The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg is a documentary film directed, produced and written by Aviva Kempner about Hall of Fame first baseman Hank Greenberg of the Detroit Tigers.
Here is a video excerpt from the film with Rabbi Brenner’s take on Hank Greenberg:
Below is another video excerpt from the documentary with Rabbi Brenner explaining the impact of the legendary slugger in his own childhood:
In Jerusalem. This time it was sudden and unexpected. Ben-Gurion was out of office. And on that bright Jerusalem morning, I jumped into my little green Fiat station wagon which had belonged to the affable and all-together admirable Rabbi Jack Spiro who sold it to me to keep it in the Reform student-rabbi family.
I was heading for the Hadassah Hospital to visit my friend “Turk.” He was studying for an Orthodox Smicha as I was studying for my Reform Smicha. We had played ball together at Yeshiva high and rediscovered our friendship at this time. He had gotten hurt. I forget how. And he called so that I would visit and to tell me that he was recuperating.
By that time, I was learning how to get around by car in Jerusalem and eventually I got to know the city, played basketball on the Jerusalem Yimca team and like so many others developed an appetite for good falafel, humus and shwarma.
During my drive to the hospital, I became uncertain of the way and I pulled off to the side of the road slowly and came to a stop to ask for directions. I listened to the directions, called to me from across the road by a pedestrian, repeated them and was about to get underway again when a large heavyset figure in a white billowing shirt, unkempt and disheveled, appeared to jump forward in front of my vehicle and then jumped back out of the way. He appeared wild and furious, looked unruly, perhaps frantic or unhinged I thought, maybe crazed or demented? Not normal. It turned out he was a Hadassah hospital physician and head of one of the medical departments. But I didn’t learn that until later. And I never did learn his name.
When I arrived at the hospital, I parked and took an elevator on up to Turk’s room. We talked for about 10 minutes and then I strolled over to the window and looked out. There, down below, a small crowd had gathered around my little green Fiat station wagon. It was an agitated gathering.
In the center of the mini-throng: the wild man and a couple of cops. There was a lot going on: a jangle of gesticulations, harsh sounds, voices raised…
Uh, oh I say to Turk…something about my car, I’ll be back up.
Coming out of the Hadassah hospital, I slowed my pace and approached with what I hoped was a dignified pace and clearly with an aura of innocence of any wrong doing such as parking where I must not. The truth is, I didn’t know what to think. But it was not about parking.
“He’s the one…Zeh Haish.” Hoo hagorame, he, he caused the accident. Turning to me fully, “You are the one.” This is the fellow. Did he mean me I thought, like The Prophet Nathan confronting a wicked King David? The wild man doctor-head-of-the-department-of- whatever-rushing-to-the-hospital exclaimed as I continue to walk forward toward my car.
And now along comes David Ben-Gurion.
He came to visit Paula, someone said, “Paula,” not Mrs. Ben Gurion, or Paula Ben Gurion, just Paula. She was a patient there at the time.
Bolting towards him like a groupie, from the midst of my accusers, the cops, the witnesses and the curious bystanders, I think of no one and nothing else but the magic of Ben-Gurion walking with a friend, no bodyguard, no entourage, no retainers, unhurriedly, strolling along in the direction of the hospital entrance. Presently, I’m by his side: “I promised you at Hebrew Union College with Nelson Glueck that I’d come and so I’m here.” He smiled. I’m sure he didn’t quite know what I was talking about – an American kid to be sure – and yet his instinct was to stretch out his arm to me, reaching up around my shoulder with his left hand – I can still feel it, his touch, his friendly embrace, to this day.
He pulled me forward with a little nudge and said come with me, sweeping me along back toward the hospital main gate. The man walking at Ben-Gurion’s side with an avuncular smile on his face remained silent. We go up on the elevator together. He wishes to know what I’m doing, what I’m studying, the professors I like and then he says Shalom, good that you’ve come and smiles stepping out of the elevator. I remain behind and begin my descent to the first floor and back to my breathless throng of admirers.
Ah, but with a huge difference. No babble, no sound, no one jumping around, no one agitated, no one pointing. No one even moving! The chevra standing around are looking at me – their look reading “uh?” Someone says there’s been an accident. The good doctor’s car, it seems, plowed into the rear of the car in front of his. Drove right into it. The driver of the car rear-ended is pointing to the damage and nodding at the agitated doctor. The doctor, his left hand clutching a small briefcase and a fistful of paper documents in the same hand, glared at me and nodded at the cops.
I say, please, “na latet lee lehavin, let me understand. Back on the road I slowed my car and stopped. I now am accused by this man of causing an accident. The car behind mine slowed and so did the car behind that one and then the car driven by this man,” I nod toward the doctor in the white shirt, “in the fourth car drove into the rear of the third car? I paused for full affect, “Perhaps,” I said looking at him, “you shouldn’t be driving so fast” – my voice registering a gentle respectful question mark at the end of the word “fast.” I wanted to crack a smile and say for effect, “let’s ask my friend BG, he’ll be back down b’rega, shortly,” but I thought better of it. I didn’t say another word.
Abruptly, the doctor turned and walked off towards the hospital. Everyone else is looking at his departing billowing shirt. The two cops had not said a word the entire time. Now they looked at each other, looked at me and stepped away, looked at me again, and started off in the direction of their police car. Not much of an incident after all.
But in the olam habah I’d like to tell David Ben-Gurion how an impressionable, young rabbinic student came to alter his path of life at that first I-Thou interaction in the old chapel of HUC-JIR. Although he hardly needs my endorsement to gain entre to gan eden, still I’d like to so inform him of his impact on a young rabbinical student’s life and then in turn on to his family. I’d like to credit him for my kibbutz years, my serving in the Israeli reserves after my American Army chaplaincy service, raising my three daughters in Netanya through their school years, their own Israeli military service, raising their children in Israel and my having lived so much of my adult life in different parts of the country. All this in some part – hard to measure just how much, but much – due to that handshake in the chapel. I also am thankful to him for his deux ex machina appearance getting me out of a lot of trouble with the cops. You might be thinking that it’s not what you have done but who you know that counts. Or who others think you “know.” No, that’s not the message really. It’s about promises.
On the Grand Scale of History, David Ben-Gurion brought about the fulfillment of his people’s promise and lived to fulfill the promise he made to his people. As for me, on no scale at all, except to me and my loved ones, I’ll always be thankful that I kept the promise I made to him at the old HUC- JIR Yeshivah chapel.
