The Best Colleges for Jewish Students

This a text version of my sermon from Shabbat services on 4/29/17 –

This coming Monday, May 1, is the final deadline for high school seniors around the country to commit to the college or university of their choice.  Thousands upon thousands of students are wrestling with that decision this weekend, knowing that the process that began for many of them almost two years ago is down to these last couple of days, maybe even the last few hours.  Today students and their families take into account a whole series of factors that I never even considered when I was applying to college.  Does the school have a food court, for example, or state of the art work out facilities, or Starbucks coffee available on campus 24/7?

In the Jewish community there is also an additional factor that families wrestle with that was not on the table even 10 years ago, and that is what is the school’s attitude towards Israel in particular and towards Judaism in general?  We are probably all aware of the complexities of navigating Jewish life and identity on the college campus today.  The Boycott Divest and Sanction Movement – often called BDS – a movement that very publicly, and often provocatively, challenges Israeli policy vis a vis the Palestinians, and sometimes also challenges Israel’s right to exist – that movement is strong and active on many college campuses.  And there is a growing perception that those campuses are not friendly places for Jews – that they are becoming anti-semitic – and that Jews should perhaps shy away from attending those schools.

Just this past week, the Algemeiner, a right of center web site that covers Jewish news, released a list it entitled ‘the 40 Worst Colleges for Jewish Students.’  The list was compiled based on an attempt to assess some of the following:  the number of anti-Semitic incidents on campus, the number of anti-Israel groups, public positions taken by faculty – in other words are there faculty on the campus that are vocally anti-Israel, and also the success or lack of success of boycott-Israel efforts undertaken by campus groups.

The list is not just a list – it is also a ranking – #1 on the list is the absolute worst in terms of anti-semitism, all the way down. Among the 40 schools you will find many of the top colleges and universities in the country, to include:  Harvard, Stanford, Brown, and Swarthmore;  the University of Chicago, UCal Berkeley, UCLA, and McGill University in Montreal;  Oberlin, Tufts, Michigan, Northwestern,  UNC Chapel Hill, Wesleyan, Syracuse, and Georgetown, and the University of Wisconsin, Madison.  As you now have a sense, the list is a virtual who is who of the top schools in the country.

Now on the one hand a list is just a list.  Like a list of the top 10 greatest guitar players of all time, or the best quarterbacks of all time, or the worst draft picks of all time, one person puts this list together, one person puts another, one person says its Unitas, one person says it is Marino, one person says Brady, you can argue and debate about it, but it is largely subjective.  The problem with this list is that people are starting to believe it.  So much so that a congregant recently said to me they didn’t want their child – who is a great student and a great kid – they didn’t want their child applying to Tufts – one of the top schools in the country! – because they had heard it was an anti-semitic campus.

The Jewish community has long prided itself on its academic orientation.  Education is a powerful value in our culture.  When our grandparents and great grandparents came from Europe and settled here it was education that enabled us to make better lives for ourselves, for our children, for our grandchildren.  That value is as old as Judaism itself.  The Torah portions we read this morning, Tazria and Metzora, describe the role of the Kohen, the Priest, in ancient Israelite culture.  And the Kohen was a combination of religious leader and medical man, a kind of rabbi-doctor hybrid.  Call it what you will – a docbi or a rabtor?  But he was respected for his knowledge, for the fact that he was learned in the tradition, that he knew the laws of the Torah, that he had studied and mastered his material.  And that respect for study, for education and learning, for the intellect, has stayed strong in Jewish life to this very day.  Which is precisely why, by the way, you find a high percentage of Jewish students at these top universities.

And that is also why I am proud to say that Becky and I will have children at the top two school on that Algemeiner list.  You heard that right – two of the rabbi’s children will be enrolled as students at the top two schools on that anti-Semitic university list.  And why am I proud of that?  Reason #1 – could you imagine what would happen if the Jewish community en masse decided not to send its children to those schools?  We would first of all be depriving our children of the opportunity to study at some of the world’s top universities.  Is this the way we fight anti-semitism?  Or is that the way we let anti-Semites win?  I know a number of you in this room remember a time – not so long ago – when Hopkins had a quota in terms of the number of Jewish students it would admit per year.  After what we fought for – to have equal access to any university in the country – are we going to impose a quota on ourselves?

