Go Blue!!!

Of the 96,371 football-crazed fans crammed into Pasadena’s Rose Bowl on New Year’s Day watching my beloved Michigan Wolverines epic defeat of Alabama’s Crimson Tide, I am pretty sure I was the only one asking myself, “Where is the sermon in all this?” As the maize and blue confetti showered down on the crowd, as a collective delirium seized every Michigan fan present, I knew that today’s sermon would be given over to the homiletical trick play connecting Michigan football, the Torah reading and – why not? – the challenges and opportunities confronting contemporary global Jewry.

Famed Michigan broadcaster Bob Ufer once said, “Football is a religion, and Saturday is the holy day of obligation.” If this is true, then to be a fan of Michigan football is to be a member of a particularly zealous order or sect – the Opus Dei, if you will, of the football faithful. We have our team colors, we have our marching band, we have our stadium, The Big House, and we have our fight song, “The Victors.” We have our game day chants. Some, like “Go Blue!” are family-friendly; others are better left unspoken from this pulpit. We have traditions, like the players leaping to touch the banner as they take the field, the third-quarter singing of “Mr. Brightside,” and more recently, the arrival of Victor, the Frisbee-catching dog. We have a shared history, the winningest program of all teams. We have our coaches: Yost, Crisler, Schembechler, and now Harbaugh. And we have our Heisman winners: Harmon, Howard, and Woodson.

And while many teams can boast most or at least some of these traditions, for bleed-blue Michigan fans it runs deeper. Individually and collectively, we carry an unspoken sense of shared identity. No matter the crush of the crowd at last week’s game, among the Michigan fan base there was a palpable feel of common courtesy. People smiled at each other as our lanes merged to park, as we walked in and out of each other’s tailgates, and as we entered the Michigan section to find our seats. Free-flowing conversations on football and life took place with complete strangers. In the second quarter of the game, the lady sitting in front of us returned to her seat and passed out cookies to everyone present. By the end of the game, my daughter returned the kindness with a batch of treats to share. This week, but really every week, as I walk in or out of a subway or elevator wearing my Michigan swag, someone will give me a smile or knowing nod, sometimes even a “Go Blue!” an affirmation I always reciprocate. In anthropological terms, Michigan fans are a tribe, a community based on shared traditions, rituals, history, language, ideology, and destiny.

What brings us together, of course, is the game of football; in Schembechler’s words: “The Team, The Team, The Team.” But what keeps us – the wider fanbase – together, in stretches both lean and plenty, is something else, or more specifically, two somethings else. There is a positive force: a pride, a reverential commitment and dedication that bonds us together. As coach Harbaugh says, “Who’s got it better than us?” There is a joy, pleasure, fidelity, and delight in all things Michigan. It is embedded in our hearts; it connects us one to the other, the congealing agent for a global community that transcends age, ethnicity, geography, gender, and economic status. As the chant goes, “It is great to be a Michigan Wolverine!” –aA fantastic self-generated positive gravitational pull that brings us together as a people.

But in addition to the positive force, there is a negative force, a push alongside the pull. Because for non-Wolverines, I readily admit, Wolverines are downright insufferable. The list of rivalries is a long one: Notre Dame, Michigan State, Ohio State, The Big Ten, The Pac Ten, now the SEC. Everybody loves to hate Michigan. This fall when I visited Ann Arbor, I picked up a hat with the words “Michigan Against Everybody.” The difference that brings us pride is a difference that, in the eyes of others, makes us worthy of scorn. Our wins are not wins. Our brand is brittle. Our myth is self-manufactured and unsupported. This season is a case in point. A series of NCAA violations resulted in multiple suspensions of our head coach. In the eyes of the world, it is proof positive of Michigan’s ill-gotten and undeserved success. In the eyes of Michigan fans, it is a series of “nothing sandwiches” by which embittered rivals seek to exact whiny retribution upon their hated foe. To be a Michigan fan is not all rainbows and ponies. We have our share of antagonists – on the field and off the field. The negative push of our detractors forcing us into a crouching defensive posture. The wagon-circling, us-against-them, claws-out dimension of what it means to be a Wolverine.

These are the two forces – the positive and the negative, the pull and the push – that make us who we are. Sometimes it is more one, sometimes it is more the other, but over time, the pull and the push make the glue that cements our tribal identity: the joy, the commitment, the devotion that pull us together; the animosity, the enmity, and the loathing of others that push us together.

And what is true for one tribe, is true for all tribes. One need look no further than this week’s Torah reading to see the same dynamic at work. Today we open up not just a new Torah reading, but a new book of the Bible. Last week we completed Genesis and its stories of the matriarchs and patriarchs, and this week we transition into our Exodus history of enslavement and redemption. Aside from the leap in time and narrative flow, commentators through the ages have openly wondered if perhaps there is a more fundamental shift afoot from one book to the next. Many have noted the transition from the family nature of the Genesis story – Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah; Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph – to the national aspect of the Exodus story – be it a people crossing the sea, standing at Mount Sinai, or worshipping the Golden Calf. Others argue that the difference between Genesis and Exodus is a difference not in how people function, but in how God functions: the Genesis God who created the world can, in Exodus, upend that same world, as we see in the ten plagues. Rabbi Donniel Hartman, a friend and scholar who has visited our community on many occasions, has actually written a book on the difference between what he calls “Genesis Jews” and “Exodus Jews.” Genesis Jews are Jews whose sense of belonging is derived not by way of what one believes or does – but an identity which one assumes. The identity of Exodus Jews, on the other hand, is grounded in terms of one’s values, beliefs, and commitments. The first is an identity of being; the second, an identity of doing.

