Rabbi Harold M. Schulweis Sermons

What has Jewish spirituality to do with Jewish fund raising? Everything. I am a fund raiser for Judaism. I am a fund raiser because there is no division of labor in Jewish life. One cannot espouse spiritual values from the pulpit and refuse to become involved in the material conditions which realize those values. I am a Jewish fund raiser because my knowledge of Judaism tells me that “The body is Thine and the soul is Thine.”  Body and soul are one. There is no separation between the secular and the religious, between the economic and the ideological.

Once a Chasid boasted that he had made a Jewish beggar religious. When he knocked on the door, he opened it and urged him to look at the mezzuzah and kiss it. And when he entered the home he said, “Before we eat we pray.” He prayed minchah, then maariv, and then he had him wash his hands with mayim rishonim. The Chasid was proud of himself, but the rabbi was disturbed. “No, there are moments in life when you should act as if there is no God.” “What do you mean to utter such strange words 'to act as if there is no God'?” The rabbi continued, “When a person is in need. When a person is hungry, homeless, frozen, you act as if there is no God. You feed him, clothe him, shelter him.”

But the Chasid persisted, “Am I not to save his soul?” The rabbi answered “You save your soul but you protect his body.”

“You see that mezzuzah? It has in it the phrase “Shma Israel, Adonai Elohenu, Adonai echad.”  It is placed on the doorpost high enough so that when you look at it your face is raised. The poor man who comes to you is dejected, embarrassed. His head hangs low but when he raises his eyes to meet the mezzuzah, his head is raised up and he remembers that he was taken out of the land of Egypt and that he is a free man.”

A friend of mine once said that there are all kinds of Jews –  atheists, theists, agnostics, believers, non-believers. But if you listen carefully you will understand that each of them, in their own way, recite the Shma Israel but they recite it in different dialects – I deny, and I dunno.

As a fund raiser, I am sensitive to the character of Judaism because I appeal to the potential contributor as a Jew and I include him as a Jew. It is as Jews that we have claims on each other, and one of the spiritual obstacles to Jewish philanthropy is the alienation, the disconnection, the polarization of our people, that we no longer can assume that we share this common loyalty. Therefore, as a Jew and a fund raiser, I am concerned with what is happening to the character of our people and of Judaism. I am concerned with the practice of de facto apartheid in which our children are kept separate from each other. They are denominationally kept apart. They go to separate kindergartens, Hebrew schools, Day schools, youth activities, Jewish camps. Jewish children do not pray together, play together, sing together. So we who are so concerned about mixed marriage are destroying the critical mass out of which in-faith marriages take place. We may not succeed as a community to see to it that Jews do not marry non-Jews. But surely we will succeed through our divisiveness to see to it that Jews don't meet and don't marry other Jews.

Pinchas Peli

Jewish philanthropy has a great role to play here. It must emphasize klal Yisrael and ahavat Yisrael  – the love of the whole people so that we can overcome the “golden calf” of denominationalism that drains money and diverts it to smaller and smaller factions. We have to educate our people and insist upon the oneness of our people that is a reflection of our belief in the oneness of God.

The predicate for philanthropy is respect not only for each other but for the wisdom and relevance of Judaism. And it is this that is being challenged. Therefore, on this eve of Passover, I want to concentrate on one of the deepest challenges that we face as Jews and as fund raisers. I refer to the fourth son, he who does not know how to ask. In our tradition this is the most frightening of all the sons. For not to ask is not a matter of ignorance. For clearly this typology is not unintelligent, this typology is not wicked. He does not know how to ask because he does not believe that there are credible and important answers.

We are dealing with a new typology. It is one that is reflected in the National Jewish Population Study of 1990 in which 1.2 million born Jews when asked “What is your religion?” answered “None.”

He doesn't say Christianity or Buddhism or even atheism. He is a Jew by negation. He is a Jew by double negation and it is the deepest frustration for those of us who come to him to solicit his support for Jewish causes. I ask him “Are you a Zionist?” “No.” “Are you an anti-Zionist?” “No.” “Are you a Sabbath observer?” “No.” “Do you oppose observing the Sabbath?” “No.”