Secondly, if we don’t get our children onto the campuses of those schools, who on the campus is going to stand up for the stand of Israel?  Who on the campus is going to represent Judaism and the Jewish people?  Who will be on the campus when someone says something outrageous about Israel or the Jewish people, who will be there to stand up and say ‘that is a lie, and here are the real facts?’  Who will be there if our children aren’t there?

We should not be telling our kids to stay away from those schools.  We should instead be telling our kids to flood those schools with applications, we should be strengthening the Hillels on those school’s campuses, we should be talking with our kids when they are in high school about what they might encounter when they arrive on the campus of their choice, so that if they see BDS in action, or if they are in a situation where they need to defend Israel or need to respond to anti-semitism they will know how to do so.  And I would argue that the higher the school is on the list, the more young Jews should try to go there.

So far, that has actually been the case.  Almost every school on the list has a large, active, and vibrant Jewish student body on its campus.  Those students are traveling to Israel on Birthright trips.  They are filling Hillel and Chabad houses.  They are defending Israel on campus, and calling out any anti-Semitism they experience.  They are also having positive and powerful experiences at colleges and universities they love, during their four years in school growing as people and as Jews.

So at the end of the day, Algemeiner compiled a terrific list.  They just gave it the wrong title.  It should have been called ‘the 40 Best Colleges for Jewish Students.”

A Seder of (In)Convenience

This a text version of my Shabbat morning sermon from 4/1/17

In my very first year of rabbinical school, in one of my classes, one of our assignments was to read the weekly Torah portion and to be prepared to discuss it.   This was the first time in my life I had ever read through the entire Torah week by week, and everything was going along very smoothly.  Genesis was wonderful, all of the great stories about the patriarchs and matriarchs, their various trials and tribulations.  Exodus was terrific, with the Passover narrative, and Moses, and Pharaoh, and the plagues, even if it bogged down a little bit at the end with all of the information about the tabernacle.  Then we got to Leviticus.  And I began to read this morning’s Torah portion, Vayikra, with its descriptions of the various animal sacrifices, and how the animals were killed, what was done with parts of their bodies, how the blood was sprinkled, and I had no access to it.  There was no narrative at all, but even worse the material was so obscure and arcane, there was no way for me to feel any connection to it.

So I went to a young rabbi who was teaching at the time at the University of Judaism where I was studying, and I told him there seemed to be no way for me to connect to Leviticus at all.  And this is what he said to me – “Think of the most valuable thing you own.  Something that is important to you, something you need in your day to day life, maybe even rely on.  Maybe your car.  Now imagine this – you’ve got a nice new Lexus.  But you feel that maybe you’ve done something wrong.  So you go to the rabbi in your neighborhood, and the rabbi says ‘here is what you are going to do.  Take your new Lexus, and offer it up as a sacrifice to God.  Take it to the local junk yard, hand it over to the worker there, and watch as the car is put into one of those car compactors, and crushed to bits.’”

Then my teacher said “that is probably the best way for us to get into the mind of an Israelite who brought an animal to the Temple in Jerusalem to sacrifice it as an offering to God.  That animal was the most valuable thing that Israelite owned.  By far.  It was something he relied on, maybe every day, for food, or plowing his field, or both.  And yet he was willing to take that thing, as valuable as it was, as important as it was to him, and to hand it to the priest, watch the priest slaughter the animal, and in his mind give that animal over to God.”

Now I didn’t have a new Lexus back in those days – but the idea –  the image – helped me understand the book of Leviticus, helped me connect to it – and also gave me a powerful insight into what our ancestors experienced as they approached the Temple, the Priest, and they believed God’s presence, willing to sacrifice something that was enormously valuable to them for a chance to feel closer to that Divine Presence.

So with that sense of sacrifice as context, I would like to think with you for a moment about a growing trend I see in the community today, and about how maybe we should be willing to make some sacrifices – not talking about your car! – relatively small sacrifices – sacrifices of time, maybe of inconvenience, maybe travel – so that this trend does not continue to grow.

The trend itself I would guess you probably have all heard about, maybe even experienced.  I’ve seen it with Hanukkah, and it is happening now with Pesah – where a family will decide to take their celebration of the holiday and move it to the closest convenient weekend evening – even thought that is not the actual holiday.  So for example people will have their Hanukkah dinner and party on a Saturday or Sunday evening before the holiday starts, because it is more convenient for members of the family.  This in my mind was not ideal, but Hanukkah at the end of the day is not one of our major holidays.  And by the way, even if people move their Hanukkah dinners, they still seem to light the menorah on the right nights.

