I have always disliked John Lennon’s utopian anthem “Imagine”;
Sebastian Junger’s new book, Tribe,
reminded me why.
In case you’ve somehow forgotten the lyrics of this
ubiquitous tune, Lennon sings:
Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die
for
And no religion, too. .
.
You may say I’m a
dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope some day you’ll
join us
And the world will live
as one.
It’s the classic dream of the 60s, a world liberated from national
boundaries, archaic creeds, and petty tribal loyalties. So why am I so resistant?
Perhaps there’s an element of self-interest—when I imagine a
world with no religion, I’m unemployed. Yet
I disliked this song long before I entered rabbinical school. Junger’s book clarifies why.
Tribe describes what
often happens after soldiers return from battle and survivors of natural and
manmade disasters resume ordinary life. Why, Junger asks, do so many find that despite
its horrors, war may feel strangely better than peace, and calamity creates community? He argues that for all of its unprecedented
material comforts, contemporary Western life can be terribly lonely. Conflict and catastrophe, by contrast, remind
us what it is like to be a member of a tribe, a tight clan pledged to care and
sacrifice for one another.
This culture, with its fierce devotion to kith and kin—is at
odds with modern society’s drive toward economic—and moral—globalization. As columnist David Brooks notes, there is a
sharp divide between those for whom loyalty to blood and historic ties takes
precedence and those who emphasize generic obligations to all of humankind. If
the universalists’ hymn is “Imagine,” the tribal ethos is embodied by the
chorus of Bruce Springsteen’s anthem, “We Take Care of Our Own.”
**********
I learned where my sympathies lay early in my rabbinate, at
a series of interfaith gatherings, where I always found myself lumped in with
the Catholics and Protestants. As a
rabbi, I was inevitably seated with priests and ministers, as part of that
family of faiths labeled “Judeo-Christian.”
They were good people, and I did not take their company for granted; I
was well aware that generations of American Jews had labored mightily to gain a
place at that table, which meant acceptance into the social and religious
mainstream. And yet. . . it wasn’t where
I wanted to be.
Then—and even more so now, thirty years later—I identified
with the outliers: the Buddhists and Muslims and Hindus, with the Native
American shamans, the Wiccans and animists and pagans. I connected best with those on the
periphery—not the proper mainline clergy in their grey business suits and
collars but the women and men in bright, bold colors, flowing robes, funky hats
and headdresses, the folks whose celebrations included pungent smelling foods,
drums and dance, and chants offered up in ancient, guttural languages—just like
my own.
I cast my lot with the tribes.
As a rabbi, to this day, I hear my calling to represent my
tribe, the Jewish people. I honor our
storied history. I revere the sacred
tradition that fills my life with purpose, and insists, contra John Lennon,
that there are, indeed, people and principles worth dying for. If this seems dangerously naïve, let me offer
an important caveat: I am well aware that taken to extremes, tribalism devolves
into racism and bigotry. This is a
critical concern, and I will return to it soon enough. But here, at the outset, I refuse to let
tribalism’s potential dangers eclipse its many-fold blessings.
**********
Rabbi Brad Hirschfield describes those blessings in his
article, “Confessions of an Unrepentant Tribalist.” He writes:
It all comes down to
two words: unconditional love, or at the very least, unconditional
belonging. A tribe offers the experience
of being loved and cared for not because of what you do, but simply because you
are who you are. Once you are in the
tribe. . . you are in, no matter what. It
is that sense that no matter how wrong we may be, there is always a place for
us.. Think of it as un-divorceable
family on steroids, if you like. We all
need that, and the only question is where and how we are going to get it.
I’ll add: Not only do we all need this kind of unconditional
love—right now, we need it more than ever, because modern American life so
often leaves us isolated and alone. Even
when we are surrounded by people of good will, the emotional armor that we
wear, both knowingly and unwittingly, insulates us from them. Our culture instructs us not to intrude or
ask too much, to shy away from strangers, to keep out of others’ business. Living behind our closed doors and ubiquitous
screens, we are frequently hyper-connected yet ultimately on our own. Our vaunted networks of Facebook friends are
pale imitations of true tribal bonds.
