Kol Nidre Sermon
The Art of  Benevolent Agitation
Rabbi Joshua L. Caruso

Growing up, I remember each week eagerly anticipating Saturday morning – not so I could attend Shabbat morning services at the temple – but to view my favorites cartoon programs. In particular, I remember the “Justice League of America”. This fictional animated program featured the greatest superheroes of all time: Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, the Flash, the Green Lantern, and Aqua-man. As a kid, life could not get much better. What genius, I thought, to assemble a League of superheroes to battle the world’s “evil doers”. Indeed, there was a superhero for every need: on land, on sea, in the sky. Whatever the problem, these heroes would oblige accordingly, and bring justice to the world. In my mind, I knew I could sleep well (on my Justice League of America bedspread!). The world was at peace.

As we all know, life does not unfold so cleanly. There is chaos and darkness in the world. In fact, the first few verses of the Torah impart how the earth was “unformed and void” and that “darkness hovered over the surface of the deep” (Genesis 1:2). Commentators posit that the “darkness” in the creation story reflected on the chaos in the universe. God, our biblical superhero, made order out of the chaos “separating the light from the darkness” (Gen. 1:4), so we could distinguish the good from the bad.

Yet, unlike those Justice League heroes, God is not going to swoop in, and save the world today. Still, we seek out heroes, larger than life figures who will show us the way. From Luke Skywalker to Indiana Jones and so on, we would like to believe that someone out there watches over us, someone whom we can call our hero. In his book, There Is No Messiah…and You're It! Rabbi Robert Levine charges us to be instruments of God in bringing justice to the world. To follow such a directive, means we become “benevolent agitators”. Benevolent agitators are the people in our lives who push and prod us to extend the boundaries of what we believe to be our personal capacities, and ultimately propel us to become people of greater moral standing in a broken world.

In fact, our tradition carries inspirational directives from the Benevolent Agitator par excellence, God almighty.

God needles us to, “Show deference to the aged” (Leviticus 19:32); nudges us to “not put an obstacle before the blind” (Lev. 19:14); reminds us “not to stand idly by the blood of your neighbor” (Lev. 19:16); and challenges us with the directive, “justice, justice, shall you pursue” (Deuteronomy 16:20). It is God’s way of reminding us of what we ought to be, of what we CAN be.

Our teachings and our tradition are meant to be translated, taught, and role-modeled by community leaders, but expedited by the people. Politicians, religious leaders, local officials and the like represent us in Washington, DC, Columbus, and in our local municipalities, but they cannot do the work alone to repair the world. Sometimes, however, we choose to abdicate that power to those who we believe may hold a greater truth or deeper knowledge. Ultimately, our leaders should inspire US to become greater citizens. We must however, insure that we surround ourselves with agitators of the benevolent caste – people with whom we are in relationship, and who challenge us to be all we can be. Ultimately, that translates into being social justice advocates.

Social justice is a practice steeped in Jewish tradition, and intended for the entire community. Social justice starts with one individual asking herself, why am I here, and what am I passionate about?  It is asking, how I can best use my gifts and resources to better the world. We, in fact, must agitate ourselves. And by all indications, it appears as if that’s what most of us want.

A 1988 Los Angeles Times Poll asked Jews to name “the quality most important to their Jewish identity.” Half…cited a “commitment to social equality.” In contrast, only 17 percent cited a commitment to Israel and another 17 percent cited religion… (Rabbi Sid Schwarz, Judaism and Justice Introduction, p. xxi).

There is something about giving of ourselves that just feels good; it feels right. You said as much when you responded to Fairmount Temple’s recent Envisioning Together survey. Of the 328 people who responded to the study, strong consensus supported the “Institutional and historic commitment to social justice”, and underlined how you “are committed to, and want to engage, in social action” (ACFT Envisioning Together- Final Draft). We want to be agitated, just in a way that does not seem…well…so agitating.

Probably the most significant episode of benevolent agitation in the Torah appeared at the beginning of the Book of Exodus. Moses was minding his own business, living a fine life in the suburbs of Egypt. He had married a beautiful woman, Tzipporah, and had two wonderful children. He was working for his father-in-law now in the town of Midian. He had time as a shepherd to take in the pastoral environs. Life could not be more perfect.

One day, as Moses was shepherding his flock of sheep, an angel of God appeared to him in the form of a blazing fire out of a bush. “Moses, Moses”, God said. And Moses said, “Hineni” – here I am (Exodus 3:4).

Exodus, Chapter 3: 7, 10-12

 7. God said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows…

 10. Come now therefore, and I will send you to Pharaoh, that you may bring forth my people the children of Israel out of Egypt.

 Needless to say, this was not what Moses needed. Going down to Egypt was inconvenient. It just would not work out. He would have to decline, but he tried to do so with humility.

 11….Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should bring forth the people of Israel out of Egypt?”

 But God persisted. No, God AGITATED. There was really no arm-twisting to do. Moses knew that his fate had already been inscribed and sealed. However, God impetuously added these words….

 12. …Certainly, I will be with you…

 It may have been these words that ultimately turned the switch in Moses’ head that he could do this, so long as he had a partner in the mission.

