Dear Hevreh,

Some issues affect you more than others…

Personally, there have been moments when a particular issue — whether in our community or in our greater culture — stir up intense feelings within me, and I feel compelled to speak out on them. This past week, I have been riveted by the story concerning Donald Sterling’s comments to his girlfriend about black people and the subsequent reactions to those comments. Perhaps it is because I am fascinated by how Judaism is portrayed in the larger culture or perhaps it is because of my love of sports (I thought about going into sports journalism before becoming a rabbi), but I I felt I had to respond in two separate ways. The first was to our community in my bulletin article on the Jewish need to speak out against bigotry and the second is in a published article that comes out today on Stateofformation.org on the opportunity missed by (Jewish) NBA Commissioner Adam Silver to address the issue in Jewish terms. In their different ways, both of these articles show how this issue affected me more than others.

Some issues affect you more than others…

For as much as we may want or try to be, we can’t be generalists, we can’t be affected in the same manner (or give the same attention) to every issue that comes by our desk because, for whatever reason, our Creator endowed us with a limited resource of attention and motivation.  Some may be interested in one thing and some may be interested in another, and if we acknowledge that we have different interests and motivations borne out of our Unique Torah then we can better diversify our efforts to make sure that our community reflects the needs and the desires of the greater whole.

Some issues affect you more than others…

Our response to the reality of our human limitations, especially if we seek to be more general in our scope, is to make sure that there are enough people around the table who have a variety of appetites. As the poster on the bulletin board by the side entrance of the synagogue reminds us, “a community cannot be carried alone.” We must all carry our community together by being honest about the issues that affect us greatly (and the ones that don’t) and by being humble and open enough to listen and respond to the issues that each of us raises, even if it affects us less than others.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Ari Saks

Category : Rabbi Rabbi's Journal
Tag : bigotry bulletin donald sterling rabbi rabbi's journal state of formation