By Benjy Forrester
Our first day back from Pesach vacation, we gathered as a group at the Hartman Institute to meet with Rabbi Donniel Hartman. Tanach in hand, we worked through Genesis 18, better known as the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. We learned what covenant means according to Rabbi Hartman: a way of filtering God’s justice into the world through His chosen nation. We become a vessel through which God relates to the world. Rabbi Hartman explained that the whole Torah becomes an embodiment of this message, and a challenge to us, His chosen people, to advocate for and defend a world of justice and righteousness. We do not fight for justice because we think that it is how we ought to act; rather, we fight for justice because we understand that that is how God ought to act, and as creatures created in God’s image, we must uphold that standard.
Beyond just the text study, we discussed how, as North Americans, we compartmentalize our identities into the many hats we wear: Jewish, American, Man, Woman, Student, Employee of Camp, Lover of movies, and so on. Instead of our Jewish identity reigning supreme, we are pulled in many different directions. Not only do we devote serious time to our other identities and interests, but they now seem to come at the cost of our Jewish identity. However, our existence as liberal Jews in a broader world does not necessarily need to seem dooming. In fact, Rabbi Hartman cautioned the expression of of existential threats to Jewish continuity that are often thrown around in discourse, because they are actually misunderstood or not as daunting as how they are presented. Our multiplicity of identities in America enriches who we are, and grants us many different entry points with which to relate to Judaism. We must wear all of our other hats above our kippah, so to speak, meaning we must use Judaism as a lens through which we access the vastness of the world around us. As educators, we should not pitch Judaism as its own entity that exists in a vacuum. Rather, we must show how Judaism is not only relevant, but actually crucial in the way we see the rest of our life, and how we can enrich ourselves from carrying our Jewish identities with us in all that we do.
