‘The Triumph of Life’: An Inspiring Response to Eternal Questions

At 91, modern-day sage Rabbi Irving ‘Yitz’ Greenberg has written a magnum opus based on his faith in God – and humanity.

In the mid-1960s, on my first day of college at Yeshiva University, I enrolled in Prof. Irving “Yitz” Greenberg’s course in world history. My brother, who graduated from YU the year before, had encouraged me to take whatever course Prof. Greenberg was offering. That night I called my brother, excited to thank him and tell him how much I enjoyed the class.

“Your college experience just peaked,” he told me. And in many ways, he was right. But Prof. Greenberg’s impact on me went much further. He remains a mentor and role model for me six decades later, showing me and countless others how his personal experiences, grappling with life’s challenges and tragedies, have produced a unique vision of a Jewish history, and future, that speaks to us all with affirmation and affection.

Far beyond that freshman course, I came to know the rabbi and educator and his wife, Blu, as a couple deeply devoted to family, faith and community. They are committed to sacred values and principles that, in pursuit of truth, make them reluctant rebels who still challenge the status quo of an Orthodox establishment they see as unwilling or unable to meet the full force of modernity. Examples abound; here are two.

In the 1960s, during my college years, Yitz Greenberg sparked a controversy that still lingers within the Orthodox movement when, in an interview in the YU student newspaper, he called for a change from “fundamentalism” and insularity to an active engagement with modernity, “applying religious values and practices to all areas of secular life.” His views, which favored dialogue with Christian theologians and leaders of liberal Jewish denominations, hastened his estrangement from YU, a rift which remains today. But he stayed steadfast in his belief in the power of pluralism, expanding his personal and professional relationships into ever-widening circles.

He remains dedicated to the belief that Jewish continuity will come about if and when Jews are brought together and learn from each other. The “foundational principle of pluralism,” he writes, is the “recognition that one’s own tradition, however valid and sacred, contains flaws that need correction.” Or, put in another way, he has famously quipped, “I don’t care what denomination of Jew you are… as long as you’re embarrassed by it.”

Blu Greenberg, too, has clung to traditional religious observance while enlarging her perspective and activism. In the early 1970s, she helped found the Orthodox feminist movement and continues to play a key role in it. In recent years she has been instrumental in launching and sustaining the International Beit Din, a religious court seeking creative ways through Jewish texts to free agunot, women trapped in “chained” marriages. Her observation that “where there’s a rabbinic will, there’s a halachic way,” continues to energize Jewish feminists and enrage many Orthodox rabbis.

Separately and as a couple, the Greenbergs personify a core element of Yitz’s philosophy that each person is created b’tzelem Elohim, in the image of God, and is “endowed with three fundamental dignities: infinite value, equality and uniqueness.” In his teaching and writing, Yitz (as, over the years, I have come to call him) combines a keen intellect, an open mind, dignity, warmth, deep wells of faith and a sly sense of humor. All are on display in “The Triumph of Faith,” which he began writing 16 years ago, acknowledging that, in the process, he came to revise some of his main ideas. Perhaps most notable is his initial assertion that the Holocaust indicated that God had broken his covenant with the Jewish people by not protecting them. He has come to believe that “the covenant is not broken, not failed, but it is voluntary – we’re choosing to do God’s work,” he told Andrew Silow-Carroll of The Jewish Week in a recent interview.

The Greenbergs, who now spend most of their time in Jerusalem, are in the US for the first time in several years. Yitz has just completed a four-week book tour, with a number of lectures and webinars, during which he not only described the thesis of his book (see below) but spoke openly and with emotion about how his belief that life triumphs over death has been a source of consolation for him in difficult times. “The commitment to love and not accept death is one of the great Jewish teachings and challenges,” he said during a moving discussion last week with one of his most accomplished students, Rabbi Shai Held, president and dean of Yeshivat Hadar, where Yitz serves as senior scholar-in-residence.

Yitz’s extensive CV underscores his role as a scholar, educator and rabbinic and communal leader. He played a major role in synagogue life as rabbi of the Riverdale Jewish Center for seven years, early in his career, and in Jewish education, founding SAR day school in Riverdale, NY, and a Jewish studies department at City College of New York. As an activist, he was a prominent voice in the Soviet Jewry movement and Holocaust education and commemoration, chairing the US Holocaust Memorial Museum. In addition, his work and relationships outside the Orthodox community, and particularly with Jewish federations and prominent philanthropists, led him, with Elie Wiesel and Rabbi Steve Shaw, to create CLAL (Center for Learning and Leadership), a think-tank promoting Jewish education for community leaders, religious pluralism and unity.

