(RNS) — I had not considered him in a few years.
However once I realized lately of the dying of Rabbi Michael Lerner, a left-wing Jewish activist and creator, on the age of 81, I winced and I smiled and I shed a small tear.
I winced, as a result of as soon as upon a time, we had been pleasant, till we drifted aside.
I smiled, as a result of he had taught me a lot, and he had made me assume.
I shed a small tear, as a result of … properly, let’s discuss that later.
I first “met” Michael Lerner by Tikkun journal, the left-wing Jewish journal he based as a deliberate response to Commentary journal.
Lerner sought tikkun olam, that rabbinic and mystical phrase which means “repairing the world,” and which, sooner or later, had come to represent left-leaning social justice.
In making a worthy ideological stability to Commentary, Lerner did his job. It was an exquisite journal — shiny, visually wealthy and intellectually playful. I mined it for its political, cultural and spiritual critique, even/particularly once I disagreed with the articles. Tikkun ceased publication in April, predeceasing its creator by 5 months.
How profitable was Lerner? In all probability greater than he had imagined.
There may be that quote, typically attributed to the late artist Andy Warhol: “Sooner or later, everybody will probably be world-famous for quarter-hour.”
Lerner received his requisite quarter-hour of fame due to his non permanent relationship with Hillary Rodham Clinton. That they had met within the White Home in 1993. Hillary Clinton and Michael Lerner shared an curiosity in what Lerner known as the politics of that means — the notion that politics (and past that, faith) ought to communicate to the internal anguish of the up to date particular person.
Clinton put it this fashion, in a speech in Austin in 1993:
We want a brand new politics of that means. We want a brand new ethos of particular person accountability and caring. We want a brand new definition of civil society which solutions the unanswerable questions posed by each the market forces and the governmental ones, as to how we will have a society that fills us up once more and makes us really feel that we’re a part of one thing larger than ourselves.
And so, why that small tear I described at the start of this text? As a result of for years, I had been intellectually “quoting” Lerner and had by no means absolutely realized it. In my educating and my writing. I’ve been saying that Judaism, specifically, succeeds when it transcends market forces, consumerism and individualism, when it fills our lives with that means — a that means that connects us to one thing larger than ourselves.
That’s the topic of my new ebook, and it accommodates the phrase tikkun in its title — this was, unconsciously, my refined nod to Michael Lerner.
After which, in Lerner’s reminiscence, I reread his ebook, “Jewish Renewal: A Path to Therapeutic and Transformation.”
In that work, Michael Lerner lifted up a psycho-therapeutic evaluation of Judaism. He sees Jewish historical past starting in a trauma. The trauma? It’s one in every of Judaism’s most well-known tales: how Abraham, at age 13, shattered his father Terach’s idols.
The place is the trauma? The breaking of the idols was one factor, however then there may be the remainder of the story: Terach, Abraham’s father, takes him to King Nimrod, who places him on trial for heresy towards the gods. Nimrod casts the younger Abraham right into a fiery furnace. On the final minute, an angel redeems Abraham from the furnace.
This makes Abraham the primary almost-martyr, and the primary survivor, of Jewish historical past. And, says Lerner, this makes Abraham a survivor of kid abuse — the violence of fathers towards youngsters.
In my ebook “The Gods Are Damaged! The Hidden Legacy of Abraham,” I examined that legend of Abraham. I concluded that, trauma or not, the sound of gods breaking had reverberated over the generations.
My little tear about Lerner’s dying? I had not realized how a lot he had influenced my very own fascinated with Abraham and about Judaism itself.
That ache in Abraham’s childhood provides beginning to ache in his maturity. He’s a sufferer of abuse — and so he abuses others. He virtually provides Sarah to Pharaoh for his sexual use. He permits Hagar and Ishmael to be solid into the wilderness. Solely when the angel stops Abraham from sacrificing Isaac does he break the good chain of ache. Lerner suggests the angel was, in actuality, Abraham’s redemptive voice talking inside him — a voice that lastly says: No!
