My Tent is Your Tent

I'm now in my second year of a masters program at the venerable Spertus College of Jewish Studies (thereby solidifying my already unquestionable status as an uber-Jew) and in class we've been talking a lot about engaging different kinds of Jews. How can we be more welcoming to intermarried couples? Or more accepting of converts? Growing up I knew my fair share of both groups- they were an important aspect of my family's tiny, unaffiliated synagogue- but the American Jewish community as a whole has classically had some, well, let's say discomfort in dealing with these populations. We're working on it. Most of us.

Isaiah, on the other hand, had all this down ages ago. Go figure. Our guest lecturers, the brilliant and talented Jewish social scientists Fern Chertok and Len Saxe, passed out these verses from the prophet:

Enlarge the place of your tent, and let them stretch forth the curtains of your habitations, spare not; lengthen your cords, and strengthen your stakes.

Isaiah 54:2

These prophets, man. They tell it like it is. Or like it should be, rather.

The challenge, the call to action, in these verses is kind of daunting. We've got to make our space of acceptance both bigger and sturdier, every one of us. We've got to be as welcoming as Abraham and Sarah. No problem, right? Well, I can tell you there's at least one class of graduate students who still have a question or two. But we're working on it. All of us.