I told him the truth that the book he liked of mine, FDHS, when it was being written and as it was being written my thinking was it better be good enough for AJW and I hoped that he would like it. I sent him two of the books just completed. The theology of “Chewish” and my Exodus Evidence compendium. He had said to me “whatever you want me to do I will do it Reeve” and I said “would you read?” (he knew I meant my new books) and he said “gladly.” He said I was a wonderful writer and that he knew Reeve Brenner before Reeve Brenner was Reeve Brenner. Whatever that meant it was loving. He encouraged other younger rabbis as he encouraged me. I blushed over the telephone. I quickly responded with “look who talking,” and he said “wellllllll” like Jack Benny considering his life or his cash. And we both laughed. I didn’t know him very well but thought about him very often, about as often as I sat down to write and knew that the thoughts and words I put down would be words and thoughts I’d want him and Borowitz and Cohen to appreciate. This from a rabbi of some 50 years, still in awe, in admiration of other senior rabbis. This means that everyday I’m at it Arnold J. Wolf was on my mind. Because besides writing for you my daughters and your families, I wrote for him really.
Sometime, years earlier, I can’t remember quite when, I told him of the impact his “I walk the road of Judaism” had on me and others. Incredibly modest as he was incredibly outrageous he said “I took it from Franz Rosenzweig” Truth is what he did with it, just about the best way of understanding the mitzvah system and how to get with it there is. I informed Arnie that I quoted that piece in my Chewish book and how often have I shared it.
Remember, I told you that just before the elections Rabbi Wolf spoke to me, between his calls for interviews, about his friendship with his neighbor Barack Obama who lived across the street and he assured me of his bona fides and helped me in turn reassure some members of my group by just saying AJW, about whom they heard me speak often enough, said thumbs up. It was dayenu for me.
Friday night, Hanukkah, after kaddish and my words of appreciation for him, I read (again) that “I walk the road” piece to my congregation of some adults and kids including one particular ger toshav, a terrific young man married to a lovely daughter of members of my congregation. And the young man bought into it at once. He told me afterwards, he said “now he understands.” Meaning yes, he was committed to raising Jewish kids from the moment he fell in love and he mentioned the chapter in my book on Conversion and Convergence but now he says he understands the gestalt of the system is what it is all about. And now he an architect and a very creative guy (couple really – she’s also an architect), knows what I mean when I say “get with the program.” Not get with our beliefs, faith, required thinking but do get with the rhythm of it. To experience the Jewish way, the mitzvah system Jewishly, submit to the routine of it, do them as an artist gives in to the work on his canvass that absorbs him fully without dwelling on the chemistry of the paint or like a violinist carried away with the music without asking the why of each note. Wolf’s genius, I saw was as the sharp breeze that lifted the young man’s intellectual sails; the young man just returned from his honeymoon and is now beginning to “get with the program” – coming to shul, struggling with translations and transliterations – understands it better because of Wolf or Rosenzweig by way of Wolf.
As to what I could have hoped from Wolf’s kindness to me was that he’d review/recommend my Chewish book to our colleagues and the Exodus book just finished; I told him they are without cost on the internet written to persuade and not for revenue. This Arnold J. Wolf promised me but did not live to keep the promise. I wish he had lived longer – the world is poorer without him by a lot. His absence hurts. I’m not the only one feeling his loss that knew him from a distance. Nisht zu glachen and l’havdil what was brought to mind was a feeling like Velikovsky must have felt when he learned from his neighbor in Princeton that his good friend and lansman Einstein died. Before Einstein could keep the promise he made to Velikovsky concerning an experiment which Einstein promised to help Velikovsky who needed Einstein’s influence to get the experiment done in space. Einstein had asked “what would you have me do?” like AJW asked of me. And Velikovsky asked Einstein to use his influence to get this experiment undertaken. Einstein thought it was a good idea and promised but he died before he could keep his promise to Velikovsky. I think I know how and what Velikovsky felt.
I know this: I’m not nearly ready to think of putting thoughts on paper for you kids and others without thinking of him reading it.
Love Saba Reeve
Tonight I would like to tell you a story. The story is about me. I invoke this prerogative having reached the age of 70. Seventy, according to tradition, is the year you achieve wisdom, so everybody, I got me some wisdom. That means you have to pay attention. Some of you for the first time!
This rather instantaneous wisdom started in May and I will be looking forward to having this wisdom do something special for my life. The truth is I want to tell you several stories of my childhood. The stories are connected in that they are all about my grandparents. And, my great grandfather as well! And they all deal with what I choose to identify as “lessons in respect”. Respect is defined as: to treat with consideration; the recognition of a person’s worth and the esteem for all living beings; deference, veneration and reverence are synonyms.
One story concerns how you treat your own father. It teaches how you treat your own parents. And, the other concerns how you treat other living beings – all other life forms – with respect. I see these as lessons about respect that I learned very young that have stayed with me as personal memories and today is yom hazikaron, the day of memories. And much of the feelings of love are obviously embedded in the bosom of these stories. Love in many instances converges with respect. But whether you love them or not at any given time, our tradition teaches always show respect and honor your parents.
The first story is when I’m about eight and the second story I believe I’m about nine but I may have this reversed.
My great grandfather we knew as Zayde Blau. He was my mothers’ mother’s father.
Some of the salient facts about the man are relevant. During my childhood he lived around the block with his daughter, my grandmother, on 55th St. We lived on 54th Street in Borough Park, Brooklyn. He would get up in the morning and walk around the block. He’d have his Yiddish newspaper with him. And more important than anything else, as far as I was concerned, he could be trusted to have a cache of rock candy in his handkerchief. This was this transparent, translucent sugar piece that he passed off on me, and treated me with, secretly as his great grandson, from the earliest time I can remember. He did it in such a way as to smile and to be surreptitious so we kind of bonded a little bit at that.
Now, where did he go everyday as an old, old man? He was in his late eighties, early nineties and in those days that was like 120.
Everyday he came to our front porch which had what we called a stoop: a series of steps leading up to our house. This stoop had five steps up to the porch and I mastered those steps with a rubber ball. I mean I was able to throw that ball to the steps and retrieve it throwing it with pinpoint accuracy at the tapered ends of the stairs. I had assigned different valuations – different points for each of the projections of the steps – and voila a new game – 10 points – top step – caught cleanly and so on down the steps.
