The Camps We Inhabit
Rabbi Deborah Wechsler
The Book of Bamidbar is the story of a journey. Following on the heels of the book of Vayikra which is devoid of movement, Bamidbar is entirely about movement. It reflects real experience, our experience, and is a ready metaphor for our human lives. The journey can be the experience of an individual or a group. In the book of Bamidbar, it is both. It is the people of Israel’s journey from the foot of Mount Sinai to the cusp of the land of Canaan. And it is also Moses’ journey from the place where he received the terms of the covenant with God to Mount Avarim, the place of his death. [1]
Bamidbar is a visual book, rich with imagery. We see snowy white manna falling from the heavens. We see crystal clear water flowing from rocks. We see silvery skins covering the Tabernacle. We see orange flames leading the people by night. And in constant movement we see a great mass of people 603,550 adult men, plus the younger and older males and all the females.
But this great multitude is not a mob, not a horde. It is a carefully organized community with a hierarchy of communal life, formal rituals of time, and as our parashah details, formal rituals of space. We read this week of that organizational structure – of the census of the people, of the names of the leaders in each tribe. And in chapter two we read of the arrangement of the camp. This was not the kind of migration where everyone moved during the day and then camped at night wherever they found themselves. Picture a compass. In the middle is the Ohel Moed, the Tent of Meeting, and at each point, north, south, east, and west, three of the tribes were camped next to one another.
It was a highly structured, highly organized and identified community. Each group and each individual had a place in the larger multitude and each knew where his or her place was. It may sound familiar, but that is where the familiarity ends.
Jewish life today could not be more different. For all of our institutions, all of our organizations and acronyms, in our Jewish world today, the greatest current push in Jewish life is to eliminate these camps of Bamidbar. In 2011 we are now living in a “post” world – postmodern, post religion, post-denomination, post-institution, post-clergy world. And whether we agree with it or not, and whether we acknowledge it or not, the reality is that our Jewish world has shifted and many people are seeking to reinvent synagogues, denominational affiliation, organizations, rabbis, and structures.[2]
This will be one of the greatest challenges to Jewish life today because from the time of the Bible until very recently in the modern era, the only way to be Jewish has been to be a part of a “camp”.
How can we be Jewish in a world without camps? In a world without denominations or institutions or divisions. What does that kind of Judaism look like?
Even those of us who found our way here today, and by here I mean Chizuk Amuno a centrist Conservative synagogue, have not lived exclusively in this camp.
I can say with conviction that not a single person here has only one affiliation over the course of a lifetime. Even if you stay at the same shul and the same denomination your entire life, I am willing to bet that you have multiple affiliations and elements to your Jewish identity. You have a parent who is not Jewish, you dabbled with orthodoxy in college, you converted to Judaism, you were raised Reform but your wife was raised orthodox so you split the difference and joined Chizuk, you sometimes daven at a different shul in town. Every one of us has a story of how we got here today and that story might have nothing to do with Chizuk Amuno or the Conservative movement.
But that is about us as individuals. Let’s make a distinction -- there are things that make us Jewish as people and things that make us a Jewish people. My great concern is that the Judaism of the post world that we spoke about is not a Judaism that will make us a Jewish people, it might make us Jewish as individuals, but I am not certain that it will make us Jewish as a group. Think about it in terms of your own practice, of your own family.
It probably doesn’t surprise you but I think that I have a very Jewish home – we count the omer, we say the blessings, we read Jewish books, we observe the mitzvot. But for all that’s worth, and clearly I think its worth a lot (that’s why I’m in the business,) all that means is that I’m making Jewish individuals, two little Jewish children, one big Jewish grown up, one small Jewish family. What we do on our own establishes and enhances the Jewishness of us as individuals, but it is what we do with others that intensifies the Jewishness of the Jewish people. It’s the difference between lighting candles at home and coming to the synagogue for services.
I could ask you why today Jews are reluctant to affiliate, or why Jews don’t want to identify themselves as Conservative, or Reform or Orthodox – but the why doesn’t matter. What matters is that it’s happening and I fear that it has meant a lessening or elimination of standards – what Robert Bellah in Habits of the Heart called Sheilaism – that notion that each of us can ascribe to a religious system of our own creation.
It is a good thing when people can go from camp to camp and so many of us have done over the course of our lifetimes. We should be able to go as visitors, comfortable and welcome in which ever camp we find ourselves. But it is vitally important that we have a home base, a place where we are rooted and grounded. If the torah wanted everyone to be part of this mixed multitude of a people there would have been no camps. Instead of a march behind your flag to your place in the camp ceremony, there would have been a take down your flag ceremony.
But there is not. When we look at this morning’s reading we see how the Torah handled the challenges of a people who by their nature were rabble rousers and reluctant, yet still maintained a strong sense of tribal affiliation and identity. There is no denying the merits of more unity and the tearing down of barriers between people, yet what I believe the parashah is suggesting is that the merits of building our own camp outweigh those merits as long as we have some basic commitments in common.
We began by describing the book of Bamidbar as the story of a journey. That while Leviticus had been characterized by the lack of movement, Bamidbar is all about journey and movement as individuals and perhaps more importantly as a group. The great irony of this book and this movement is that in its midst, were the families and tribes, and compass points and camps into which the Jewish people were divided.
I hope that this is one of the secrets to nurturing Jewish life today. That we honor and hold fast to our denominational identities, whatever they may be, but we do so in the context of movement and journey. Conservative Judaism is not stagnant and rigid, rather it grows and develops as something organic. We are firmly rooted in Biblical tradition, in our traditional liturgy and Jewish law and we engage with the world on all sorts of issues from gun control to poverty and local graduation rates. We accept diversity and we set limits on what is acceptable. There are standards and values in being a Conservative Jew.
I have a challenge for you: There is a new book coming out on living a committed Conservative Jewish life. The Observant Life: A Guide to Ritual and Ethics for Conservative Jews Edited by Martin Cohen and Michael Katz
Would you read a chapter a week with me? And join in discussion of where our camp might be and how we might feel more at home within our own designated space.
[1] Friedman, Commentary on the Torah p.421
[2] Rev! Nov/Dec 2006 p.98
