Sharing a Tent with Sinners and Outcasts: Jewish Peoplehood in 2024
Kol Nidre 5785 – 2024
A story: January, 2003. Place: The Western Wall in Jerusalem. Time: Erev Shabbat. I was in Israel studying on the Reform movement’s premier high school in Israel program, then known as the Eisendrath International Exchange (and yes, you can do the math on that later). It was our group’s first Shabbat in Israel, and we were spending it in Jerusalem. We welcomed Shabbat with a kabbalat Shabbat service outside the Old City, and then walked to the Kotel to participate in the unique experience that is the Western Wall as the sun sets on Friday. If you’ve been, you know that the plaza in front of the Kotel is divided with a mechitza, a tall divider between the men’s section and the (much smaller) women’s section. I approached the women’s section, where I skimmed one of the many bookshelves, crammed with prayerbooks of all types and languages. “But where is mine?” I asked, looking unsuccessfully for something that looked
remotely familiar, and not seeing anything that approximated the Reform prayerbooks I was used to from home. An older woman thrust a prayerbook at me, saying in heavily accented English, “Here! This is for you!”
The prayerbook she handed me was the ArtScroll Siddur, an Orthodox prayerbook with English translation, known for its commentaries and side notes to encourage traditional halachic practice. This was not my prayerbook. Her Judaism didn’t look like my Judaism – and mine didn’t look anything like hers. Could we possibly be part of the same tribe, the same people, the same faith?
And yet – we are. We are all part of Am Yisrael, the people of Israel, that glorious, multihued multitude. Our Jewish tent somehow includes Jews of all stripes, even some Jews who we maybe wish we didn’t have to share a tent with: Reform, Conservative, Reconstructionist, Orthodox, ultra-Orthodox, post-denominational, Renewal Jews. Diaspora Jews and Israeli Jews. Jews who welcome those who marry people from other backgrounds, and Jews who don’t. Jews who agree with us on Israel…and Jews who don’t agree with us on Israel. This tent is messy, this tent is LOUD, this tent is full of faces familiar and not, voices singing niggunim, melodies, that call to something buried deep within our souls. Since Rosh Hashanah, I’ve been speaking about the multitude of reasons that we are called to lean into our Judaism, especially post-October 7. Why be Jewish? Why are we here tonight? For some of us, knowing that we are part of this big messy multitude called Am Yisrael, the Jewish people, being part of something bigger than ourselves – this is why we are here.
Even if we feel comfortable in this messy, cacophonous tent, there’s probably someone in it who we think doesn’t belong here. Those Jews who don’t recognize the full humanity of LGBTQ+ Jews. Those Jews who use Judaism to inspire violence against Palestinians. Those Jews who seem to have left the tent themselves, by abandoning their connection to Am Yisrael and rejecting Zionism.
In the Torah, who belongs in this tent seems more straightforward. Tomorrow morning, we’ll read these words from Deuteronomy:
Atem nitzavim hayom kulchem lifnei Adonai Eloheichem.
You stand this day, all of you, in the presence of Adonai your God – your tribal heads, elders, and officials; every man, woman, and child of Israel; and the stranger in the midst of your camp; from the one who cuts your wood to the one who draws your water – to enter into the covenant of Adonai your God, and the oath that Adonai your God makes with you this day, to establish you as God’s people and to be your God, as promised to you and sworn to your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And not with you alone do I make this covenant and this oath, but with each one who stands here among us this day in the presence of Adonai our God, and with each one who is not here among us this day.[1]
Everyone is part of the covenant – including strangers, those who do the grunt work of the community, and those who aren’t even there that day (which commentators understand to mean those Jews who haven’t yet been born – us! We’re included in this ancient covenant, too!) This biblical covenant in Deuteronomy is rooted in an even older covenant from Genesis, the covenant God made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
Jewish thinker Rabbi Donniel Hartman, in the book Who Are the Jews – and Who Can We Become?, an exploration of Jewish peoplehood today, offers two stories of Jewish peoplehood: Genesis Judaism and Exodus Judaism.
Genesis Judaism is rooted in the family story found in the first chapters of the Torah, full of promises made by God to our Genesis ancestors. For Genesis Jews, “Jewish identity [has] little to do with…doing. Being Jewish [is] just who you [are].”[2] The Judaism of Genesis is a birthright, available to all descendants of Abraham – just by being a descendant of Abraham. Hartman offers one caveat to the “mode of being and not doing” called for in the Genesis covenant: the act of circumcision, first commanded to Abraham and his sons.[3] Circumcision, in Hebrew, brit milah, literally, the sign of the covenant, “means that while one inherits one’s status as a Genesis Jew, Genesis still demands that one actively embrace this status. It defines one’s Jewishness only to the extent that one actively chooses to be a Jew.”[4] In some ways, we are all Jews-by-choice – every time we actively choose to identify as a Jew, as part of the Jewish people, to step into that tent – we are activating that Genesis covenant. For the Judaism of Genesis, there is no such thing as a “bad Jew.” “Jewish identity, once acquired, requires no further validation – not even in abiding by the word of God,” Hartman explains.[5] Jewish identity and belonging is unconditional – regardless of synagogue membership, dollars given to tzedakah, who you marry, how many mitzvot you do.