My Zayde might have tolerated the incessant bounces because he was hard of hearing; otherwise the relentless pounding of the Spaulding against porch steps might have driven him crazy, but all-in-all he put up with it and me. He sat like a fixture. Like a bearded Buddha, in the shade of the porch on his favorite chair reading the Yiddish newspaper and hanging out with his great grandson little Reeve-ala. Later in life, I was told by my mother that he was always a near do well but he had a reason for being a loser. Here’s why.
Now, let’s go back in history to a period of time and a circumstance, which we hardly ever think about, but my Zayde was the living witness and victim of these times and circumstances. This was the way that our grandparents were tortured by their circumstances. The Cossacks needed an army and little boys as young as eight and nine years old were rounded up – conscripted and essentially, for most, it was a conscription that was a lifetime sentence of being in the non-volunteer army often fighting against Jews who were conscripted to the other side.
There is a story told of a man who fired his weapon in the First World War toward the trench on the other side. He hit the enemy and the enemy was a fellow Jew whom he then heard reciting the shma in his final moment. And, the man threw his rifle away in revulsion and ran the other way and he adds he’s lucky that he wasn’t shot as a coward or a traitor.
Now just what was it that my great, great, great parents’ generation had to do when it became known that the little boys of the village were going to be swept up to the army and likely never be seen again?
At the age of seven, all the boys were brought one by one into the kitchen – like into the professional office of the man called the “maimer” – the mazik, as he was known in Yiddish and in Hebrew. He set up his office and one-by-one the boys were taken by their trembling parents into his room — shaking or shukling like a leaf or a Hasid davening.
Now, all the kids couldn’t be maimed alike because that would call attention to what was going on. The community had to have some varieties of little boys maimed in ways that others were not. You couldn’t give it away or the maimer wouldn’t come back the next year or so. For one little boy, it was his eye, another lad an ear and another, a toe. Another, who knows what? For my Zayde, it was his middle finger and on his right hand. Unfortunately for him, another young boy had the better luck if he was a rightie to have his finger damaged on his left hand. My Zayde was a rightie and that was the hand the maimer chose for his rather grizzly tasks. The maimer knew which vein would double back the middle finger of my Zayde’s hand with the right surgical procedure, however primitive. He knew exactly which vein would be required to damage and to double back his middle finger. Useless now, he couldn’t shoot a gun. The truth is, he couldn’t do much else and not only because of his useless hand – the maimed hand – alone, but I believe, what with the life-long psychological impact it must have had, it explains a great deal about his life, such that it was – and perhaps his longevity.
Now, that stoop in front of the house where my Zayde sat was my ball field as a child. It’s where I honed my athletic skills. If you’ll permit a 70 yr old his boasts and bragging.
Any free moment you can find me in my mini stadium: a piece of the garden on one side. The other piece of the garden or front yard on the other and me between, facing the house and my Zayde, with the stoop in front of me and invariably without fail, there’s a ball in my hand. Almost invariably it’s that pink Spaulding which I’m bouncing and trumping, bobbing and rolling, tossing and spinning and throwing – for accuracy, which is the challenge I enjoyed most. I loved to throw a ball and to strike whatever it was I was aiming at. And I persisted until I succeeded.
So get the picture, I’m playing stoop ball. I have a little pink ball in my hand. My zeide is my great grandfather. He’s sitting up on the porch reading the newspaper. As is, nothing unusual about the scene. I lived it everyday for a long period of time.
I was throwing the ball to the stoop, catching its rebound and doing the same for each step of the stoop. For hours. One day, my make believe game was over and just as I was about to start another game with make believe players, I looked down and what do I see but a stream of ants crossing from one garden on my left to the yard to my right. I can see them in my minds eye right now walking across their path almost beneath my feet. And I start picking the ants off one by one with the Spaulding for the fun of it…to test my arm and my skill – thump, thump, squish, squash.
My Zayde spoke to me in Yiddish. Only rarely and wearily did he throw a word or two in English that he had learned. He didn’t learn many of English words. He was extremely literate in Yiddish. He devoured his Yiddish newspaper and Yiddish literature. His language skills in English were never consciously developed. His life, after all, consisted of coming around the block where he lived to take up his position on the porch with his Yiddish newspaper.
He’s reading his newspaper. I’m killing ants. My Zayde looks up from his newspaper and I see him lift his head and looks down at me from the perch of the porch and he watches me for a moment, just a moment and then rather sprightly I thought, he rose from his chair, Zayde’s chair, and calls out to me, “Reb Reeven,” – he didn’t know then that that has since become my email moniker – and his words came across as rather urgent from a man to whom urgency was rather alien. So his voice aroused something in me. It was a kind of an apprehension. Something is about to happen that may be important or serious; I thought or think I thought. That’s what his tone conveyed. You might even be able to guess what happens next. I was about to receive a lesson in “zaar baalay chaim” – “consideration for the distress of other living creatures” but of a certain different dimension. A more sophisticated nuance of the meaning of the “consideration for the distress of other living creatures” which is what the mitzvah is all about. This is what happens next.
At that point I still expected him to be addressing me in Yiddish, not in English, which I rarely heard from him. He may have thought as he walked down the stairs in a slow paced but urgent manner, seeing that he already captured my attention, he may have thought that I’d remember the lesson that he was about to deliver better, more effectively, if it was delivered in English although he knew certainly that Yiddish was my first language.
My Zayde came down those steps rather robustly as I remember it today. He reached out to me and placed his hand on my shoulder very gently. He looked down and pointed with his other hand and said words that have stayed with me all of my life since then. He said, “Like you, they also have life. They are Baalei chayyim” (living creatures). Remember: like you they are the ‘owners of their lives’”. He didn’t have to say more. I knew exactly what he meant. The ants and I had something in common. All living creatures and I share one thing — life. We are alive – living things. This can be said about all things living, human and non-human, the quick not the lifeless. After all, why don’t we Jews consume blood? Why is it taboo? Why is it yich? Because it is life! Blood represents life. It is the symbol of life. A metonymy for life. And we are not to destroy life. Remember Frankenstein. In the movie, the defining moment was captured by the defining words: “It’s alive! It’s alive!”
