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An Orthodox rabbi questions attitudes toward non-Jews
Are yeshiva and day school students taught to value friendships with non-Jews, or are they being given lessons in fear and mistrust? Rabbi Kenneth Hain, former president of the Orthodox Rabbinical Council of America, has been asking this question and has found some disturbing answers. “Extreme views are current and popular. It’s easy to be lazy and name-call,” he said. “People have a lack of appreciation and think of non-Jews in simplistic ways.” Hain, religious leader of Congregation Beth Shalom in Lawrence, NY, believes such attitudes are prevalent in day school and yeshiva education. “People are kind of shocked when they get to college campuses after 12 years in Jewish day school or yeshiva and find out non-Jews are real people, too, and they have worthwhile, valuable, and intelligent things to say,” he said in an interview. Taking a proactive approach, Hain will put the issue on the table in a talk he will give at the Joseph Kushner Hebrew Academy/Rae Kushner Yeshiva High School in Livingston on Feb. 7 at 7:30 p.m. The occasion is the third annual Achdut Yisrael Society Annual Memorial Lecture in memory of Rabbi Dr. Steven M. Dworken, former RCA executive vice president and late husband of JKHA principal Susan Dworken. The Achdut Yisrael Society was formed in 2003 shortly after Dworken’s sudden death that January to honor his memory and to inspire students to follow his example. Hain first met Steven Dworken when the two were undergraduates at Yeshiva University in the 1960s. They became close when they worked together at YU in the division of communal service in the 1980s. Hain credits Dworken with revitalizing the RCA and with encouraging him to become active. “He understood rabbis — their loneliness, their vulnerability, and the highs and lows of the field because he had lived it himself and related so well,” he said. “His death was a profound shock and loss because so many Orthodox rabbis in America felt personally connected to him.” The seed for the lecture, “Can’t We All Get Along? The Jew in a Non-Jewish World,” was planted at the shiva for Dworken. “Thousands of people came,” said Hain. “So many people paid their respects, and many of the people there were not necessarily in the Jewish community. There was the barber and the neighbor from around the corner. They were just people who felt enormous grief.” Dworken’s close relations with Jews and non-Jews alike provoked a question. “If his seemed the right kind of posture or approach to have with non-Jews, I was compelled to ask, ‘Do I have that? Do others have that? Do we teach that?’” Hain will explore texts from the Torah and Talmud as well as medieval and contemporary Jewish sources to examine attitudes on relations with gentiles. “There are moments in the Torah that clearly tell us Jews have to be fearful of non-Jews,” he said. “There is much that says to be careful with regard to the degree of mingling, of assimilating, of adopting others’ practices. But we also see Abraham consulted by God before destroying Sodom and Gomorrah. Abraham pleads on their behalf even though he clearly does not care for their lifestyle. There’s a conflict in our tradition.” Hain suggests there are political implications to the answers, particularly given the result of the recent Palestinian election. “Now that Israel is surrounded by a government committed to its destruction, what do you say to Israeli children about what their attitude should be toward their Palestinian neighbors? Should it be tolerance, justice, and friendship? Or the opposite?” And he describes ramifications for social action and tzedaka. “What does Jewish tradition say about saving the life of a non-Jew? And what about charity — which has priority, the victims of [Hurricane] Katrina or the Jews of Jerusalem?” Hain does not intend to resolve these tensions — only to warn of the danger in not confronting them. For more information about the lecture, contact the Joseph Kushner Hebrew Academy. |
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