Living on the borders: Sermon

by Rabbi Elli Tikvah-Sarah

At this time last Shabbat I was participating in the biennial conference of Liberal Judaism, which was held at the Cheltenham Park Hotel, on the outskirts of Cheltenham. A gathering of over 200 Liberal Jews and a handful of guests, we had already completed our Shabbat morning service, taken a break for tea and coffee, and were nearing the end of a panel discussion, at which Nigel Varndell, the Interfaith Manager of Christian Aid was quizzed about that organisation’s policies on Israel, and relationship with the Jewish community. By the time we paused for lunch at 1.15pm, I, and several other session leaders, had also run eight parallel 75 minute workshops – mine was an exploration of the double Torah portion of the week, Acharey Mot-K’doshim, with a view to developing a Liberal Jewish Sexual Ethic. So, if you think I attend our movement’s conference every two years to have a rest and take it easy, think again! Indeed, a good time was had by all – including me – but alongside the shared meals, refreshment breaks, and convivial conversations, including a two hour pause after lunch, conference Shabbat wasn’t exactly restful! An atmosphere of intense study and discussion continued with ten more parallel workshops in the late afternoon – and then after a reception, dinner, after-dinner speaker, Havdalah and three late night study & discussion options, the socialising went on and on. I eventually got to bed at 3.30am. And that was just the Saturday programme!

The theme of the conference was ‘Judaism Without Borders’. And the amazing array of topics explored, which continued with seven more parallel workshops on Sunday morning, and another eight on Sunday afternoon – not to mention a choice of six different religious service options to start the day off – made it clear that Liberal Judaism ranges far and wide across a vast landscape of Jewish thought and practice. Refusing to be confined within the strict borders that orthodox forms of Judaism impose, Liberal Judaism engages with the challenges and opportunities connected with developing Jewish life in the 21st century. And it is not just that Liberal Judaism is prepared to go where others feel they dare not tread. In exploring beyond the confines of previously accepted ideas and practices about how to lead a Jewish life, Liberal Judaism has not only breached the borders laid down by previous generations, but as a result, we are including and embracing the exiles who have been living on the other side of them: Those whose only Jewish parent is their father; Jews living in partnerships with non-Jews, Jewish lesbian and gay individuals and couples – to identify just three groups of people that have been most excluded – and continue to be most excluded – by those policing and patrolling the borders of Jewish life.

Liberal Judaism is Judaism without borders – but that’s not completely accurate – although the image is rather enticing. More precisely, in a wider world still preoccupied with creating and defending geographical borders, and with the Jewish mainstream still obsessed with maintaining a ‘fence around the Torah’, Liberal Judaism is that branch of Jewish life that is prepared to venture away from the comfortable centre-ground of Jewish communal existence and live on the outer edge – on the borders of mainstream Jewish life; and on the borders between the Jewish and non-Jewish worlds. From its inception Liberal Judaism responded to Emancipation and the dismantling of the medieval ghettos in which each Jewish community lived completely apart from the host society that surrounded them, by welcoming the opportunity to engage fully in the wider society, and participating in the development of modern life. In this way, each Liberal Jew encompassed a complex identity, in which the legacy of the past met – and sometimes collided with – the new discoveries of the present. Two centuries later, each one of us continues to live with that complexity. On Shabbat afternoon at conference, I led what I called an ‘experiential session’, in which participants explored what it felt like to live on the borders, and then reflected on what they felt were the opportunities and the challenges associated with a border-land existence. For everyone present, the opportunities far out-weighed the challenges – opportunities to gain new perspectives and experiences, to learn and grow.

Living on the borders gives those who take up residence, above all, the opportunity to encounter other people who come from other lands. But for a meeting to take place, those other people also need to journey to the border-land. One of the guests at the conference was Imam Shahid Hussain, who is Head of the Interfaith Department and Interfaith Advisor to the Director General at the combined Islamic Cultural Centre and London Central Mosque. I met Imam Hussain in February 2005, when he travelled with the Rabbis for Human Rights Mission led by Rabbi Danny Rich to Israel and the Palestinian Territories. Imam Hussain studied in one of those Midrasas in Pakistan, we’ve been hearing about in the news recently, where devout Muslim students – including those like the Imam, who was born in this country – go to receive an orthodox Islamic education. But Imam Hussain, although he is an observant Muslim, has ventured beyond the traditional confines of his faith community. A chance meeting with Rabbi Rich a few years ago has now blossomed into a deep friendship – a friendship that has involved Imam Hussain taking a journey from the centre of his community to the border-land, where he has begun to meet the other inhabitants, who reside there – including, in the main, Liberal Jews. I have invited him to this year’s Aubrey Milstein Community lecture on July 16th, which will be given by Imam Abduljalil Sajid, a leader of interfaith work in the Muslim world – and another inhabitant of the border-land – who is Chairman of the Muslim Council for Religious and Racial Harmony UK.