But now people are starting to do it with Pesah.  So for example this year the seders are held on Monday and Tuesday evening, the 10th and 11th of April.  And I know there are some people who are planning to have the seders on the weekend before, say on Saturday night the 8th.  And I understand how much easier it makes the holiday!  First of all you don’t have to worry about getting up for work on Sunday, like you do on Tuesday or Wednesday.  On Saturday people don’t have to rush to get home from work to make it to the beginning of the seder.  If people want to travel from out of town, it is much easier and much less disruptive to travel for the weekend, and not miss work.  I get it!   And if you push me, and say is it better to do it on Saturday night than to not do it at all, I would probably say yes.

But I would ask you to keep the following things in mind.  The first is there are a series of commandments that each Jew is supposed to fulfill on the evening of Passover at the seder.  The eating of matzah is only one, but also the eating of bitter herbs, the 4 cups of wine, even the telling of the story at the seder table is considered to be a mitzvah, a commandment.  And the tradition is very clear – if you don’t do those things on the night of the seder you have not fulfilled the commandments.  The only way you can is by doing it on the right nights.

The second thing is I think it is an important lesson to teach our children and grandchildren by saying this takes priority.  The Passover seder takes priority.  It takes priority over work, or inconvenience, or time or travel issues.  And if you take children out of school to travel to get to the Passover seder on the right night, or if they miss school the next day, or if you take a half a day off of work, it shows your children and grandchildren how important this is.  And they will remember that – they will remember “my family put everything else aside so we could come together for the seder.”  It was that important.  It is a great lesson to teach our kids.

And the last thing is this.  Sometimes to live a full and meaningful Jewish life, you have to make some sacrifices.  In fact I would argue that sometimes making sacrifices helps us to live a full and meaningful Jewish life.  We are not talking about sacrificing the most valuable object that we own, something our ancestors were willing to do for God and for the tradition.  But if our ancestors were willing to do that, shouldn’t we be willing to make some small sacrifices here and there to give our Judaism the respect and honor it deserves?

Having the seder on the right night may require some sacrifice.  It may be inconvenient, it may create logistical difficulties or travel problems.  But it is the right  thing to do.  For us, for the tradition, maybe most importantly of all for our children and grandchildren.  May we all be blessed to sit with the generations of our family at the seder table – on the eve of Pesah – for many, many years to come.

Joseph and the Virtues of Assimilation

Common wisdom has long held that assimilation grows stronger with each passing generation.  As an example, in my own family on my dad’s side, my Bubbe and Zaide were born in eastern Europe.  They grew up speaking Yiddish, lived in neighborhoods here in Baltimore where only Jews lived, had friendships only with Jews, kept kosher, as much as possible kept Shabbat, and were much more eastern-European-Jewish in terms of their culture and identity than they were American.  My dad – next generation – went to City College High.  He ran track there, became a passionate Orioles and Colts fan, went to college – the first in his family to do so.  He knew Hebrew – still does – because he went to a Zionist camp growing up and went to Hebrew high school 3 days a week.  But his identity was more American, his cultural comfort level was Sinatra and Broadway, not Yiddish theater.  He and my mother had no hesitation in terms of moving to a community in upstate New York where there were very few Jews, let alone Jewish neighborhoods to live in – something my Bubbe and Zaide found inconceivable.

Then you have my sister and my brother and me.  Certainly we knew we were Jewish growing up, we went to Hebrew school, my brother and I had b’nai mitzvah, all three of us continued our Jewish education into high school with confirmation.  On RH and YK we went to shul, occasionally had Shabbat dinner at home.  But we were secular Jews, and culturally we were entirely American.  Most of our friends were not Jewish.  My brother and I played varsity soccer, the only Jews on the team, my sister danced in the local dance company, again, as far as I remember the only Jew.   Judaism was a part of our identity, but growing up by no means was it the biggest or most important part.  And that is by and large the way we see it work in today’s Jewish community as well.  Each generation a little bit less intensely Jewish, a little bit more American.

