| - is a full and open reflection on some of the conflicts he has engaged in. For anyone who has spent time on the opposite side of any cause from him and will be reading this volume, no doubt our narratives of various events comes from a different perspective than R. Weiss. In my case, my memories of his encounters with the Dinkins administration in NYC differ from those here (and they are abundant). To note one example, when at moments he admonishes the Federation leadership for unnecessarily keeping him out of a NY GA plenary, or elsewhere pronounces non-violence as an absolute, its hard not to recall that in January 1990, he led a protest at Mayor Dinkins’ inaugural (over a year before Crown Heights) and his disciples snuck into a restricted museum space at City Hall and used it as a launching point for water balloons aimed at the dais. Elsewhere he denounces the JDL’s tactics that put his students at risk for their safety at one of his rallies. His reflections regarding how on several occasions his choices left the spaces for despicable actions and words by his students in a racially charged climate and caused great emotional injury to many good people – closing down space for dialogue and frankly for his own effectiveness - would have been a welcome addition. The absence of that consideration in a guide for holy change making makes this work, for me, incomplete, and leaves me challenged again to fully embrace the spiritual activist persona presented here. So what will you find in this volume? Rabbi Weiss lays out a cohesive personal values system, and by understanding it we are invited to engage him, to find common cause where we can and to disagree where we must. Also within are the lessons learned from a lifetime of challenging the establishment and living outside of the acceptable middle of Jewish life. What emerges is consistent prioritization of the preservation of the Jewish people, and a unabashed streak of anti-authoritarianism, with the courage to live beyond the reprobation of others – for better of worse. Weiss’ passion for Jewish concerns first and foremost is rooted in Love – love of his family, of Jews, of all humanity. That love comes with a limitation, the limit of loving mine before others, the limit of not being able to love everyone fully and equally. For Weiss, Jews are his extended family and so his priority is action on their behalf. That Love allows him to respect all Jews and all humanity even in argument, but it limits his agenda as well, to what can be afforded for his own. Activism from Love, while powerful, did not resonate for me. While Weiss sees gentiles through the eye of ahavat habryiot (love of all creation), others in the Jewish tradition see the relationship through tzelem elohim (creation in the image of god) and deserving of dignity. It is within that difference between love and dignity that emerges the work of Tzedek, which to my mind has a note of anger in it – righteous indignation over the lack of dignity for others. Dignity compels us to act for those farthest from us if theirs is the most inhumane condition, not for those closest based on circles of affection. It’s an important distinction that Weiss does not acknowledge here and one not to be lightly ignored given its implications for the priorities set by Jewish activists. What did resonate deeply was a striking section that roots his philosophy in the confrontational actions of Rabbi Akiva and the 2nd century Bar Kochba revolt against the Romans. For a member of the Orthodox rabbinate he takes a rather dim view of the political machinations of R. Yohanan ben Zakkai, founder of rabbinic Judaism who famously, through diplomacy, founded the yeshiva at Yavneh in the final hours of the Judean republic. He draws the threads of counter-diplomatic Jewish behavior all the way through to the Holocaust and his own work today. Over and over the message is clear: Do not concern yourself with what others (read gentiles) will think, say what needs to be said, and do it as loudly as you must. He also has a fairly dim view of the organized Jewish community, which has led him to common cause with other outsiders both Left and Right – joining up with Michael Lerner to protest against the NAACP over the objections of the Baltimore Jewish Council- and getting pushed aside by communal forces when his causes take off. In the context of one such incident he embraces humility as a way of being, taking a back seat at communal rallies for the sake of the causes he catalyzed. Compelling stories, fun to read and very telling. He lays out a step by step guide to activism, from how to choose a cause, to designing a strategy to leading other people. Its mostly familiar ground, but he shares the wisdom of a life of risk-taking in a cohesive manner and throughout he roots his advice in hasidic and Talmudic stories (some of which, though familiar to me, I could not source and the footnotes are slim). Bemusingly, he has a vision of the role of the rabbi as the spiritual authority that is in itself slightly authoritarian. Citing R. Chaim of Brisk, he sees the rabbi as responsible “to redress the grievances of those who are abandoned… to save the oppressed.” For him this is the embodiment of Heschel and King, two of his proclaimed role models in the ways of spiritual activism. Within it he sees the rabbi as a charismatic authority, responsible for making the moral calls, for stepping to the front and calling the flock to arms. Rabbis are “called” to lead and amongst his numerous critiques of the Jewish establishment is his disappointment with a system that empowers laity and leaves the rabbis in the pews, not the boardrooms of national agencies, “shunted aside” despite their ability to connect to the base in the pews. This doesn’t contradict said vision, but I was left wondering what he thinks about the model of community organizing being taught at YCT, where rabbis learn to act as facilitative leaders, empowering their congregants and building leadership throughout the pews as a model of social change. Will the rabbis who are his legacy share his view of their role at the ramparts? R. Weiss concludes with the affirmation that every action counts. Citing the kabbalist, he notes that every action no matter how small has an impact (it’s what mathematics proponents of the chaos theory call the butterfly effect). He tells over a story from R. Shlomo Carlebach about saving starfish. With a high tide washing thousands ashore and one man trying to save them, the man is called foolish. His response to the charge that his actions, throwing them one by one back in the ocean won’t make a difference? Throwing yet another back in to the sea he responded, “Well for that starfish, it makes all the difference.” You can love him, or be frustrated by him. Agree with him or argue vociferously, but Rabbi Avi Weiss is one activist who has made a difference in the Jewish world, and for that alone he merits our respect and attention. |