The border-land is a terrain where we don’t just meet other people from other communities we are also transformed by the encounter – which means that the ideas, attitudes and assumptions we hold about others, and also about ourselves, are bound to change as we interact with those who do not share our particular mind-set and bundle of experiences. One of the reasons for the development of Orthodox Judaism in response to Emancipation was precisely to ensure that as the ghetto walls came down, the ‘fence around the Torah’ was at hand to set up in their place. Those who resisted Modernity feared that Jewish life would disintegrate if Jews were free to venture outside into the wider world.

There is no doubt that some ventured out – never to return. But in reality most of the Jews who abandoned Judaism in the wake of Emancipation did so because the new freedom to roam was not actually quite so free: In post-Emancipation Western Europe, the pressure on Jews to let go of what their fellow Christian citizens saw as their stubborn allegiance to a religion that had long ago been superseded by a superior faith was very great. Not to mention the fact, that full equality of citizenship took more than a century to achieve. But while some Jews stopped being Jews, the great majority didn’t – and rather than Liberal Judaism hastening the process of assimilation, the development of a form of Jewish life that embraced Modernity, actually enabled adventurous and journeying Jews to remain Jews – and that is what Liberal Judaism continues to do to this day.

That doesn’t mean the challenges of living on the borders aren’t very real. Many Jews do get lost as they encounter so much choice and opportunity. And yet, it is in these circumstances that Liberal Judaism has an even more significant role to play: welcoming Jews who have journeyed elsewhere to participate in active Jewish life. I can’t tell you how many lost Jews I’ve met with, who found their way to our shul door, after long journeys that have included not only trying other religious paths, but knocking on the doors of other synagogues. What makes them come to us – and stay – is the fact that they don’t have to give up what they’ve learned on their travels or accept a form of Jewish life that excludes their experience. More important, they don’t have to stop journeying or leave the border-land behind, because that’s where we are, too. Indeed, they discover, quite simply, that they can continue to be their Jewish selves in the company of others, who, just like them, are engaged in working out what it means to live as Jews on the borders between Jewish and non-Jewish existence.

But there is nothing new about living on the borders: Long before we were Y’hudim, Jews, the descendants of the Kingdom of Y’hudah – Judah – we were known by other ancient Near Eastern peoples whom we encountered as Hebrews, Ivrim. The root letters of Ivrim – Ivri in the singular – are Ayin Beit Reish – meaning to cross over – as in crossing over a border. Throughout our long history, we have been forever crossing borders – perhaps that is why we are so adept at living in a border-land: It is part of our identity as a people. And that’s why the biennial conference was so vital – because it reminded those who participated, that while other Jewish denominations may be busy delineating their particular patch and guarding their turf, Liberal Judaism is about how we live a Jewish life on the cusp – that is the key challenge and opportunity.

On the Sunday afternoon of the conference, I led a workshop on Compelling Commitments – the new approach to Liberal Judaism that I began to develop just after we celebrated the centenary of our movement. As Liberal Jews making choices all the time about how we are going to live, and what we are going to do, the border-land between the Jewish and non-Jewish worlds is the place where we can best express, not simply our choice, but our commitment to live a Jewish life that embraces our concern for the whole of creation and includes interacting with other peoples, cultures and traditions. But that’s not all: It is only by meeting on the borders that the inhabitants of the Earth have any chance of finding ways of living together and repairing the world that is our shared inheritance. May each and every one of us do what we can to make such a meeting a real possibility. And let us say: Amen.

Rabbi Elizabeth Tikvah Sarah,
Brighton & Hove Progressive Synagogue – Adat Shalom Verei’ut
13th May 2006 – 15th Iyyar 5766