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Healthy & Happy
Sephardic Action
Urged By Rabbi
ELIZABETH BERNSTEIN
Special to The Jewish News
New Year
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FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 1990
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he jellyfish and the
shark. One symbolizes
passivity, the other
activism.
They are metaphors for the
conflicting philosophies that
polarize the Sephardic mind
and threaten the survival of
Sephardic culture to this
day, according to Rabbi
Marc Angel, in his address
to delegates at the American
Sephardi Federation's 1990
annual convention.
Rabbi Angel, who is rabbi
of Shearith Israel, the
historic Spanish and Portu-
guese Synagogue in New
York, said the two aspects
can be seen through the ex-
amples of two Sephardic
sages.
Rabbi Eliezer Papo was a
teacher, a mystic and a
writer, who believed com-
pletely in the goodness of
God and in fate. According to
Rabbi Papo, Jews were
supposed to work hard for a
living, even though God pre-
determines whether they are
going to be successful.
As Rabbi Angel noted,
Rabbi Papo's philosophy was
one of acceptance and
passivity. He believed that
Jews must accept what God
has willed for them and
"float like jellyfish where
the sea covers them."
On the other hand, Rabbi
Yehuda Alkali, a student of
Rabbi Papo's, arrived at a
very different philosophy of
life.
"Rabbi Alkali believed
that Jews must be active,"
said Rabbi Angel. "He
preached that Jews must not
wait for the Messiah to save
them, that God would not
help them unless they took
the initiative."
Rabbi Alkali used the ex-
ample of Noah: God did not
save Noah until he built the
ark. "Thus, it was Rabbi
Alkali's belief that Jews
must swim as sharks, not
float like jellyfish," said
Rabbi Angel, who observed
that "modern Sephardic his-
tory is filled with many revo-
lutionary thinkers."
He cited Grace Aguilar of
the Portuguese Synagogue
of London, who early in the
19th century recognized that
women were not respected in
the Jewish faith and
picketed on their behalf.
There was also the
Moroccan rabbi Eliahu Ben-
Amozegh, who believed that
Judaism is a universal re-
ligion with laws applying to
all humanity, and Rabbi
Benzion Uziel, who died in
the 1950s, convinced that
"God did not give us the
Torah on Mount Sinai to
have us hide the fact that we
are Jews and live in a ghetto
away from the rest of the
world."
"All of these revolutionary
thinkers shared a great
pathos," Rabbi Angel said.
"They were extremely
Rabbi Angel:
Two aspects seen.
frustrated at trying to do
something that the public
did not understand at the
time. Each put their life on
the line and suffered because
of their beliefs."
Rabbi Angel, the first
Sephardic rabbi to become
president of the Rabbinical
Council of America, believes
that while Sephardic Jews
would fight to retain their
long tradition, "many
Sephardim today are content
to dress like Ashkenazim
and to follow their customs
and join their clubs and syn-
agogues," he said.
"This Sephardic model of
passivity is no longer accep-
table because it sends out a
message that Sephardim are
not good, that they have
nothing to teach," the New
York rabbi said.
"The failure of this culture
to thrive rests squarely on
the shoulders of the Sephar-
dim of today," he added.
Dr. Carlos Rizowy, former
director of international
studies at Chicago's
Roosevelt University, told
the delegates that Jews
must spend more energy
identifying what unites
them rather than what
divides them.
f.
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