They have a real role to play, enabling us to share information across
vast distances in time and space. But
they can’t make your shivah minyan or
dance with you at your wedding or bring you soup when you are sick. They won’t help you care for your new baby or
your dying father and they definitely will not love you even when you are being
a total jerk. Only the real, flesh and
blood tribe has the power to lift us when we fall and stay with us, through
thick and thin, as we struggle to get back up.
This is the immeasurable benefit that tribes confer upon
their members: they love you and care for you even when it’s inconvenient—because
you will do the same for them. That’s
the nature of the brit—the sacred
covenant—that binds you. And this is
where John Lennon’s “brotherhood of man” inevitably falls short, for it simply
isn’t possible—or even desirable—to love the entire 7.5 billion member human
family with that kind of unconditional passion.
Most of us who have been parents—or, for that matter,
children—know this in our gut. The
mother or father who loves their own child neither more nor less than any other
child of the universe is not a parent that you’d choose to raise you. You want someone to love you fiercely,
vehemently, uniquely. And that’s the
point. It’s ok—in fact, it is
essential—to disproportionately love and nurture those closest to us. It’s no sin to take special care of our own
family and own tribe. Indeed, Jewish
tradition considers this a central obligation.
From our roots in Abraham and Sarah’s ancestral clan to today’s diverse
tribe—spanning the globe from Be’er Sheva to Brooklyn to Boise—our calling has
always begun with Kol Yisrael areivin zeh
ba-zeh—All of Israel, all the Jewish people, are responsible for one
another.
**********
Here at CABI, caring community is the soul of our mission:
celebrating our simchahs, comforting
our mourners, tending to our sick and lonely.
We must always strive, however imperfectly, to learn and laugh together,
to love one another in sickness and in health, and to maintain a special place
in our hearts for our extended family, the land and people of Israel. As Hillel
put it over two thousand years ago: “Im
ayn ani li, mi li—If I am not for myself, who will be for me?”
**********
But here’s the catch—the critical caveat to which I promised
to return and which any responsible tribalist must address: we cannot not stop
there. For we know, all too well, what
tribalism looks like when it runs amuck, when tribal pride degenerates into chauvinistic
supremacy. History and today’s world
stage are rife with wars pitting clan against clan, sect against sect. Countless conflicts rage, as arrogant bands spill
endless blood over misbegotten power, privilege and honor. If we wish to make the case for tribalism, we
have a strong obligation to guard against these potentially lethal
pitfalls. Such precautions might begin
with two guiding principles.
The first is easy in theory but surprisingly difficult in
practice: Do not raise your side up by putting others down. Root passionately for your tribe. Sacrifice, serve, and advocate for them with
all of your heart, soul, and might. But
do not let your zeal for your community lead you down the rat hole of thinking that
it is superior to everyone else’s. As Rabbi
Brad Hirschfield writes: “When one is clearer about what’s wrong with the other
tribes than they are about what is right with their own, they are almost
certainly walking down the racist path.”
Arrogance is a mask we wear to hide our weakness; real power
is humble. Invidious comparisons are a
sign of underlying insecurities. Tribes
that are truly strong and secure can afford to be magnanimous in measuring
others. This is an important lesson for
us as twenty-first century Jews, for an honest appraisal of our sacred tradition
acknowledges that a significant strain of Jewish thought declares our
superiority over our non-Jewish neighbors.
That’s the understandable legacy of centuries of oppression.
When others put us down—often with horrific brutality—we maintained the
self-respect we needed to survive by acclaiming ourselves God’s elect. But the time and place for such boasting is
now past. The American Jewish community
is surely secure enough to stand tall, to realize we no longer need to assert
our unique sense of destiny at others’ expense.
In the words of two CABI members,
who responded to a Facebook post I offered on this subject:
I have a hard time
reading “chosen people” as “better people”. . .
It is not that others
are better or worse, but that one is where they are and they cannot pretend to
be otherwise. . . Like flowers, we all bloom at different times. Can a sunflower that has kissed the sun
pretend that it hasn’t? Can a bud pry
open its petals without being destroyed?
Both are beautiful, unique, and part of something perfect, miraculous
and essential.
