Interview by Amy E. Schwartz for Moment Magazine
Are the Jews one people?
No. But it’s a complicated question, and there’s nuance. Our biblical origin story suggests that we were born divided—and are on a perpetual quest to find common ground. The Hebrew Bible is a mosaic of two opposing narratives, describing two ideologically opposed systems within the Jewish people—the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, the North and the South kingdoms, an outward-looking pluralist culture that refers to God as “Elohim” and a monotheist, inward-looking one that uses the name Yahweh (“Jehovah”). Scholars call these the E and J narratives, and although the southern kingdom “won”—the book was transcribed by the South and emphasized southern ideas—the schism has played out throughout our history, with fascinating, often heartbreaking variations.
We’re seeing that schism right now. It’s a particularist versus a universalist Judaism, an either-or attitude versus a both-and, a right-wing fundamentalist view of Judaism against a more open, pluralist approach. The conflict can be seen in everything from intermarriage to how we deal with Israel-Palestine.
Have there been times of greater unity than today?
I think unity remains aspirational. The Bible describes beautiful moments when those two kingdoms would come together. King Hezekiah held a famous Passover Seder in the 8th century BCE after the destruction of the northern kingdom, inviting all the refugees. In the 16th century, Sephardi and Ashkenazi thinkers together created the Shulchan Aruch with additional commentary, a definitive compilation of Jewish law to this day. Israel itself is an experiment, trying to be a place of many narratives, not just one.
Will today’s political disagreements tear Jewish life apart?
You mean, even further? My modern American liberal Jewish life has very little to do with that of my Haredi cousins. Our Sabbath looks different, our Yom Kippur looks different, we think differently about how we vote and what we eat. Same with my cousins who are settlers in the West Bank or my secular family in Los Angeles. Will we soon not recognize each other as legitimately Jewish? That’s happening already in some circles, and it could get worse.
Our biblical origin story suggests that we were born divided.
But Jewish life is a constant response to rupture and trauma. Rabbinic Judaism evolved out of the rubble and ruin of the Roman Empire and the Second Temple. Zionism was born out of the collapse of the Ottoman and European empires. It’s always these ruptures that create something new.
What about the Jewish value of reasoned disagreement?
It’s easier to have civil disputation when you’re living in the minority in Babylon or Berlin. We’re now back in a position where Jews do have power, and Judah versus Israel is being played out again. Is the land Jewish-only, or is it Jewish-and-other? Some of these debates right now are debased and ugly and violent, though some are handled with respect.
We’ve been wrestling with who we are for thousands of years, ancient voices propelled into ongoing dialogue. This liberal voice that I’m evoking, pro-human rights and queer rights and women’s rights and human liberty, is not a modernist trope. It’s been here from the very beginning, as an alternative voice that says the divine is everywhere, not centralized only in Jerusalem. This polydoxy is part of our legacy, and it’s legitimate.
Does anything justify ruling somebody out of the Jewish people?
That’s a really hard question. I understand why the elders of Amsterdam excommunicated Baruch Spinoza for heresy—it’s how they preserved the religious and cultural norms of their community—but I wouldn’t do it. What about a supremacist, racist Jew—I won’t name names—who’s doing things in my name that make my blood boil? Nope. What about those people who claim Israel is a total abomination and yet love Yiddish and want to do a Seder? Still no. What about Jeffrey Epstein? In the Talmud, it says, “A Jew who has transgressed is still a Jew.” On the other hand, can we handle a tent big enough to hold these polarities, knowing that in history that didn’t work out, and the fanatics burned Jerusalem?
What, if anything, binds us together?
We share traumas and we share treasures. We share pain—that’s almost the definition of solidarity, that it hurts me when you’re hurting. We share responsibility—and despite the radical edges, we share a deep investment, or at least a hope, that this Jewish project will continue to grow and evolve. Tikkun olam isn’t some modern idea: The core of our theology is that we evolve, God evolves, reality evolves for the better. I want to believe that we all believe that.
