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Abby Kutler, President; Eric Dunning, Ex-Officio; Danni Christensen, David Finkelstein, Candice Friedman, Bracha Goldsweig, Margie Gutnik, Natasha Kraft, Chuck Lucoff, Eric Shapiro, Andy Shefsky, Shoshy Susman and Amy Tipp. The mission of the Jewish Federation of Omaha is to build and sustain a strong and vibrant Omaha Jewish Community and to support Jews in Israel and around the world. Agencies of the Federation are: Community Relations Committee, Jewish Community Center, Center for Jewish Life, Jewish Social Services, and the Jewish Press. Guidelines and highlights of the Jewish Press, including front page stories and announcements, can be found online at: wwwjewishomaha.org; click on ‘Jewish Press.’ Editorials express the view of the writer and are not necessarily representative of the views of the Jewish Press Board of Directors, the Jewish Federation of Omaha Board of Directors, or the Omaha Jewish community as a whole. The Jewish Press reserves the right to edit signed letters and articles for space and content. The Jewish Press is not responsible for the Kashrut of any product or establishment.

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A different narrative

ANNETTE VAN DE KAMP-WRIGHT

Jewish Press Editor In March of 2020, when COVID-19 was still new and stories came flying from everywhere, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency posted an article about Rabbi Daniel Nevins, the dean of the rabbinical school at the Jewish Theological Seminary. Nevins became ill, tested positive and subsequently recovered. “Within hours,” Ben Harris wrote, “Nevins was hooked up to a machine at the New York Blood Center to donate blood plasma. In the race to develop effective treatments for the disease, researchers are investigating whether antibodies from the blood of people who have successfully fought off the disease may provide treatment for people with more serious symptoms.” It was the kind of feel-good story we all like to read. But it’s a story that is accompanied by an uncomfortable truth. Rabbi Nevins is one man; there are thousands of others who made the same choice as he did: they donated their plasma. The difference: unlike Rabbi Nevins, they did not get photographed with a big smile on their face; they were not clad in laid-back jeans. Instead, they were modestly dressed, had wigs or beards and hats. They quietly and quickly mobilized when the need was there and they helped save countless lives. Yet, in the middle of all the stories about how high the death toll was in many Hasidic communities, much of the media quickly began to play the blame game. Here was the story: Hasidic Jews got sick and stayed sick, because they wouldn’t follow the rules and didn’t keep their distance. Life cycle events drew crowds in the thousands; politicians, especially in New York, were at odds with the orthodox community who just wouldn’t play by the rules. I admit, I fell for it too; there were so many articles about it, and only once I noticed I kept seeing the same images used for different stories did it become clear to me I was not paying enough at- nationwide study on the use of blood plasma to tention. Only when a friend pointed out that I was treat patients with severe COVID-19. On the call missing something did I become aware. that afternoon, he told the religious leaders he “Once COVID-19 prevention measures were es- needed something for his research: more blood tablished and promoted by public health authori- from people who have survived the virus. “Do what ties,” Hopkinsmedicine.org wrote, “Local and you can,” Joyner said, according to Yehudah national Orthodox Jewish leaders put forth man- Kaszirer of Lakewood, New Jersey, one of the rabbis dates for their communities to comply, and devel- on the call. About 36 hours later, Kaszirer boarded oped culturally sensitive policies to address how to safely engage in prayer services, family and communal gatherings and social support systems.” And here is a headline from the Sun Sentinel: “New York Orthodox Jews help South Florida COVID-19 patients with plasma donations.” The article continued: “The COVID Plasma Initiative, which consists of thousands of Orthodox Jews who have recovered from the virus and are now donating their plasma, recently conducted drives in New York City that drew 200 donors.” Even Rabbi Daniel Nevins donating blood plasma at Mount Sinai Hospithe New York Times wrote: “The Ha- tal in New York, March 27, 2020. Credit: Nevins sidic community has taken a tragedy and turned it a private jet with roughly 1,000 vials of blood stored into a superpower. A number of factors lie behind in coolers. It had been drawn from members of the the outsize role of the Orthodox plasma drive, ac- community through a blood drive organized with cording to public health experts and community military-like speed.” And CBS reported: “Orthodox leaders, including the close ties that bind Orthodox and Hasidic Jewish communities account for half society, a religious commitment to the value of of all plasma donations in COVID-19 fight.” human life and a network of organizers committed So, there it is. It’s a great story about great people to turning something bad into something good.” who did a great thing. As much as I hate to say it, The following story appeared on NBC News: not all Jewish media jumps all over a feel-good “One Saturday in mid-April, a group of Orthodox story about the Hasidic community. The Jewish Jewish leaders held a conference call with a Min- Press certainly isn’t blameless (although I’d prefer nesota doctor as they grappled with spiking coro- to personally own that blame, rather than place it navirus cases in their New York area communities. on our agency). The question is: can we do better? Dr. Michael Joyner of the Mayo Clinic is leading a I think we can and we must.

