Parashat Yitro: Nostalgia, Memory and
the Building of Judaism
(delivered by Rabbi Sacks on January 21, 2021)
I am not sure how many of you are familiar with Manhattan. For some 13-14 years, I lived in Manhattan and right next door to it, in Jersey City, New Jersey, just across the Holland Tunnel. Tonight I think of one particular building in Manhattan.
As is often the case with buildings in Lower Manhattan, 211 Pearl Street was caught in the sights of a developer seeking to level the property and replace it with a grand modern building. Its tale was told in an article in a periodical which all New Yorker’s know well, called The New Yorker.[1] The article covered the struggle between the developer and one man seeking to protect the address by having it declared a historic landmark. When 211 Pearl Street stood, the building was one of the oldest addresses in Manhattan, a revolving storefront for all manner of goods that flowed through New York harbor for the better part of two centuries. There was ample cause to celebrate the building and protect it. However, as the article concludes,
Nostalgia is a fool’s game in New York.
Every building here stands on the bones of others, often more beautiful.
Every generation erases a little collective memory,
convinced that it has something better with which to replace it.
Had the cycle stopped…no skyscraper would be standing now.
The friction is obvious. Nostalgia has a tendency to impede modernization, but as the article suggests, with modernization, “sometimes we lose more than we gain.”
In Judaism, this same struggle exists. How can we make Judaism relevant when our Tradition is always spelled with a capital T? But what use do we have for a religious system that hearkens back to the shtetl? Well, is there a place for the shtetl, or do we level its buildings and erect a Judaism that has the potential to serve a modern Jewish people?
Some time ago, I received an email requesting the source of a Hasidic story about a community that looks to the rituals of its ancestors for guidance. It is nothing short of a powerful lobby for our landmark status. The story, as it is frequently told, begins with the Baal Shem Tov,[2] who, when his community was faced with a period of tragedy, would go to a particular place in the forest, lit a fire in a particular way, and recited a particular prayer. This inspired him, and he returned to town with a solution to bring his community through the challenging time.
The Baal Shem Tov’s successor, the Maggid of Mezerich,[3] faced tragedy with the same formula; however, while he knew the particular place in the forest, and the particular prayer, the particulars of the fire ritual were lost. Still, he was inspired, and he returned with a solution.
As the story goes, over the next two generations both the particular place in the forest and the particular prayer were lost, yet simply retelling the story about these occurrences continued to be enough to bring the community through their times of tragedy.
The story is moving, but, I have to admit, it has never struck a proper chord with me. While the nod to the inherent power of Tradition is surely relevant, it leaves us sitting in the dim light emanating from the fire of religious passion that burned generations ago. If we no longer have the ritual, and we no longer have the prayer, and we no longer have the place, and we no longer know the fire ritual, do we really believe that telling the bare outline of that story will, in and of itself, inspire us to solutions for the problems we Jews face in our day? We must admit that the answer can only be, “No.”
A religion that places a premium on a past it cannot fully recall without valuing the sociocultural and psychospiritual landscapes in which Jews today live, has no hope of relevance. Rabbi Art Green, himself a Neo-Hasidic theologian and scholar of Jewish mysticism, has stated, “There is no more urgent task for Judaism today than the creation of a religious language that will speak both profoundly and honestly to Jews in our time.”[4]
But what recourse do we have? Do we abandon our Tradition and build grand new religious structures that speak to us in our particular ways? It is precisely then that we may “lose more than we gain.” Do we believe that we can only sit at the fires of our ancestors, reciting their prayers, or can we claim Judaism as our own?
When we distill the tension, we confront a question of legitimacy. What justification do we have to change Tradition? How can we be certain that what we propose is within the pale? Yet, does anyone think we should allow Judaism to languish and evanesce?
This week, as we read of the theophany, the manifestation of G!d, on Mount Sinai and imagine the fledgling children of Israel standing at the foot of the mountain, we see this struggle. After the Decalogue, there is a heartbreaking scene with Moses and the people:
All the people witnessed the thunder and lightning, the blare of the horn and the
mountain smoking; and when the people saw it, they fell back and stood at a
distance. “You speak to us,” they said to Moses, “and we will obey; but let not
G!d speak to us, lest we die.” Moses answered the people, “Be not afraid for G!d
has come only in order to test you, and in order that awe of G!d may be ever with
you, so that you do not go astray.” So the people remained at a distance, while
Moses approached the thick cloud where G!d was.[5]
At this moment of Divine immanence, of G!d not being a Being in another world, but one located within the very one in which we live and breathe, Moses recognizes it is time for the people to engage in a religious dialogue, but the people are not willing to step forward. They struggle with their own legitimacy even at this early stage. Only Moses takes the next step toward the presence of G!d after the revelatory moment. Whatever the people’s wonder, they are paralyzed and cannot step forward and add their voices. To them, only Moses knows the particular place, the particular fire, and the particular prayer. Biblical scholar Nahum Sarna comments:[6]
The encounter with the Holy universally inspires fascination; inevitably and
characteristically it also arouses feelings of awe, even terror…The unique,
transcendent, supernal holiness of the Divine Presence is felt to be beyond
human endurance.
The tension is real, and we recognize the enormity of the charge. We seek to make Judaism relevant but, like the children of Israel at the foot of Mount Sinai, we are hesitant to believe that our voices have weight.
Returning to Rabbi Green, he advises that our Judaism “will have to be deeply rooted in the sources of Judaism in order to speak with a profound voice.” In his solution, we must turn to our Tradition when seeking to re-create and innovate. It is the strength of that Tradition with a capital T that empowers us in the places we experience holiness, to build our own fires and offer our own prayers, rooted in those of our ancestors.
We return to where we started. The building at 211 Pearl Street no longer stands. However, its facade remains to root the neighborhood in its essential history. That facade reminds all of us of the common struggles and triumphs that got southern Manhattan to where it is today. But today its interior has been renovated so that it can function to serve real people with real needs living there today.
Every generation erases a little collective memory,
convinced that it has something better with which to replace it.
[But] had the cycle stopped…no skyscraper would be standing now.
Our challenge is to capitalize on our collective memory and the foundations of our ancestors to forge a Judaism that, while built upon the efforts of others, functions to serve the needs of the Jewish community today and which is profoundly relevant to us.
May the facade of the edifice we work to create reflect the beauty of the tradition within, and may the traditions we maintain and create, reflect the relevance of the Judaism we live, and the glow of the soulfulness we have gained.
Shabbat shalom!
[1] Burkhard Bilger, “Mystery on Pearl Street,” December 30, 2007. Published in The New Yorker, January 7, 2008 issue.
[2] The Baal Shem Tov (1698-1760, also known as the Besht) was the name given to Rabbi Israel ben Eliezer, a mystic and healer from Poland widely regarded as the founder of Hasidic Judaism.
[3] Name given to Rabbi Dov Ber ben Avraham (1704-1772), a disciple of the Besht and picked by him as his successor. He was the first systematic promoter of the mystical philosophy underlying the Besht’s efforts.
[4] “Rethinking Theology: Language, Experience, and Reality,” Spirit in Practice, September 1988..
[5] Exodus 20:15-18.
[6] Genesis, Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1989, p. 115.