A few weeks ago, I had the distinct opportunity to join 300 rabbinic and cantorial colleagues for “Recharging Reform Judaism,” at the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue (SWFS) in NYC. In an effort to challenge, or inspire, or awaken (take your pick) the largest synagogue organization anywhere in the world outside of Israel, this conference set its sights on re-rooting Reform Judaism in Jewish text, tradition, and a greater sense of “Clal Yisrael” (Jewish Peoplehood.)
The program opened with an address by Rabbi Ami Hirsch of SWFS, followed by Rabbi David Wolpe, Rabbi Emeritus of Sinai Temple, Los Angeles. Rabbi Hirsch delivered a Jewish version of a fire and brimstone speech, whose greatest rallying cry centered on his bewilderment over the 1100 Jewish college students who wrote a letter to the URJ demanding, in essence, that as a matter of the principle of Tikun Olam, the Reform movement must boycott, divest from, and sanction the state of Israel. The smell test of success had failed – if Jewish college students were so myopic that they couldn’t at least understand their inherent connection to the preciousness and fragility of the Jewish state with at least as much passion and interest in the plight of so many of those who would seek to destroy us, something has majorly fallen apart.
Rabbi David Wolpe stepped up next to share about his odd odyssey that, led to his quick departure from Harvard after having just arrived months earlier to become a visiting scholar at the Harvard Divinity school. Rabbi Wolpe shared a great deal that should frighten any sensitive Jew, but in an effort to leave us with a bit of a nechemta (comforting message), he shared this personal, fictional anecdote:
In the wake of the violence of October 7th and the frightening and irrationally anti-
Semitic response on social media, on American streets, and college campuses, Rabbi Wolpe shared that he had imagining a “conversation” with his great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather. Rabbi Wolpe says to his ancestor, “We’re having a tough time at Harvard.” But his ancestor, flabbergasted, interrupts him to blurt out, “There are Jews at Harvard?” Rabbi Wolpe continues, “Yeah, but there’s a lot of hatred of Israel.” Again, great grandparent8 again interrupts and says, “There’s an Israel?”
The nechemta > imagine the plight of the Jewish people today if there was no Israel.
