'Graving'

When does religion crossover into superstition? And when does pilgrimage verge on idolatry?

I have been thinking about these questions because of the controversy surrounding the annual Haredi-dominated pilgrimage to Uman.

Each year before Rosh Hashana during the Hebrew month of Elul, thousands of (mostly but not exclusively) Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox pilgrims board flights at Ben-Gurion Airport to pay homage at the grave of Rebbe Nachman of Bratslav in Uman, Ukraine. A few men spend the entire High Holy Days near the shrine, leaving their wives and little ones behind.

Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has struck Israel hard and its ultra-Orthodox community, incredibly hard, Ronni Gamzu, the government’s chief Corona coordinator, has been lobbying vehemently to thwart the 2020 pilgrimage. 

Shas and United Torah Judaism, the ultra-Orthodox parties upon which Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s political survival hinges, charge that Gamzu exceeded his mandate when he directly contacted Ukrainian authorities urging them to prevent Israeli pilgrims from visiting the shrine. Haredi lawmakers demanded Gamzu be sacked.

Ultra-Orthodox pundits argued that God, not Prof. Gamzu, was best positioned to heal the sick. And anyway, they said, why should the secular have all the fun? They get to work out in gyms and protest Netanyahu policies and alleged corruption in nightly rallies with no social distancing while Haredi life has been comparatively restricted. 

The Haredim feel they are being asked to take Covid-19 more seriously than other Israelis, and it is just not fair. Israelis famously loathe being made suckers – individually or tribally.

Netanyahu, who has shown a capacity for duplicity, messaged that he was siding with the ultra-Orthodox against Gamzu. Offstage, he pleaded with Ukraine to forbid the entry of Israeli pilgrims. This officials in Kyiv did on August 26, as Israel’s Covid-19 death toll was nearing 1,000.

Some pilgrims took no chances, left early, and are already ensconced in Uman. Others carrying non-Israeli passports will try to sneak in via indirect connections.

Is it not folly to adamantly insist on making an international pilgrimage during a pandemic that has claimed over 800,000 lives worldwide? As it is many ultra-Orthodox sages in Israel, the US, and the UK have died of Corona. So why would any father, son, brother, or husband consider putting their families at risk? Why do Haredi politicians notably Agudat’s Yaakov Litzman (Ashkenazi Hassidic) and Shas’s Aryeh Deri (Sephardic) push for pilgrimages even after the community’s bitter experience at the beginning of the plague?

Part of the answer is that Litzman and Deri cannot ignore the wishes for “normalcy now” coming from clerical powerbrokers and rank and file constituents. The grand rabbis and their coteries are no more ignorant about Covid-19 than the US president, but like him, they find the pandemic a drag.

And like for everyone else, the public health danger must be balanced with other needs, including for Haredim, the imperative of maintaining tribal discipline and cohesion. The Haredi lifestyle depends not only on insularity from society-at-large but on maintaining internal solidarity, which requires devotees to gather in numbers in synagogues, wedding halls, yeshivot, and on pilgrimages. 

If, as Aristotle said, man is a social animal Haredi Man is utterly dependent on his communal personages, structures, and institutions to sustain, legitimate, and perpetuate a way of life.

Naturally, matters of a pecuniary nature play a role. The ultra-Orthodox world’s sub-economy is not immune to the financial blows wrought by Covid-19. There is legitimate as well as illicit money to be made for Haredim and locals in organizing pilgrimages (and pleasures) in Uman.

In Judaism, “graving” is not in and of itself idolatry. Paying homage at graves has long been a fixture of diasporic Judaism, often involving arduous journeys to the Holy Land. That said, fixating on a faraway crypt during a global pandemic seems reckless. 

I am not disparaging cemetery visits. Visiting the graves of loved ones provides succor. Personally, I am less keen on pilgrimages to the graves of saintly rabbis or purported shrines of biblical figures. Yet for many, such journeys deliver a connection to forebearers, solidify our shared heritage, and offer emotional-spiritual comfort.

Perhaps the most revered burial shrine in Judaism is Hebron’s Machpelah, where tradition says Patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are buried along with the Matriarchs Sarah, Rebecca, and Leah. The Machpelah anyway has profound significance in Jewish civilization because it is situated in Hebron ancient Israel’s first capital.

When Rebbe Nachman of Bratslav went on his Holy Land pilgrimage, it might have been to Hebron and to the Mount of Olives overlooking the Temple Mount. He may have also visited the tomb of Shimon ha-Tzadik, a Second Temple-era high priest mentioned in Pirkei Avot (1:2) as “among the last of the Great Assembly.” Shimon is believed to be buried in what is nowadays the Arab neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah on the way to Mount Scopus.

