Hey! You Jew?! These days it’s both a question and an accusation that reverberates around our community since October 7th. It’s an unsettling question because it’s been forced upon us by a world that we used to take for granted. One in which we knew how to operate, had no fears, at least none concerning being Jewish. In fact, Jewish was just something you were, you didn’t need to think about it; but that nasty world won’t have it. They’re pushing it down our throats whether we like it or not and forcing us to deal with it.
So, Hey! You a Jew?
If you’ve been struggling with this, welcome to the club. We’re the People that struggle with G-d and man to find meaning in life, and, in the process, find meaning in our own lives. So, what does it mean to be Jewish?
First, its Family, as in we really are one big extended family. We trace our ancestry back over 4,000 years, and the document that attests to this (the “Old Testament”) is accepted by Christianity and Islam as well as Judaism. Being family has consequences. It means love you or hate you, you are family, and in my family, there is only “love you,” so let’s get with the program! In this Jewish family, we feel a sense of responsibility for each other. A common experience amongst the hostages in Gaza was an overwhelming need to connect with each other and being Jewish, for where else could they find meaning in their terrible experience.
Second, and most important, we believe in a transcendent G-d who is personal, present and has expectations. When we pray we pray to Avinu Shebashamayim, our Father in Heaven. That’s heavy! I remember landing in Vietnam. We were all “green” troops, scared to death and frightened about being alone in Hell without a handbook. I wasn’t religious at the time, but I took a marker and made a big Jewish star on my helmet and said perhaps my first prayer, “I don’t know if Any One is up there, but if You are, keep Your eye on this one.” If only I had known, really known, that my Father in Heaven was rooting for me, I would have had something to hang on to. It’s a confusing world, full of dangers and contradictions. Boy do we need Someone to hang on to, something to believe in.
So you tell me you’re not a believer. So what! You don’t need to believe for there to be a G-d in Heaven. One who, despite your skepticism, believes in you.
Third, this G-d has expectations. A very Jewish G-d. The Jewish People received a document dictated by G-d. I know it sounds wild, ridiculous and fantastical, yet this document, the Torah, written down by Moses, in front of the assembled Jewish People at the foot of Mt. Sinai, has been our heritage and gift as a Jewish People. We remember it, recount the story every Passover and we teach it to our children. It is written into our souls and our collective DNA.
This document, a love letter written by a very caring “Avinu Shebashamayim,” sets out a path to take in life that will give us fulfillment, a mission and boundaries to keep us safe. Imagine, someone came up with an “Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth” that really works, it became a best-seller, as in best-seller of all time, literally the first book ever printed, yet most of the Jewish People, the most literate people on the planet, have never read it cover to cover. Many (myself in the old days) only know the Bible through the Christian, King James version. The People of the Book read every other book but that one. Who could invent such a preposterous tale.
This Jewish question is not being considered in a vacuum. As they say, “Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you.” It seems a good part of the world hates Jews. For sure they hate Jews who are winners, successful and, in any way, shape or form, in control. More than that, they hate us because we are the world’s conscience. We live out our lives following ancient truths, not the “truths” of these little people with their puffed-up vanities, mouthing slogans. We are the bearers of an Eternal plan. We sing of it with the rising and the setting of the sun. We teach it to our children and do our best to live it in our daily lives. For this they hate us and seek to destroy what they neither understand nor accept, for to accept brings responsibility, guilt, conscience and consequences.
Don’t confuse this with what most, including the Jews, call Anti-Semitism. This is something much more fundamental, a fight over who is in control. Ever since they built the Tower of Babel, man has fought against G-d. They hate the idea of anything/any one having a say in what they do. We Jews represent the other side, for we accept, revere and pledge our allegiance twice daily. Because of this, an individual, Avraham along with his family, were chosen by G-d to be His messengers to a sometimes unwilling world.
So, what does it mean for each of us. It means we have choices. We can try blending in, but there are consequences. I remember one of my best nurses came to me with a look of deep concern on her face. “Mr. Rosedale, I don’t know what to do?” I said, tell me what happened. She said that her mother was dying, she was at her bedside and her aunt said to her mother, “You have to tell her!” My mother told me we were Jewish. She said, “When I married your father he made me promise not to tell our children that I was Jewish.” She asked me what she should do. I could see the Jewish spark inside fighting to be recognized, but what could I say. She was raised a good Catholic, as were her children. It was too late for her. It was so sad.
The other option is learning about what it means to be Jewish and using that knowledge to strengthen your belief, that feeling of connectivity and actual connection to the extraordinary miracle that is the Jewish People. I grew up in the Sixties. It was a time of war, of revolution, of anti-war movements, rock n’roll, Woodstock, of genuine new voices crying to be heard, a cry against a world whose solutions, were final, violent and uncaring. Today’s protesters are something different. They’re organized by foreign powers; their story of victimization leaves out the fact that their suffering is of their own doing. They have no songs of hope that reach into our souls, searching for peace. Just tired slogans, whose only goal is our destruction.
It’s a time of choices. For those who choose to listen to that quiet whisper, that urging of your Jewish soul, it can be a time of new beginnings, of discovery. And for those few, those special people who have the courage to open your hearts, it can be life changing.
So, Hey Jew! Whatcha gonna do?
