c. 2000 Religion News Service

(Rabbi Brad Hirschfield is the director of Leadership and Communities for CLAL-The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership.)

UNDATED _ Recent disputes about the nature and extent of German nationalism have been making the headlines.

The news has focused on German parliamentary leader Friedrich Merz’s call for all immigrants to adopt German “Leitkultur,” or “guiding culture.”

This call ignited a fierce debate about the appropriateness of such “strident German nationalism” and the possibility of reawakening the animating spirit that created Kristallnacht _ “Night of Broken Glass” _ commemorated in November to mark the night of rioting and destruction in 1938 that led to the Holocauset.

In fact, some leading German publications went so far as to call for nothing short of a “fully tolerant society” in Germany, which apparently, could never allow such a request for “guiding culture” to be made. So much for arguments for full tolerance.

What is going on here? We see two alternatives pitted against each other.

Neither is sufficient or realistic. Apparently, our social and political imaginations are limited to two understandings of nationalism; one that threatens and excludes, or one that is so “inclusive” and “open” that it precludes the construction of strong national identities.

Of course, there is a third possibility. One could imagine the recovery of a powerful national narrative that values the kind of personal freedoms and civic tolerance that we so long for in a “good society.” One could also imagine Germans identifying such values as profoundly and powerfully “German,” just as we in the United States would quickly identify them as “American.” It is not a matter of one or the other, but rather, of our ability to imagine both together.

Never have I felt so certain of this position as when I stood recently at the Reichstag, the seat of German government for hundreds of years. With me were a group of survivors of Auschwitz, leaders of the German Jewish community, numerous German government ministers, and the acting president of Germany, Kurt Biedenkopf.

I came to Berlin as scholar-in-residence for the delegation traveling to Poland to re-open the last remaining synagogue in the town of Oswiezem (Auschwitz). Having spent the Sabbath together in Berlin, our group gathered in the rooftop restaurant for a reception, beginning with an havdallah service, marking the transition from Sabbath to the rest of the week.

With feelings ranging from joy to sadness, I rose before the group, as we looked out over the reunified capital of Germany. Hardly a typical Saturday night for any of us gathered in that place. Clearly, such an event would have been unthinkable 60 years ago, when Jews were so brutally separated from other Germans, or even 10 years ago, when a massive wall separated Germans from one other.

The havdallah ritual was the perfect chance for us to reflect together on the issues of separation and reunification. It signifies a division between one thing and another and reminds us that differences exist and they matter. At the same time, it binds together the very things that seem separate.

Performing this service at the Reichstag brought home to me its power and meaning as never before. There, at the epicenter of the catastrophe that threatened to obliterate the Jewish people, that tore Europe apart, that separated Germany from the nations and East from West, we performed the rite that connects even as it splits. Together we recited the words that dare to articulate our hope that the world can be made whole, the sacredness of Sabbath retreat can become the sacredness of the week, and the holiness of the particular can become one with world engagement and humanity.

Havdallah invites us to move on. Together, on the roof of the Reichstag, we sang out the possibility of moving beyond a past of pain, shame and suffering to a new connection _ one that respects our differences while celebrating our unities.

This rite could not have been performed much before this time. It could not have been performed in a Berlin that was still divided. Nor could it have been performed in a Germany not working to come to terms with its past. But perhaps most significantly it could not have been performed by people who build their identities based on how they differ from one another more than by how they are deeply connected.

This is how we can move forward, honoring the past without being imprisoned by it. We must move beyond the narrow options of either a commitment to the particular, or one to the universal. We must integrate both in the construction of all of our political, spiritual, and cultural identities. This is the measure of a good society _ not just in Germany but in every community balancing human dignity with national pride. We must create a bigger vision, connecting us to a larger human experience.

DEAEND HIRSCHFIELD