One example of CLAL’s impact: In 1979, I participated in a four-day CLAL retreat in Pawling, NY, that brought together about two dozen then-emerging young leaders, including Deborah Lipstadt, Arnie Eisen, Stephen P. Cohen, Cindy Chazan, Reuven Kimmelman and Moshe Waldoks, connecting us to the work of the organization and to each other in ways that still resonate for each of us.

From 1997 to 2008, Yitz was president of the Jewish Life Network/Steinhardt Foundation, which helped create Birthright Israel and PEJE (the Partnership for Excellence in Jewish Education). He was joined from the outset by his son, J.J., who served as executive director and was widely admired as a shining star in the Jewish communal world, known for his creativity, commitment and quirky, outgoing personality. Tragically, he was killed by a car while biking with his brother in Tel Aviv on the eve of Yom Kippur in 2002. He was 36.

‘An Unrelenting Combat’

JJ’s sudden death was the second time Yitz’s faith was shaken to the core.

In the early 1960s, while doing intense research in Jerusalem on the Holocaust, his traditional belief in a God who controlled history was, in his words, “pulverized.”

“I could not reconcile” the horrific details of the suffering of millions of European Jews “with God’s presence in the world,” he writes in The Triumph of Life. “I went through days when I put on my tefillin” and tragic scenes of horror “flooded back into my mind. I choked on the words of the prayers and could not say them.”

At the same time, though, while walking the streets of Jerusalem, Yitz felt the vitality of the city and sensed he was “witnessing the renewal of the covenant by the Jewish people and by God.” He felt caught up in “an unrelenting combat” between “the death star of the Holocaust and the life star of Israel,” and he “struggled to find a conception of religion” that would accommodate this new reality.

Over time, Yitz developed a theological perspective that requires a leap of faith, seeing God’s role in Jewish history as evolving and becoming more hidden – though loving and ever-present – during three distinct time periods. The First Era was Biblical, beginning with Abraham, and including the Exodus from Egypt. God was a very real presence, performing miracles through leaders and prophets while most people were receptive but largely passive. God’s commandments called for the Israelites to create a just society in the land of Israel and show their faith through animal sacrifices carried out by the Priests and Levites. The First Era came to a tragic end with the destruction of the First Temple.

The Second Era was Rabbinic, and includes the building and destruction of the Second Temple, the migration from Israel to the diaspora in Babylonia, Europe and North Africa, and religious energy coming from the sages of the Talmud, rabbis, rebbes and scholars based in synagogues and close-knit communities. God is less visible, the role of the religious leaders is key, and a major challenge is to preserve Judaism in often hostile environments. The Second Era ended in 1939, on the eve of the Second World War.

The current Third Era is lay-driven. With the great immigration of European Jews fleeing pogroms in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, American Jewry became a growing safe haven. The greatest tragedy of the this era was the Holocaust; the greatest triumph, the establishment of the State of Israel and the Six Day War of 1967. It is in this era that God withdraws more fully into the divine self and, seeking a full partnership through a radical form of freedom, allows humans, with their God-given talents, to improve the world on the path to perfection.

“We are now in the Third Era, where God is completely hidden but wants humans to take power and overcome the enemies of life,” Yitz says. “It is not that God is uncaring, but God wants humans to take full responsibility.” Miracles today come from medicine, science and human intellect, Yitz points out, not just through religion. And he sees Israel as “the greatest expression of Jews taking power for themselves for the sake of life.” But he warns that with God increasingly hidden, humans may come to believe that they have full power over the earth and use that power in destructive ways.

Throughout, the book reaffirms Yitz’s conviction that Judaism is a religion focused on life, with every commandment affirming life. Most clearly, the message comes in Deut. 30-19: “I call heaven and earth to witness you today,” God says. “I have put before you life and death – blessing and curse. Therefore, choose life.”

Yitz says tikkun olam will not come from heaven. He is not fazed by the idea that God is no longer a worldly presence; rather, he is enthused by the challenge God, in elevating the status of humans, has presented every one of his creations with the opportunity to become “a legitimate partner in the work of finishing Creation.”

Burden or gift? It’s up to us.