Marriage Isn't Sacred

Holy Moly! The Supreme Court's smackdown of the so-called Defense of Marriage Act is so very sweet, because it reminds us that sometimes love wins the day. I support marriage equality because it is right, it is just, and it is overdue. 

I also support it because it is American. After all, marriage isn't sacred. 

Let me explain. As a rabbi, I officiate at many weddings and every one of them fills me with awe and delight. Each even gives me a profound sense of G-d's presence. 

So how can I say there is "nothing sacred about marriage"? Of course marriage can and should be sacred. My relationship with my wife is sacred. Sacred, meaning infused with holiness; the very word for marriage in Jewish life is kiddushin, or "a holy relationship." 

When I officiate at a wedding, I actually perform two weddings. One wedding is, to quote the Jewish liturgy, "according to the law of Moses and Israel." It uses the symbolism of centuries of Jewish life: wine, chuppah, ketubah, rings, a smashed glass. It celebrates the Jewish home that this couple will establish. It rejoices in the perpetuation of Jewish life from one generation to the next. And it marks the new family line and the new intimate domain that this couple will share with one another and with no one else (G-d willing). These things conform to my understanding of the sacred. 

However, there is also a second wedding that occurs simultaneously. Before witnesses sign the ketubah, we sign a document issued by the state. This civil marriage license is valid according to the law of the United States of America. And there isn't a thing that is sacred about it because our government shouldn't be in the business of sacredness. The sacred is the realm of religion and the First Amendment to our Constitution protects us from the establishment of official religions. The marriages that the Supreme Court is addressing and the only marriages that the government should be preoccupied with are the civil marriages that occur in the eyes of Uncle Sam, not the laws of (in my case) Moses and the people Israel. 

By "not sacred" I don't mean that civil marriage is not meaningful or profound; of course it is. But from the perspective of our government, marriage should be a relationship that is protected by laws and rights. People who have entered into this legal arrangement with one another are entitled to certain rights and privileges: inheritance, hospital visitation, joint tax returns, veterans' benefits, conflict of interest protections, and 1,133 other rights that heterosexual couples automatically receive when they are wed. None of those rights are inherently Christian. They are secular rights conveyed by our civil system. 

Our society has reached the tipping-point of acknowledging that same-sex marriages are equally entitled to these rights and privileges. All the arguments to the contrary inevitably resort to religious and biblical language but the Bible isn't the law of the land, something for which all Sabbath-violators and cheeseburger-eaters should be grateful. 

Furthermore, despite the hyperbole of the religious right, same-sex marriage is no slippery slope towards permitting every conceivable sort of union. The government retains the right to prohibit any relationship that is inherently abusive, such as incest or polygamy. But no longer can it deny the evidence that is, and has been, perfectly obvious for so long: that same-sex relationships are infused with the same potential for commitment, stability, and love that any straight relationship is capable of. 

That is why same-sex marriage in America is a matter of basic human rights. The astoundingly cynically-named "Defense of Marriage Act" was always a farce, and even its supporters knew it. The sacredness of my marriage was never in need of defending by denying someone else's right to marry. 

If you believe that homosexuality cannot convey sacredness, you have the right to your belief. So does your house of worship, and so does your pastor. America's blessed Bill of Rights will ensure that you never have to enter into a marriage you find morally objectionable, and your clergyperson will never be forced to officiate at such a union against his will. But on Wednesday the Supreme Court affirmed that your pursuit of sacredness does not trump mine or our neighbor's. 

Thank G-d! 

The Black Hole of Antisemitism

May 12, 2013
I hope it’s not too churlish to repost this piece from 2013. Stephen Hawking's contributions to our understanding of the universe entitle him, years from now, to be recalled in the pantheon of Copernicus, Galileo, and Einstein. Deservedly so. And A Brief History of Time continues to impact me as it did when I first read it. But brilliant minds can also be morally flawed, and his blind spot on Israel is a blemish on his public career.

Sad to see that Stephen Hawking has fallen into the black hole of anti-Semitism.

Apparently, Hawking is boycotting an academic conference in Tel Aviv as a vague political statement against the Israeli treatment of the Palestinians. How, exactly, his refusal to come to the Jewish state will improve the lot of the Palestinian people is hard to define. But Hawking, who more than any other physicist of the generation has helped refine Einstein's ideas about relativity, apparently cannot view the complexity of the tragic Israeli-Palestinian situation with any sense of relativity or subtlety. It is simple and narrow: It's all Israel's fault.

