INCLUSION, ITS HOLD AND CHESHBON NEFESH

--By Rabbi Micah Kelber

This is what I got, D--

Please forgive the airy-ness and the perhapsedness at the end. I'm having a hard time coming to conclusions.

For the last couple of years, I have been consistently interested in the characters from our tradition who are not included as part of our tradition, particularly those who are set up as foils to our people or as down-right oppressors. The establishment of these problematic characters has been a dominant way to create opportunities for the emerging Israelite nation to act morally, intelligently, or with sanctity. My interest in them has not been along the lines of "What is the nature of evil?" but what can redeem these characters? Were they really as bad as it sometimes it felt like they were when I was learning about them both in elementary school and also through studying the gemara which often associates these degenerate characters with peoples the rabbis want Jews to be critical of, distance themselves from, and define themselves against?

My inquiries into these bad guys became particularly intense around the holidays. The last couple of months (okay, weeks) as I have been preparing my High Holiday sermons, I have had to go back to look at past sermons to make sure that I do not repeat the same jokes and stories from the previous years. I found that my sermons were often textually based arguments about the merits of these kinds of characters, specifically: Pharaoh, Kayin, and Lot.

In Pirke de Rabbi Eliezer (Ch. 42), for example, says that the wicked Pharaoh, after seeing his kingdom fall, repented and ended up going to rule Nineveh. Consequently, when Jonah (the Haftarah that we read on Yom Kippur) told the Ninevites that God was going to destroy the city, the Pharaoh rose up from his chair and puts on sack cloth and ashes, fasts, and urges everyone to do the same. In essence, on Yom Kippur our model for Tshuvah is none other than Pharaoh.

My defense of Kayin presented Kayin not as trying to duck his guilt when he said, "Am I my brother's keeper?" but asking God, honestly, where his brother had gone. He was responding in a true way when God asks Kayin "Where is your brother, Hevel?" for Esav honestly didn't know. It was as if he was a toddler, who accidentally played with a gerbil for too long and then looked down at it wondering why it had suddenly gone slack. Hevel's body would have been in front of him,
but Kayin would have been wondering why isn't he wasn't responding.
This defense was based on the fact that death had not yet been established in the world and so how would Kayin have known that a blow to his brothers head would result in the agency, the personhood of Kayin to evaporate. God was supposed to know where Hevel was, not Kayin, his response comes from a place of honesty and not a place of deception. Part of our working out what is right and wrong is trying to figure out the limits of the system that God has created. It does not always have to do with our Yetzer Harah.

Last year, I presented Lavan as the person who we are supposed to consider the model of identity on Yom Kippur. The rabbis teach that there are three classes of people in the world: the completely wicked, the completely good and those in the middle. All of us are to consider ourselves the middle person because choosing one of the extremes would prevent us from repenting and in case we are wrong
about which class we fall into, that would be a wasted opportunity.

Lot's existence in Sodom and Gemorrah, especially his offering up his daughters for the men on Sedom, cast him in a bad light, but he is considered one of the righteous of Sodom. He obeys Gods instructions and does not look back once he has left the wicked city. On the other hand, he does not want to go into the hills because he knows that Avraham is there. Next to the people of Sedom, he is seen as righteous; next to Avraham he would be seen as wicked-- clearly the Benoni, the one we are supposed to emulate on Yom Kippur. On account of him and his recognizing his limitations, the city to which he flees is spared. He specifically asks God to spare it (Gen. 19:21). By acknowledging our middle-ness and truly existing in it, we can actually achieve great things.

From this pattern of defending the bad guys, I had to ask myself-- why was I so interested in them? I remember being so intrigued by the defense attorneys that I heard about growing up-- the Kunstlers, the Darrows, and of course Atticus Finch. But that only showed me I had company. It didn't explain why.

David,

I am not sure that I will end up figuring out why in the space of this.

It can't be so simple as that I have never really felt included and that by trying to get these people in-- wherever that is-- I will, kal v'chomer, sneak in too. I have felt included before and my interest in them is not only social, but theological, as well.

It does make me think about growing up in Wisconsin-- never feeling a part of that culture-- part of it was that there weren't so many Jews around and part of it was that I didn't really know how to talk at the television. I feel a little bit of despair that maybe recently my identity has been cemented across the river on the other bank? From time to time, I go to minyanim in Boro Park or Midwood-- why do I always find myself wearing a blue shirt and khaki pants?

It's true-- I want a religion that accepts everyone, while it still requests (demands?) that we act in certain ways. Perhaps the exercise above is due to my feeling like the scales have been tipped to far in the direction of the legislated and is forgetting the population that gives it legitimacy. And if we have to listen to the development of problematic people, then we should more listen to
those less problematic, as well. Or perhaps I am fooling myself,
again, that I am part of that population.

Is it too much to ask that a system of religion that could have been created by God or created by people who want a relationship with God to consider each and every person in everything they are and how they exist in the world when it decides its criteria for inclusion? Is it too much to push for circumstances that will allow for inclusion to exist?

Hmmm..... how is this related to RH and YK? It is certainly during this time that we get to see the biggest representation of Jews in our communities and it gets me to think about the composition of our group. And the chagim are a time that everyone becomes equalized both Jewishly and socially. We are stripped down to our barest selves. The doors are open to everyone and everyone is considering
himself both deficient and worth redeeming. Everyone also is in a very strange way alone, but together.

Like people scattered in a dark desert for a while, trying to find some quiet.

This is what I got, D.

Micah Kelber