[Avodah] a story for our time

[Micha Berger via Avodah]

On Wed, Sep 14, 2016 at 09:28:31PM -0400, Michael Poppers via Avodah wrote:
: Date: Thu, Sep 8, 2016 at 12:52 PM
: To: Zichron Shlomo Cong <congregationzichronshlomo at gmail.com>

Nice story, puts out foibles into clear focus, but one tangential point
on something the author misspoke.

...
: One day, word went out that the king was planning on visiting the city!
: Additionally, his Majesty intended to visit the Jewish Quarter, and
: agreed to grant an audience to each and every person living there[iii]
: and will be open to considering all their personal needs![iv]
...

And in fn. iii it says (translation/iteration mine):
: [iii] On Rosh Hashanah, kol ba'ei olam overin lefanav kivney maron.
: (Mishnah RH 16a)

In 1960s and '70s, America went through an identity shift. Once
the US called itself a Melting Pot, where people's ethnicities were
expected to be toned down in an attempt to assimilated and become
"Real Americans". Then was the development of ethnic pride, a rise of
the hyphenated American (Italian-American, Irish-American). By the time
David Dinkens became major of NYC, his speechwriter coined the idiom of
America as a "glorious mosaic", a single picture assembled from distinct
ethnic tiles.

I see humanity in the same terms, although as the priesthood tile,
being Benei Yisrael is a unique privilege, one that brings meaning to
the notion of Am haNivchar. A late-20th cent way of framing what is
basically RSRH's vision of humanity.

But the mosaic requires paying exact attention to the dialectic between
the particularism that makes it possible for us to be a Goy Qadosh with
the universalism necessary to be the Mamlekhes Kohanim that brings that
qedushah to the whole mosaic of humanity.

In American terms, this became the endless discussions of my youth about
the differences between the Jewish American and the American Jew.

I believe the author erred on this very matter, insufficiently preserving
the universalist message of RH when trying to create a particularist
message.

How else can someone conflate "kol ba'ei olam" with the Jewish Quarter?

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             The true measure of a man
micha at aishdas.org        is how he treats someone
http://www.aishdas.org   who can do him absolutely no good.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                   - Samuel Johnson