And while I think all these are compelling ways, among others, to frame the narratives and meta-narratives of our people, this morning I would propose that the difference between Genesis and Exodus is as straightforward as the difference between the pull and push of tribal identity. Think of God’s first call to Abraham in Genesis Chapter 12: “Lekh l’kha. Go forth to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, I will bless you, I will make your name great, and you shall be a blessing.” (12:1–3) In broad brushstrokes, in the book of Genesis, identity is a blessing passed down from one generation to the next, creating a distinct and distinctive people with a unique and prized relationship to God and to each other. This is an identity that comes from within and is expressed freely without undue interference or disruption. Genesis is the pull, the “Who’s got it better than us?” of what it means to be a Jew. 

As for Exodus, we need go no further than the book’s first verses to see a very different expression of tribal identity. “And a new king arose over Egypt who did not know Joseph. And Pharaoh said to his people, ‘Look, the Israelite people are much too numerous for us. Let us deal shrewdly with them . . . lest they join our enemies in fighting.” So they set taskmasters over them to oppress them.” (1:8–11) The transition is sharp and clear. The first thing to note is the vantage point: In Exodus, for the first time, Jews are designated as the “other.” Jewish identity has switched from a self or divinely assigned identity to an identity ascribed by one’s foes. The qualities that have made this people distinct and special in their own eye make them the object of fear and loathing by others. For Pharoah and, by extension, for the Egyptian people, the Israelite presence was not additive to Egyptian society, but just the opposite. It evoked fears of a fifth column, fear that resulted in hatred, hatred that resulted in oppression. As for the Israelites, if they had previously been singing how great it was to be them, that chant was quickly replaced by “us against everyone.” What is a Genesis identity? A self-definition expressed in joyful acts of positive Jewish identification. What is an Exodus identity? An identity ascribed to Jews by others by way of fear, ignorance, and hatred. This thesis is not airtight. There are plenty of Genesis elements in Exodus and Exodus elements in Genesis, and there are significant limitations to my football fandom/Jewish identity analogy, but it is a working template for viewing the inner pull and external push of our Jewish identity. 

And, as we look out at the world, it is a way to think about what it means to be a member of the Jewish tribe today. October 7 was not just the day upon which a horrific attack was perpetrated upon our brothers and sisters in Israel. October 7, as I have noted on more than one occasion, was a day a great awakening occurred in our people – our tribal moment. A Jew may or may not have taken Jewish identity seriously, joyfully, and devotionally before October 7, but on October 7, because of the hatred of others, Jews were prompted to revisit their Jewish identities. Not joyfully, by the positive acts we do. Nor, for that matter, on our own volition. To be Jewish became an identity defined by others, by those who, like Pharaoh, hate us, threaten us, and in some cases, kill us. An identity shaped by a fight on the battlefield in Israel and Gaza as our brothers and sisters defend themselves against those who would deny them the sovereign right of self-defense and self-determination. An identity shaped by a fight on campuses, social media, and beyond on battle fronts in our backyards, as our foes willfully elide the lines between Israel, Zionist, Jew and oppressor – somehow turning a people on whom unspeakable violence was and continues to be perpetrated into the aggressor. We have rallied to the calling of the hour; our sense of Jewish tribalism is engaged, activated, and supercharged. We have all become Exodus Jews, our Jewish identity shaped by our tribal instinct of self-defense, a response to events tragic, traumatic, not of our choosing, and beyond our control.

The challenge and opportunity we face presently is to find a way to integrate these two strands of our identity, Exodus and Genesis, into our being and maintain them. This conflict will not be a short one, neither in the Middle East, nor here in America. The news is bad, and I fear it will get worse; 2024 has not gotten off to a good start. We need strength, we need stamina, and we need solidarity. We are, without question, in an Exodus chapter of our people’s existence. We must find our front lines, the places where we, as individuals and as a community, can make a difference and fight the fight of our people – politically, philanthropically, and otherwise. We must do all this . . . and we must never forget that we are also a people of Genesis. We must give of ourselves toward defending Israel, and we must light Shabbat candles. We must go to ADL briefings on how to talk to our children about antisemitism, and we must take our children to shul so they love Shabbat and community. We must fight the curricular and cultural battles in our institutions of higher learning, and we must take Jewish learning to higher levels. We must celebrate our births, bnei mitzvah, and weddings, reminding each other, our children, and most of all ourselves that this thing we are fighting for, Jews and Judaism, is a joy, privilege, and blessing to us and to all people. 

Put simply, to allow my Jewish identity to be reduced to fighting antisemitism is a victory I refuse to grant my foe. It was great to be a Jew on October 6, and it is still great to be a Jew today. Not just the push, and not just the pull, but the centripetal momentum of the two together – that is the generative force by which our community will be maintained. 

Sometimes our sense of tribal identity comes by way of a warm spark within. Sometimes the spark comes by way of an unsought and untoward force from without. I would, no question, choose the former over the latter any day, but the important thing is that the spark comes. Is not that the story of our parashah, our people, of Moses himself? An assimilated Jew who, upon seeing the affliction of his Hebrew kinsman and the inaction of those around him, steps up to save that kinsman and then eventually his people, leading us to a covenanted peoplehood of which we are still the beneficiaries today. 

As the prayer book teaches, Ashreinu mah tov helkeinu, u-mah na·im goraleinu, u-mah yafah y’rushateinu. “How good is our lot, how pleasant is our fortune and how beautiful is our heritage.” May we, a people of Genesis and Exodus, stand up and stand tall in defense of our people and may we never lose sight of the joy and the privilege that comes with being a Jew today. 

And yes . . . Go Blue!!!