Living in Two Worlds
From the December 2001 Beit Tikvah Newsletter

How was your Thanksgiving?
     Wait, this is the rabbi' column. What could possibly be "rabbinic" about focusing on one's experience of a recent secular holiday?
For one, it might give us pause to address, and assess how we live our lives "in two civilizations." Mordecai M. Kaplan, the founder of Reconstructionism, and one of the great Jewish philosophers of the 20th century, coined that phrase to frame the challenge of living Jewishly in America. In a pamphlet series from 1966, Kaplan articulates his vision for Judaism as points refracted through this challenge:

1. Judaism is nothing less than a civilization. It consists of the group life of a people identified with a particular land, having a continuous history, a religion;
2. Judaism as a civilization has been evolving in response to the changes in the world about it;
3. Outside Eretz Yisrael, Jews have to live in two civilizations;
4. The revitalization of Jewish religion, both in Israel and in the diaspora, is indispensable as a means of giving purpose and direction to the Jewish people;
(and, perhaps the most radical)
5. Jews outside Eretz Yisrael, whose primary civilization is that of the country they live in, owe it to their Jewish religion to foster the spiritual significance of the memorable heroes, events, texts and places of their country's civilization.
     So, when the students in the Arayot/ Gimmel [3rd to 4th grade] of the Kesher School were studying the Jewish calendar with me, and I asked them to identify all of the holidays in a given month, I was delighted when someone volunteered "Thanksgiving" for November! It gave us the opportunity to talk about exactly how we are Jewish in America.
      Kaplan's yarzeit was observed on the Shabbat before Thanksgiving in November. I was mindful of this confluence when I myself marked the festival day this year from Canada, where I grew up ignoring that country's Thanksgiving. It falls in October, and while it sometimes overlaps with Sukkot, it can also fall on Yom Kippur! In Canada it is more of an explicitly Christian holiday, and not one that celebrated the nation of my birth.
     In his magnum opus from the 1930s, Judaism as a Civilization, Kaplan reflected on the spiritual potential in hyphenated identity, seeing it as a source of strength for the cultural distinction of Jews in America, and as a means of supporting and strengthening meaningful separation of church and state. He wrote: " ... for a long time to come, citizenship in the Western world will take the form of hyphenism. Living in two civilizations ... is a necessity. Jews must insist on the right to cultivate their own historical civilization as a means to their spiritual life."
     Our prayer book, Kol Haneshamah: Shabbat Vehagim, includes a delightful set of readings, poems and reflections of various events celebrated in our "other" civilization. The next time you encounter a civic holiday, and seek to mark it in your home, your children's school, or with your extended family, consider a reading from the siddur series, originally crafted by Kaplan and his students to hone the highest spirituality in our Jewish, and American, selves.