In the summer, I work at a Jewish camp in Cleveland, GA, Camp Coleman. It’s been my home for 16 dazzling summers. Down the road from Camp Coleman, only about 3 miles away, is Camp Barney. Camp Barney is also a Jewish camp, run by the JCC of Atlanta. And every year, the staff at the two camps square-off for a basketball game. It’s one of the most anticipated events of the summer. In the unlikeliest of locations, four-hundred Jews pack the bleachers of the White County Recreation Center to watch the game, Barney on one side, Coleman on the other. Barney dresses in all blue; Coleman wears tie-dye. Barney bangs on a drum; Coleman cheers their faces off. Tempers flare. Players get injured. Fans get in each other’s faces. It is easily the biggest rivalry I have ever been a part of—bigger than Florida-Georgia, bigger than Yankees-Red Sox, bigger even than Emory-Wash. U.
And it strikes me as funny. Here we are in the middle of rural Georgia, miles from any organized Jewish community, and the two Jewish camps hate each other. Why? We all come from the same cities. We all go to the same schools. We all listen to the same music. We all get really excited about basketball. We all love camp. So, in the words of the prophet, “Why can’t we be friends?”
We read on Rosh Hashanah two stories about exactly that—rivalry. Maybe the ancient Rabbis, in their wisdom, knew that football season was a good time to consider the topic. Let’s focus on just one of those stories, about Penninah and Hannah. I’ll give you a little background.
Penninah and Hannah are married to the same man. Penninah has been able to conceive with him, but Hannah has not. And though their husband claims to love Hannah best, he gives more of himself to his fertile wife, Penninah. For this, Penninah taunts Hannah to the point of tears, until Hannah prays that God grant her a son. God hears Hannah’s sorrow, and she gives birth to the prophet Samuel.
Feel for a minute the deep-seeded family rivalry—a love-triangle, favoritism, deceit, envy, contempt. You can imagine the emotional scars this story must have left on its characters. It reads kind of like a soap opera.
I guess the ancient Rabbis, when they chose for us to read these stories on Rosh Hashanah, were trying to tell us that rivalry is a part of life. We can’t avoid it. It’s like friction—even on a glass plate, there’s still a trace. And like friction, rivalry is not always a bad thing. The same friction that causes a rolling marble to eventually slow to a stop allows a rolling tire to push against the road and speed away.
Sometimes rivalry can spark genius. Think of Lennon and McCartney. Or 2Pac and Biggie. 2Pac said it himself: “Can u c the pride in the pantha / as he glows in splendor and grace / Toppling OBSTACLES placed in the way / of the progression of his race.”
Sometimes we need a rival to give us the kick in the pants we need to get moving. Think of Charlie Brown and Lucy. Think of Apple and Sony. Do you think the MacBook Pro would be as great as it is if it didn’t sometimes have to look around and wonder what the Sony VAIO was up to?
Our sages taught that in order to learn, we must acquire a study partner. Someone to bounce ideas off of and to challenge our flimsier arguments. Educational psychologists will tell you that having a study partner helps students probe deeply and think critically. A sounding board. A fact checker. Someone to point out the holes in your argument and challenge you to fill them. Of sorts, a rival.
Funny then that the word for these study partners is chevruta—Aramaic for friend. Chevruta is a little more complicated than friendship. In chevruta, your partner needs to push back, give a little resistance, a little friction.
Indeed, our ancient namesake, Rabbi Hillel, is most famous not for his copious legal writings or his role as head of the Rabbinic assembly, but for debating against his rival, Rabbi Shammai. Think the Lincoln-Douglas debates.
There’s a great scene in Fiddler on the Roof where Tevye is listening to an argument. One side claims, “You can’t close your eyes to what’s happening in the world,” and Tevye responds, “You’re right.” The other side asks, “Why should I break my head about the outside world?” and Tevye responds, “You’re right.” Puzzled, and curious, an onlooker asks, “Tevye, he’s right and he’s right? They can’t both be right!” To which Tevye responds, “You know—you are also right.”
Judaism for centuries has obsessed about the right way of doing things. Do we light the Chanukkah menorah starting with one candle or with eight? Can the same cash register be used for selling meat as well as milk? Can gay and lesbian Jews become rabbis? What we forget to notice is neither side is ever right or wrong, that rivaling ideas have coexisted for centuries. While my father’s grandparents in Austria were busy disposing of their grains for Passover, my mother’s grandparents in Greece were cooking rice to prepare for the holiday.
So what does this all mean? Ashkenazi AND Sephardic. Hillel AND Shammai. Apple AND Sony. Lennon AND McCartney. Penninah AND Hannah. Camp Coleman AND Camp Barney.
It means there’s no one right way to be a Jew. I hear it all the time: I’m a bad Jew, I don’t do this, or I’m a bad Jew, I don’t do that. I’m here to tell you: THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS A BAD JEW. Picture a five-legged stool, or a fork with many prongs—this is Judaism. It’s not just a religion, it’s not just a history, it’s not just a set of values. It’s whatever you choose it to be.
So I’m here to be your rival. I’m here to challenge you. If you had unlimited resources and unlimited time to build a new way of expressing your Judaism, what would you do? Would you found a Jewish hiking club that spends weekends in the mountains? Would you organize your friends to read and think critically about editorials from the Israeli press? Would you start an online dating community for gay and lesbian Jews? Would you organize an interfaith group to fight poverty and hunger? Would you start a Jewish yoga studio? A Jewish book club? A klezmer-funk band? A Jewish meditation group? A silkscreen company that prints clever Jewish t-shirts? Would you organize your friends to devise new, creative, interactive ways of celebrating Shabbat? Would you commission new Jewish art? Would you explore the overlap between Jewish thought and quantum physics?
This New Year, acquire for yourself a rival, a friend who’s willing to push you. Together, do something Jewish you’ve never done before, something that speaks to you, something that challenges you. Make for yourself an experience that can’t be compared, that’s rivaled by none.
Camp Coleman might never love Camp Barney, but they sure do make us play good basketball.
Shana tova.
Nice work, Daniel :)
ReplyDeleteI dig it.
this is fantastic dr. shana tova!
ReplyDeletewonderful!!!
ReplyDelete