The 2nd-century’s Simeon bar Yohai cited many times in the Mishnah, and regarded in traditionalist circles as the author of the mystical Zohar attracts masses of pilgrims to his grave in Meron, especially on Lab B’Omer. This year too, notwithstanding Corona (and with an amber light from the Haredi-deferential Netanyahu government), thousands of the faithful trekked to his Galilee resting place.

Rachel’s Tomb near Bethlehem draws a steady flow of pilgrims. Bratslav devotees have been known to spend the night at Joseph’s Tomb in PLO-controlled Nablus.

Outside Israel, significant gravesites dot the Middle East, North Africa, Europe, and North America. But no shrine consistently draws more devotees than Rebbe Nachman in Uman, Ukraine, a city drenched in Jewish blood. Terrible pogroms took place there in the 1600 and 1700s. During the Holocaust, some 17,000 Jews were murdered in and around Uman.

Nachman (of Bratslav in Poland) lived in Uman for about a year before his death of tuberculosis at age 38 during Sukkot 1810. A great-grandson of the founder of Hassidism, the Ba’al Shem-Tov, Nachman pulls more visitors than his revered great-grandfather buried in Medzhybizh about 250 km. to the west.

Nachman encouraged his followers toward asceticism and fasting as attested by his fundamentalist followers in today’s Mea Shearim quarter in Jerusalem. A probable manic depressive, he also encouraged clapping, singing, dance, and ecstasy during prayer.

One of his contributions to Hassidism was to accentuate the Rebbe’s role as a conduit between his disciples and God. And he advocated hitbodedut or meditative self-isolation to draw closer to God. He taught: “It is very good to pour out your heart to God as you would to a true, good friend.” 

Such innovations led to disputes with competing clerics who charged him with messianic pretensions. It was these differences that forced him to relocate to Uman.

The branding of Nachman was accelerated by his leading disciple Nathan (Reb Noson) ben Naphtali Herz of Nemirow. He built the synagogue in Uman to perpetuate his teacher’s memory and instituted the annual pilgrimage around Rosh Hashanah. According to Noson, Rebbe Nachman promised to intercede in heaven on behalf of every person who prayed at his grave.

Nachman’s less-ascetic followers latched on to the happy-clappy side of his message. Some can be seen driving around randomly in dilapidated vans with souped-up loudspeakers. Between traffic lights, they pour out and dance to thump-thump-thump Bratslav trance music. 

Today, there is no one Bratslav Rebbe which has allowed some shady characters to emerge. Perhaps the most esteemed Bratslav court is headed by Jerusalem Grand Rabbi Yaakov Meir Shechter (a fierce anti-Zionist). 

The catchphrase “Na Nach Nachma Nachman Meuman” popularized by one of the Rebbe’s followers – and later by ubiquitous graffiti – is considered to have wonderous Kabbalistic powers when recited.

In pondering the demands of Nachman’s followers and fellow travelers to do their Uman pilgrimage pandemic notwithstanding, I ask myself what distinguishes their Judaism from mine, their “superstition” from my “tradition.”

To the extent that I have an answer it is that Jews are tribal people, and Judaism is a Big Tent civilization that encompasses contending mores and worldviews. The spectrum allows for rationality and fantasy. For me to call them superstitious and for them to call me God knows what.

Jewish law does not obligate graving, not even to visit the burial site of a loved one. However, the notion that the spirits of deceased relatives can intervene on our behalf is discussed in the Talmud (Taanit 16a) which was redacted around 350 CE. Rabbinic Judaism sought to balance the requirement that prayer be directed exclusively to God with our emotional need to hold on to the memories of loved ones. Rational traditionalism tends to discourage obsessive visits to gravesites, according to Maurice Lamm’s seminal The Jewish Way in Death and Mourning.

In contrast, fundamentalists tend to play up graving. The Lubavitcher Rebbe would spend several afternoons a week in meditation at the tomb of his father-in-law.

Personally, I find occasional visits to the graveyard cathartic. I keep deceased loved ones in my thoughts and prayers year-round. But I endeavor not to be obsessive about it.

So, maybe superstition is what happens when you catapult graving beyond what the sages of old intended. And idolatry is what happens when you make a fetish out of what should be symbolic. 

Faith ought to provide a spiritual, ethical, and social framework for living. This is not enough for fanatics who feel compelled to ostentatiously signal their piety. Religion becomes an excuse for obsessive-compulsive behavior.

Non-fundamentalist Judaism allows reverence for God to be expressed in nuanced modest ways. It strives for the golden mean. 

Faith is what you struggle with when you do not have the crutch of easy graving.