[A lecture delivered at the Congregation Ezra Besarot in Seattle, Washington in 1977.]
For some eight years I was spiritual leader of the Portuguese synagogue Mikveh Israel in Philadelphia. After giving a sermon on a current topic, and returning to the Tebah (reading desk), my predecessor, a dyed-in-the-wool Sefardi then in his nineties would lean over to me and say chidingly: "That was a nice sermon, but, you know, it is good to begin with words of Torah." So in deference to him I shall begin with what I hope is an original interpretation of some words of Torah, having already delayed them slightly in deference to my perhaps unjustified fear of scaring off almost any American audience by doing as he suggested.
According to the Mishna, the sage Hillel uttered a statement generally translated:
If I am not for myself, who will be for me? And if I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?
With the translation of the last sentence I agree. But with the translation of the first two I disagree, both in terms of inherent plausibility, and in terms of what we know of Hillel from other places. The declaration: "If I am not for myself, who will be for me" may suit very well the modern business ethic, and probably be good advice in terms of success, but it is a gross and callous statement totally out of keeping with the character of the man who also said: "Be of the disciples of Aaron, loving peace and pursuing peace," or "A name made great is a name destroyed." Can such altruistic and self-effacing statements be squared with his other remark which is only a step away from the formulation of the cockney: "I'm all right, Jack, damn you." The second sentence can be made to render any sense at all only by perverting the sentence by the insertion of an unwarranted "only." I would suggest that the proper translation must take into account the fact that the Hebrew preposition l- meaning generally "to" or "for" may denote possession. We may then translate: "If I do not possess me, who possesses me? Yet granted that I possess me, what am I? And if not now, when?" Hillel foreshadowed the modern understanding that man, if he is to be mentally whole, must have an identity, and know what it is. The very word identity means "the same", from the Latin word idem, and the point of Hillel's first statement is the necessary identity, the sameness of the possessor and the possessed: "if I do not possess me, who possesses me?" Then granted that one possesses one's self, that one has an identity, one must ask what that identity is, what is this I? And this duty and necessity of possessing and of understanding what is possessed, one's I, is a call that may not be denied. It demands to be answered on the spot. "If not now, when?" We can perhaps understand this type of self-possession by looking at the reverse side of the coin. In Hitler's concentration camp the effort was made to strip individuals not only of their earthly possessions, but of themselves. They were given a number, and these numbers were tatooed on them. The significance of this ritual tatooing, indelible and in the flesh cannot be overemphasized. It was not purely for practical purposes. It was analogous to the covenant of circumcision, similarly indelible and in the flesh, which exercised such a fascination on the Nazis. It aimed to neutralize it. That was an indelible anti-covenant. It said: "This number takes away your personal identity, your Jewish identity, your human identity. You are the n-th body to have passed through these doors and nothing more. You do not own yourself. You are ownerless, and may be disposed of like ownerless objects with full moral propriety." The result was the so-called "Mussulman," found in large numbers by the liberators of the death camps, a hollow-eyed, emaciated creature, which was a mere caricature of a human being, unsmiling, unspeaking, drained of human identity. I cannot help feeling that those who objected when the Bell Telephone Company dispensed with exchange names in favor of numbers subliminally were protesting against the destruction of an identity, albeit a non-human one, the exchange Hilltop, or Baldwin, or Circle in favor of a mere cipher. An old friend was destroyed by automation.
It is not easy these days to establish an identity. That so-called social security number which is already tracking down people with sufficient of an identity left to evade taxes, now identifies students at our university in Milwaukee, is demanded of me when I pay my parking fee, and will probably replace our names in the mail in the lifetimes of some of us. Thank God for the backwardness of the U.S. Post Office.
And identity is a highly complex entity. To God alone belongs a perfectly simple identity. His very name in Hebrew means "He is," and when he speaks of himself, his name becomes I AM. God's identity has no parts because he is one. No man's identity is like that. I am going to think aloud today as to what part of my identity is "Sefardi" in the hope that some of my thinking may ring some bells with you, and help us both answer Hillel's question "What am I?" for if democracy means anything at all, it surely means that one is allowed and indeed encouraged, perhaps even required, to own one's self, and not be owned by corporate humanity as may occur in some socialist climates or be recommended by some behavioral scientists, or by no one at all as may occur in some fascist climates. And in this personal way we can explore perhaps the defference between a Sefardic and Ashkenazic identity, and sense the difference between Sefardim and Ashkenazim.