My Zayde’s eyes asked the question that he did not articulate. You understand? His eyes asked. I didn’t answer. I nodded my head a few times and he nodded his head back to me a few times, his white beard bobbing up and down. I didn’t say what I thought which was, my gosh Zayde, like you and like me, we all share life. We are all alive. A not so obvious, obvious insight. He didn’t have to use the words “respect other creatures”. He didn’t have to say – what I later understood – that we must save and treasure and respect even animals whose mental life bears no resemblance to our own. He didn’t have to. I understood. We are bonded with all creatures who share life with us. I realized that: for a short period of time, our lives criss-cross, our lives converge. Our lives intersect. For but an instant – we share being alive. I think I learned my respect for creatures, living animals, different species, from that moment. I never thought of this as a great story, but I always thought of it as an important one.
(2)
Another important story: one which I can truthfully say and remember that it helped shape my life, the first was respect for creatures; the other was respect for your elders, for loved ones of your family.
My father and his father would spend considerable time together in my presence while I was growing up. So I have a story of learning respect from the other side of the family as well.
My father was one of five brothers and two sisters. Three others died in infancy, or childhood. The last two were born in this country. They were the two girls. The five boys were born in Europe, Poland to be exact in the town of Czestachova. My father was the next to the youngest. My uncle Murray was the youngest of the boys and Aunt Anne was the youngest of the girls. Jack was a successful businessman, Harry was an accountant, Murray was a manufacturer and Ben, a Supreme Court Judge in New York and the head of the Brooklyn Liberal party for quite a bit of time in the City of New York. And my father Abe, the most pious, a less than successful businessman – too ethical for the business world he was in – and probably the least affluent of the brothers and sisters; it is a long story.
Only my aunt Esther struggled as much as my father and his family. Nat and Esther’s son Jackie was my best friend. My grandfather lived a few blocks away, not around the block as did the other side of my family, my mother’s family. But close enough so that my grandfather Mordecai was most often in my house for meals, for distraction and entertainment and to discuss his wardrobe which he took seriously. And as I later understood – to get a tricky hand-out of a few dollars. This is what my story is about.
This is how it worked. I understood it much later when my father, in a round about way, had me to understand what was actually going on, the real dynamics. My grandfather Mordecai would challenge his son Abraham, father of Reeve, to a game of casino. It was a routine, without question every Wednesday night and sometimes twice a week. He would come over, he would sit for a while, talk to us all and then before the evening was over, it occurred to my grandfather that he needed a few bucks and he would challenge my father to a game of casino for nickels and dimes. That was small change then but not as small as it is today. It amounted to a few dollars.
So my father and grandfather would sit down together at the kitchen table, and soon enough I would drift over and before too long, watching the game I came to grasp it and understood how to play. Getting the most cards was very valuable — worth three points … getting the most spades, one point, getting aces — each one, a point – four points in all. Getting the deuce of spades was a point. A red ten of diamonds seemed to be the jewel of the game, it was worth two points and it usually swept up a great number of cards to tip the scale of the game. Its worth was often about five points, if you count the cards and the two points for the ten of diamonds. Got it?
My father would win a few games and lose a few games in the early part of the evening and it would see-saw back and forth. My grandfather focusing intensely on the game and playing very seriously. My father would pay attention, but not with any real concentration. He’d also talk to me about school and sports and my sisters. So they’d win and lose evenly for the first hour. Then, just before it came time for my father to drive my grandfather home, my father began losing game after game. And what I noticed most was how he played his ten of diamonds. I watched. I knew you didn’t do things like give up the opportunity of collecting the ten of diamonds, You could do it – and likely assure a win, by adding up a nine and a ace or by adding eight and a deuce, 7 & 3, and any combination that added up to ten. But my father began to fade in the later innings. He’d say, “Oh my, I couldn’t pick up the ten of diamonds again. I didn’t play that well,” he would say to me. But I knew that he could have done so. He was throwing the game or getting so careless that it was essentially the same thing. I would mutter sometimes to him, “Dad.” And he would say, “Uh huh, uh huh, yes, uh, huh, yes.” And my father would lose again.
With glee (worth millions I now realize) my grandfather would sweep up the nickels and dimes in the middle of the pot and I’d strike my forehead, turn around slowly and walk off into the other room or to grab something from the fridge. It’s not that I cared who walked off with money – but to lose when you could’ve won…? Never! This would happen week after week. In fact, month after month, for a good part of my childhood years. Then I think I got it. With a little help from my father. He said to me “when your father needs a few bucks, you don’t beat him in casino.” Wooowh, does this mean what I think it meant, throwing the game? Was that fair, was that moral, was that ethical, games you play hard at. Sports, card games, table games, you play to win, you don’t want to lose. You don’t throw games and let your opponent win on purpose. “On purpose?” I asked, “On purpose? On purpose, on purpose?” I’m this kid who hates to lose, who loves to play to win, who hates to give up without giving your best. I’m not concerned about the money, why don’t you just give it to him. But why do you want to lose a game you could win? Grandpa needs money, give it to him. Grandpa doesn’t ask and you don’t give it to him. You let him win it. What’s going on? My father looked at me in a very fatherly and kindly way and nodded his head and said, “It’s derekh eretz. It’s respect. It’s Kivud av ve ame…– honor your father and your mother…”
“Oh,” I said to myself. “Of course. Now I get it. He doesn’t like to ask. He is too proud to ask and my father finds a way to entertain his father, to pay attention to his needs and to enjoy his company playing cards with him, and also to pass on a few dollars that he needed, or wanted beyond his needs.”
Derekh eretz really means “the way of the land”. But the way of the land is respect for your parents, not less in importance than any of the other Ten Commandments. But no question “kivud av ve ame” turned out to be a lesson of respect that has stayed with me and governed my behavior and values throughout my life. Respect for living creatures and a special respect for your parents.
(3)
The third ancestor I want to tell you about is one I never met. In fact, I’m named for him. He was my mother’s father. He was my grandmother’s first husband and only true love. He was in the Czar’s army but he was not a lifetime conscript; that age had passed. He was merely serving his required service. But right before Passover he took sick. But would not remain in the infirmary in the hospital barracks and miss Pesach, for which he had leave time. He came home to be with his young bride in just enough time to create my mother, just enough time to tell his young bride of his dreams of Zion, just enough time to tell how much he loved his new young bride, also all of 19-years-old, just enough time to see to it that I would one day come into the world, come into being, through this last home on leave, for love, just enough time for a final Pesach Seder. And then he was gone.
