What Can I Do to Renew?

January 8, 2022

Author(s): Rabbi Wes Gardenswartz,

Listen Watch


Parshat Bo
January 8, 2022 — 6 Shevat 5782
What Can I Do to Renew?
by Rabbi Wes Gardenswartz
Temple Emanuel, Newton, MA

           

            For the last thirty-one years, until last year,  January 6 had been tied for the very best day in our family’s calendar.  Thirty-one years ago our son Sam was born on January 6. In addition, the birthday of our beloved colleague Joan Mael is also January 6.  For years, before the pandemic, our colleagues would take Joan out to Legal’s for lunch.  At home and at work, I just loved January 6.

            And then came last January 6, and the day obviously became a whole lot more complicated.

            A year later, January 6 is the hottest flash point in our beloved but divided land.  I want to offer you today two different narratives, a decline narrative and a renewal narrative, and then a personal challenge in response to the one-year anniversary of January 6.

            The decline narrative was offered by Leon Kass in an interview with David Brooks on The Ezra Klein Show which aired last month.   Leon Kass is an illustrious professor of philosophy at the University of Chicago, and David Brooks was his student back in the day.  Leon Kass is also the author of Founding God’s Nation: Reading Exodus, a hefty tome that clocks in at more than 700 pages.

            David Brooks observes that the Book of Exodus teaches how to take contentious, fractious, divided tribes and make of them one nation.  He asks Leon Kass: What light does it shed on America today?

            Leon Kass answers that the Book of Exodus teaches us three things are required to form one nation out of multiple tribes:  Common story. Common higher purpose. Common rituals.  The Israelites, while twelve tribes, had all three.

            Common story? Check.  The Exodus. 

            Common higher purpose? Check.  Serving God through the laws given at Sinai.

            Common rituals? Check.  The Tabernacle, the Mishkan, wherein God’s presence could be felt by ordinary people who offered their sacrifices.

            Brooks asks Kass: how do these three categories apply to America today?  The answers are not encouraging.

            Common story? Hardly.

            Common higher purpose? Hardly.

            Common rituals? Hardly.

            The evidence of our lack of common identity across all three categories is found in the  radically different takes in our nation about January 6.   Something like two thirds of Americans believe it was a direct frontal assault on our democracy.   But something like one third of Americans believe it was appropriate to use violence and insurrection to protest what they see as an unjust result.  One third believe that January 6 was the very spirit of 1776, heroic armed patriotism in service of liberty.  Two thirds believe the day portends the end of our democracy.  Common?  These narratives are so far apart that opposing sides cannot have a productive civil conversation.

            At the end of their conversation, Leon Kass and David Brooks despair for the future of our country. A decline narrative.

            And yet, as Jews we are hard-wired for hope.  The national anthem of a dispersed and persecuted people is Hatikvah.  We have to find hope.  But where?

            Which leads me to a renewal narrative.  This coming Tuesday, January 11, is a big day for our family because our son in love, Davide Russo, is taking his citizenship exam, and if he passes, he will take the oath of allegiance and receive his Passport as an American citizen.  Davide was born and raised on the East Coast of Italy, in a small town called Sant’Elpidio a Mare.   There are many aspects of Italy he dearly loves, and he loves his family and friends there.  But from an early age he dreamed of coming to America, for two reasons.

            He knew as a young boy that he was gay, and it is not okay to be gay in Italy, when he was growing up, or now, all these years later. 

            And there is no economic trajectory in Italy.  His friends from high school still live in the small town where he grew up, many of them living in their parents’ homes.  They will spend their lives in this community, and when their time comes, will be laid to rest, their life lived within a radius of a few miles.  Davide wanted more.

            As a teen, Davide taught himself how to use the evolving field of digital photography, and with that photoshopping, so that any digital photograph could be enhanced.  He parlayed that skill into a job in high school, which he used to get to and pay for college in London, where he learned to speak English, from there a green card to New York where he managed people who did photoshopping for his employer throughout his early 20s.  From there business school where he met, and subsequently married, our son Nat.

            For more than 10 years, Davide has been working and going to school in America with this green card, and on Tuesday, he takes the test that would enable him to become a citizen.  Davide’s eyes yield a vision of America that most people who are born here no longer see.

            He speaks of America’s commitment to ideals of equality and dignity.  In Italy he feels unsafe walking around as a gay man.  Gay people get attacked in Italy in broad daylight, without consequence.  It is not a hate crime in Italy to attack gay people, and it is not a hate crime because legislators do not want to make it a hate crime.  By contrast, in America hate crimes do exist and they do protect vulnerable minorities.

            He speaks of America as the land of opportunity.  He still uses words like the American Dream.  Who talks about the American Dream anymore? My son in love.  In Italy he would have run his family’s pizza restaurant. Now he works in Silicon Valley.

            Davide offers a renewal narrative. He reminds us that what is wrong with our country should not blind us to what is also right with our country.  Our problems are real.  No one can deny them.  But it is also true that our country continues to provide legal protections to vulnerable people, like our gay children, who would be much worse off in other countries.  And it is also true that our country continues to provide economic opportunity.  Not for all, to be sure.  But for some.  It’s the problems that get all the attention.  But the blessings of this land are also real, we just don’t talk about them as much.  For all of our nation’s challenges, there is no country in which I would rather live.

            January 6 is real.  But January 11 is also real.  The tensions that created January 6 are still with us, obviously.  But on Tuesday our son in love becomes a US citizen.  That renewal is also real.

            Where does that leave us?  What happens next depends upon each of us.

            The one-year anniversary of January 6 offers each of us an opportunity to refresh and rethink what it means to be a citizen.  For many of us, our citizenship in this country is something that we might have taken for granted.  It just is.  But January 6 enables us to ask a new and urgent question:  what can I do to renew? What can I do as a citizen to make my beloved country better and stronger?  Act as if the welfare of our country hinges on your answer to that question because it does.

            When I was growing up, my favorite children’s story was called The Five Chinese

Brothers.  There were five brothers each of whom possessed a special life-saving talent.  One brother could swallow the sea, the second had an unbreakable iron neck, the third could stretch his legs to incredible lengths, the fourth was immune to burning, and the fifth could hold his breath forever.  The family lived in a time of danger and uncertainty.  Each brother used his unique talent to save the family.

            We live in a time of danger and uncertainty.  The best response is for each of us to ask ourselves: What is my gift?  What can I contribute to cast my lot with the renewal narrative? We have doctors who are still healing, still going into crowded hospitals to do their holy work.  We have teachers who are still teaching in a time like no other.  We have children who are serving in our nation’s armed forces, far from home, putting themselves at risk to protect our nation. 

            The good news, and the intimidating news, is that the future of our land is in our hands.  What can I do to renew?

            Shabbat shalom.