Opinion

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Volunteerism: A Rite Of Passage

Tulsa/JTA

A

s I watch the first of my six
granddaughters prepare to
become a bat mitzvah this
spring, I am filled with pride. She and
young Jews like her around the world are
following in the footsteps of generations
of youth who came before them, affirm-
ing to their communities that they are
prepared to take on the responsibilities of
being a Jewish adult.
Every society has a way of marking
significant stages in our lives when we
celebrate our transitions and mark phases
of maturing. Moments of tremendous
learning and growth, these "rites of pas-
sage" — often transformative experiences
— are forever imprinted in our memories.
Like rites of passage in other societies,
b'nai mitzvah ceremonies have become
nearly universal experiences in the Jewish
community. While many children at bar
mitzvah age are unable to grasp all that
their newfound responsibilities entail,
each one recognizes the occasion as an
important turning point in their lives as

Jews. The bar mitzvah epitomizes obliga-
tion to our religious and cultural ideals.
But should the bar mitzvah be the only
demonstration of a young person's com-
munal allegiance? There are so many val-
ues that the Jewish community embraces
— values that are truly universal in
nature — for which we have no outward
tradition of affirming with the gravity of a
bar or bat mitzvah.
We say we are a people committed to
chesed, or kindness; tzedek, or justice;
and tikkun olam, repairing the world, but
oftentimes we fail to see our engagement
in such activities as an expression of who
we are as Jews. As a people, we need to
develop a new rite of passage devoted to
these pillars of Jewish action.

Deep Roots
These Jewish values were instilled in me
at an early age. Through our frequent vol-
unteering, I came to see that tzedakah, or
giving money, is not enough — it must be
coupled with its sister, tzedek, bringing us
closer to the people who benefit from our
giving and impressing on us the impor-

tance of getting our
hands dirty for the
sake of others.
The physical
aspect of service is
much more transfor-
mative than writing
a check.
Schools and uni-
Lynn
versities are catching
Schusterman
on, adding service to
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standard classroom
Commentary
work. Service leaders
in the United States also believe that they
can ignite a fire in young generations who,
through service work, come to think of
themselves as responsible citizens dedicat-
ed to their civic identities and to the ideals
of democracy.
Just as these American leaders hope
to leverage service to benefit American
society, so too can the Jewish community
utilize service to touch both those who
serve and those who are served.

Effect Of Service
We cannot underestimate the profound

impact Jewish service has on its par-
ticipants. First, service adds another rich
layer to the lives of those already commit-
ted to Judaism. It is a channel for young
Jews to expand their Jewish identities, to
think about Judaism as a holistic living
experience.
At the same time, service also reaches
out to the Jewishly uninspired. Many
young people today speak the language of
universalism, choosing to view the world
from that vantage point and inadver-
tently turning away from the particulars
of Judaism. Accordingly, Jewish service
can give universalists a chance to live out
their broader values in a Jewish context,
to learn that they can be both Jews and
humans.
Thinking about all this as a philanthro-
pist, I began to tackle the question of my
philanthropy help to make service a uni-
versal Jewish experience.
Our Center for Leadership Initiatives,
a new operating foundation that I helped
establish in 2006, sponsored 550 young
adults to do service projects in northern
Israel this winter, to assist the region

Islam Of A Different Kind

Jerusalem

T

he trip from
Jerusalem
to the heart
of Hebron, a city
that is considered
the stronghold of
Palestinian opposi-
Michael
tion movements,
Melchior
takes only half an
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hour by car, but it is
Commentary
light years away in
Middle Eastern terms.
I went to Hebron to express condolences
to the family of the Hebron sheik, Talal
Sider, who in the past few years was a
senior and full partner to the attempts to
persuade the leaders of the three faiths to
turn religion into a lever for peace, broth-
erhood and hope.
The tens of thousands of people who
participated in the funeral bore witness to
the fact that despite the change in direc-
tion that Sheik Talal, one of the founders
of Hamas, underwent, he remained a ven-
erated religious and spiritual leader. The
courageous path he chose, until he served
in the Palestinian Authority as a minister
and participated in the interfaith meet-

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March 22 • 2007

ings, teaches us that despite everything
it is possible to change. His change was
not a tactical political move but stemmed
from a pure religious stance.
Despite a difference in political positions
and cultural dissimilarities, it turns out that
the common religious denominator has
the strength to create a different language.
Contrary to what some Israelis think,
the Palestinians are also sick and tired of
things. They also want their children to
come home safely. They also want to live.
The tendency to see the half-empty
glass sometimes makes us forget the other
half, the half-full one. In the past three
decades, ever since the messages sent by
Anwar Sadat in the 1970s and his historic
visit to Jerusalem, there has been a slow
but steady process among the 22 Arab
countries of coming to terms with, and
reconciling to the idea of the State of Israel.
This process has not yet seeped down to
the Muslim religious leadership.
The rise in strength of Islam as an
extremely significant force in politics has
created a certain differentiation between
the positions of the Muslim states and
their spiritual leaders. Alongside expres-
sions of hatred, some of them purely
anti-Semitic, the first seeds of acceptance

of the existence of Israel and a wish to
become reconciled with it are starting to
blossom among the spiritual leaders.
This voice was heard loud and clear in
the interfaith meetings with the spiritual
and educational leaders, in courageous
and intensive programs, and even in some
religious rulings that emanated from the
schools of learning of religious sages in
Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the territories.
Everything must be done so that this posi-
tive trend can create a positive response
in our religious camp, so that the message
can also seep down among us.

Moving Forward
The half-full glass of the Mecca agreement
could be the one to show the way. With
the Hamas victory in the elections, that
organization found itself in charge of an
administration whose right to exist came
from the Oslo agreements.
When it looked out from the roof after
the victory celebrations, Hamas discovered
to its great anxiety that there was a ladder
below it offering a way to climb down from
the roof, from the utopian Muslim ideol-
ogy to the ground of reality, a large part of
which was the need to reconcile with the
existence of the state of Israel.

The agreement is far from satisfying all
the requirements laid down by the Quartet
to the P.A. But if the sides know how to
use the ladder, they will be able, with its
help and with the required caution, to
reach another diplomatic horizon, one of
hope and reconciliation.
The group picture of the Palestinian
leaders, dressed in white in Mecca, once
again stresses the important place and the
great power of the religious path on the way
to solving the conflict. We, too, no less than
the others, need to climb down the ladder.
It is not possible to make peace with
only half of the Palestinians. Prime
Minister Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas)
cannot supply all the goods himself. The
authority he received from Hamas to hold
negotiations and a referendum has both
political and religious significance.
Even the terrorist Khaled Meshal has
unwittingly started to speak a different
language. This cruel and hard-hearted
man has not yet accepted the State of
Israel as an accepted fact, but even his dec-
larations that the P.A. is obliged to uphold
the agreements with Israel is indeed "a
new diplomatic language" that Hamas has
adopted because of "national necessity."
Together with Israel's uncompromising