Here is an excerpt from a recent speech that I gave "installing" a rabbi:
When I was young, my favorite book that my parents read to
me was Leo Leonni’s Frederick.
Lionni was born in Amsterdam, the son of an Italian Jew, and
he came to Philadelphia in 1939. He wrote Frederick in 1967. Here is the story:
there is a group of field mice and they are all gathering grains and other
foodstuffs for the coming winter months. All except for one – Frederick. What
is Frederick doing? He is sitting watching the sunset, he is chasing
butterflies, he’s watching the wheat blow in the wind. What are you doing? The
other field mice say. “I am gathering colors” he says. Some of the mice mock
him. But then, as they huddle together in darkness, for months on end, the
field mice get depressed. Frederick begins to tell stories of the colors. He paints
a picture for them in such a way that their winter depression is lifted and
they all come to see the importance of his sacred task.
What, as we enter 2013, is the role of a communal spiritual
leader? What is a rabbi for?
I want to suggest that there are two forces that are shaping
our world as we enter into 2013.
The first is what I’ll call the global digital revolution.
Future generations will look back on Steve Jobs as we look back on Thomas
Edison, and Galielo Galeli. The instant interconnection of the globe through
shared information is, indeed, a monumental shift in human culture. Within seconds,
we can see what is going on all over the globe. A few weeks ago, I
simultaneously watched a live feed from Gaza City and from Sderot from the
comfort of my home in Montclair. At the same time, I was Gchatting with my Israeli
cousins, reading Facebook rants from my friends on the left and the right, and shopping
for Hannukah gifts.
In some ways, the inter-connectivity is amazing. We can now access
libraries and news and order flaxseed, shoe polish, hair gel, and garden
gnomes.
But the inter-connectivity also has a downside, evidenced in
the network of thieves, human traffickers, and nefarious predators who are harnessing
the digital world for destructive purposes. The world has become a more
dangerous place.
But what I want to focus attention not on the benefits or
drawbacks of the digital era, but the way in which the digital era has produced
a spiritual crisis. In our day, we want everything immediately, we can’t focus
on one task, we are frustrated by anything that is not lightning fast, and we
have an information overload.
Many students in our schools have little idea where to begin
in navigating a flood of information and in dealing with the peer pressure that
exists in digital environments. Thinking critically is not valued in our
educational testing system and our children need strong mentors and teachers
and parents who can help them to be discerning.
We know more than we have ever known about the human body,
about the bio-chemical make-up of our brains, about our digestive system,
respiratory system, and immune system. And yet, when we or someone we love is faced
with illness, we are lost in a sea of information. A flood of possibilities
surround us and information contradicts other information and there are no
simple answers to the ongoing mysteries of the human body.
The spiritual crisis of the digital era leads us to want
fast answers to questions that may not be answerable.
The second force that is surging today is also global. It is
a global resurgence of religious tribalism – a worldview that offers fast
answers. Religious leaders, who often
use the tools of the digital era, paint modernity and science as a weapon of
the good. They call for a return to patriarchy and an end to all judicial systems
that exist outside of the religious authorities. We see this resurgence
particularly in nations whose people have seen years of government corruption
and have lose their faith in pluralist, secular systems of governance.
This rise in religious extremism presents a spiritual crisis
for us as well. All those who do not pledge allegiance to the leaders of these
sects are labeled as illegitimate. In Muslim, Chrisitan, and Jewish circles the
level of hatred between these resurgent traditionalists and all other adherents
has grown. Many young Jewish people grow up today thinking that unless you are
in the most anti-modern yeshivah, then you are not really practicing Judaism.
These two forces are very real and our world needs leaders who can help us to navigate them.
What is needed to navigate a global digital world?
A rabbi who understand how the digital revolution is
changing the way that people are learning and socializing, but who champions
the wisdom of our ancient technologies – reading, conversation, ritual, poetry
and silence.
What is needed in a world of narrow religious tribalism?
A rabbi who has great love and respect for tradition, but
who is willing to balance that respect with a respect for modernity and the new
ways in which we are coming to understand what it means to be human and to be
in community. A rabbi who is not afraid to think critically about tradition and
not afraid to be a public spokesperson who defends the Jewish people.