That internal wrestle of Abraham repeats itself over the generations: the voice of ache or the voice of therapeutic. That internal voice of Abraham creates two voices in Torah that compete with one another.
There may be the “good” voice: a voice of compassion, justice, freedom, something that fights towards racism, sexism, homophobia, classism, and many others. Something we do to strengthen the nice voice of our custom will redeem Judaism, the Jewish folks, and heal the world.
However there may be additionally the “unhealthy” voice, which is equally straightforward to hint.
- It occurs when the traditional Israelites killed Sihon, the king of Heshbon, as a result of he wouldn’t allow them to move by his territory — as a result of he refused us meals and water, as a result of he waged warfare towards us.
- It continues in Deuteronomy’s fantasies about how our ancestors completely worn out the nations of Canaan.
- It continues within the E book of Joshua, which is about warfare and conquest.
- It continues when Saul refuses to kill the merciless Amalekite king Agag, and the Prophet Samuel takes the very sword from his hand and hacks Agag in two. “As your sword has bereaved girls, so shall your mom be bereaved amongst girls.” (I Samuel 15: 33)
Sure, there are elements of Judaism that aren’t “good.” Of all these scriptural and trendy violations of the code of niceness, Lerner says: “This isn’t the voice of God. It’s the voice of ache and cruelty masquerading because the voice of God.”
That “unhealthy voice” is the re-occurring of Abraham’s primal trauma. It goes down by the centuries. In the end, it emerges because the actions of Israeli and Jewish extremists — most notoriously for Lerner, in 1994, when Baruch Goldstein opened fireplace on the mosque in Hebron — the cave of Machpelah, the tomb of the patriarchs and matriarchs (although not Rachel), killing 29 folks and wounding 125 others.
Allow us to not be stunned: Michael Lerner believes far an excessive amount of of Israeli coverage is the “unhealthy voice” of Torah. That may have included, in fact, the insurance policies of Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Nationwide Safety Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.
I agreed with Lerner that such acts of wanton violence have been unacceptable abominations. The place we disagreed was that Lerner went a lot additional than that. He was a staunch critic of Israel’s actions. In a few of our conversations, that stress turned obvious, although there was nonetheless nice affection between us. As soon as once more, that little tear.
Furthermore, I discovered the entire “good voice” vs. “unhealthy voice” factor to be far too simplistic and even problematic. His interpretation of Judaism was dualistic. It was straight out of “Star Wars” — the Luke Skywalker of good Torah, and the Darth Vader that speaks in a Yiddish accent, of unhealthy Torah (as I write these phrases, I notice, and mourn, the dying of James Earl Jones, who offered Darth’s voice).
I ponder if Lerner realized how intently his “good vs. unhealthy” interpretation resembled traditional Christian anti-Jewish theology: the “unhealthy god” of the so-called Previous Testomony and the nice god of the so-called New Testomony. Greater than that, I have no idea if he realized how subjective his evaluation was: What he appreciated was the nice voice of God; what he didn’t like should then be the unhealthy voice.
How shall I now eulogize my previous good friend, my instructor, my mental sparring accomplice?
By partially agreeing with him.
Sure, there are a number of voices in Torah. God seems in a different way to totally different peoples at totally different occasions. Every technology chooses its personal voice of Torah to listen to. Residing in a Jewish universe of a number of voices, I’d need Jews to listen to a voice that claims we’re all made in God’s Picture; a voice that teaches compassion for the poor and the displaced; a voice that claims God owns the Earth, and we’re solely renting it; a voice that claims: Select life, that you just and your youngsters could reside.
A voice that claims: In all you do, hunt down and discover the spheres of holiness that abide in your midst.
Rabbi Michael Lerner would have heard that, and I think he would have agreed.
Maybe he would have smiled, and maybe we each would have shed small tears.
Could his reminiscence be a blessing.