However, the unconditional nature of Genesis Judaism is two-sided. Not only are we unconditionally connected to God, but we are unconditionally part of the Jewish family – all of the Jewish family. God is stuck with us – and we are stuck with each other. Genesis Judaism “demands, fundamentally, an unconditional loyalty to one’s fellow Jews.”[6] One of my favourite texts to study on Yom Kippur, Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah: Laws of Repentance, makes it clear what this actually means, and what the stakes are:
One who separates from the ways of the community, even though she has not committed any sins, but remain separated from the community of Israel, not observing commandments together with them, not including themselves in Israel’s troubles, not mourning on Israel’s days of mourning, but follows their own path as if they were one of the nations of the world, and not a part of Israel, such a person has no share in the World to Come.[7]
It doesn’t matter if this person has otherwise been an absolutely exemplary observant Jew and good human being. If they do not see themselves as part of the Jewish community, part of the Genesis Covenant, they have no share in its destiny. They have left the tent.
Not including themselves in Israel’s troubles. Not mourning on Israel’s days of mourning. Genesis Judaism reminds us that we are one family. No matter how different our Jewish practices might seem to be, or how much we disagree on, we share the same tsuris, the same pain, the same mourning. For Maimonides, once someone has disengaged from this collective experience, they are no longer part of the Jewish family.
However, our Jewish collective story continues beyond Genesis. In Exodus, we learn that being Jewish is more than being born to a family – it comes with obligations, with sacred actions, and with ways into Judaism other than being “Jewish-by-chance” – born into a Jewish family. Revelation at Mt. Sinai, and the giving of the 10 Commandments declare “that Jewishness is not just an inherited or assumed identity but a way of life comprised of obligations and commitments.”[8] Judaism is not just identity, but action. More than that, Exodus Judaism carves out a pathway for joining the Jewish people through conversion. Once Judaism “is no longer experienced as merely an inherited label of regional or familial affiliation but as an aspirational system of beliefs and practices to which one is obligated as well,” the rabbis begin to develop what has become our modern ritual of conversion.[9]
Of course, as the old saying goes, “Two Jews, three opinions” – there is no end to arguments over “who counts as a Jew,” in Israel and in the Diaspora. One group doesn’t recognize another group’s conversions, some Jewish communities, such as ours here at Temple Shalom, recognize as Jewish anyone with one Jewish parent who has been raised Jewishly, while many other Jewish communities only recognize children born to a Jewish mother as Jewish. The Rabbis of the Talmud had a simpler boundary. As Rabbi Hartman writes, “If you openly separate yourself from the community, we then designate you as an outsider. As long as you do not sever ties with one of the covenants, [either the Genesis Covenant or the Exodus Covenant], you remain a member in good standing…The foundational rule of the Genesis Covenant is that an Israelite who has sinned is still an Israelite. In the synthesis of Genesis and Exodus sensibilities, the Rabbis generated a new foundational rule: an Israelite who sees oneself as an Israelite, no matter how much they’ve sinned, is still an Israelite.”[10]
No matter how much we’ve sinned – we are all still part of this covenantal community. Earlier in our service, we read the words of the prelude to Kol Nidre: anu matirin l’hitpalel im ha’avaryanim. We are permitted to pray with the avaryanim – those who have transgressed. Our mahzor notes that “Rabbi Meir of Rothenburg, a 13th century sage, inserted these lines in the liturgy, basing himself on the Talmudic statement, “a public fast that does not include the sinners of Israel is no fast.” All of us are avaryanim; none of us is unworthy to join with others in prayer” – and in community.[11] No matter how much we have sinned – we are still part of this community, part of this tribe, part of this people. Rabbi Alan Lew adds, “We are all avaryonim. We are all imperfect. We are all sinners.”[12] By showing up here tonight – each and every one of us has opted into the Jewish people, regardless of our behaviour and our actions over the last year. Whether you were a fierce advocate for Israel or not, whether you diligently attended Shabbat services or not, whether you gave tzedakah abundantly or not – by being here, you are part of the Jewish people.
So what do we do with those who have seemingly left our Jewish tent? I don’t want to demonize those who opt out – in many of our families, we might include those we love in the category of those who have chosen not to be a part of Jewish peoplehood. They remind us of the Wicked Child at our Passover seder, who asks, “What is this ritual to YOU?,” distancing themselves from our rituals and celebrations. The haggadah tells us that had they been in Egypt, they would have been excluded from the communal redemption. Rabbi Sharon Brous offers a glimpse into how we might respond to this person. She describes a ritual at the Temple in Jerusalem, part of the ancient pilgrimage. The mishna reads almost like a set of ancient crowd control techniques:
All who entered the Temple Mount entered by the right, circled to the right and exited by the left, except for one to whom something had happened, who entered and circled to the left…
That person was asked: “Why do you circle to the left?”
