Rabbinic reflections on "Loyalty"

Our rabbi, Adam Zeff, always goes high when they go low.  Below is his response to the ravings of an evil lunatic about Jewish Americans' "disloyalty".  

Rabbi Zeff looks through the prism of historical precedent at this repetition of the anti-Semitic attack cycle that has come around so many times when autocrats have felt threatened and instinctively find Jews a convenient target toward which to displace public disapproval.  

Last fall we visited the Polin Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw.  The exhibits meticulously and vividly tell the story of this cycle over the centuries as various political structures and regimes came and went.  Each time there was disequilibrium, the status and rights of Jews were among the first parts of society to be in flux.  They contracted and expanded depending on the perceived value of deflecting toward the Other versus the value of empowering Jewish talent to contribute to economic and social development.  

Polish history in that sense paralleled the historical cycles of most European countries.  Jews' inclusion was always tentative and subject to revocation. 

America is now being tested to see if it really is exceptional in that most essential way -- the way that its philosophical foundations projected it to be, wherein all comers would become Americans, and where there would be no outsiders. 

Loyalty

As part of the long history of the Jewish people, we are accustomed to having our loyalty questioned, from Babylon to Rome to medieval Europe to contemporary America.  We remember how kings and leaders and governments have used the accusation of disloyalty to separate Jews from others, to impose disabilities on us, to oppress us, and to kill us.  We know how dangerous these accusations are, both to Jews and to other minorities--people of color, Muslims, immigrants, LGBTQ people--who have also too often been identified as outsiders and denied the same consideration and rights as their fellow citizens.  So we know that no matter where and when and from whose mouth our loyalty is attacked, we must stand up and oppose the false dichotomy between being Jewish and being a loyal citizen of the U.S. or whatever state we find ourselves in.

At the same time, we must realize that there is a consistent reason that Jews throughout history have been accused of disloyalty to human leaders and human governments.  As we will declare together on the High Holidays in just a few weeks, although we acknowledge the importance of human leadership structures, our ultimate loyalty is not to a human being or a human state.  We praise God as "the Ruler of the Rulers of Rulers" to emphasize that we do not bow down to humans, who are ultimately fallible, but only to God, who represents the divine values of justice, equality, peace, and love to which we commit ourselves.  Because we insist on being loyal to the values of Torah above any human being, we have been a constant thorn in the side of those human leaders who demand complete loyalty to themselves above all.  We have been blessed throughout our history to see those leaders fail and to see our faith in Torah rewarded.  In our effort to defend ourselves from charges of disloyalty in the human realm, may we never forget the divine values to which we must always remain loyal, no matter what any leader says.  And may our faith in the ultimate triumph of those values be rewarded.