26
AcAdemic SympoSium:
French philosophy professor who gave
his 500 students a final exam. It was a
one word final exam. And the question
was “
Pourquoi?”
“
Why?” 498 students
gave very long answers and all failed.
The two who got it right gave two word
answers in French:
Pourquoi pas?
Why
not? And the other:
Parce que
.
Because.
Harris said that maybe in his parents’
generation if you asked the question
‘
Why be Jewish’ you could get away
with an answer like, “Because.” Go
take that to someone now, someone
who’s not engaged, someone who’s not
showing up at the congregation or in
the day school. “Why should I do this?
Why would I be Jewish?” “Because.”
It won’t work. Maybe it worked then.
I’m not even sure if it did, he said.
It won’t work now.
“
We are all Jews by choice. There is
nothing that is forcing any of us to
choose Jewish. And in this context
we need to be able to provide a
well-articulated rationale of why
people should make this choice.”
This is the argument.
The Pew Study comes along in 2013
in October. In November,
The Forward
has an article with the headline:
“
Answer This Question: Why Be
Jewish? Figuring Out What To Do
About Pew Means Going To the
Source of Identity.”
This question comes up again and
again and again. When I think of
demographic surveys, on the one
hand you could say that this is social
science, and there is supposed to be a
cumulative march of progress where
we’re building on the shoulders of
giants and our knowledge is advancing.
And that is true.
But at the same time we read these
demographic studies as Jewish texts.
This is a ritual reading. Every ten years
we get a Rosh Hashanah for statistics,
where we essentially reenact the story
of the spies. They go into Canaan
and they come back and they report,
mostly with trepidation. Some say
optimistically, “We can handle this.”
But there’s an enduring tension.
With these surveys we deal with the
same questions because we’re looking
to the future with hope, we’re looking
to the future with fear. Our new Jewish
texts, these demographic surveys, give
us the opportunity to deal with these
questions again and again. So we get
the new demographic survey and
again we must answer the question
why be Jewish to address the problem
of engagement.
There is a model that relates behavior
to action in this. It is a model that says
that ideas will lead to action.
From this perspective, the argument
goes, first, we need to be able to
understand what underlies why we do
what we do in order to protect ourselves,
because we all change, we’re on journeys.
If we are not clear to ourselves as to why
we are doing what we are doing, even
we may stop doing it.
Second, the notion that ideas are of
primary importance is very appealing.
Think about why. The Pew Study
provides some numbers: we are a
highly educated population where six
out of ten American Jews graduate
college with an undergraduate degree,
twice as many as the population at
large. Almost three out of ten Jews
have an advanced degree, three times
as many as the population at large.
Therefore, the notion that we can
approach this rationally – that we
can understand why we should be
Jewish, and make a compelling case
that will be logically convincing is
very appealing to these well-trained
scientific minds.
So, “ideas leading to action” is one
model and a popular one.
There is another model, for which I
want to turn to a text in the book of
Exodus: “And Moses came and told
the people all the words of Adonai
and the ordinances. And all the people
answered with one voice and said,
‘
Kol hadevarim asher diber adonay
na`aseh.
All the words which Adonai
has spoken we will do.’” Moses then
writes the words down. The Israelites
offer sacrifices and then the text goes
on, “And he, Moses, took the book of
the covenant and read in the hearing
of the people and they said, ‘
Kol asher
diber adonay na`aseh v’nishma.
’
All that
the Lord has spoken we will do, and we
will hear’” or “we will obey and we will
understand,’” variously translated.
Traditional interpretations of the text
proceed from the notion that this is
the divine word of God and because it
is divine, there’s no word out of place,
there’s no letter out of place. And every
word can be used to teach something.
So it’s a strange thing. You might think
here that when there is a law that is
being presented, the response might
be, “Okay, well, let’s hear what it is
and then we’ll do it.” But instead, it
is, “Okay, we’ll do it and then we’ll
hear what it is.” It seems to be reversed.
And the rabbis were attuned to this.
Because this is counterintuitive.
There’s a midrash that they tell:
Before God gave the Torah to the
Israelites, God went to the other
nations of the world to offer the Torah.
we are all Jews by choice. there
is nothing that is forcing any of
us to choose Jewish. And in this
context we need to be able
to provide a well-articulated
rationale of why people should
make this choice.