He is ben klayim –  a cross between a chicken and a rabbit.

Pity him. Do not chastise him. He comes to my office seeking the blessings on a mixed marriage. Both of them are interfaithless couples and they remind me of the answer Disraeli gave Queen Victoria:   “Alas, I am the blank page between the two testaments.”

Why doesn't he ask? What is this muteness that has fallen upon our people? What accounts for the spiritual black hole that leads to such disinterest that he does not want to ask or know to ask?

He doesn't ask because he never received real answers to real questions.  Too much of Jewish education is an exercise in evasiveness in diverting the question.

My zayde and “shpeter.”  “Shpeter,” “later,”  never comes. I see and there are rationale given that Jews are not involved in theology, philosophy, that Judaism is essentially orthopraxy. It is a matter of doing, performing and acting, not thinking or believing. I think this is profoundly wrong. It reduces the philosophy, theology and spirituality of 4,000 years of Judaism to “pots & pantheism.”

I see the result of that miseducation – an education of performance and obedience without spirituality and philosophy. I get too many questions about asparagus and rice and too few questions about the why and wherefore we are supposed to transmit around the Seder table. Children and adults have been raised with a “Cecil B. DeMille version” of the exodus that trivializes our lives and Judaism. The child wants to know the meaning of these “miracles.”  What in general is the Jewish view of the miraculous? The adult wants to know, and it is important to reveal to him the great suspicion the rabbis had of miracles, about miracle workers, about faith healing, and their insistence that one does not rely upon the miraculous. The rabbis will say that it was not the rod that split the sea but rather the faith of a people, the moral cause of liberation. And therefore they say  “You will note in the Bible that Moses does not hold out a rod over the sea but his hand. Why not the rod?” The answer: “Lest people think that holiness and power is in the rod itself. It is not in the rod, it is in the idealism of a people.”

Jews have got to teach the profound reality principle of Judaism that does not hinge Jewish faith and moral sensibility to that which violates the laws of logic or the laws of nature. We have got to know the Mishnah from Rosh Hashanah.

The book of Chronicles, the brazen serpent found in the temple and broken to pieces by King Hezekiah. His action was approved. Or consider the commentary of the rabbis on Moses, Hur and Aaron. 

There is a profound tradition which bases Judaism upon a reality principle and which does not allow magical thinking to enter into Jewish spirituality. There is a “nes” in Jewish life and it is not one that walks on waters or floats in the air. It is the awareness of signs, of significant moments and events in our daily lives that are transforming and elevating.

I think of the remarkable innovation of Rabbi Naftali of Ropschitz, who passed the wine to those seated around the Seder table and indicated that the Messianic era does not come when we fold our hands, but that our people will not be redeemed except through its own labor.

Finally, I want to speak about the dignity and the seriousness of the Jewish question. So important is the question that if you are, says the Talmud, alone at a Seder and there is no other, you yourself must ask the question because slaves do not ask questions. In speaking of questions, I do not mean merely facts – like the four questions with which the child is introduced into the art of questioning –but the deep spiritual, philosophical and moral questions.

I will give you one illustration of the audacity, depth and power of the Jewish question found in the Midrash. When the Ten Commandments are given one of the includes the statement that God visits the iniquities of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generation. But Moses in the Midrash asks God, “Surely this is wrong. It cannot be. He says, “Consider, God, that Terach was an evil man but he gave birth to Abraham who was a good man. Consider that Achaz was a wicked king but he gave birth to Hezekiah who was a good king. Amon who was a wicked king nevertheless gave birth to Josiah. Surely it is wrong to visit the sins of the fathers upon the children.”

What is God's response according to this great rabbinic commentary? God said: “I will cancel My words and place your words instead.”

Spirituality and fund raising – the body and the soul are in a sacred work. We who are concerned with raising funds are clearly concerned with raising consciousness and cultivating Jewish conscience.

* This document, or any portion thereof, may not be reproduced without the written permission of the author.