Abraham ibn Ezra, the famous bible commentator and grammarian, writes a little poem in the course of the introduction to his commentary on Job in which he declares: "This is the explanation of the book of Job by Abraham son of Meir the Sefardi ibn Ezra." The placing of the term "the Sefardi" even before his surname may have been brought about by the exigencies of meter, but it shows how deeply ingrained in his identity was his being a Sefardi. Of course, Sefardi did not mean then what it means now. The expulsion of 1492 was yet hundreds of years off. And he was in fact born in Spain. But "Sefardi" understandably meant more to him than "Spaniard." The notion of peoplehood was not yet tied to citizenship in a particular country. Sefardi for him implied his Jewishness too, his belonging to a branch of Jewry with its own traditions and mores. Ibn Ezra always calls himself a "Sefardi," even though much of his life was spent in France and Italy. It formed an indelible part of his very fruitful and individual identity which has left deep marks on Jewish culture.
I would not write "Sefardi" before my surname. I would not even write it before my social security number. What does it mean to me? As a youth, it meant to me privilege. Being a superior minority within a minority. Being connected with a language which I scarcely knew, but knew to be musical and sweet compared with that of other Jews who were connected with a language salty and harsh and guttural. It meant a very English kind of decorum in worship, and brevity too. Our German brethren were still confined to their synagogues on the holy days listening to their cantors' vocal acrobatics long after we had gone home. It surely did not mean Jewish scholarship. If I looked down the list of names connected with the Soncino translations of Jewish literature, certainly one of the monuments of Anglo-Jewish scholarship, I saw not a single Iberian name. it mean anti-Zionism, a lack of interest in the Jewish state, and a discomfort at the problems our correligionists in Israel were giving the British. I was a teenager when some terrorists hanged those unfortunate British soldiers. One of the pillars of our synagogue insisted, or so it appeared to me, that our spiritual leader "say something." He rose and said: "Not by might, not by power, but through my spirit, saith the Lord." I was not quite sure if he was criticizing the terrorists or not. The Sefardic community in London recognized the State of Israel quite some time after the British government. For some years after 1948 we prayed "for our brethren who reside in the Land of Israel," and only later got around to praying for the State of Israel, placing us somewhere between the Americans who recognized the State one minute after its foundation, and the Pope who will presumably do so when the Messiah comes and orders him to do so. There was a sense of community, although a very stratified one. There were the ruling English families, mostly wealthy and with more-than-£1000-a-year accents; the ruled English families; and the foreign Sefardim, dark, submissive, halting in speech. Only from the first group could the man come who would sit in the chair in the old Bevis Marks Synagogue which the congregation once refused to sell to an imploring City of London. I belonged to group two; inferior to group one, and superior to group three, and of course to the Jewish majority. I liked what I was. I liked the decorousness and haunting melodies of the synagogue, all the more perhaps because if you sang one of them to an Ashkenazi a blank look came over his face, and he seemed to enjoy his inability to reproduce it.
When I shifted to the north of England, I found to my surprise that I was no longer a typical Sefardi. In London a Sefardi was supposed to be fair. In Manchester he was supposed to be dark. He was called "Yakipak" by the Ashkenazim, presumably because he spoke Arabic. The Sefardim there were second or third generation immigrants from Smyrna or Saloniki or Syria. They knew no Portuguese, but Spanish was still a living thing, even for playing the game of Lotto, or naming some of their traditional dishes which came out in abundance on Hoshana Rabba, a day hardly noticed by the Ashkenazim. But they were a community, albeit subdivided, in the full sense. There were uninfected by the southern English rule that one must announce one's intentions well ahead of a visit, and lived very sociably in each others' company not only on weekends, but during the week too. This was a time when the telephone was rather rare, and messages were often conveyed on foot; and there was often no television set to divert the recipient from offering tea and chat to the message bearer. They were warm and frank and aware of it; they treated a Londoner almost as one treates a sufferer from frostbite; warm him up quick before gangrene sets in. Although their ritual had been deeply influenced by the different Marrano ritual of London, the atmosphere was quite different, more informal, homey, relaxed. A warm glow suffuses my recollections of this community, and it is perhaps my suspiecion that the Seattle community shares a very similar background inclines me to reminisce and try to sum up to you. My impression of what it meant to be a Sefardi came to mean"privilege" in a different sense, not the privilege of superiority, but rather the privilege of equal shaing in a rich, rewarding, and above all warm tradition, one which one could go back to and curl up in when the outside air got too chilly for comfort.
In Philadelphia I found another situation entirely. That city has a Sefardi synagogue, but not a synagogue of Sefardim. It is unlikely that even in colonial days that community had a majority of Sefardim, but the social superiority of the group insured the adoption of its ritual which it has preserved up to the present. Some of its members had been brought up in the Sefardi tradition, and, so to say, knew no better. But most were, I think, fugitives from the inadequacies of American Jewish communal existence, thoughtful people who had found by accident something that answered deep needs within their own souls, needs which they were unable to satisfy with the supposed tripartite character of American Jewry. This made me aware that some elements in the Sefardi way do something for non-Sefardim too, that maybe there are "I's" in the world who can use a Sefardi component, albeit naturalized.
