Dayan Kupperman's Weekly Letter

Weekly Letter from Rabbi Kupperman

Torah Portion Yitro

Dear friends

 

Last Monday, three students at Columbia University filed a lawsuit against their University, alleging “that the school went to extreme lengths to quash protests after the school’s Gaza Solidarity Encampment ignited a global uprising across university campuses last spring.”

 

The plaintiffs, who are graduate and postgraduate students, all would have graduated in May but complain in their lawsuit that they got one- and two-year suspensions instead.

 

All three plaintiffs were suspended and banned from campus for their participation in the occupation on the University’s grounds.

 

The plaintiffs said that by filing this lawsuit, they hope to set a legal precedent for “the rights of students on campuses to engage in protest and political speech.”

 

The three are seeking undisclosed damages, alleging that Columbia “departed from its established rules and policies to unlawfully target and punish plaintiffs … to silence and de facto expel [them].”

 

This argument is far from being factual, or, to put it simply, flat-out nonsense.

 

Columbia protesters were brazenly defying school rules and breaking the law. Now they’re suing the school because they don’t want to face the consequences. Apparently, they are utterly incapable of understanding that rules are rules.

 

The Rules of University Conduct stipulate that the University could issue interim sanctions, including interim suspensions “if there is an imminent need to protect the physical safety and security of the Columbia community and/or to prevent further substantial and persistent disruption of academic activities.”

 

While these students might like to think of themselves as martyrs for their cause, they weren’t actually disciplined for their political beliefs. Nobody hunted them down because they were pro-Palestinian. They got in trouble for engaging in disruptive and illegal protesting activity that unambiguously violated school rules.

 

This isn’t viewpoint discrimination. If pro-Israel students decided to set up their own tent city and scream and shout in the middle of campus, they surely would have been cleared out, too.

 

Those students thought that after they crippled campus life, smashed windows, committed other acts of vandalism and forcibly occupied their college’s private property, they would still waltz free-style to graduation.

 

“I find it quite ironic that members of this protest movement would accuse the school of getting in the way of their graduating when all they did for the past year and a half was prevent others on campus from being able to access the learning environment fully and safely,” said Lishi Baker, a junior at Columbia.

 

Hopefully, their suspension will send a message across all the campuses in USA that a student cannot enjoy both – disrupting the academic life and getting academic degree.

 

All this happens against the background of the sweeping reforms in the Department of Education, implemented by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) under the leadership of Elon Musk, with enthusiastic backing of President Donald Trump.

 

These reforms send a clear message that the times when universities were hotbeds for political (predominantly Left-wing and radical) activism rather than learning environments are over.

 

Even a clearer message has been sent by an executive order signed by President Trump in January, mandating the revocation of student visas for individuals identified as “Hamas sympathisers”.

 

Of course, the greatest benefit of the Presidential order is that, at long last,    Jewish students will have at least some protection from discrimination and harassment.

 

However, the Presidential order is also good news for the true purpose of universities i.e. being the right environments for rigorous study and academic research; a purpose that so often is hindered by preoccupation of both students and lecturers with political   activism.

 

A useful exploration of the true purpose of universities is found in the best-selling philosophy book of all time – Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig.

 

To explore the philosophical underpinnings of education, knowledge, and academic institutions, Pirsig introduced the concept of the “Church of Reason”.

 

The “Church of Reason” envisages the University as a community committed to inquiry, dialogue, and knowledge for its own sake.

 

From a Church of Reason perspective, if there is any place for political activism in Universities at all, it could be only in the form of thoughtful reflection and critical debate, rather than in the form of ideological aggression fuelled by thoughtless conformity to the fashionable opinions.

 

Hopefully, the new USA administration’s actions will promote the Church of Reason’s vision, and academic institutions will realign themselves with their highest purpose—the pursuit of knowledge.

 

To introduce the concept of the Church of Reason, Pirsig begins with a very interesting exploration into the world of a religious church.

