Earlier this year, I was at a small conference with a group of rabbis. We were gathered to discuss the state of Jewish unity – or the lack thereof. One rabbi wondered out loud if the time for Jewish Peoplehood was over. In the past, this rabbi said, he used to connect with rabbis of other denominations over their shared love and concern about Israel. But now, the one thing that used to keep them together is too often the source of what’s pulling them apart. “Even if I was to go to out for coffee with the rabbi of the Reform shul down the block,” he said, “what would we talk about that would not be divisive?”
To be clear, this rabbi is one of the most loving, most inclusive, most pro-interdenominational dialogue rabbis I know. But he is also a real lover of Israel. He could not fathom having a genuine dialogue with the rabbi from next door, who was marching in solidarity with the Arabs living in Gaza, who was speaking out against Israel with leading politicians, and was likely putting Jewish lives at risk.
About ten years ago, Rabbi Chaim Landau, Zt’l, met with me. He never once asked me to do anything ever, but in that one meeting, he invited me to deepen my relationship with rabbis of the other denominations in Baltimore. I did not listen to him at the time; I was busy acclimating to my new role. And that was a mistake. Rabbi Landau was right. All of the Jewish people are family and there is always time for family. It was now time to do teshuva and so I pushed back.
“If this pro-Palestinian Reform rabbi was your brother,” I asked, “and he was getting married to a Jewish woman, would you go to the wedding?”
This was not a theoretical question I was posing to the group. It’s a variation of a question I received this past year, and I am sure many others did as well.
“This rabbi is your brother. He’s part of the Jewish People. Is he not? If I may- I think you should go get some coffee and to the question of what will you talk about? Talk about anything. Talk about the local sports team. Who cares? Even if you have nothing in common, even if you disagree about everything, you are family, and family sticks together.”
Not all the rabbis in the room agreed with me. Some pushed back, saying that there is a line, and if someone is endangering the life of the Jewish People, we do not go to their wedding and we do not go out for coffee. It’s fair and it’s complicated.
But it made me realize that maybe there is something else amiss. It’s not Jewish togetherness that is becoming unfashionable, it’s the concept of family togetherness that is at stake.
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks once wrote, “Unconditional love is not uncritical, but it is unbreakable. That is how we should love our family.” Does that resonate in 2024? When Psychology Today reports that 1 in 4 Americans are estranged from a family member? When #No ContactFamily is one of the hottest trends on TikTok? Family relationships are about as fragile as can be.
So when people lament the rift that exists within the Jewish People, between Jew and Jew, whether it is over Israel’s right to defend itself or whether it’s over the Charedi draft or whether it’s over the hostage deal, you have to wonder if our disharmony is part of a broader trend of family estrangement.
And it’s so complicated. There are people who undoubtedly should have zero contact with their family to preserve their wellbeing. But there are others who perhaps should have more limited contact with their family. And then there are others who need to accept that they have difficult family members and need to work on themselves. It is sometimes very unclear as to which category you fall in. But what is clear is that when 25% of Americans from their family, there are definitely many who are going too far.
A moment ago, Meshulam, our chazzan, beautifully led us in Kol Nidrei. One of the key lines of this ancient and haunting prayer is permission to pray with sinners. Anu matirin l’hitpalel im ha’avaryanim. Rav Aharon Lichtenstein Zt’l explains that the real purpose of Kol Nidrei is to undo any excommunications that were instituted by the community. In the ancient world when someone in the community misbehaved egregiously the community would excommunicate them. But on Yom Kippur, they would annul that excommunication and invite the individual back in, letting him or her know that it was just a break, a pause, but the bond between them and the Jewish People, the bond of family cannot be broken.
There was a video clip making the rounds this past week from an anti-Israel protest on October 7th. On the day that we just wanted to mourn our dead, some sadistic and twisted people thought it would be appropriate to chant in support of Hamas and the Intifada. I cannot think of anything more despicable. At one of these evil protests, three teenagers from Chabad are seen with one of the protestors, a young man wearing a keffiyeh, and they are helping him put on tefillin. Let’s be clear – there is no middle ground between those chanting that Israel should be destroyed and those of us who know that Israel has the right to defend herself. But family is family. And despite these Chabad boys getting roasted by many on Twitter, I think they did the right thing.
I don’t have any brilliant solutions to the issues ripping our people apart. I often struggle mightily when trying to help someone navigate when a family member is truly harmful, and it is appropriate to fully disengage and when it is not. What I do know is that I, Yisrael Motzen, have made some pretty big mistakes this year, some were truly mistakes and others were not. And I will be turning to G-d over the next 24 hours asking Him to be compassionate, asking Him to recognize my frailty, asking Him to believe that I can change, and asking Him to hold on to me even though there are things He knows I will not change.
Can I be more compassionate to my family members? Can I recognize that the person before me is human with all the implied frailties and limitations? Can I believe the family member who tells me they will finally change? And can I still hold them close even though I know they will not?
There is undoubtedly a Jewish togetherness problem. But even more fundamentally, there is a family togetherness problem. Rav Chaim Vital writes that when G-d judges us for how we did with our interpersonal relationships, the only place He looks is how treated those in our home.
So perhaps for those of us who can, on this day of unity, on this day of reconciliation, can we ask ourselves those questions:
Can I be more compassionate to my family members? Can I recognize that the person before me is human? Can I believe the family member who tells me they will finally change? And can I still hold them close even though I know they will not?
In the merit of our attempt to bring our own families together, may G-d bridge the seemingly unbridgeable and bring our Jewish family together once and for all.