” it can make us patsies, colluding with our enemies in our own destruction.
I think this is true for almost every one of us in this sanctuary. Like the rest of our American Jewish brothers and sisters, some of us are instinctively “Passover Jews” and some are genetically “Purim Jews” – one or the other and never, it seems, do the twain meet.
That’s why we seem not to be able to speak to one another across the left-right divide in our American Jewish community these days. That’s why we are increasingly divided into two separate, angry, pugnacious camps. And it seems to get worse with each passing day. I know I’ve certainly seen it with my own eyes. And I bet you have too.
Just think back to all the ugliness in our Jewish community last fall in the lead-up to our American elections. Ponder for a moment the fact – for a think it is a fact! -- that it has become almost an act of political suicide for a rabbi – any rabbi -- to address issues of Israel and the Middle East from the pulpit anymore. And consider how this community – like every other Jewish community in the land – has become increasingly divided and we cannot seem to speak civilly with one another on so many of the critical issues of the day. We’re just too far apart. And there’s no bridging this enormous abyss between Passover Jews and Purim Jews.
But, says HaLevi, there is an answer. Imagine if an Orthodox, a right-wing rabbi, a supporter of the settlers in Hebron, for example, delivered this sermon to his congregation. Imagine if he said: “My friends, our community has sinned against Israel. For all our devotion to the Jewish state and our concern for its survival, we have failed to acknowledge the cost to Israel’s soul of occupying another people for over 45 years. And it’s time finally for us to put an end to it.”
And now imagine a liberal rabbi, a supporter of JStreet, for example, telling her congregation: “My friends, our community has sinned against Israel. For all our devotion to the Jewish state and our concern for its democratic values, we have failed to acknowledge the urgency of the threat once again facing our beloved Jewish state. And it’s time we finally faced up to it.”
Only, HaLevi says, only when we Purim and Passover Jews acknowledge each other’s anxieties and take them seriously, only when we recognize that we both operate out of genuine love for Israel and the Jewish people, only when we somehow, all of us, learn to strike a balance between the voices of Purim and Passover, is there a chance for us and our community.
So what do we do?
Well, the first thing is to accept that HaLevi is right. He’s right that the great Israeli majority is moving to a sensible, nuanced – if frustrated – position on the peace process. He’s right that our American Jewish community is flying apart in ways that are frighteningly self-destructive. And he’s right that we are going to have to speak up about it, going to have to deal with it before it’s too late.
So tonight, on this most sacred and important evening, I want to do my own perhaps small part. Tonight I want to speak as that more “liberal” rabbi, one who is not affiliated with JStreet, but often finds myself aligned with their positions, and let me say the following:
On this sacred night of confession, I confess I have been a dyed-in-the wool “Passover Jew.” Now, I don’t believe there’s anything wrong with caring for the oppressed and the persecuted. That is the very core and strength of the Jewish people and our message to the world.
But I am coming to understand that this is only half the story. The other half is that Jews like me also have to be “Purim Jews,” clear-eyed in recognizing that our world is full of enemies and that we can’t give too much away to those who might use it as a stepping stone to our destruction.
At the same time, what I ask from my friends on the right, the Purim Jews among us: won’t you stand up and say you too have told only one half of the Jewish story? Isn’t it time to balance out your legitimate vigilance with an extra measure of rachmones and accept that the continued occupation of millions of Palestinian Arabs is taking a terrible toll on Israel’s soul?
I believe we Purim and Passover Jews have something precious to offer each other – the complementary voices that can balance us out as individuals and as a community. And we have to start doing it right now, tonight, before it’s too late.
But then, my friends, let’s not stop there. Let’s bring some of that same balance of Passover and Purim, of compassion and vigilance, to our discussion of Iran and nuclear weapons. Here, too, we’ve reached a point where one part of our American Jewish community seems unable to talk to the other.
On the one hand, we have Passover Jews who look to the historical liberality of the Iranian middle class, the election of Hassan Rohani -- a more moderate and reform-minded President -- and the apparent effectiveness of the current economic sanctions, and who see in these an opportunity to engage the Iranian leadership in serious discussions about giving up their pursuit of nuclear weapons.
But then, on the other hand, we have Purim Jews who suspect that Mr. Rohani is just a wolf in sheep’s clothing, committed, as he has been in the past to building nuclear weapons, camouflaging his intentions in liberal words and gestures while preparing the means for Israel’s annihilation.
Both sides make eminent sense. Both are impassioned and committed. But each is listening to only one of the two essential Jewish voices. Tonight, I want to propose that we find a new balance between the voice of Purim and the voice of Passover when it comes to dealing with Iran. We can agree on an approach that is skeptical and tough, that says we don’t give up or even tone down sanctions until there is complete cooperation and that we keep all military options on the table but…that also actively seeks out opportunities for serious dialogue to avoid a potential nuclear cataclysm and not to miss out on a chance for a potential game-changer to happen. This, too, is our imperative on this sacred evening of Kol Nidre.
And then, my friends, once we have come this far, I want to suggest that we carry it one step further. And here, I know, I am treading on dangerous ground. Because I want to suggest, as well, that we American Jews – Passover and Purim alike – have to speak to one another other about the other issues, the American issues, the political issues, that so divide and alienate us one from the other. We need to be able to talk together about so many things we seem to have lost the ability to discuss – issues like guns and abortion and marriage equality -- in ways that honor both the voice of Passover and the voice of Purim. What might that look like?
What it might mean, when it comes to the issue of guns, for example, is BOTH a respect for the Second Amendment and the constitutional right to bear arms AND a commitment to reasonable restrictions on those with criminal records, the mentally ill, the unfit – in precisely the same way we accept the right of people to drive automobiles but maintain reasonable restrictions on the underage, those who exceed a legal blood-alcohol level, those who have proven dangerous on the roads in the past. When we listen both to the voice of Passover with its concern for the victims and the voice of Purim with its concern for individual rights, we can find a reasonable place for us to meet and to speak effectively and Jewishly about this critical issue in our national life.
And it might mean, when it comes to the issue of abortion, that we begin with an unyielding commitment to the sanctity of life, to treating even potential life with the utmost respect – as our rabbis taught through the centuries – but couple that with a respect for the rights of the mother to make decisions that affect her own body and her own life – as our rabbis ALSO taught. In this way, potential parents can be encouraged to make thoughtful, life-affirming decisions about their families but to know that they are guaranteed the right to make those decisions without government interference. Surely we can all of us, Passover and Purim Jews alike, agree on such a balanced, sensible approach and so have something helpful to say on this issue that is tearing our country in two.
And, finally, when it comes to marriage equality, surely we Jews can listen to the voice of Passover preaching the equal rights of all people – young and old, male and female, gay and straight -- to create loving, committed and enduring relationships and families. And at the same time honor the voice of Purim as we insist on the right of individuals, congregations and religious leaders of all stripes to refuse to participate in something that violates their fundamental sense of morality.