Today the Boston Globe chimed in in support of Hawking, in a soporific editorial celebrating his boycott as some sort of victory for non-violent freedom of speech. Well, sure: Hawking and anyone else have the right to refuse any invitation anywhere. But every action has a reaction: a basic principle of physics.

First, Hawking's decision to make a science colloquium a political event is disgraceful, because as he surely knows, this one of the primary loci where modern anti-Semitism is playing itself out, especially in Europe. Israeli scholars in many scientific fields including Nobel laureates are often shunned and banned from scientific forums because of their nationality.

But more importantly, Hawking is on the wrong side. Everyone knows that the world's greatest physicist is even more remarkable because of his devastating disabilities from ALS. It might be self-serving, but where exactly does he think the cure for ALS is going to come from? Gaza? Tehran?

How about this: A January 2013 article from the MDA/ALS Newsmagazine that reports an exciting stem cell therapy for ALS treatment is being accelerated by an Israeli biotech company. It was first pioneered at Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem, as reported in this article, "Israeli Clinical Study Offers Hope to ALS Patients."

The high-tech miracle that is unfolding in Israel right now includes some of the world's most cutting-edge medical innovations—the sort of scientific discoveries that improve the lives of billions of people, everywhere in the world. Israel's hospitals are noted for treating everybody Jew and Arab alike with some of the most sophisticated medical programs anywhere. Peruse this list of 64 astounding innovations and see the breathtaking research that is coming out of Israeli labs every day:

·      The discovery of a gene responsible for liver disease;
·      Incredible strides towards understanding Parkinson’s Disease;
·      A "robotic exoskeleton" that is literally transitioning people from wheelchairs to         walking, as seen on the TV show Glee!

...to name three revelations at random.

Isn’t it ironic that an intellectual icon like Stephen Hawking would promote a world where these programs are diminished and curtailed, in the name of a superficial and bigoted understanding of a complex political problem? Naïve to say it, I know, but science should be a realm where politics falls by the wayside and the true betterment of all humankind is the prime directive.

Advocates for a two-state SOLUTION to the Israeli-Palestinian dilemma should know better than to stigmatize one side or the other. There are those of good faith out there who genuinely seek to build bridges, promote human rights for all, and to bring real and enduring peace to all the children of the region. These are the people who should be celebrated and promoted and encouraged.

But they’ll have to do their work without the bigoted opinions of the author of A Brief History of Time and certainly without the schmucks on the Globe editorial page.

Death of a Beastie Boy

I was saddened to hear about the death, just before Shabbat, of MCA (Adam Yauch) from the Beastie Boys, because I've always liked their music (there's a band who matured and deepened dramatically over the years) and because MCA always seemed like a righteous guy. 

But his death also prompts a few thoughts about identity. I remember a few years ago there was a news item in the Jerusalem Report about the Beastie Boys' visit to Israel, and how bemused and startled they were when they realized that they had become role models to a generation of Jewish youth. 

They were the real deal, but it makes me think about how in every generation young Jews especially Jewish boys look to other cultures for roots and for escape. We look especially, it seems, towards African-American culture. 

The Beastie Boys were Jewish pioneers in an African-American milieu (hip-hop). That itself is part of a grand history of partnerships between blacks and Jews in American music in blues, R & B, jazz, and funk before the preeminence of rap. And the Beastie Boys stood out because they weren't poseurs; their music was the real deal: complex, exploratory, creative, humorous, righteous, and fun. 

Which is not to say that there should be ghettos of "Jewish music" or that the Beastie Boys didn't have a clear sense of exactly what they were doing. They always seemed to be aware that their work was absolutely authentic and mildly ridiculous at the same time, which is an appealing combination. But all those 80s and 90s Jewish kids in their baggy pants and urban patois didn't generally seem to have the same sense of self-awareness as MCA, Mike D, and Ad-Rock. I got a sense that urban culture for those kids was an escape from the middle- and upper-middle class conformist identities that they had inherited, including a rather tepid form of Judaism. The Beastie Boys became role models because they were recognizably not from the street, but from those similar sorts of Jewish homes; they were cool and undeniably Jewish at the same time. 

If you're like me, you blanch when you have to fill out a biographical form and under "race/ethnic background" your choices are: white/black/Latino/Asian/Aleutian Islander... and you don't know what to check off. Knowing the history of anti-Jewish prejudice, as well as the desire to be something different like all those hip-hop kids, makes it really hard to check off "white." When I'm feeling particularly ornery, I sometimes write in "Jewish" when asked to list my "race." Since when did Jews become "white folks", with all those connotations of bourgeois conformity? (I borrowed the phrase from a study of Jews in America by Karen Brodkin called How Jews Became White Folks and What That Says About Race in America.) 