 The secret of the effective benevolent agitator is one who not only gives directives, and pokes, and prods, and nudges, and “hoks you a chinnuk”, and digs, and jabs, and provokes – but that very same person says with assurance, “Certainly, I will be with you”. The benevolent agitator knows how frightening it can be to put oneself “out there” and “lay it on the line”. The benevolent agitator joins you on your pioneering journey to the outer reaches of your self-perceived capacity.

 I’d like to talk about three major events in the last 60 years that have shaped the way American Judaism views social action (through relationships – ordinary people doing extraordinary things). Not coincidentally, all three events featured individuals who engaged in benevolent agitation.

 First Event: The creation of the state of Israel

 Eddie Jacobson, an American-Jewish businessman, and close friend of then President Harry Truman was shaken with what he had heard about atrocities occurring in Europe before and during the war. He contacted his friend, Harry Truman, and conveyed his distress. When he confirmed what had happened to his brethren after the war, he pressed Truman to take note. Nevertheless, Truman, aiming for impartiality wrote to a senator as follows, "I received about 35,000 pieces of mail and propaganda from the Jews in this country while (the matter of the partition of Palestine, is pending). I put it all in a pile and struck a match to it -- I never looked at a single one of the letters” (www.trumanlibrary.org).

Truman’s dispassionate approach to the Jewish plight in Palestine troubled Jacobson, who knew that his people were in grave danger.

In 1948, high-level Jewish officials, knowing Jacobson was a friend of Truman, lobbied him to plead with the president to meet with Chaim Weizmann, the president of the Jewish Agency for Palestine and the World Zionist Organization. Jacobson wrote a letter to Truman asking him to meet with Weizmann. Truman refused. A month later, Jacobson somehow coaxed his way into the White House, marched into Truman’s office without an appointment, and demanded the president meet with Weizmann. Truman said, “You win, you bald-headed son-of-a-…..” (www.trumanlibrary.org) well, you get the idea. Weizmann and Truman met, solidifying the president’s support of the creation of a Jewish State, and Truman pledged his support. When Israel declared its statehood on May 14, 1948, the United States of America was the first nation to recognize its provisional government – 11 minutes after the declaration. One year later, when the Israeli Chief Rabbi met President Truman, the rabbi told him, “God put you in your mother’s womb so that you could be the instrument to bring about the re-birth of Israel after two thousand years.” (Joseph Telushkin, Jewish Wisdom, p. 605)

The relationships we nourish bring us to a greater understanding of our role in the world, and how we can help others. These relationships allow us to see beyond our personal circumstances, and into the hearts of those less fortunate.

Second Event: The Civil Rights Movement

In the Freedom Summer of 1964, Arthur Lelyveld’s job was to agitate in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. He was tasked with agitating the Jewish community to come out in support of registering blacks to vote. And he was tasked with going door-to-door to agitate blacks to vote. Many of the Jews Lelyveld encountered did not see the benevolence in the rabbi’s agitation. They closed the door on him. “The Divine Presence,” he later said, “was not at home” (Joseph Lelyveld, Omaha Blues, p. 177). Still, Lelyveld continued along, and found much more receptivity amongst the blacks. Many blacks answered the call like Moses, saying, “Who am I to go down to register to vote”? Lelyveld likely said, “Certainly, I will be with you.”

While there were many Jews who resisted involvement in the civil rights movement, Lelyveld shared his thoughts about the Jews he did meet that fateful Freedom Summer in 1964.

30% of the young volunteers who were working in Hattiesburg were Jewish... these youngsters, whom I came to know very intimately…they were…motivated by what I would call…a very deep concern about the exploitation of man by man and the Jewish values of compassion and concern for others (Congress Biweekly, a publication of the World Jewish Congress, 1973).

Within each one of us lay the concern for the widow, for the orphan; for those who cannot take care of themselves. It is upon us to awaken our slumbering souls to be receptive to agitation and to be agitators ourselves. Today, the lore is still intact about Rabbi Lelyveld, and a picture of the welt he received from a tire iron, swung by a violent segregationist, still hangs in the reading room of our library. Let it be a visual message to us that being a benevolent agitator is not always easy.

The American Jewish support of the establishment of the State of Israel, and its later backing of the civil rights movement were momentous social action victories for the Reform movement and for world Jewry. Even so, arguably the most galvanizing movement for American Jews was the fight for Soviet Jewry.

Third Event: Advocacy for Soviet Jewry

 On Sunday, December 6, 1987, 250,000 Jews – the largest gathering of Jews ever assembled for a political cause – descended on the Mall in Washington, DC for the Summit Rally for Soviet Jewry. Mikhail Gorbachev was meeting with then-president, Ronald Reagan. Activist Rabbi Sid Schwarz writes, “Jews, and the world, would never sit silent as long as Jews were denied the right to emigrate and/or to live freely as Jews within the Soviet Union. On Monday morning, President Reagan used the front-page news about the rally to emphasize to Gorbachev the wide popular support he had for his demands for soviet reforms. Within a year, Jews would be free to leave a country that had imprisoned them for close to a century. Subsequently, almost a million Soviet Jews would emigrate to Israel and to the West” (Schwarz, Judaism and Justice, Introduction, xxii).

