Divrei Torah

Should there be a new mosque near ground zero? You have your opinion, I have mine (ask me, and I’ll tell you, or just come to services on Shabbat). But, for me, one particular phrase has jumped out in the debate: sacred space.  Many commentators and bloggers, most prominently Charles Krauthammer (and one of my favorite country and western singers), have insisted that Muslims not build near ground zero because the place is “sacred.”

But what makes ground zero a sacred space?  Many would answer that it’s a cemetery; the bones and ashes of thousands of victim still mingle at the site with the dust, the ruins, and the construction cranes.  Others claim that it’s the mass murder itself that confers sanctity, that any place where so many were murdered automatically becomes holy.  These powerful, interesting, compelling answers raise a host of uncomfortable questions for Jews. Is Auschwitz a sacred space? It’s certainly a cemetery; natural forces will never wipe away the victim’s ashes. But strolling through Auschwitz, you rarely see overt religious symbols; unlike the Kotel and most synagogues, no one hands you a yarmulke when you walk in.  Treblinka feels more like a sacred space – silent, fearsome, awe-inspiring.  But still, do we give the Nazi killers the power to designate our holy places?

As it happens, our Torah reading offers several powerful, Jewish ideas regarding sacred space.  In one verse, it says “when all Israel comes to see the face of the Lord your God at the place where I will choose. . .”  In the Pentateuch, particularly in the book of Deuteronomy, Jerusalem and the Temple Mount go unnamed.  They are always “the place that I [God] will choose.” Nothing confers sacredness on the place – not murder, not death – except for God’s choice.  God’s reasons could be obscure, or even arbitrary, but God and only God chooses.  Furthermore the sacred spaces God chose within the desert camp – the Tent of Meeting, and the altar – shift locations as the Israelites travel through the desert.  So, for the Torah, our sacred spaces are portable.  They retain their sacred quality when we use them for sacred purposes. When we pervert them, or ignore them, God “turns his face,” and the places are no longer sacred.

The fact is the Torah is ambivalent about the concept of sacred space.  Biblical prophets spent much of their time railing against “the high places” – the places the Israelites mistakenly identified as sacred.  Sanctifying space can lead to idolatry, to the worship of the space, and not God.  God appeared to Moses at the burning bush and to the Israelites at Mt. Sinai precisely because those places are in the middle of nowhere. They’re wilderness spaces, unpopulated, places in between two civilizations.

This is not to say that Judaism doesn’t value physical space.  Clearly, we do.  We build our national identity around a particular land.  But we show extreme care in sanctifying our spaces because we understand that idolatry lurks down that path.

For me, ground zero is not a sacred space.  It’s an important place, a place that demands respect and thoughtful consideration.  We must continue our debate over what to put there. But using the word “sacred” only raises the temperature of an already overheated argument.  Osama bin Laden, after all, shouldn’t choose our holy spaces.  For Jews, only God can do that.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Philip Graubart

What should we do when we find a lost object?  This is one of my favorite Jewish ethical questions.  Do we try to find the owner?  If so, how hard to we have to try?  And how can we be sure it’s the real owner? Is there a point where we can keep it for ourselves?  When? Can we just ignore it, pretend we didn’t see it? I often begin my Jewish ethics classes with a case of a boy who finds a $100 bill on a busy street.  What should he do?

As it happens, the Jewish discussion over this issue begin in our Torah reading (my bar mitzvah reading), which commands us to return lost objects.  There’s a key word in these passages that I’ve managed to ignore in all my years studying this reading.  The word I’ve ignored is “ignore.” Three times in four verses the Torah commands us not to “ignore” the lost object – or straying animal – of our neighbor.  The Torah will often repeat a commandment when the act is something we’d prefer to avoid.  The Torah commands us to love the stranger thirty six times because loving a total stranger – an outsider, a foreigner – doesn’t come naturally.  Similarly, the Torah needs to repeat itself here, with the word “ignore,” because caring for our neighbor’s lost object, and then locating the true owner, can become burdensome, especially if the object requires particular care.

There’s a fascinating debate in the Talmud over when our obligation to return lost objects begins. When, in other words, does my neighbor’s property become my business, even if I don’t know the identity of the neighbor? Is it when I see the object itself, from the road?  Or, when I physically make contact with it – when I pick it up?  Many rabbis suggest that the obligation doesn’t begin until we handle the object.  But others insist that it starts when we see it, and this becomes Rashi’s view, and Jewish law.

The Talmudic debate reminds of a similar debate among two modern Jewish philosophers, Martin Buber and Emanuel Levinas.  They wonder when the obligation to love your neighbor begins.  Is it when you become aware of his/her existence?  Or does it require a deeper level of relationship?  It’s a fascinating discussion, but Levinas concludes that we become most ethically entangled with our neighbor when we see his/her face; the human face itself projects a commanding voice.  Now, if this seems overly burdensome, or even utopian – I have to love someone just because I see his/her face? –  think of Rashi.  Rashi insists that basic obligations to our neighbor begin not when we see his/her face, but when we see his/her property – before we even know the owner’s identity.  In fact, the Talmud goes on to specify that we are still obligated to care for the property even if we discover that the neighbor is an enemy.

There’s a powerful theological value at work in this ethical discussion: the idea that we’re all children of God, and it’s this divine spirit that flows through all of us, connecting us to each other in a web of ethical relationships.  But beyond the theological, we can also see an element of plain wisdom, of self-interest.  After all, if I return my neighbor’s lost objects, s/he’ll probably return mine.  If I value his property, s/he’ll value mine.  In general, the Torah’s approach to community is to find areas that bind us together, that involve us in each other’s business.  This, of course is very different from our culture, where, “none of my business,” is a catchphrase, and increasingly the approach is to build fences and gates.  All the more reason to carefully study this week’s reading.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Philip Graubart