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Sermon: Ki Tisa, 3/5/21

03/09/2021 02:46:14 PM

Mar9

Rabbi Charlie

Shabbat Shalom!

I don’t usually do this, but this is the first in a series of sermons related to different aspects of freedom that will lead us into Passover. Let me know if this is a good thing. We start tonight with Israel.

Israel’s a complicated place. It’s a Jewish state, but most people are secular. It’s a democracy, but it doesn’t have a constitution. Israel wants peace, but most Israelis don’t believe that peace is possible right now.

There’s a lot of contradictions. Sadly, one more contradiction is that while Israel is the homeland for all Jews, not all Judaisms are granted the same legitimacy or freedoms in Israel. It’s been this way for a long time – the Orthodox has had a monopoly over religious life since the early days of the State of Israel.

Orthodox synagogues are funded by the state, Reform and Conservative have to support their own. Orthodox rabbis serve on regional councils, Reform and Conservative rabbis could not. The Rabbanut – the Orthodox rabbinic establishment – control the Western Wall, Jewish marriage, Jewish divorce, conversion, and other basic aspects of life in the state. What does this look like? Secular or liberal Jewish couples have to be married by an Orthodox rabbi or they have to get married outside of Israel in order to have their marriage recognized by the state. Reform Jews don’t quite have the freedom in Israel that we might expect.

The good news is that things have started to change. Nothing so dramatic as Moses smashing the tablets after the golden calf, like we read about in this week’s Torah portion, but things have slowly improved. In 2008, the State of Israel funded a non-Orthodox synagogue for the first time. In 2014, the State of Israel paid the salaries of four non-Orthodox rabbis. And this past week, after a fifteen year legal battle, the Israeli Supreme Court ruled that non-Orthodox conversions performed in Israel will be recognized as legitimate under the law of return.

The Law of Return, which passed the Knesset unanimously in 1950, states that “every Jew has a right to come to this country as an oleh – an immigrant.” Israel’s first Prime Minister argued that the right of return preceded the creation of Israel as a country. He argued, “its source is to be found in the historic and never broken connection between the Jewish people and the homeland.” A very strong statement of support for Am Yisrael – the entirety of the Jewish people. The only challenge is that the Knesset failed to define who is a Jew.

Jewish identity is trickier than it sounds. What if your mother’s Jewish, but you’ve lived your whole life Catholic? What if you go through the motions of Orthodox Judaism for years to convert just to have your marriage seen as legitimate by the state? Mazal Tov – you’re in under the law of return. But what if only your dad’s Jewish, but you grew up Jewish in every way? Or what if you convert in Israel because you’re sincerely dedicated to Judaism and the Jewish people, but your rabbi isn’t seen as Jewish “enough?” Sorry, we’ll need you to jump through a few more hoops.

This Supreme Court ruling was a step towards solving some of that absurdity. The Supreme Court had held off on ruling in this case for five years because they were hoping the Knesset would take care of the uncertainty. Justice Dafna Barak Erez explained they finally made a ruling because, “we cannot wait while people's rights are hanging in the balance and no viable legislation is afoot."

The impact of this ruling will be profound or it will be nullified. The Orthodox establishment in Israel is not happy with this ruling and if they are a part of the next coalition, a law could wipe this ruling away. But if it stands, it opens the door to non-Orthodox Judaism gaining greater legitimacy in Israeli civil society. It’s the kind of freedom that Reform Jews in Israel and around the world have been fighting for for decades.

Shabbat Shalom!

Thu, March 28 2024 18 Adar II 5784