New Archive:
December 2000 Issue
Less Can Often Be More
By Rabbi Niles Elliot Goldstein
The month of December corresponds to the Hebrew month of Kislev, one of the darkest periods of the year but the season in which Jews celebrate one of our brightest holidays. Chanukah, in large measure, is a festival that commemorates the triumph of the Maccabees over their Syrian-Greek occupiers, the jettisoning of an oppressive force over the physical and religious lives of our ancient forbears.
Chanukah is about the victory of the few over the many, about a small,
badly outnumbered, ragtag band of Jewish guerillas in the Galilee using
their zeal and conviction to overturn a harsh and unjust political situation.
Yet that message is one which applies to us today--the idea that it is
not numbers, but passion, that is the most likely mechanism to ensure
Jewish survival.
It is an accepted idea in almost every other field these days, (such as the corporate world, publishing and entertainment, even the military), that the "leaner and meaner," the better. Strength, structural integrity, group coordination, and creativity are usually seen as standing a much better chance of emerging when we can consolidate and focus on that which is really the most essential and important to us--and that which is not.
Yet the Jewish leadership--philanthropic and otherwise--seems to be very much concerned these days with numbers, with creating grandiose programs and products designed to attract (through "outreach") the largest possible number of Jewish men and women, irrespective of their motivations for showing up or the Jewish content of the various activities. This is a grave mistake. Numbers have never been the true indicators of Jewish vitality.
After the Maccabees, when Jewish survival was again threatened with the destruction of the Second Temple by the Romans and the dispersion of Palestine's Jews to the far corners of the world, it was a tiny group of academics, a cluster of rabbis at a small school in the town of Yavneh, who saved the day.
Through their efforts and vision, the synagogue replaced the Temple, the rabbinate supplanted the priesthood, and prayers took the place of animal sacrifice. An entire spiritual way of life could have been wiped out forever. Instead, a handful of Jewish sages transformed it into the Judaism we recognize today--not because of their great numbers, but because of their passionate commitment.
In the end, our goal shouldn't be mere survival. It should be victory. A victory of commitment over apathy, zeal over slothfulness. Our strategic agenda shouldn't be rooted in negativity, in the numbers game, in fears about assimilation and intermarriage. Rather, it should be grounded in the joy and inspiration of being Jewish.
Our goal should be to turn on Jews to their heritage, not through slick marketing that plays down the "Jewishness" of programs, but through a frank and honest presentation of how Judaism, at its best, can improve and elevate our lives.
If it's not for everyone, so be it. We've never measured our people's vitality through numbers, and we shouldn't start now. The only crisis we're really facing is one of creative thinking.
Niles
Elliot Goldstein is the founding rabbi of The New Shul in Greenwich Village,
New York City. He is the author or editor of five books. His most recent
work, God at the Edge: Searching for the Divine in Uncomfortable and
Unexpected Places (Bell Tower), was published in August and can now
be ordered through www.amazon.com.
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