From Rivkah's womb to the Western Wall

Rabbi Arthur Waskow

From Rivkah's Womb to the Western Wall

By Rabbi Arthur Waskow*

On Shavuot 1998 at the Western Wall in Jerusalem in June, ultra-Orthodox haredim attacked a group of American Conservative Jews, men and women, who gathered in an egalitarian minyan to pray at Judaism's most revered site.

Their battle echoed the struggle between Esau and Jacob within the womb of Rivkah (Gen. 25: 19-26). For two new and radically different versions of Judaism are struggling to be born, and they are locked in an intense struggle with each other.

On the one hand, there is an aborning Judaism that sees its own values as the only conceivably authentic version of Judaism, sees women and men as unalterably assigned by God to different spheres of life, claims sole ownership of the entire biblically defined Land of Israel for the Jewish people, and is ready to use both personal violence and the support of the state's police and military to those ends. (It was no accident that after attacking the egalitarian minyan, the Haredim started attacking Palestinians in the Old City of Jerusalem.)

On the other hand, there is an aborning Judaism that affirms religious pluralism is committed to the equal participation of women and men in all spheres of religious and public life, is willing to explore sharing the Land of Israel with the Palestinian children of Abraham and Hagar through Ishmael, and has used the methods of nonviolence toward these ends.

Both these Judaisms are new. One is an emerging State Orthodoxy, which is new because it is ready to use both state power and private violence —and feels it must do so to repress the simmering new energies of women and egalitarian men, of new forms of Jewish spirituality, and of the national energies of the Palestinians and pro-peace Jews.

This ability and willingness to use state and private violence is quite different from traditional rabbinic Judaism. But its proponents look on the surface — both physically, in what they wear and how they eat, and figuratively in their belief in the Written and Oral Torah as direct Revelation — more like traditional Judaism. Like Esau, it is the older, rougher, tougher, hairier brother.

The Conservative, Reform and Reconstructionist explorations, along with even newer models of renewal, are even more obviously pointing toward a new Judaism. This version views Torah as more or less the filter of Revelation through human experience, and is either much quicker to make new halakhic rulings or goes beyond halakha altogether. This new version — the "Jacob" in our modern story — is milder, younger, less certain of the self that is aborning, and far more influenced by women, as the Torah's Jacob was influenced by his mother.

The question for our "Jacob" — with whom, let me be clear, I identify —is how to win God's blessing and carry forward the future of Judaism. Only if "Jacob" can answer that question well will "Esau" - the hairier, seemingly older form of Judaism — learn to settle into a responsible setting of his own, without threatening others.

Jacob won by cleverness and deceit — only to discover that he had not really won until he could wrestle with God, not merely struggle with his brother — and indeed could really fully win God's blessing only when he could live and let live with his brother. I propose that today, the energies of an emerging renewal of Judaism win by cleverness and honesty, not deceit and certainly not by violence.

Win by Godwrestling, and by making clear that it seeks three goods: religious freedom, civility rather than a Jewish civil war, and a peaceful, mutually respectful settlement with the Palestinians.

There is an intrinsic relationship between a Judaism willing to share in peace the self-governing of the Land of Israel with another people, and one willing to explore multiple forms of Judaism internally.

What the egalitarian minyan did by praying at the Western Wall was not merely an accidental tactic but a deep indicator of new directions, for the way in which they chose to pursue social change was to embody their vision of the future. They made their goal into their means as well: Since what they want is egalitarian davvening at the Wall (and all the other changes of which that is a symbol), they simply prayed in an egalitarian way at the Wall, taking risk seven of life without abandoning prudence, and thereby challenged Israeli and Jewish opinion to decide whether it will side with the violent attackers or the nonviolent egalitarians.

This is a highly effective form of social change. It worked for the civil rights movement in the United States, for the free-Soviet-Jewry movement. When a nonviolent protest is violently attacked, as was the minyan at the Wall, and especially when the police fail to stop such violence, there are liable to be three responses from those attacked: to back down, to go to war, or to proceed with more of the same, i.e., more nonviolence.