It is said of the Talmudic sage R. Joseph that he once had a vision of the world to come. "I saw a topsy-turvy world," he declared. "The upper ones were beneath, and the lower ones were on top." This is what I found in Israel. We have heard much of discrimination against Sefardim in Israel, and if discrimination means any of the subtle thing that it means now in America, then there is discrimination. It is hard to say but it must be said. True, the opportunities are there for all. But as we have learned by bitter lessons in this country, people have to be primed to take opportunities. There are ways of offering opportunities that are a mockery of opportunity. Nor is it enough when the prime minister treats malcontents like wayward infants who will be set right by a spank on the rear. During my work in Israel I met many Sefardim in all walks of life, and although I was interviewing for linguistic purposes, many of their concerns appeared. That as a group they feel discriminated against there can be no doubt, in housing, in job opportunities, in education opportunities. Even the Askenazic yeshivot reportedly had a quota on their admission. I have pointed out elsewhere that being subject to discrimination does not make the sufferer less likely to practice discrimination when he gets on top. On the contrary, undesirable habits are learned only too easily. One post office worker, a cultured and intelligent man from Libya, confided his fear to me. "If too many Jews come from Russia," he said, "I shall lose my job." Whether he will or not is perhaps not so important as the fact that he feels that the will. However, some confirmation of the notion that this discrimination is not pure imagination was presented to us. One lady whom we got to know would not admit to the possibility that we were Sefardim. We must have made some mistake, or perhaps we were Hasidim who follow a kind of Sefardi rite. The real reason for her refusal to allow us to be what we felt we were was, I suspect, that it would have impeded her acceptance for us, and she wanted to accept us. Another example. We spent Passover in a hasidic community. My wife mentioned to a lady who had been nice to us that we were Sefardim. She was shocked, and a barrier came from nowhere that never quite dissolved.
The Sefardim in Israel possess no real power base, intellectual, political, or commercial and this is evident in the quality of their input into the religious life of the country too. They may have some halakhic scholars, but their outlook has been shaped and molded by the Ashkenazi predominance.
On looking at the Sefardi world one sees a rather depressing picture. There are a few courageous communities in the diaspora subject to all the destructive forces which modern mobility and urbanization have wrought on any traditionally oriented community. In Israel the picture is of dejection and lack of creativity. Above all the intellectual base which has sustained the Jewish people as a whole in its long march through history is lacking. Is it worthwhile to rear a generation which can put the word "Sefardi" before its surname?
I am not sure that it is not too late. If it is, it is a pity, because the Sefardi world view had much to offer to the Jewish community both in America and Israel. Present trends in Judaism have many unattractive features. Standard orthodoxy is the outgrowth of the Jewish experience in eastern Europe which was cramping and confining. Judaism there responded to its unkind environment with the humra, the strict interpretation of Jewish law which tended to isolate the Jew from the harsh outside world, and where piety became synonymous with saying "no." Orthodoxy here and in Israel still has this albatross on its back, and one wonders if we can ever get it off. Reformed trends in Judaism, whether conservative or reform seem to me to have been overly influenced by the less health trends in modern life, trends which are already going out of Judaism. I speak generally of the drive for appearance rather than quality, of possessions rather than people. They have created a vehicle which looks shine and beautiful, but is unsafe at any speed because it lacks the quality and safety measures needed. There is acceleration but the brakes are faulty; there is a lush interior but the springs are leaden.
The Sefardi tradition could have offered in Israel and America some things of real value. First, the value of quietude. Only the Sefardim, it seems to me, understood the verse in Psalms 46.11 "Be still and know that I am God." (I am sure that the Sefardim in Seattle knew this psalm because the phrase Ezra Besarot comes from the same psalm.) In south Jerusalem there are two synagogues a block away from each other. In the Turkish synagogue they are still. No one moves. The voice heard is that of the Hazan. There is a spirit of utter rest. They are working people. One of their leading members is the foreman of a gang of laborers, but their work is left outside. At four-thirty in the morning they foregather to pray before they go to their manual labors, carpentry, shoe-making and road building. In the German synagogue, by contrast, the movement never ceases, nor does the noise. One lean gentleman paces back and forth like a lion, no one taking the least notice of him. I used to see him in fantasy working out in the Turkish synagogue round the corner, imagining the looks of astonishment he would create by his gliding back and forth. I suppose if he had been offered rose water according to their custom he would have been surprised too. This difference in muscular activity whether in the larynx or thigh is symbolic of an underlying difference. The Ashkenazi is more active, doubtless more successful as a result. Yet is not our society hyperactive, running whither and whence we know not? Could we not learn something from the Sefardic understanding of "being still," of seeking to enjoy the world rather than conquer it, of knowing God through "leaving off." Maybe if this characteristic were built into our personalities it would counteract the urge to drop out that crops up today among sensitive souls.