The American Jewish movement to support our brothers and sisters in the Soviet republic was largely influenced by the distribution of Elie Wiesel’s book, The Jews of Silence, which ultimately put the cause in this country’s national consciousness. On a visit to the Former Soviet Union, Wiesel recounted a conversation with a religious Soviet Jew who said, “The preservation of human life takes precedence over all six hundred thirteen commandments. Don’t you know that? Don’t our cries reach you?” (Wiesel, Jews of Silence, p. 126-127)

Wiesel heard this man’s benevolent, heartfelt and shaming agitation, and began agitating himself. American Jewry responded. Synagogues “adopted” Soviet Jews, by engaging B’nai Mitzvah students to twin with their counterparts in Russia. And congregations put lawn signs up in support of their brethren. Youth group meetings began with members signing petitions demanding the immediate release of Jews who were not allowed to emigrate.

 Today, we have a great number of families in our congregation, who directly benefited from that demonstration and the awesome effort undertaken by the Jewish community for decades.

 Whether it was Eddie Jacobson, Arthur Lelyveld, or Elie Wiesel, social action is the way in which we have galvanized our community to be a community in the best sense of the word.

 Sol Alinsky, a Jew troubled by our nation’s civil inequities, understood community and the need for Community Organizing. He understood more than anyone that healthy agitation – benevolent agitation – was the way to enact social change. His vision was adopted nationally and even by current presidential candidates, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barak Obama. Influenced by Alinsky, Clinton (who wrote a college thesis on Alinsky) and Obama (who worked as a Community Organizer himself) have used the lessons of effective agitation in their political careers.

 Benjamin Ross, the Director of Organizing at the Jewish Funds for Justice, a group that works with synagogues to build strong relational connections with community leaders and politicians, uses the word “agitation” to describe the necessary vehicle through which societal changes can happen. Ross says that healthy agitation can only happen when functional relationships pre-exist.

 Standing underneath the chuppah at my wedding, Leah and I certainly saw our union as one based on mutual respect. If you asked us if we had a functional relationship, we certainly would have said yes. Still, like many newlyweds, we would have been hard pressed to clearly articulate WHY our relationship was functional. And then my step-father, doubling as rabbinical officiant, issued his charge to us. I will never forget his words. He spoke about mutual accountability through the rabbinic principle known as hociah tochiah. Loosely translated, and interpreted through Jewish commentary, it means “loving rebuke”. This principle helped me to define and articulate the nature of my relationship. My wife is my benevolent agitator. Indeed, each of one of us must have a benevolent agitator in our lives.

 In fact, some of you are my greatest, most significant benevolent agitators. In some ways, we are a “mutual agitation society”. Some of the members of this very special society came with me to a conference on just this subject. The conference focused on the concept of Congregation-based Community Organizing. The novel thing about community organizing is that it stresses the importance of cultivating personal relationships among members of a community. Through conversations at house parties and the like, community organizing builds up through individuals getting to know each other.

It sounds so simple, but we have much to learn about each other here at Fairmount Temple. There are so many opportunities to be involved (multiple worship services, many occasions for study, and great options to do mitzvahs), yet sometimes it feels as if we are strangers – like ships passing in the shul! How can we build sacred community in the outside world, when we have not sufficiently created it within our own walls? We are a synagogue of many, but we tend to exist separately – even when we are physically sharing the same space. Robert Putnam wrote about it in his book, Bowling Alone. Building community is so close to us, yet we build up walls instead, afraid to meet one another. Consequently, our collective community involvement will not be effective without these one-to-one bonds.

Benevolent agitators thrive when relationships are set in place. Until then, we will simply continue to watch the problems of the world unfold on CNN and in the newspaper. There is no lack of crises to confront. Global warming, the war in Iraq, the decline of the social security system, poverty, our country’s inability to provide health insurance for over 45 million people. Of course, many of these problems touch the communities just west of Fairmount Temple.

 Congregations are not mobilizing for the people of the Sudan or the people of East Cleveland as we did with Soviet Jewry. So how do we move forward? We can be benevolent agitators. When you came in today, you received the Yom Kippur handout. Included in the handout is a card of available opportunities for you to engage to build a closer, more significant community. There are opportunities to engage in hand-to-hand mitzvot, like working in our community kitchen to prepare meals for the bereaved and those who return from hospitals. There is also an opportunity to work together in the purposeful process of meeting with other community members to explore how we can engage in addressing the root problems of our society. If you are interested, please check off “Congregation-based Community Organizing” (on the handout card) to learn more.

It has been years since I watched the Justice League of America. All those superheroes really did seem impressive. However, I have learned that we don’t need those superheroes. Our engagement will lift the spirits of the community as capably as Superman could lift a car. Who is your benevolent agitator and have you heeded the call? Surely, we can stand side by side together to respond to the call of justice. LET THIS BE GOD’S WILL.

AMEN.