"I'm a civil war" - this is how Israeli poet Chaim Gouri described himself. After the death of Rabbi David Forman last Tuesday, I thought that he might have recognized himself in those words, too: From his student days in America with the Freedom Riders in the segregated South, to his founding of
Rabbis for Human Rights and his consistent pursuit of "justice, justice" ever since, Rabbi Forman did not once let up the fight.
It is no easy thing to come to Israel and work for social change, to keep your Judaism intact while not letting the Jewish state cause you to forget the rights and humanity of everyone else. Yet Rabbi Forman built and lived a life in Israel according to his ideals, all while battling the civil war within himself, the contradictory impulses one can't help but feel here. So how did Rabbi Forman keep his sanity all these years, remain focused and not give in to defeat? I think he did it in three ways.
First, he wrote. He described Israel's internal struggles for American readers, and by documenting what he saw, he controlled the extent to which such wars could destroy him. Israelis, he understood, were schizophrenic - "one 'I' pulls in one direction while another 'I' pulls in the opposite direction and then a third and fourth 'I' pull in yet other directions" (Forman,
Jewish Schizophrenia in the Land of Israel).
Next, he took action. He was the founder and spirit of
Rabbis for Human Rights, "the rabbinic voice of conscience in Israel." He was also the architect of the
North American Federation of Temple Youth (NFTY)-Israel program, creating the connection for countless numbers of young people between Judaism and Israel. While he could have chosen a different path, he lived by one of his favorite verses from
Pirkei Avot: "Study is not the chief thing, but action." And he reminds us we need to keep up the work - "the Jewish state has yet to fulfill its historical and theological mission to become that 'holy nation:' a country based on the prophetic ideals of social justice and equality" (Forman,
Fifty Ways to Be Jewish).
The third way: he loved his family. His wife, his daughters, their husbands, their families - and his seven grandchildren, Sivan, Binyamin, Yarden, Zohar, Tal, Shani and Nitai. "I pray, that as my grandchildren grow older, they will find their Jewish way in the world; and that their conduct will be determined by the historical traditions and practices of our people, which find their longevity and continued strength in a prophetic vision of social justice and equality, of personal commitment and collective responsibility, of familial respect and human dignity." His memory is a blessing.
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I was first acquainted with Rabbi Forman's
name because of his untimely death. He was
my Rabbi's brother-in-law. This remembrance
of the man, his writings and his works was
very moving--and extremely impressive. My
prayers are with his family.