His younger cousins moved to what was then Palestine and perhaps Reuven, my Zayde, would have followed them. One of my family members, Yosef Haim Brenner, living in Palestine, became one of the greatest Hebrew novelists of his time. He was murdered in a massacre by the Arabs at the age of 40 in the 1920’s. He had a huge following having written some of the most powerful Hebrew novels. He was often called the Hebrew James Joyce of the modern State of Israel. And if you go to Israel today, every city has a Rechov Brenner; there is a Givot Brenner and a kibbutz Brenner, which is one of the strongest and most progressive kibbutzim in the country.
My own grandfather Reeven might very well have joined his other side of the family. Another cousin of the family was the inventor of the International Language, Esperanto, Ludvig Zamenhof, who also has streets named for him in Israel.
(The Universal International Language, Esperanto, was intended to further the prospects of world peace by giving everyone that second language universally. English has taken on that lingua franca function.)
So Reeven, my grandfather, my Zayde on the other side died in his teens. I have all of my life felt myself to be his reincarnation. I have always felt that.
So I will end with a poem. Before I share my poem, let’s look first at the glossary. Pesach is Hebrew for Passover. The “corporal” in the poem I am about to read refers to Hitler. Elijah is the mythical prophet who comes on the night of Passover to taste your wine and to ascertain whether you are truly a connoisseur of the fruit of the vine. Roosevelt dimes were the dimes struck right after the war honoring President Franklin D. Roosevelt. My step-grandfather whom I called papa prospered during the war. He snatched three cousins of mine from the Nazi inferno. The factory he owned produced uniforms and other garments. I, myself, worked there during the summers of my later boyhood turning collars and doing odd jobs for my grandfather who owned the factory.
There is an updated footnote to this story in my poem and that is, during the summer it was disclosed to one and all in the family that all three of my daughters, their husbands and children, my grandchildren, are all returning to live in Israel. Each one following the next, one family already there, the second close behind and the third soon will follow. That’s the outcome of this poem and its applicability to the six generations from my own great grandfather Zayde Blau to my own grandchildren – Yarden, Mayan, Talia, Liam, Amit, Noam, Nadiv and soon, Matan. And the conclusion and final proof must be that I have at last, at 70, thank God, acquired more than wisdom. I have also acquired fulfillment. Here is the poem:
ZAYDE REEVEN ONE TWO THREE
(ONE)
My grandfather Reeven lived once
not long enough to see my mother
just long enough to see
the wide white of Russia’s winter
once. And a final Pesach:
racing Elijah out the door
and winning by an earlock.
Wine cups diminished: one
nineteen years plus nil
not one night too soon for mom
he never knew
and me, one grandson
and one campaign for the Czar.
Round one the Czar won.
(TWO)
Exchanging country one
for chupa two
not a love thing, mind you
for Reeven’s bride
but he’ll have to do
granpa two
with fat flaking
garment center cigar
offcenter and hurtling
the gauntlet of his golden teeth
the same stuff which paved his streets
seven years devouring corpulent cows,
swelling on the corporal’s crusade,
incanting his capitalist cabbala
granpa
while huffing sheen on Roosevelt dimes
to pilfer little Reeven’s troth
Reeven number two.
And round two to granpa.
(THREE)
A third continent
a third generation
with Reeven’s words stretched out
like a tether between them:
“sure”, he’d say “sure,
we Jews will have a homeland
sure, and the Czar will be overthrown
and men will walk the moon.”
sure thrice he’d laugh
three positives which meant a negative
for him, a dream a miracle
in which he couldn’t believe.
I toss the miracle back at him
like a lasso
and laughing thrice myself,
pull tight and yank my dybbik
towards me
“behold the dreamer cometh”
But Zayde, your grandson
Reeven’s third child was born there
a sabra, Zayde
it’s all come true, Zayde.
Round three to Reeven.
This poem serves as the conclusion of my talk and Rosh Hashanah message on respect for the living, for all life and for those who have gone before us.
NOTE: This entry is dedicated to my grandchildren Jordan, Mayan, Talia, Liam, Amit, Noam, Nadiv and Matan. I’m writing this address for you to read sometime – when you become curious and interested in your roots.
Are there Jewish antecedents or precedents for the rather extravagant notions/edicts we have designated Ascending Lineality, or for Paternal Descent, and the status of the Settled Sojourner?
There is ample evidence for the Settled Sojourner in the biblical narrative; so many husbands and wives of prominent figures like Ruth, and Moses’ wife Zipporah, are good examples. Indeed, the Exodus experience was shared by Hebrews as well as non-Hebrews called the erev rav – the mixed multitude – who joined the people Israel as Settled Sojourners (or, given that their journey entailed four decades of wilderness wandering, “Unsettled Sojourners”). Jews say, “they are our ancestors no less than the ‘original’ Hebrews. We are their descendents just as we derive from the Hebrew core community returning to their homeland in Canaan.”
There is also ample evidence for patriarchal descent in Scripture’s historical narratives related in the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Torah. Joseph, beloved son of Jacob, Rachel’s first-born, (the most unflawed of biblical heroes according to Allan Bloom) had two sons, Ephraim and Manassah, by his Egyptian wife, Asenath. Her grandmother was Potphera, a priest of On who worshipped the Egyptian sun–god Ra. Ephraim, founder of one of the most influential Jewish tribes in the northern Kingdom of Israel often referred to as the “House of Ephraim,” was the offspring of an unconverted non-Hebrew mother.
Reform Jews are inclined to point out that the biblical Book of Ruth attests to the accepted practice of patrilineal descent. The only “conversion” which Ruth evidently underwent was to accompany her mother-in-law Naomi to her village in Judah pledging her devotion in the memorable words, “wither thou goest I shall go, your people shall be my people and your God, my God and I with thee shall be buried.” And marrying Boaz, a Hebrew, their children took on the religious and ethnic identity of the father.
There is a legion of biblical personalities – Israelites – descended from non-Jewish mothers. They would not be accorded Jewish status by contemporary Orthodox authorities. These include Ephraim and Menasseh, the sons of Joseph, Gershom and Eliezer, the two sons of Moses, born to Zipporah. There is a tradition suggesting that prior to her change of heart (and circumcising her son in an act establishing his Israelite status), Moses and Zipporah “compromised” by agreeing to raise one son to be an Israelite and the other to be a follower of the mother’s religious tradition. Jethro, Zipporah’s father was a priest of Midian.