They replied “I am a mourner,” and they were blessed: “May the One who dwells in this house comfort you.”
If they replied: “Because I have been ostracized – she’ani m’nudeh,” they were blessed: “May the One who dwells in this house inspire your community to draw you near again,” according to Rabbi Meir. But Rabbi Yose challenged him: you make it seem as if the community treated him unjustly!
Rather they should bless: “May the One who dwells in this house inspire you to hear the words of your community so that they may bring you close again.”[13]
At this peak moment of gathering for the ancient Israelites – the pilgrimage festival – the instructions for how to enter into that most sacred of places, the Temple Mount – includes directions for the m’nudeh, the one who has been punished by being ostracized. Rabbi Brous elaborates that this person, the m’nudeh, is “deemed to have endangered the community in word or action,” a severe punishment used rarely in extreme circumstances.[14] They were “effectively considered dead. They could no longer do business, teach, learn, or engage in any social interaction…They were forced to physically distance themselves from the rest of the community.”[15]
BUT – the m’nudeh chose to show up at the most holiest place on the most sacred of days, and when they did, they found a way in, a way back to their people. Rabbi Brous writes that she finds it “astonishing that the menudeh, the outcast, the ostracized, was included in the Temple ritual at all. But it’s clear that the Rabbis wanted to envision a world in which no one is outside the circle of the community.”[16] As long as one shows up – as long as the menudeh, the one who has harmed the community in some way, is yearning to return to within the fold of the community, to be counted among the avaryanim, we will make space for them.
Our people, our tribe, has space for all of us in our imperfections – as long as we want to be here. This tent has space for those who have chosen Judaism as adults, for those who are part of Jewish families by loving Jews, for those who are Jews-by-choice and Jews-by-chance. Sometimes – just being part of the tribe, feeling Jewish – is enough. We are Genesis Jews.
Erin Foster, the creator of the recent Netflix hit Nobody Wants That, following the dating adventures of a rabbi, says of her own journey to Judaism, “You don’t feel Jewish until you’ve been Jewish. When I see antisemitism, I think I’m Jewish. I have felt more Jewish since I converted because of the lived experience way more than learning about it in a classroom and learning the date and meaning of a holiday. Existing in 2024 with what’s going on in the world, that makes me feel Jewish.”[17] Her sense of Jewish identity comes through Jewish actions, through participating in Jewish community – we are Exodus Jews. That gut connection to a people bigger than ourselves was activated for many of us this year, calling us to feel part of this covenant, part of this people.
There’s a custom that the very first thing we are meant to do after Neilah, the close of Yom Kippur, even before breaking our fast – is to start to build the sukkah. Exodus Judaism calls us to engage with our Judaism, to rush to do Jewish actions, to do mitzvot in the world. There’s a beautiful text from the Talmud about the sukkah. It starts with the verse from Torah: Every citizen of Israel shall dwell in sukkot – kol ha-ezrach b’yisrael yashvu b’sukkot (Leviticus 23:42). The Talmud goes on to say – this verse teaches that all of Israel are fit to sit in one sukkah. Kol Yisrael reu’im leishev ba’sukah echat.[18]
I love the imagery this text invites – a sukkah large enough to fit all of us, with all of our messiness, with all of our disagreements, our diversity of Jewish practice and Jewish belief. A sukkah that can hold space for the complexity of who we are as a people, that has room for every person who chooses to sit in it.
I spoke last week on Rosh Hashanah about the multitude of reasons that have driven Jews towards Judaism and Jewish community since October 7. For many of us, one core reason is Jewish peoplehood – that desire to sit in a sukkah, to be included in the Jewish tent, to be part of something bigger than us, bigger than this community. I pray that we can work to build a sukkah large enough to hold all of us, sturdy enough to withstand the external winds of antisemitism, and the internal shaking of our arguments. May we soon find ourselves celebrating, together, with the entire Jewish people, the avaryanim – the sinners, the m’nudeh – those who are ostracized, those with whom we see eye to eye, and those with whom we have nothing in common except being in that sukkah. May this be God’s will.
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[1] Deuteronomy 29:9-14
[2] Donniel Hartman, Who Are the Jews – and Who Can We Become? Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2023, 7.
[3] Ibid., 10.
[4] Ibid., 10 (emphasis mine).
[5] Ibid. 16.
[6] Ibid., 19
[7] Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Teshuvah 3:11 (trans. Donniel Hartman)
[8] Hartman, 32.
[9] Ibid., 53.
[10] Ibid., 78.
[11] Mishkan HaNefesh: Yom Kippur, 16.
[12] Alan Lew, This Is Real and You Are Completely Unprepared, 181.
[13] Mishnah Middot 2:2, trans. Rabbi Sharon Brous in The Amen Effect, 196.
[14] Sharon Brous, The Amen Effect, 171-172.
[15] Ibid., 172.
[16] Ibid.
[17]https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/tv/story/2024-09-30/erin-foster-jewish-women-nobody-wants-this
[18] Sukkah 27b