Secondly, the Sefardi lack of enthusiasm for the humra, the rigorous decision, could have made traditional Judaism a much more viable creature in today's world, without moving into the conservative way of rubber stamping decisions which have been already made through popular ignorance. In the field of dietary laws, it seems to me that indigenous Sefardi scholarship would have dealt quite differently with the problems presented by modern food additives on the one hand, and commercial pressures and merchandizing on the other. Observance could have been easier without being diluted. This more tolerant spirit might well have been helpful in the coming struggle over religion in Israel which is bound to come to flashpoint soon after the expreme external pressures are removed. The rigidity which typifies religion in Israel, its unsmiling face, reflects the snows of Poland rather than the suns of Spain. Would it had been other wise! What is the prospect for the futhre? I cannot in honesty be too optimistic. We live in an age of polarization when, like the cell in the computer, you must be on or off. In Israel one sees that you must be "religious" or "irreligious" and anyone falling between the two stools in in for a hard time. The Sefardi attitude, I feel, would never have dubbed "dati" (religious) or "lo-dati" (not religious) at two opposing poles. The differentiation was rather on the basis of being "hasid" (pious) - but the word did not have an opposite; it was merely a strengthening of what every Jew is at heart. Like Sears Roebuck, the merchandise is good, better or best, never bad. It is hard for this middle-of-the-road attitude to survive when it is confronted by the extremes. I used to think of this when I saw in Israel one Sefardi grocer open his store, kiss the mezuza and say a prayer for reasonable sales, I guess, to Sefardim and Ashkenazim alike. Had he been an Ashkenazi, he would either have been wearing a yarmulka, or not kissed the mezuza. Yet do we not breed hypocrisy by setting up religious minima?
Let me give you another example from Morocco. After attending synagogue on a weekday morning in Fez, the city where Moses Maimonides once lived, and which possesses a clock named for him, I was invited to breakfast by a member of the congregation. He took me to a non-Jewish bar, put on a skull cap, washed his hands, and said the hamotsi (grace before meals) in a totally gentile environment. No one was surprised. They knew he was Jewish, and said prayers in Hebrew before eating. We read stories in the Talmud which display a similar situation of coexistence of observant Judaism and the outside world, but it died in Poland and Russia.
Sefardim believed in a continuum of religion, not a polarity between religion and irreligion. Yet I have some optimism. There is some feeling, not too much, a flicker, both in Israel and this country that the Sefardi tradition has something to offer and ought to be preserved against the time when the climate is a little kinder to the warm and the yielding. Attempts are being made to foster Sefardic studies, something not really separable from Judaic studies as a whole, but helpful as giving evidence that there is more than one highroad through the terrain of Jewish culture. The fact that in some instances Sefardic emphases and Sefardic studies and Sefardic synagogues are kept alive by individuals of Ashkenazic background suggests trhat a realization that there are Sefardic calues of true depth and importance extends beyond a group that has ties purely of national origin. There is a certain rebellion against shoddy merchandise of the spirit as well as of the supermarket, and our tradition may reap some benefit from it. When I see a rabbi skilled in the latest techniques of persuasion, some of it in his own self-interest, yet unable to read from a sefer torah without a regular book at hand, I come to feel that our Jewish community expression has a veneer over it just as much as the latest gimmick from the department store. Things like the ability to read accurately and esthetically from the sacred scrolls were a peculiarly treasure acomplishment among Sephardim. We find Shabbetai Bass, a Polish traveler of the eighteenth century describing with awe the excellencies of Sefardic education in Amsterdam which laid great stress on these abilities. It was achieved at the cost of much sweat, but gave an artistic satisfaction which clinced a link with our ancestors in the desert. Such things should not be sacrificed on the altar of mass communication. Where does all this leave this question of Sefardim and Ashkenazim which has even made it this month to Esquire magazine. In orthodox-conservative-reform America or in religious-nonreligious Israel can one attach any positive value to a Sephardic identity? Can we call for the survival of the values it endorses? It is said of one of the Talmudic sages that when he used to reach the verse in Lamentations "perhaps there is hope" he would weep. The thought that with all his prayers and efforts there was still a "perhaps" was apparently too much for him. "Perhaps" we should not be too downhearted. If one reads the writings of Isaac Leeser, a man of Ashkenazi origin, who was thoroughly familiar with the Sefardi tradition, one find that in mid-nineteenth century America, a Jewish wilderness indeed, he never lost hope. He had the kind of messianic fervor in his faith that the true values which he derived from Sinai would survive. Perhaps we can evince the same fervor on behalf of those values which have been transmitted, ultimately from Sinai, but more recently via Saloniki or Kushta or Amsterdam that they will survive and evince just sufficient German activity and push to see that their message is not lost.