Now you might expect that a rabbi finds a trend like that to be disturbing, and there is no question that increasing assimilation generation by generation creates very difficult challenges for those of us who work in the synagogue world and who care about Jewish life and community.  That being said, this morning I want to argue that assimilation is not only acceptable, but that it is actually necessary for the survival of Jewish community and possibly for the survival of Judaism itself.

Consider with me for a moment the three main characters in the book of Genesis – they are?  Abraham, Jacob, and Joseph.  I am skipping over Isaac because the truth is he is a relatively minor character in the Genesis narratives.  And as important as the matriarchs are, the primary focus is on those three.  Lets start with Abraham.  He is the idealist, fiercely devoted to serving God, so much so that he is willing to sacrifice his son in God’s service.  His relationship with God is the most important thing in his life, the one thing that defines him more than anything else.  He is generation number one.

Jacob, his grandson, is in a very different place with his religious life and identity.  He is the ‘God wrestler’, a person who struggles with faith and its importance in his life, not always sure of God’s attention or protection.  Jacob doesn’t entirely assimilate – his ethnic and religious identity is too strongly ingrained.  But he has serious doubts, and he does not wait around for God to take care of him.  Instead he uses his own intellect and cunning, his own strength and determination to navigate the challenges of his life.  Jacob believes if he doesn’t do it no one will do it for him – not even God.

Then we arrive at the next generation – Jacob’s son Joseph, Abraham’s great grandson.  And what do we find with Joseph?  He is by far the most assimilated character in the entire Torah.  Joseph has fully and completely integrated into Egyptian life and culture.  He has taken an Egyptian name, he has married an Egyptian woman, he works in the Egyptian government.  He has become so completely and thoroughly Egyptian that in this morning’s Torah portion, after multiple interactions with his own brothers, he finally has to actually say to them – “Hey!  Wake up!  This person you’ve been talking to now off and on for months – face to face, close up – its me!  Its Joseph!”  As it says in this morning’s portion – אני יוסף אחיכם – I am Joseph your brother!!

But as assimilated as Joseph is – as Egyptian as he has become – it is he who assures the future of the Jewish people.  Joseph is the one who brings his brothers and father to Egypt, enabling them to survive the famine.  It is Joseph who honors his father by making sure he is buried in the land of Israel.  And interestingly enough, it is Joseph who makes sure to bring his children, who must be even more Egyptian than he is, to Jacob for a blessing and a last encounter with the great patriarch of early Jewish life.

Now I don’t know if anyone reads the Forward any more.  I still take a glance through it when it comes out if I have the time.  This week there was an article that described current demographic trends in the Jewish community, and showed that the overall percentage of Jews who are Orthodox is rapidly growing.  If you take the Jewish community and divide it into three age ranges – 56 and older, 28-45, and 17 and younger, this is what you see:  Jews 56 and older %5 are Orthodox – that is it!  In the 28-45 age range that percentage grows significantly – %15 of Jews between the ages of 28-45 are Orthodox.  But then you get to 17 and younger and the number grows even more dramatically – %27 in that age range are Orthodox!

You might look at those numbers and think ‘this is good for the Jews,’ because the community will more and more be made up of Orthodox Jews, who are observant, knowledgable and devoted to their faith.  Those Jews should be able to transmit a sense of the importance of Judaism and the tradition to their children and grandchildren, and ensure a process of continuity for the Jewish people for generations to come.  Good for the Jews, right?

But I think there is also a potential problem in that growing percentage of Orthodox Jews, namely this:  in the Orthodox community you don’t have any Josephs.  You don’t have people who are fully assimilated and integrated into American life and culture.  And I would argue that for the Jewish community to be safe and sound and successful, we  need to have some Josephs out there.  We need people who know they are Jewish, but who are comfortable and fully integrated in the secular world.  We need people who have non-Jewish friends and business contacts.  We need people who feel just as comfortable in the non-Jewish world as they do in the Jewish world.  We need Jews involved in government, the sciences, the arts, the media, the entertainment world.  And by and large those Jews are not going to come from the Orthodox community, which if anything is becoming more insular, and more distant and cut off from the secular world.

So do we need to worry about assimilation?  We do – it IS growing, and it does present us with greater and greater challenges in terms of maintaining our identity and traditions and the continuity of our faith.  And the increase in the Orthodox population will help to address those challenges.  But we should also remember that assimilation should be celebrated, that it is symbol of the Jewish community’s success, and that without it we would simply not be where we are today.  May we continue from strength to strength for generations to come –