Others who are also included in this category are Rehoboam, son of King Solomon and Na’ama, an Ammonite, Ahazaia, king of Israel, the son of Ahab and the Phoenician Jezebel. King David was the great grandson of Ruth, a Moabite. Clearly, in biblical days Jewish descent was passed on through the father’s line, as attested to in the first chapter of the book of Numbers.
There was no such thing as an official ritualized conversion then. Rather, wives left the home of their families for their husband’s home. The non-Israelite woman joined her Israelite husband’s clan and became integrated into his community. Their children were Israelites. Clearly, patrilineality was the rule in the early biblical period.
At some time between then and the mishnaic period – which began some two centuries before the Common Era – a shift to maternal descent occurred. Some scholars think it was instituted about three hundred years before the mishnaic period by Ezra the Scribe who required Israelite men to take Israelite wives exclusively and to divorce foreign wives. The reason for such a blatant overturning of biblical law, although theories abound among historians, is still unclear.
Some scholars attribute the change from following the father’s line to following the mother’s line to the influence of Roman and Athenian law whereby a child born to a Roman man and a non-Roman woman was not considered a Roman citizen. But a child of a Roman woman and a non-Roman male received the status of the mother.
There has also been some scholarly speculation that the change from patriliniality to matriliniality became necessary because of the sacred obligation of ransoming slaves (pidyon shevuim. It was incumbent on the Jewish community to redeem women made captive and raped by Roman soldiers whose offspring were then considered Jews. Mothers were not expected to abandon their children. Instead they were brought into the Jewish community out of compassion for them and their children.
Scholars, such as Rabbi Frank Hellner, maintain that the decision by the Talmudic rabbis recognizing Jewish identity by maternal descent was a necessary response to the social crises of their time. In response to the realities in effect then, it was a courageous and correct decision. But the problems necessitating the change in Jewish law no longer exist. Instead of captive Jewish women being violated, in our day we have deliberate and volitional interfaith marriages. A similarly courageous response to today’s reality would recognize the profound biblical conception that Jewishness is a product of nurture as well as nature, upbringing as well as biology, conversion as well as reproduction.
To embrace the realities of our own day, we need to employ the concept of equalineality which affirms that a child born of a Jewish parent, either parent, has a “presumptive Jewish status” that will be confirmed as the child is being raised and educated Jewishly. The bilinear path makes sense for the contemporary Jewish community. It is also the most compassionate and welcoming approach to many individuals who would otherwise be lost to Jewish continuity.
In the words of 13-year-old Melanie Sachs, “how can Judaism teach that my bar and bat mitzvah classmates are Jews depending on the good luck or bad luck of a parent? I know that they all think of themselves as Jews and all of us have been growing up Jewish and educated Jewish year after year. And we know they are Jews. And every one of us is equally proud to be Jews and will say so at our bar and bat mitzvah Sabbath services. Regardless of whose mother is Jewish or whose father is or isn’t Jewish. There’s no difference between them. That’s a Jewish view most kids hold.”
Before discussing the issues raised by introducing so audacious and counter-intuitive a proposition as Retrojected Identity, the status of Settled Sojourner brought about as a consequence of Ascending Lineality, it is essential to differentiate between believing Christians, Muslims (indeed, everyone adhering to the faith of an established religious community) and other Gentiles who do not consider themselves religiously committed. Most Jews entering interfaith marriages choose non-religious Gentiles as their mates. One reason is that their life values are more likely to be in agreement. And while the divorce rate in Jewish/non-religious-Gentile marriages is well over 50 percent, it is even higher in marriages between Jews and committed Christians.
How then shall non-Jewish parents dedicated to raising Jewish children be regarded by a Jewish community in the new millennium? How might Gentile parents of Jewish children achieve, or take upon themselves, the very special status of the Ger Toshav, the Settled Sojourner?
This might very well be the most appropriate place to submit and develop the proposition espoused and emphatically advanced throughout this text – a proposition which builds upon, and to a certain extent revises and enlarges the symmetries of Jewish identity for our time. We have characterized the proposition as “Ascending Lineality.” We have also propounded its corollary by the designation “Retrojected Identity.” How does Ascending Lineality function? To whom and when does Retrojected Identity apply?
Descent is obviously downward in direction and Descending Lineality refers to the age old formula of determining the “line” of identity from above. Ascent is upward in its direction and Ascending Lineality refers to the process of acquiring identity from below. The proposition recognizes that a child’s upbringing transmits a distinct status upon a parent. Retrojected Identity confers the standing of Settled Sojourner upon the Gentile parent of a Jewish child. That new status is often made apparent at the time a family celebrates a life-cycle event such as brit, consecration or bar/bat mitzvah.
At any one of these milestone family commemorations establishing or affirming the Jewish identity of a child, whether consciously or dimly understood, the non-Jewish parent obligates himself or herself to take on certain responsibilities/commandments over and beyond the requirements of the “children of Noah.” Usually at an early-on life cycle event such as a covenant ceremony, standing alongside the child, Retrojected Identity “kicks in” precisely at the time the non-Jewish parent’s “being there” and “body language” convey the avowed intention of supporting the child’s Jewish identity. That is when a Gentile parent may justifiably begin to see and declare her or himself to be a Settled Sojourner. Retrojected identity, brought about by the process of Ascending Lineality, occurs when Gentile parents pledge audibly or vow inwardly that they will do no less than a Jewish parent to raise their children as Jews.
This ungainly term for an elegant proposition acknowledges the reality that the identity of a household and the upbringing of children, in truth, determine the religious identity of the parents, not the other way around: For “whosoever raiseth Jewish children becometh a Settled Sojourner,” Jewish, for nearly all intents and purposes, in an ascending direction or in reverse order. The proposition designated Retrojected Identity serves to recognize and acknowledge the undeniable fact that in 21st century American society, the decision parents make concerning the identity of a child establishes the identity of parents. When parents make a decision about their children they make a decision about themselves.
Perhaps the most important thesis of this book then is the proposition that the decision concerning the religious identity of a newly established household determines the identity of all its members – whether Jewish, Christian, Chewish or Eschewish.
