A Visit to the White House: Speaking Values to Power
Fri, July 20, 2012
Parashat Matot-Mase
Our double Torah portion this week concludes the book of Numbers. The first of the two portions, Matot (Tribes), begins with Moses addressing the tribes of Israel and includes a military retaliation by the Israelite commanders on the Midianite enemy, and a review of their campaign by Moses. There are problematic issues of how to treat the women combatants, and then there is the equal distribution of the booty to those warriors who waged the campaign and the rest of the Israelites, with a tax for God and the priests for the running of the Tabernacle. The portion continues with a line quoted often in Israeli society today as the growing ultra Orthodox Haredim avoid military service to study Torah, “Are your brothers to go to war while you stay here?”
Our second portion, Masei (Marches), speaks of our Exodus from Egypt and the encampments we lived in on the way to Sinai, as we were emigrants from a land of servitude in search of freedom. It is clear from the portion that the land God gave us was already inhabited and we were tasked with displacing the Canaanites to take possession of the land. It then continues to discuss cities of refuge, places where those who killed someone unintentionally could go to be saved from avengers. A system of justice was put in place to protect the innocent and punish the guilty. And finally, the portion ends with a clear declaration of the rights of women within the confines of tribal land claims.
Issues of war
the spoils of war
taxes
required monies to God’s Tabernacle and those who serve it immigrants and emigrants in search of freedom
displacement of peoples
justice for those seeking refuge
the rights of women
These are the same issues we are still dealing with in our world today. These are the passages of Torah that have shaped our Jewish values through the ages. These are a few of the many values that all of you sixth graders will learn this year as you study Torah in preparation of your Bar and Bat Mitzvahs. And these are the values we brought to the White House yesterday.
I was truly honored to have been asked to be part of a delegation of 16 Reform Jewish leaders to visit the White House to speak to the Chief of Staff, Jack Lew and the Jewish Liaison, Jarrod Bernstein. Led by Rabbi David Saperstein, the director of our Religious Action Center in Washington, our group contained the heads of each of the three major institutions of the Reform movements: the URJ (Rabbi Rick Jacobs), the CCAR (Rabbi Steve Fox) and HUC-JIR (Rabbi David Ellenson), a few of the lay leaders of our movement, and rabbis of large congregations from Texas to Ohio to DC, and I was privileged to be the only rabbi from a small congregation present at the table.
I must tell you that even though we were in the White House, the event did not feel political or partisan. It felt very Jewish and very American, and that is what I want to focus on this Shabbat. We were people deeply committed to the values of Torah, social justice, and our passion for Israel, all whose families had come to this nation as immigrants, some first generation like the Chief of Staff himself or one woman whose father survived the Holocaust, and others of us second or third generation Americans. That alone was historic and cause for pause.
I must tell you how impressed I was with the Chief of Staff, a modern Orthodox Jew, who in his opening remarks applauded our movement’s commitment to social justice and was so knowledgeable about the issues we had come to advocate for. You have to feel proud to have a thoughtful Jew in that role, no matter what your political stripes.
Let me set the stage: We met at the Religious Action Center where we were given briefing papers and the question we were to ask at the meeting. The plan was that Rabbi Rick Jacobs would open with words of Torah and set our agenda, and then we would ask a series of questions on issues that have been voted on as important at our biennial gatherings of 6000 representative members of our 900 congregations, composed of a 1 and ½ million Reform Jews across America. The Orthodox and Conservative movements had already had their visit to the White House and this was our turn, but we were “special” because the president had already attended our Biennial in December, where you might recall he gave me quite the squeeze when we had our picture taken together!
We arrived at the White House and went through security. We put our cell phones in cubbies outside the room, at which point I thought to myself…“that would be a great idea for temple!” We were ushered into the historic Roosevelt Room opposite the Oval Office. I wish I could tell you that the room looked particularly special. It was old and historic, reminding me of many of Washington’s venerable sites. There was a big wooden table with name cards. I took mine when the meeting was over. I was struck that the Great Seal of the United States on our name tags had a Jewish star composed of thirteen five pointed stars.
