"How Dare You Impose Your Religion on Me?!"

When I studied towards an MA in Political Communication at Hebrew U. some 10 years ago, I had a striking conversation with a fellow student. Ironically, of all places, we met on a protest march from the university gates to Sheikh Jarakh, an Arab neighborhood that adjoins the burial place of the last of the members of the Great Assembly, Shimon Ha'Tzadik. A vibrant Jewish community has taken root there, despite the efforts of the residents of Sheikh Jarakh to stymie its growth. 

On that day, nearly a decade ago, I had joined the protest march, headed by leading university figures who wanted to use the auspices of the academic institution to say that the faculty deplored the Israeli occupation. So I tagged along, thinking, that if this is the field I'm studying, I may as well edify myself with some understanding of the dynamics at play. 

Truth be told, it was probably more a matter of naïveté, but I remember ever so distinctly turning to one of the students marching in protest, and asking, "Are you Jewish?" I don't remember what prompted me to ask that question - perhaps it wasn't baseless because there were quite a few fair-skinned, light-haired Christian students at the university - but his answer most certainly took me aback. He said, "How dare you impose your religion on me?!" Shortly thereafter, I learned that his name was Alon, but, that notwithstanding, after his initial response, Alon proceeded to ask me, "Who do you think you are to tell me whether I'm Jewish or not?" to which I innocently answered, "If your mother is Jewish, you're Jewish," which, to say the least, did not quell his anger. 

I have shared this story because in many ways our parsha this week comes to answer that very question, the one, in essence, every Jew has the right to ask God above: Why is it that I'm Jewish, and others are not?

        You stand this day, all of you, before the LORD your God—your tribal heads, your elders and your         officials, all the men of Israel, your children, your wives, even the stranger within your camp, from         woodchopper to waterdrawer— to enter into the covenant of the LORD your God, which the LORD         your God is concluding with you this day, with its sanctions; I.e., the curses that violations of the            covenant will entail. To the end that He may establish you this day as His people and be your God,         as He promised you and as He swore to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

        I make this covenant, with its sanctions, not with you alone, but both with those who are standing         here with us this day before the LORD our God and with those who are not with us here this                day.

The question is a fascinating one. Do we have a right to not have been born? 

And if we have been, to what extent does it dictate the course of our life, the history pulsing through our veins? Maybe it's part of a larger discussion. An Op-Ed not long ago by a Charles Blow of the NY Times called for the statue of George Washington to be taken down as an emblem of  disgrace:  https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/28/opinion/george-washington-confederate-statues.html 

A similar argument raged in Israel after Moshe Katzav was found guilty of rape; Should his bust be taken down from the ceremonial hall of Israeli presidents?

It would seem that though Alon perhaps took umbrage at having been born into a faith that defined him as being Jewish without his consent, the very fabric of Judaism is as such: the covenant, teaches the Kuzari, famously authored by Rabbi Judah Ha'Levi, that permeates us with our sense of belonging is passed down from one generation to the next. And writes the Kuzari, more than anything, what obligates a Jew to believe in the tenets of his faith, is that his parents told him that they were told by their parents to believe, all the way back to Sinai. For every Jew, who believes, can say that back to Sinai, I was told that my forbearers heard the divine voice, and told me that the voice resounds with them, reverberating through me and my children, to this very day. 

It's very interesting - there was a dramatic Supreme Court ruling, Nahmani v. Nahmani, in which a couple, who pursued IVF after failing to conceive, unfortunately, got divorced; the woman, other than the fertilized eggs had no other way of ever having a child other than using the eggs, i.e. not only her own but her former husband's genetic material as well. The court ruled in favor of the woman, Aharon Barak, the Court President, ruling against (along with 3 other dissenters).

My rabbi, Rabbi Faivelzon, met Aharon Barak some time thereafter and asked him why he had ruled against the woman. "They had," my rabbi told him, "made a covenant to marry, to start a family. Does that not obligate him, if she has no other way of having children of her own." Aharon Barak's pithy answer was "I don't believe in the idea of a brit (a covenant)."

In another ruling, mindboggling to say the least, Aharon Barak ruled that a man whose marriage had gone downhill, and summarily had an affair, had to pay damages to the woman with whom he had had an affair upon reconciliating with his wife, because in so doing, he had financially hurt his extramarital partner.