I have already read some assertions that the haredim are fighting a civil war, and that we should answer on like terms: curse for curse, excrement for excrement, flung chair for flung chair and, presumably at some point, gun for gun. But counter-violence clouds the issues and drives away those who might have become strong supporters.

Notice, for example, that the general response to the rebellion in Los Angeles after the Rodney King verdict was a combination of still more money for repressive police in the cities and a vague, ineffective urban- development effort. It is likely that if there had been tens of thousands of self- disciplined black and white demonstrators, sit-downs in the streets of Los Angeles, boycotts of carefully selected businesses etc., the response would have been far more supportive — as well as empowering a self-organized network of justice- seeking blacks & whites, which the chaotic riots did not produce.

Or try imagining the Soviet Jewry movement if it had taken violence as its major tactic. It would have been far easier for the Soviet government of that day to repress it, with far less objection in the West and far less of the mass organizing that ultimately succeeded in winning its objective.

Or, conversely, imagine that the Palestinian intifada had been carried on by utterly nonviolent means and the Palestinians had eschewed terrorism altogether. It seems likely that such a strategy and tactics would have brought about much more sympathy among Israelis and throughout the world. Not that the Israeli government would have easily "made nice" — but levels of fear and rage would probably have been much lower and willingness to take some risks much higher.

Ask yourself how you would have responded to such a campaign, compared to how you responded to what did happen: a combination of some nonviolence (e.g., tax strikes, labor strikes) — and some middle-level violence(stones, etc.) — and some high-level violence (terrorism).

What is the alternative to either backing down or making war? In 1965, when the original voting-rights march of blacks from Selma to Montgomery was brutally stopped, people all over America created hundreds of local mass demonstrations. Many came from far away to join the Selma march. That, incidentally, was the moment that created the famous photograph of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel marching alongside the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

The result was the passage of a new law, which guaranteed voting rights throughout the nation. The use of "future in the present" nonviolence brought about a change in governmental policy. Perhaps the liberal Jewish community throughout the world should now be thinking about a large-scale journey of egalitarian worshipers to the Wall for Tisha B'Av or Rosh Hashanah, or perhaps when large delegations of Diaspora Jews go to celebrate Israel's 50th anniversary in the spring of 1998. (But, of course, the Israeli Conservative and Reform folks need to decide themselves whether or not that would be helpful.)

Any such worshippers should be trained in both a nonviolent attitude and nonviolent tactics of self-defense: Esau remains our sibling.

Even more important, Israeli proponents of a renewed Judaism might continue in other spheres to enact the future in the present — by conducting their own weddings, their own conversion ceremonies, their own funerals, their own certification of kashrut, as well their own prayers at the Wall — and demanding full public affirmation of these life-rituals, with marches and vigils and boycotts to back up their demands.

For me, this kind of "future in the present" nonviolence is something far more basic than a tactic and considerably less than an absolute philosophy. There are occasions when the use of defensive violence is, I think, necessary. But I do not believe the confrontation with the haredim is yet that, and I believe that it need not become that.

Certainly there are hatreds and fears and basic differences in worldview that could lead to a civil war. It is not yet a civil war if we compare it to the real civil wars of past centuries as well as of this decade.

It took Jacob of the Torah more than twenty years, plus a night of wrestling with God, to learn that steadfastness and clarity in his own identity, not trickery or violence, could win him the blessings of prosperity and peace. We can benefit from his learning and wrestling. Our own "Jacob," our own milder, younger Judaism, blessed with the wisdom of our women as well as our men, can act in such a way as to win the blessing that will make us the future of Judaism — without using the power of the state or resorting to violence.

As for "Esau": We can say clearly that we will not permit him to attack, intimidate or dominate others, whether other Jews or the other children of our common forebear Abraham, and rather that we affirm the right of every community of Jews, however deeply we disagree with them, to live in peace. Then it will be for the "Esau" of our story to do what the Torah's Esau did: return in dignity and peace to his own community and life-path. Free of coercion, we will all see how the future of Judaism evolves.

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* Rabbi Waskow is director of The Shalom Center and author of Godwrestling — Round 2, along with many other books and essays. Copyright (c) 1998, 1999 by Arthur Waskow.