Lineality arises from the child. The pillar upholding the Mansion of Jewish Identity that we denote as Jewish descent (along with conversion) also refers to Jewish ascent. For the Settled Sojourner therefore, three of the four pillars supporting Jewish identity may potentially be set in place, even if not necessarily firm or solid in structure. Torah/Judaism provides the culture and the initiative for action; the mitzvah system provides the specifics of the actions to be undertaken; Ascending Lineality transmits Settled Sojourner status. Only self-declaration is lacking. But self-declaration as a Settled Sojourner also serves to brace the edifice.
The process of shoring up the pillars of the Mansion will be ongoing for the Settled Sojourner as it is for any self-identifying Jew. Studying Judaism, immersing in Jewish life, deepening adherence to Jewish culture and Torah values while participating in the mitzvah of raising children affirming Jewish identity may, for more than a few Settled Sojourners, take on impressive strengths over time.
In Reform and many other congregations, children attend religious school and enjoy observing bar/bat mitzvah celebrations and Confirmations even when, or even though, their fathers are Jewish and their mothers are not. Without masculine or feminine distinctions in this age of gender equality, mothers and fathers alike share in making the decision to establish a Jewish home and to become joyous participants in the cultural and religious life of their family.
Years into their marriage, generally when children are preparing for their bar or bat mitzvah ceremonies, the non-Jewish mother invariably smiles and nods in agreement when I point out (again) that despite there having been no conversion – “only a convergence” – a mother of Jewish children is a “Jewish mother,” or more accurately, a Settled Sojourner. She is hardly different in the path she has taken and the way she has lived than a born Jewish mother. This Settled Sojourner status – in true egalitarian fashion – applies as well to a non-Jewish father.
Settled Sojourners do not refer to themselves as Jews but as parents of Jews living in a Jewish household, observing commandments and doing what Jews do. From time to time it is useful to be reminded, even if it is an oversimplification, that Judaism does not tell you what to believe but what to do, that is, how to conduct one’s life. The conduct of the life of the Settled Sojourner is a Jewish conduct of life.
The point here bears repeating: while lineage, or identity as a Jew, was once transmitted only from father to child, then only from mother to child, in our time the Reform and Reconstructionist movements have ruled that, given other required conditions such as a Jewish upbringing, Jewish identity can be conferred by either parent. This ruling is without question a radical but logical innovation of great magnitude and consequence.
At first this change – recognizing (again, as in biblical times) paternal descent as establishing Jewish identity – was put in effect and practiced in Reform synagogues unofficially. Theological justifications were not thought necessary. For decades, Reform Rabbis and their congregations would simply ignore maternity or paternity issues altogether once a child was enrolled in a synagogue’s religious school and the family made clear its decision to raise exclusively Jewish children.
The welcoming ceremony of Consecration for all children at the time of enrollment, documented in the annals and archives of a congregation (invariably Reform), sufficed to establish and authenticate Jewish identity regardless of which parent was Jewish. Jews, throughout their relatively lengthy history, have been less concerned with abstract principles than matters of conduct and ever-evolving behavioral norms – which realistically and humanely address new conditions and novel circumstances. These judicious and compassionate acts of inclusion preceded any theoretical justification or supporting theology of the sort being presented in this essay.
Consistent with this profound and fundamental innovative ruling by Reform and other Polydox movements that Jewish identity may now resolutely and validly be conveyed by either parent, women “gave up” sole possession of its transmission. It might be said that relinquishing their monopoly they advanced equality!
Since ancient times, god has been described in anthropomorphic, human, terms. Rabbi Donna Berman writes, “We all know that God is neither male nor female, King or Queen. God is defined as beyond human conception and understanding, and all words used to praise this Divine Mystery or to address It are merely a ‘pointing toward’ that which cannot be comprehended or named.
“The feminine aspect of the Oneness of God, according to tradition, is known as the Schechinah or the Divine Presence. This is one of the ten phrases for god used in both traditional and contemporary prayerbooks. Many of these designations like Hashem (the Divine Name) and Mekor Chayenu (the Source of our life) are understood to incorporate masculine as well as feminine dimensions of the divine, who is not less than both god and goddess. Any words and images we use, therefore, are limited as well as limiting. Utilizing only masculine pronouns and images in the English translations of our liturgy is especially limiting since it excludes and marginalizes women.”
Drawing on Karl Barth’s analogy that doing theology is like trying to paint a bird in flight, Rabbi Berman maintains that “confining ourselves to the limited use of the metaphors and language with which we’ve named and described God is like painting with a limited palette of colors. God deserves nothing less than a full palette. To resist broadening the images we use to describe God is to…proclaim, ‘I’d rather continue painting with three shades of green than introduce blues and grays and azure and purple and gold’.”[1] Judith Plaskow wrote, “…the God who supposedly transcends sexuality, who is presumably one and whole, is known to us through language that is highly selective and partial. The images we use to describe God, the qualities we attribute to God, draw on male pronouns and male experience and convey a sense of power and authority that is clearly male in character” [2]
Female rabbis have helped us come to realize that the female dimension of god, along with the male, must be present for providing and offering Her power and goodness to us all. Not for the sake of balancing, equalizing, or setting aside matters of gender. But, to state the obvious, the masculine and the feminine dimension of god combined, more fully discloses our own best – most comprehensive and most complete – potential for mending the world.
Many women have echoed the Jewish feminist sentiment. Some have feminized the name of the Almighty by calling upon Elah instead of El while others lift their voices to the “Goddess.” Contemporary liturgist Marcia Falk wrote, “If God is not really male, why should it matter if we call God ‘she’? If we are all created in the image of Divinity, the images with which we point toward Divinity must reflect us all.”[3] God–language should therefore be gender neutral, expansive, all-embracing, all-inclusive: Parent, Sovereign, Eternal, Friend, the masculine He as well as the feminine She/Shechina (Presence).
Jewish feminists teach, in the words of Carol B. Balin,[4] that “authentic monotheism does not mean belief in a God who is ‘other than the world’ but rather One who, as the Source of the flow of all life, is partnered with that which was created.”
