Reflections on Rabbi Blau’s letter about Israel

One of the most extraordinary human capacities is the ability to overhear oneself. In response to our own echo we possess the capacity to enlarge our self-awareness and beneficially alter the trajectory of our personal growth.

Eavesdropping on oneself is not an easy task. It requires an objective assessment on the effect our words might have on an autonomous individual who might be listening. Our words, written or spoken, offer the listening universe, which includes ourselves, a roadmap of what we think about and what we believe is worthy of discussion. We are also capable of overhearing that which we choose not to talk about. We can, and should, overhear our silence.

The public letter issued by Rabbi Blau, and signed by 80 Orthodox rabbis, exposed a glaring silence. We, as a faith community, must overhear our communal silence. We are linked eternally with the people of Israel and the land of Israel. As such, we should listen in on our own silence to be found in the words of Rabbi Blau. We should be roused as much by the sensitivity of the rabbi’s concerns as by the insensitivity of our own silence. The echo of our indifference, or our self-justifying defenses to remain bystanders to starvation, should be jolted by overhearing our muted communal response to human suffering that is the subscript of the rabbi’s letter. The months of silence of many in the Jewish community, the exiled words of shame, responsibility and guilt regarding our treatment of Gaza’s children, must be overheard by each of us.

We should resurrect and listen to our silence, and our comments, of the past few months. We should remind ourselves of the hollow refrains that blinkered our moral imperatives to save lives and relieve suffering in Gaza. The shallow claim that we are held to a different standard than the rest of the world has no bearing on our moral obligations as Jews and as human beings. Directing anger at exaggerations or misrepresentations by the press or a failure to stress the suffering of the hostages — none of this excuses Israel’s failure to provide food to starving children under their military domain. As Jews, we don’t pride ourselves on being like the other nations of the world. We don’t diminish our humanity to defeat barbarism, nor do we tolerate barbarism to achieve our objectives.

Rabbi Blau, an outstanding talmudic scholar and spiritual guide who has earned the respect of the Orthodox community worldwide, deserves praise, as do his co-signers. However, it is tragic that this expression of profound concern by Orthodox rabbis may be perceived by our community as courageous, or even by some as outrageous. This message of moral clarity should have sprouted organically and spontaneously from multiple voices in multiple spheres. It is a message of humanitarian concern that should be grafted into our conscience by a life-affirming halachic system.

The letter was necessitated because we failed to acknowledge our responsibility or heed the innate ethical impulse ingrained in halacha. We shuttered the core sensibilities of our faith.

Rabbi Blau and his co-signers should have been echoing our pleas and not the prompt for us to recognize the urgent need for our pleas. The letter should have synchronized our humanitarian concerns and not awakened us to our silence. The letter should have been a reaffirmation of the moral conscience of the Jewish nation. Instead, it will perhaps serve to startle us into awareness of that sacred duty.

There is another component of this letter that is worthy of note. Over the course of the past 50 years, the Orthodox community has been separated from many of its colleagues by adoption of stringent rules of halachic adherence and acceptable dogma. Rabbis who received semicha from “less Orthodox” institutions are often not permitted to speak from the pulpit of more right-leaning institutions. Women who have achieved the designation of rabbas are not recognized by many in the Orthodox community. Rabbis who were ordained at Yeshiva University but who are deemed to have strayed theologically are barred from many Orthodox pulpits. It is a moment of providential collaboration that the 80 cosigners of Rabbi Blau’s open letter had no restrictions on Orthodox religious pedigree. Women ordained as rabbas joined in signing the letter with rabbis ordained by Yeshiva University. The progressive brilliance of the Chovevai Torah-ordained Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz joined with chief Orthodox rabbis from around the world. Rabbi Yosef Blau linked arms with the soulful and enlightened morality of Rabbi Yitz Greenberg.

The reach of Jewish morality exceeded the grasp of conformity. The horizons of compassion erased the lines of separation within the Orthodox rabbinate. The breadth of a united sense of halachic responsibility eclipsed the confines of ordained uniformity.

We must overhear our silence. We must act in accord with the voice of conscience that found expression in the letter of Rabbi Blau. We must also be witnesses to the glimpse of unity that elevated a moral concern for the children of our enemy above the doctrinal divisions that separate us. Let us hope that Rabbi Blau’s letter is an impetus to promoting both of these ends.

Jack Nelson is a longtime resident of Bergen County. For many years he practiced law in New York; now he is a business executive.

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