This is the balance that we, the Jewish community, walk in
this new year 5777. Let us learn to
celebrate our chosenness, even as we recognize that others are also chosen, for
their own unique missions. May the pride
we take in our community’s accomplishments help us better hail those of our
neighbors.
**********
Which brings me to the second governing principle for
successful tribes: Self-preservation is not enough. Strong communities extend their vision
outward, using their hard-earned wisdom to bring healing to the world at large. After we take care of our own, we must also
take care of the other. I’ve mentioned
Hillel’s defense of tribalism: “If I am not for myself, who will be for
me?” But of course that’s just half of
the equation, as he famously adds: “U-ch’sh’ani
l’atzmi, mah ani—If I am only for myself, what am I?”
In my childhood years, the Jewish community paid too little
heed to this principle. Our modus
operandi was survival for its own sake. The
goad my parents’ and grandparents’ generation trusted most to keep us in the
fold was good old-fashioned guilt: since Hitler tried to wipe us out, we were
obligated to keep the faith, whether we liked it or not.
This didn’t work very well back then—and it certainly won’t play
today—for it begs the Darwinian question: Why
does our tribe deserve to survive?
If we want our children and grandchildren to be Jewish, we have to do
better, to offer them inspiring answers to that query. For unlike previous generations, they have a vast
array of options—countless tribes that will eagerly and adeptly welcome them if
we don’t. They can find a new clan
almost effortlessly, through soccer or politics or Meet Up or Crossfit or a
thousand other possibilities. They
certainly won’t join a synagogue out of guilt or obligation. Our young people—and lots of our older
people, too—will vote with their feet unless we model a community that cares
for them deeply and empowers them to work together with other tribes to repair our
broken world. As it turns out, taking
care of our own includes infusing them with a powerful sense of purpose they
can carry into the wider world. Isaiah
said it best, almost three thousand years ago:
It is too small a task
for you to be My servant merely to preserve the tribes of Jacob and to restore
the survivors of Israel; I will make you a light to the nations, that my
liberation may reach to the ends of the earth.
Now there’s a vision I can imagine—and, God willing, pass
along. It’s our mission here at CABI: to
care for our own—visiting the sick, comforting the mourners, celebrating
weddings and births and Bar and Bat Mitzvahs—while also working in the wider
community, feeding the hungry, gardening with, tutoring, and advocating for
refugees, and lobbying our legislature for justice.
**********
That far-reaching vision lies at the heart of this sacred day,
which deftly balances unconditional tribal love with universal aspiration. On Rosh Hashanah we revel in our uniqueness,
with majestic melodies, sweet foods, and the shofar’s haunting call to
community. We focus on teshuvah, on turning—or returning—to the
values that have sustained the Jewish people throughout our history. But we don’t stop there, for Rosh Hashanah
also celebrates Yom Harat Olam, the
birthday of the world. Today we remember
that our little tribe is part of something so much bigger. We stand in awe before the Holy One and the
vast mystery of Her works. And we add
our uniquely Jewish voice—our small yet significant tribal song—to the
magnificent, multi-vocal chorus of creation.
At the high point of this morning’s liturgy, the service for
sounding the shofar, we sing: Aleynu
l’shabayach l’adon ha-kol—Let us praise the Maker of all. . .
This is our tradition’s alternative to both “Imagine” and
“We Take Care of Our Own”, living, like the Jewish people itself, in the
creative tension between the two. It is,
simultaneously, unabashedly tribal and ambitiously universal.
As Aleynu opens,
we declare our special destiny, our unique Jewish mission to serve the Creator,
whose covenantal relationship commands our worship. Then, in the second paragraph, the
perspective turns, and we envision an age when all the nations of the earth will
dwell in harmony, making real the vision of God’s—and humanity’s—oneness.
It’s complicated and paradoxical and a little unresolved—which
is to say, it’s very Jewish—and very human.
**********
And so, my friends, we journey together into another new year. May 5777 bring blessing to us, to the people
of Israel, and to all of humankind. Let
us embrace our little community—our tribe—with unconditional love—and may that
love ripple out into a world that so dearly needs it.
If we are not for
ourselves, who will be for us?
If we are only for
ourselves, what are we?
And if not now—when?
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