 

As a religious minister, I find his remarks about the relationship between a minister of religion and his congregants especially interesting:

 

“The citizens who build a church and pay for it probably have in mind that they’re doing this for the community” writes Pirsig. “A good sermon can put the parishioners in the right frame of mind for the coming week. Sunday school will help the children grow upright.

 

The minister who delivers the sermon and directs the Sunday school understands these goals and normally goes along with them, but he also knows that his primary goal is not to serve the community.

 

His primary goal is always to serve G-d. Normally there’s no conflict, but occasionally one creeps in when trustees oppose the minister’s sermons and threaten the reduction of funds. That happens. A true minister, in such situations, must act as though he’d never heard the threats. His primary goal isn’t to serve the members of the community, but always G-d.”

 

Pirsig shows a profound understanding of the role of a minister of religion, especially remarkable for a self-acknowledged atheist. 

 

However, while in principle it is right that the minister has to remember that “his primary goal isn’t to serve the members of the community, but always G-d”, it will be very dangerous naiveté on the part of a minister of religion to assume that the community that he serves, necessarily has a similar view.

 

The truth is that it is very likely that a community pays for the church or synagogue or mosque, primarily, for the sake of the community and not for G-d’s sake. Ignoring this fact can make the gap between the minister and his community so wide, that he may end up serving neither G-d nor the community. 

 

No lesser man than our teacher Moshe himself had to learn this truth from his father-in-law.

 

In this week’s Torah portion, Moshe’s father-in-law, Yitro (Jethro), comes to greet the children of Israel after they have crossed the Red Sea. Yitro was a priest who had served many gods, and when he saw what G-d had done for Israel, he acknowledged G-d of Israel as the greatest.

 

But Yitro’s excitement didn’t make him blind to certain shortcomings of his great son-in-law. When he saw Moshe judging the Israelites on his own, which resulted in long queues of people waiting for their case to be heard, he questioned Moshe’s actions telling him in unequivocal terms –“You will surely wear yourself out both you and these people who are with you for the matter is too heavy for you; you cannot do it alone”. 

 

Instead, suggested Yitro, Moshe should set up a system of judges, whom he would instruct, to decide matters of law for the people. Only the major cases would then be brought to Moshe. Moshe willingly accepted this suggestion, thus establishing a judiciary system.

 

One wonders; Yitro’s plan to appoint judges was logical and simple. Why didn’t Moshe think of it himself? Apparently, the answer to this question lies in the way Moshe explained to Yitro his role as a judge. When Yitro asked him “What is this thing that you are doing to the people? Why do you sit by yourself, while all the people stand before you from morning till evening?”  Moshe answered; “For the people come to me to seek G-d. If any of them has a case, he comes to me, and I judge between a man and his neighbour, and I make known the statutes of G-d and His teachings.” 

 

Moshe felt that people are interested solely in knowing G-d’s wisdom, and even when “any of them has a case” the reason why “he comes to me” is because he wants to know “the statutes of G-d and His teachings.” 

 

If that is the case, then Moshe is right in saying that it is worthwhile to allow every person to hear G-d’s words from someone who heard them from the G-d Himself, namely Moshe, even if it causes uncomfortably long queues of people waiting for their judgment.

 

However, Yitro had a somewhat more pragmatic point of view. In his opinion, a person comes for a judgment primarily because he is interested in protecting his rights and property rather than because he is interested in G-d’s wisdom.

 

Therefore, says Yitro: “My dear son-in-law, please come from the soaring heavens, down to the earth; people coming to you for a service, not for lofty ideas. Either you start to provide decent rabbinical services to your community or you will surely wear yourself out, both you and these people who are with you”.

 

As we see Moshe (probably with a heavy heart) accepted Yitro’s advice, thus acknowledging that a spiritual leader has to recognise the fact that his congregation may have a less spiritual and more pragmatic approach to life than the spiritual leader himself.

 

The ideal religious community is the one where the minister of religion remembers the rather down-to-earth needs of his community, while the community remembers the rather ethereal aspirations of their minister of religion. This mutual understanding is the secret of a harmonious relationship between the minister and the community.  

 

Wishing you a wonderful Shabbat              

 

Rabbi Shalom Kupperman

Issue 59