Sorry, but Zoom Judaism just isn’t the real thing

RABBI ELI L. GARFINKEL

New York Jewish Week via JTA For more than a year now, synagogues around the world have managed to continue their activities during the COVID pandemic with Zoom and similar services. There is, however, a problem. Zoom Judaism is not working. What Zoom provides is not real community. At the end of the day, digital fellowship is pyrite, also known as fool’s gold. Zoom meetings and rooms do not fulfill the fundamental needs of Jewish community, which are very much physical in nature. Judaism is a sensual religion, one that is based on our five senses. To be a Jew means to see other human beings and not just images of heads, to listen to them without the option of a mute button, to feel their embrace, to taste their food at communal meals, and to sense the leathery smell of a Torah scroll or the perfume of a beloved Jewish friend. Don’t get me wrong, I understand that Zoom Judaism was necessary during the height of the pandemic and will continue to be so for some months. I recognize that Zoom has been a lifesaver for the physically challenged and that it has quickly brought about a revolution in Jewish adult education. My concern is that some Jewish leaders believe that the pandemic has given us license to reimagine a largely digital synagogue as a permanent replacement for real, physical Jewish community. This belief is predicated on the idea that Jews will continue to find Zoom Judaism compelling long after the novel coronavirus is finally vanquished. Jews will not find Zoom Judaism compelling. To borrow a term from environmentalism, Zoom Judaism is unsustainable. Life is an in-person affair, and Jewish life is all the more. Zoom Judaism under non-emergency conditions will promote the deifi-

Credit: New York Jewish Week cation of what has been called the “sacred self,” the notion that our own desires for convenience and comfort take precedence over God’s command to be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. Some have suggested that hybrid services are the answer to this danger. Alas, hybrid services are also an unsustainable solution. It is so easy to log in and, relatively speaking, so hard to actually make one’s way to a brick-and-mortar structure, that most Jews will take the path of least resistance if they take any path at all. This path, however, will merely lead us to an atomized hive of like-minded individuals, not a community. It will do to Judaism what Facebook and Instagram have done to friendship. Sooner or later, we will have to shut off the public streams and force those who value Jewish community to come back to shul and benefit from the real McCoy. Zoom should be used for the benefit of those who cannot attend otherwise, particularly those who are homebound, hospitalized or live very far from any synagogue. The good news is that we have been here before. When we lost the Beit Hamikdash in Jerusalem nearly two millennia ago, we lost the physical nexus of the Jewish world, one that served as a hardwire connection to the Holy One. We wisely created a new system that made the synagogue, even in those dark days, the physical home of the Jewish community. In much the same way, we must double down on the power and potential of synagogues and what they provide: a physical community that nothing else, no matter how technologically advanced, can ever replace.

Rabbi Eli L. Garfinkel is the author of The JPS Jewish Heritage Torah Commentary and the spiritual leader of Temple Beth El in Somerset, New Jersey.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of JTA or its parent company, 70 Faces Media.

