28
AcAdemic SympoSium:
“
Hamechadesh bituvo bchol yom tamid
maaseh breishit.
God who renews in
God’s goodness every day continually
the act of creation.”
This is a vision of God as creator,
where creation is not a one-time act.
Not created once and then done, no.
But rather, God at every moment
renewing the act of creation. And if
God stopped that work, it’s all gone.
At every instant the world is being
created. So with this traditional
conception we have an analogue in this
contemporary sociological conception
that we create the worlds that we live
in. Our actions create our worlds and
the actions that we engage in create
the worlds in particular ways. So when
we change the way that we act, the
meanings that we generate, the
nishma,
becomes different. Change the
na`aseh
,
the “we will do” and the
nishma
,
the
“
we will understand” becomes
a different understanding.
What’s the difference between a
Passover Haggadah and a Passover
seder? Is a Haggadah a seder? There
is a difference between a script and a
performance. The meaning that gets
generated at a seder is not just the
official meanings that are encoded in
the Haggadah. The meanings come
from each unique performance because
every time you get together it’s a new
moment. This is Heraclitus: you don’t
step in the same river twice.
So even if, for your seder, you go back
to the same place with the same people,
you are a year older, the context in
which you are doing it is different.
Think about the difference in the
meanings that emerge from a seder
when it’s the first seder that you’re
going to where the older generation
that had always run the seder is no longer
doing it and the torch has been passed.
Or it’s the first seder that you’re attending
where your kid is old enough to know
the four questions and is the one to ask
it. The meanings are different.
I think about different seders I’ve
experienced. The year that we were
spending in Israel away from the family
and we were with a friend whose family
came from Iraq, it was a Passover seder,
but it meant something different to
me. I think of the year that my cousin
brought his banjo to the seder and we
sang everything accompanied by that
instrument. Was it different? It was a
different way of doing things and it
meant something different.
So you have a script and the script can
be fixed, but every time you enact it,
you’re enacting it in a unique way, and
unique meanings get generated. That’s
on a small level. But this matters on
the big level, too.
It’s 1974 and imagine that you are
engaging the Jewish people, you’re
imaging yourself connected to other
Jews. The way that you’re imagining
this is because you are actually doing
something that creates in your mind a
sense of what that Jewish collective is.
You’re out on Solidarity Sunday and
you are marching on behalf of Soviet
Jews. You are out there and you’re
saying, “‘We are one’ and ‘I am my
brother’s keeper.’” You’re imagining
a Jewish people that’s united. And the
main act you are doing that imagines
the Jewish people in this unified way
is a public political act.
But now come back with me to Cape
Cod. The first time that Aaron and I
met, we were also imagining a Jewish
people, but we were doing it very
differently. In this context we were not
in public, we were sitting privately. We
were not proclaiming “We are one.”
We were talking across denominations,
we were encountering a lot of diversity,
and we were trying to work through
that diversity in these conversations.
The image of the Jewish people that
emerged was a very different image.
Both of these actions, marching in
public and sitting in private cross-
denominational conversations, imagine a
Jewish collective – but they imagine it
differently. The first imagines a unified
Jewish people by engaging people in
public political action. The second
imagines a diverse Jewish people by
engaging people in private
conversations to engage Jewish diversity.
Some have asked, what ever happened
to Jewish peoplehood? Well, what
happened to Jewish peoplehood is
that the way that we enact Jewish
peoplehood has changed. As we’ve
stopped doing one typical set of actions
and started doing another type of
actions, the way in which we think
about what it means to be a people
has changed. So what does this mean
as we think about Jewish engagement
and leading for Jewish engagement?
We don’t need to be in our heads
and we don’t need to rationally figure
out ‘Why be Jewish’ and then make
a case logically. A
na`aseh v’nishma
approach would say: create ways of
doing Jewish, whatever’s meaningful
to you – you don’t even have to know
why it’s meaningful to you. Whatever
is meaningful, create ways of doing and
invite people to join. Not everyone is
going to join. Not everyone is going to
join in every action. But in the course
of doing, meanings will emerge. The
meaning will come.
whatever is meaningful, create
ways of doing and invite people
to join. not everyone is going to
join. not everyone is going to join
in every action. But in the course
of doing, meanings will emerge.
the meaning will come.