Jews Couldn't Play "Survivor"
September 1, 2000

I begin these remarks with several questions:

1. In what "person" must all berachot be written?

2. How many does Birkat HaMazon-Blessings After a Meal begin?

3. How many people constitute a minyan - prayer quorum? What's the difference?

4. In Blessing the New Month, why is the middle paragraph so unique?

5. After being just Abraham's family, what was the earliest building block of the Israelite society?

The answer to these questions sets the stage for why Jews could not play the recently concluded TV series "Survivor."

1. All berachot must be written in the plural - "our God…" and not the singular.

2. Birkat HaMazon opens with an invitation to bless God when you are three or more at the table, with differences when you are ten or at a wedding or a brit milah.

3. Ten people are required for a minyan, learned from the ten spies who gave a negative report about the land to Moses. They were called an edah. The difference is the ability to say the Kaddish, Borchu, and the extended Kedushah, all requiring a dialogue between the prayer leader and the group. If no group, there is no dialogue.

4. The second or middle paragraph of Birkat HaHodesh does not talk specifically about the new month, but stresses the hope that the next month will see our redemption and gather us to the land of Israel. It ends with the well known phrase "chaverim kol Yisrael" - "all Israel are friends."

5. The earliest building block of Israelite society was the shevat - tribe. It was comprised of mishpachot - families living in a area around the Tabernacle, later in Eretz Yisrael, grouped around a degel - flag, its personal banner. Marriage took place within the tribe, preserving the unity of land and family. They were obligated to each other by blood and forged a common destiny.

I will immediately indicate that I did not watch any of the episodes of "Survivor." Contrary to fifty million Americans who watched the last episode, it did not intrigue me or entice me to watch. Instead, I have watched the reactions to it and studied the analysis of the premise of the show. I repeat the statement I made earlier that Jews, when consciously aware of the essence of our Judaism, could not participate in "Survivor."

"Survivor" was based on the concept of the "dog-eat-dog" world. The sixteen participants needed to manipulate each other, make shifting alliances, turn on each other, one by one, vote "out" instead of "in," utilize divisive skills - for what?

To save the world?

To make the world safe for democracy?

Heal the sick? Save the wounded?

Bring redemption?

No! The purpose of this show was to make money!

If one could sell out others, utilize every cunning trick in the deck, you would make a million dollars have the proverbial fifteen seconds of fame, and now maybe a little more when you star on another show. Ray McAllister's column last Friday "The Top 10 Lessons from "Survivor" ended with the words, "It's a TV show." Gilligan's Island was also a TV show! But this one is a TV show that mimics and mirrors our real world. Rename the ingredients, place them in the board room, put them on the sports field, remind our children of Vince Lombardi's quote "Winning is the only thing," - do we need to add "at any price" and "Survivor" is transposed to other locale while its dynamics remain constant. The troubling and maybe tragic issue is that this show was particularly a hit with those 35 and younger. I hope that they don't accept the image of this show as the right way and reinforce any attempt to further make our world in its image.

Our Judaism issues a challenge to this show and what it stands for and represents. Using my five opening questions I have indicated that the heart of Judaism is unity, is community.

*Repeatedly the Torah uses the words "Achicha" - "Your brother" to refer to other people who are not blood relations but are treated for, cared for, considered as kin.

*When the two and a half tribes wanted to stay on the Golan and not cross over with the other tribes, Moses lambasted them for their self-serving self centeredness to abandon their fellow tribes to fight for themselves. They first had to cross over in unity, accomplish the mission, and then return to that land.

When threatened by invasion, Saul slaughtered an animal, cut it up into parts, and sent it to all the surrounding tribes to unitedly fight in defense of the one endangered. The prophet vision was the reunification of the ten northern tribes with the two.

All liturgical patterns stress the achdut - oneness of the Jewish people. Parenthetically, when someone wants to become a "Jew by Choice," besides theology and ritual behaviors, I stress their obligation to the Jewish people as part of the process of being a Jew.

This list of examples could be endless, but I refer to the classic expression of Hillel: "If I am not for myself who will be? If I am only for myself, what am I?"

The Jewish people, drawing upon our Jewish values offers to the whole world a different and better model of society.

Because we are grounded on the value of social obligation, when my grandmother came alone at the age of ten to America, she came to a distant relative who took her in, housed, clothed and fed her.

The American Jewish community marched in the streets and I sat in them in protest, so to free Soviet Jewry. Likewise, we have supported Israel Bonds, UJA, and the Federation Welfare Campaign, not to receive but to give to others for communal betterment and the redemption of Am Yisrael.

Our goal was neither to make money nor to be a "survivor" with a million dollars. A colleague reminded me of an episode on thirtysomething, some years ago. Set in Philadelphia, Melissa Steadman, the photographer sister of one of the main characters, has the opportunity to move to New York. She hesitates. Her friend says, "Hey! Who wouldn't want to move there? Don't you want to wake up in the city that never sleeps, to find you're king of the hill, top of the heap? Melissa looks at her friend and says, "Why would I want to live in a city where success means being top of a heap?" Judaism's answer is that success is defined as making a holy society for all, caring for poor, comforting the bereaved, healing the sick, fulfilling our potential and appreciating the gift of life. That is our message to the world.

Amen.