RABBI MICHAEL ROTHBAUM

Text Messages is a column, produced with The Jewish Week, sharing wisdom from the weekly Torah portion. JTA When do you call the rabbi? Sometimes to complain. (We’re Jews, after all.) But usually, a life-cycle event has taken place. A birth, thank G-d. An impending wedding. An illness. Too often in the last year, a death. Over the past 13 months, tragedy has demanded that rabbis step forward to provide a steady shoulder, open ears and a guiding hand. It’s been deeply painful, but it’s been a privilege. The calamity of COVID represents a challenge that rabbis are seen as uniquely equipped to help confront. Even more so than in normal times, we’ve walked with our communities in the pain that accompanies untimely death. For me, this raises a question: If rabbis are qualified to attend to those suffering pain, loss or grief, are we not also qualified to address the brokenness in our land that results in pain, in loss, in grief? For some Jews, the answer is an unequivocal no. Even Jews who call upon rabbis in times of crisis sometimes share open contempt for those of us who teach the Torah of public policy, social justice and – that dirtiest of words – “politics.” What business, they ask, does a rabbi have talking about such things? The second of the two portions we read this week is Kedoshim, in which God makes the simple but urgent demand “k’doshim t’hiyu ki kadosh Ani” — “Be holy, because I am holy.” God’s holiness is not for God alone, unattainable to the lowly mortal. Rather, human beings can embody that holiness, becoming personifications of the Divine. While some traditions allow for this possibility, they ask the ostensible holy person to be cloistered or physically apart from their kin. It wouldn’t be surprising if the Torah followed suit; after all, in some contexts the word “kadosh” means “apart” or “separate.” But the holiness of Kedoshim is not reserved for the ritual functionaries, the priests. Instead, God commands Moses to speak to “kol-eidat,” the entire community, regarding what is holy. The insistence that every one of us participate in holinessmaking is an essential element of Jewish theology. How we perform this holiness is the subject of Kedoshim. Yes, there are instructions for ritual holiness: offer sacrifices to God, not idols; make sure they are consumed and not left to rot; keep Shabbos. But the bulk of the teachings involve how we construct society and interact with each other in that society. Many of the instructions involve imbalances of power. Kedoshim enumerates laws regarding relatively weaker groups: the elderly, consumers, immigrants, workers. Those who have accrued power through land ownership, for example, must leave some of their produce for those who are poor and landless. Those who have the power to hire and fire employees are warned not to oppress their workers. For those empowered as judges, stealing, lying and false denials are forbidden, as is the “avel b’mishpat,” the “violent injustice” of discrimination. Even those who have power by reason of what they know are bound to certain standards. If one possesses information about a certain person, the Torah instructs them not to be a “rachil,” a “peddler” walking about spreading this information. Conversely, if the information may prevent danger to others, the individual possessing such knowledge can no longer stand around while their neighbor’s blood is shed. Which brings us again to the matter of death. When there is a death, you call the rabbi. But with so much needless death in this country, I can’t help but wonder: Why didn’t you call sooner? How many American deaths would’ve been entirely preventable had we only observed the teachings of Kedoshim? Like the deaths of our unhoused neighbors who perish under overpasses, while those with wealth continue to accrue more of it, fighting taxes that ask them to leave even the tiniest corners of their fields? Or the deaths of undocumented immigrants, afraid to seek life-saving health care lest ICE agents nab them in the bright light of the emergency room? Or the deaths of workers who collapse from unsafe working conditions, exposed to COVID in unventilated overcrowded workplaces — or simply overworked — left vulnerable by a political system that values corporate campaign contributions over human life and dignity? Or the deaths of those like George Floyd and Daunte Wright and Breonna Taylor and countless more — a shameful yahrzeit list of the victims of a criminal justice system built upon nothing if not avel b’mishpat, the violent injustice of a racial caste system? None of this is news. None of this information is unavailable to us. Are we not accomplices, standing in silence while our neighbor’s blood is shed? Does Torah really have nothing to teach us regarding these all-too-common American atrocities? If so, what then is this tradition of ours? A faded scrapbook of pleasant memories? A vague sense of connection to a beloved grandparent? And what of rabbis? Are we just spiritual sanitation workers, called in to sweep up in the aftermath of a disordered society

Rabbi Mike Rothbaum speaks out against the Trump administration’s “Muslim ban” during a

rally in Washington, Oct. 18, 2017. Credit: Bend the Arc that prizes profits over God’s crowning creation, the human being? In Torah, the opposite of holiness is not secularity. There is no “secular” in Torah. The opposite of holiness is idolatry. It is wickedness. Rabbis stand by your side, uphold you while you peer into the depths of the grave. We’re humbled and honored to do so. But it’s time we stood together outside the gates of the cemetery, learning the Torah of holy society, building holy economy, partnering in the cultivation of holy justice, the cornerstone of holy civilization.

Rabbi Michael Rothbaum is spiritual leader of Congregation Beth Elohim in Acton, Massachusetts. He serves on the advisory boards of the Jewish Alliance of Law and Social Action and the New England Jewish Labor Committee, and is a member of T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights. He lives in Acton with his husband, Yiddish singer Anthony Russell.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of JTA or its parent company, 70 Faces Media.

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