I happen to think that authentic Judaism is radical, provocative, intellectually rigorous, and potentially dangerous; a far cry from everything that is connoted by the lame term "white." But those of us in Jewish education are still fighting a battle against the mid-century conformist mindset that the Coen Brothers skewered so knowingly in A Serious Man. 

As far as I know, the Beastie Boys never tapped into those Jewish sources to inform their art. Still, there was something very recognizable in their attitude and their music to young Jewish boys, and their desire for something a little... cooler than what they've been handed. The next step, for ourselves and the next generation, is to rediscover that coolness that remains inherent in Judaism. 

Disability

The angel wrenched Jacob’s hip at its socket… The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping on his hip… Jacob arrived  שָׁלֵם [whole] at the city of Shechem (Genesis 32:26, 32; 33:18).

All of us are damaged in some way; it’s a fundamental part of being human. Also human is the way in which we confront our brokenness; the gracefulness with which accept our imperfections.

My personal disability is rather awkward because it plays itself out so publicly in my life – in the classroom, in meetings (in Buber’s sense of the word), in our sanctuary, and even across a hospital bed. I started losing my hearing a few years ago, at exactly the same age when my father began to lose his. It began to impact my effectiveness in my work. I would get frustrated, angry at myself. I even had a moment of “bottoming out”, to use the language of addiction and recovery, when I sat in the front row for a lecture of which I heard practically nothing. It rocked me deeply.

For a short while I felt sorry for myself. Then I started visiting audiologists and figuring out how I was going to move forward with my problem. Hearing aids have made a difference, although to my chagrin and frustration they have remained “aids” and have never given me 100% of the hearing I’ve desired. This was particularly frustrating, because of all our cherished senses, hearing is especially precious to me. You who know me know that for me listening to music is one of life’s deepest pleasures. The diminishment of that pleasure is a serious heartbreak. 

All of us have fears that awaken us in the middle of the night, when the day’s distractions have dissolved away. Lately mine is the prospect of what my hearing loss will be like when I’m 50, or 60, or beyond. Will I move from “hearing-impaired” to full-fledged deafness? Will I be able to function at my job? Those are real fears I carry in my soul, to some degree of anguish.

But these days those fears don’t slow me down. Quite to the contrary. I’ve become more and more comfortable with saying to students in my classroom, “This is what I’m working to overcome. This is my disability. What’s yours?”

In fact, I find an enormous amount of strength coming forth from our tradition. Personal prayer has become far more intense since I’ve come to grips with my disability. The morning prayers, for instance, contain a remarkable passage that reflects on the body’s delicateness: “You have made the human body filled with tiny holes and orifices… If one of them were opened when it should be closed, or closed when it should be opened, we wouldn’t be able to stand before You for even a moment.” When I reflect that my hearing loss stems from the ossification of the miniscule bones in the inner ear, I share the wonder of the siddur’s poet. It’s a daily miracle how much works so well!

In the Torah, many of our ancestors carried some sort of brokenness. Isaac was blind; so too, perhaps, was Leah. Jacob’s leg was wrenched in his wrestling with the angel; perhaps he limped for the rest of his life. Most famously, Moses stood before G-d at the burning bush and said, in essence, “Why would you choose me to speak before Pharaoh?  After all, my lips…” The Torah is enigmatic about Moses’s shortcoming: Did he stutter?  Did he have a disabled palate? Or was he merely terrified of public speaking? It matters—but not as much as G-d’s response to him, which is, in essence, “I don’t make mistakes. I’ve called you to do a job, to speak truth to the power that is Pharaoh. And if you trust Me, then when the time comes we’ll find the words, together.”

I have no delusions (trust me) of being a Jacob or Moses or Isaac or Leah. But I study their life-stories and try to learn their lessons. Isaac found the words to bless his children. Leah went on to find love and, if you believe the midrash, she also found her sister. Jacob, even with his limp, is still called shalem, “whole” – a poignant reminder that these finite bodies are mere containers for the infinity in our souls. And Moses, G-d’s servant and partner, spoke through damaged lips the words, “Let my people go.” He even found the strength and confidence to lead a people through the wilderness.

I imagine that each of them felt sorry for themselves when they first confronted their disabilities.  Maybe their family and friends supported them in their struggles (maybe they didn’t). But eventually, each of them found a way back to Life; to saying: This is Who I Am. No longer will it hold me back, but I’ll offer myself, anew, in all my brokenness, to do what I was designed to do all along. In faith and tradition and the love of others, I will find my strength.

This is my brokenness. What’s yours?