_________________________________________
Bibliography:
1. Donna Berman, Sticks and Stones May Break My Bones But Words May Destroy My People (1993).
2. Judith Plaskow, “The Right Question is Theological,” On Bring a Jewish Feminist (1983).
3. Marcia Falk, “What About God?” Moment Magazine (1984).
4. Carol B. Balin, “Feminism and Messianism” Tikkun (Vol. 11, No. 6, November/December, 1996) p. 66.
My advice is, taking your position at square one, first declare yourself to be an “Ignostic god-seeker” a term “built upon ignorance” – an erudite, educated ignorance unscrambled and unpacked more fully further along in this page. An ignostic is here defined as one who not so much admits as avows and professes up front to being ignorant or uninformed and unknowledgeable of what is meant by god and what is being referred to in god talk. Ignosticism, a solid if provisional conviction entails an active pursuit of understanding – like venturing to read this site thus far in the first place. Ignosticism also serves as a philosophical way-station meant to provide a stepping-stone on the route to growth whether leading to convictions or toward denials. An ignostic requires clarification of how the term “god” is to be defined. An ignostic is not an “agnostic” who takes a leap of faith, rather than a leap of uncertainty (that’s the leap taken by the ignostic! ), and asserts that god (however defined) can never be known.
As an ignostic it is therefore also necessary, even required, to go shopping, do the research. Visit the room. There are schools of philosophy and history, metaphysical speculations and great theories of knowledge arranged among the furniture. For a Jew, seeking out the right synagogue and a compatible rabbi may be the best way to begin to become familiar with the contents of all the rooms including the God-room of the Jewish Mansion.
There is in Judaism spirituality, but there is more to Judaism than spirituality. Remember always, the question “Does god exist?” is not as significant as questions such as “How shall I think about god?” “How shall I prepare myself for a visit to the God-room?” “How long the visit?” “What baggage do I carry in and out?” “What intellectual preconceptions do I leave behind?” “How do I carry what I acquire there elsewhere?” “How can the room and its content enhance my life?” These are the kinds of questions an ignostic god-seeker asks. Further along we will attempt to identify the most critically relevant distinctions among the ignostic, the agnostic, the theist and the atheist.
One of the most fundamental principles uniting virtually all Reform, Reconstructionist, and most Conservative congregations (that is, most American Jews) is that of egalitarianism. Hence at a Reform synagogue it is taken for granted that its members would not join a Jewish congregation which was not gender neutral, one which falls short of being fully egalitarian.
Reform, Reconstructionist and many Conservative congregations mean by this that no privileges, duties, ritual honors and positions of importance in the synagogue will be determined, affected, or influenced in any way, by gender. Men and women are equal in all respects. As it has been stressed previously, by now the commitment and devotion to gender equality has become a 21st century axiom.
Prayer books for Jewish worship are gender neutral. Contemporary women have written new prayers for important milestones, events, and rites of passage that they alone experience: for the onset of menses and menopause, for giving birth as well as for infertility, miscarriages, abortions and still births, for surviving the trauma of rape, for becoming a mother in law and grandmother, and even for separation and divorce. Today Jews refer to God in feminine (for example, “Shechina,” translated as Presence, Providence) as well as in masculine terms. Women can become – and have become – cantors, educators and presidents of congregations.
And rabbis! Regina Jonas in Germany became the first ordained woman rabbi in 1935. In the United States the Reform movement’s Yeshiva/Rabbinical Seminary began ordaining women in 1972, the Reconstructionist movement in 1974 and Conservative Jews ordained their first woman rabbi in 1985.
It is also useful to remember now and again that there has never been an “obey” clause at a Jewish wedding ceremony in any of the streams of Judaism. Mothers as well as fathers accompany their sons and daughters to the marriage canopy together and at their side. Brides are never “given away” by the father as the mother watches from elsewhere on the aisle as though she were a second level parent.
More than a few non-Jewish brides are brought up anticipating the fulfillment of their romantic childhood fantasy of processing toward their groom on the arm of their father. Mothers watch but do not accompany their daughter down the isle. Most Jewish brides and grooms understand that being escorted by both parents to the wedding canopy is a statement expressing equality. It is egalitarian. For a Gentile bride the accommodation that positions her mother walking beside her represents a significant reevaluation of her values, mores, and principles. Non-Jewish brides soon realize that they are undergoing a major adjustment to overarching cultural changes in their way of life. Many understand their future as symbolized by the overarching canopy beneath which, as brides, they choose to pronounce their vows to a beloved Jewish groom. In addition, increasingly, wedding ceremonies climax with brides as well as grooms joyfully stomping upon and crunching glass underfoot. They are proclaiming that their marriage is of equal partners. Either one can make or break it.
Nowhere does it say in any Jewish sacred text that women cannot be religious leaders, rabbis, or cantors, although with few exceptions that didn’t happen until the late 20th Century. It was with the advent of Reform and Reconstructionist (non-Orthodox) Judaism that women in relative short order – given the span of Jewish history – officially counted as part of the minyan (quorum) of ten adult Jews required for a religious service, acquired the honor of reciting the Torah blessings, celebrated bat mitzvah ceremonies before their congregations at Sabbath morning services, became cantors and were ordained rabbis.
Today, every Reform and Reconstructionist rabbi would support these rights vigorously. The Orthodox would counter by pointing out that women are given different and no less honorable responsibilities than those required of men and that their duties are centered in the home rather than the synagogue. Not surprisingly, gender issues often underscore the major differences between Orthodoxy and Polydoxy. But even within the Orthodox community the question arises, “How far can Orthodoxy accommodate the needs of the new Jewish woman without losing its Orthodoxy?”
“There are also myriad specific questions: Will every girl in the community be expected to study Talmud? Will Orthodox women become rabbis; make halachic decisions as yoatzot, advisors, or poskot, decisors? Will they be dayanot, judges in the rabbinic courts of law, presiding over matters of divorce? Will the gendered language of the prayerbook undergo a transformation or will the original language be preserved, with commentary and caveat sensitive to kavod hatzibbur, the honor (of women) in the congregation? And most of all, who will prepare for Pesach? (Just kidding.)
“Who would have imagined that women … would serve on Israel religious councils, or as congregational interns in Orthodox shuls? Who would have pictured a woman reading the Torah portion at a woman’s tefillah (prayer) group?” [1]
In the various non-Orthodox (Polydox) congregations I have served as rabbi, gender issues have never surfaced. For over forty years I have shared the pulpit with as many female presidents and cantors as male, and every congregation treated all members equally in the life of the synagogue and did so well before I arrived on the scene.
As is the case with other rabbis, I would not consider taking a pulpit as rabbi of a synagogue that followed non-egalitarian traditions. Increasingly, this principle of equality is being applied also to the line of religious descent of children, otherwise known as lineality or lineage. Progressive rabbis today use the term equalineality, or co-lineality, to mean that Jewish identity can be conferred by either the father or the mother. Gender equality requires as much.