I sat opposite a portrait of the young Franklin Roosevelt, two seats to the right of the Chief of Staff who responded to Rabbi Jacobs’ remarks with remarks of his own respectful of our movement, our mutual commitment as Jews to America, and his desire to hear our concerns for our nation and Israel. He began by expressing the President’s condolences to the Jewish community for the massacre of Israelis in Bulgaria this week, clearly at a loss of how to capture in words the tragic event. He spoke of Syria and the diplomatic efforts to contain Iran, as well as addressing administration support for same-sex marriage and reproductive rights for all women, including contraception, ever mindful of our need to be respectful of religious sensitivities and concerns across the religious spectrum.
Our topics spanned national and international interests and although it hadn’t been planned, but could have been expected, a great deal of time was spent on the commitment to the security of Israel, before we got to the American Jewish social agenda. I was actually tasked with the only Israel question we were asking: “How would it be possible for Israel to maintain its Qualitative Military Edge as the past two administrations have forged agreements to sell billions of dollars of military aid and equipment to the nations surrounding Israel?” Not a question I would have known, or chosen, to ask, but I was a representative of a programmed agenda. We were assured that Israel’s security was a priority and that all relationships with her neighbors had a mindfulness of helping Israel maintain her QME, qualitative military edge, meaning that at no time would America do anything to jeopardize Israel’s competitive military edge or security by selling her neighbors something that could be used to destroy her.
As a Reform movement, we have social justice passions and an abiding concern for the safety of Israel rooted in the values of Torah, far more than they represent any modern political agenda or party.
There were questions and answers about tax fairness and tax policy, the need to make sure that Israel did not feel alone against Iran, health care implications for the most vulnerable, including elderly Jews in nursing homes across America, immigration reform especially for children who have grown up in America and have only known this as home, and poverty, addressing the need to make sure that American’s hungry children not lose out on benefits in the embattled Congress. Our group made it clear that religious liberty issues were important to us, but that they should never be confused with basic human rights and access to health care, and that we feel passionately that employers should not be able to discriminate against, or fire, workers because of their gender or orientation.
The discussion was American not partisan, Jewish in its core values and message. The Torah portion came alive for me in that historic White House room:
Protect our right to Israel and our people Israel
Protect the rights of women
Share the tax burden among the people
Immigration and justice for all
Protection of our most vulnerable: our seniors and our children
What impressed me most was that the conversation stayed on the principles of fairness and was infused with Jewish values language. It was passionately Jewish, passionately American, and made me feel proud to be both.
We live in a world of division. People are defined by what separates them politically, socially, economically, and internationally, rather than what unites them.
When the meeting ended, Jarrod Bernstein, the White House Jewish Liaison announced that the President had just come out in support of asking that the Olympic Committee have a moment of silence for the Israelis who were massacred at the 1972 Munich Olympics on this the 40th anniversary. I was living in Israel at the time, and remember the horror that ripped through the Jewish people as once again Jews were massacred in Germany. It was a symbolic, but important, American request. So much of diplomacy rests on symbolic events and important moments when good people stand up for good values, and vow never to forget the past.
As we watch the summer Olympics, as we mourn the tragic loss of life this week alone, as we try to navigate beyond the negativity and rhetoric of campaigns, there is a higher ground that still exists, one that still has civility and respect, integrity and purpose. Mr. Lew, our President’s Chief of Staff is a good Jew in the White House. That is something our American Jewish forbears only dreamed might someday happen. He took his family to Ellis Island on the 4th of July to remind them that they were descendents of immigrants to these shores and as such had a responsibility to remember that past and let it inform their future.
We were good people, committed Jews, and patriotic Americans gathered for one of many meetings in a building that can and should embody our nation’s highest values and principles, and we were talking living Torah’s values within the context of American patriotism.
Yesterday may have been ceremonial and scripted, but our small band of Reform leaders left the White House feeling proud to represent you and to speak the Torah’s values to America’s Power. It was a good moment for Americans and Jews everywhere that won’t be marked in any history book, but will remain with me forever.
Shabbat Shalom