Jephthah was a guy who, to use a later metaphor, never spent enough time either in religious school.  Jephthah, rejected and forsaken, ends up a gang lord in no-man’s land. The Israelite elders, however, are in need of a strong fighter. They rehabilitate Jephthah, and induce him to return. As chieftain readying to engage the enemy in battle, Jephthah makes an oath, promising to perform an ancient ritual of sacrifice should he return safe and victorious.  Only Jephthah’s oath is foolishly cast.  He swears, “Then whatever comes out of the door of my house to meet me… I will offer up as a burnt offering” (Judges 11:31).  Sadly, Jephthah’s own daughter was the first to emerge and greet him.  Determining that he cannot retract his vow, Jephthah’s daughter’s life is taken.
 
Aghast as they read this story, Judaism’s sages held Jephthah and the high priest, Pinchas, as culpable for the tragedy.  Commenting on the verse “Then whatever comes out of the door of my house to meet me… I will offer up as a burnt offering,” the rabbis’ explain: “If a donkey, dog or cat [which may not be sacrificed] had come out, would he have offered it as a burnt offering?  And the holy one of blessing, sent his way something that was not fitting…”  In other words, it was already established that certain animals were not to be used for sacrifices, and that human sacrifice was prohibited.  No such action would ever be acceptable to the Lord, the Holy One of Blessing.  Jephthah, however, was too unlearned to realize that his vow was already null and void.
 
Moreover, and far worse, brimming with false pride, Jephthah was too haughty to do anything about it. The Rabbis add in their commentary “And was not Pinchas, the High Priest, there to release Jephthah from his vow?  But Pinchas said, ‘He needs me, and I should go to him?  He should come to me!’ And Jephthah said: ‘I am the Head Officer of Israel.  I should go to Pinchas? He should come to me!’ Between the two of them the girl was lost…”
 
Jephthah’s daughter perished not just because of religious zealotry, nor just because of religious ignorance. Jephthah’s daughter died as a direct consequence of hubris, pretension and willful conceit. Jephthah’s Hebrew name, Yiftach, underscores this tragic irony: Yiftach means “he will open” – but does he? Jephthah closes the door for himself and his family.
 
Now fast forward about three millennia, from Jephthah’s time to ours. The issues we face are assuredly less dramatic, yet they are barely less challenging. We, too, must go out and reach out. We, too, must ensure that neither our children nor our community is sacrificed in a no-man’s land of ego or indifference.
 
Jews and African-American Christians, two profound beneficiaries of the Civil Rights Movement, we have a storied history of collaboration, especially during the 1950s and 1960s. Jews comprised the vast majority of white volunteers during Mississippi’s Freedom Summer. Conversely, prominent Black public figures including A. Philip Randolph, Paul Robeson, and the Rev. Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., promoted Jewish rescue during the Holocaust and the creation of a Jewish state in British-controlled Palestine. So too, it was Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. whom with characteristic insight, castigated those wishing to dismantle Israel as a Jewish state, labeling anti-Zionism as anti-Semitism.

But if we are candid, we will admit that like Jephthah, at our worst moments some did succumb to condescension and ignorance.  Further exacerbating such incidents of estrangement was an inadequate appreciation of our different experiences in America. After all, as Rabbi Doug Sagal explains, Jewish Americans have seen America as a refuge, a safe haven granting freedoms and opportunities unknown in the Old World. For Jewish immigrants Emma Lazarus’s words, inscribed on the Torch of Liberty, with its sentiments of the “tempest tossed” “yearning to breathe free” and America, in turn, lifting “my lamp beside the golden door,” rang true, particularly after the civil rights movement opened previously closed doors.  But for African-Americans, this same America was no Promised Land.  Rather, America began as an Egypt, a place of captivity and bitter discrimination; of slavery and Segregation, of Jim Crow and ghettos, of promises un-kept or incomplete. Emma Lazarus’ idealized Lady Liberty did not greet the Amidstad.
 
It is nonetheless still true that for Jews and for African-American Christians, what unites us has been greater – far greater – than what divides us. For we both have historically believed – and we both continue to hold – that our God is a God who redeems in history… and that humanity is to be free. Jews and African-American Christians, we know a common spiritual: the Exodus remains our shared story.

In her book Troubling the Waters: Black-Jewish Relations in the American Century, the historian Cheryl Greenberg cautions us against unrealistic expectations that leads to disappointment. Let us recognize that not every Jew has been or will be sensitive to the African-American experience – or vice-versa. The words of a mouth might be as careless as a Jephthah’s.
 
Had Jephthah studied his Bible he would have known that impure Israelites, including warriors in distant places or those whom had come into contact with corpses, were given a second opportunity, a second Passover, with which to thank God for freedom. Why?  Because God likes second chances.  African-Americans and Jews, reflecting on our own collaboration and inspiration, we, too, can yiftach; we can be open to steady and renewed encounter. Indeed, Micah succinctly explains precisely what Jephthah could not grasp.  Micah said, “Would the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams? With myriads of streams of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for my sins? God has told you, O mortal, what is good and what the Lord requires of you: only this: to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:7-8).
 
Realistically building upon past and present friendships, anchoring ourselves in the values of sacred text, may we avow to God and one another to heighten our learning and our sacred partnership. Embracing our similarities and our differences, may it never be said that between one community and the other, between Jews and African-American Christians, the future was lost.

Eric Polokoff is Rabbi of B'nai Israel of Southbury, CT.  He is active in Jewish Communities of NW CT and serves as Interfaith Co-Chair of CT ADL.  His email is rabbi@bnaiisraelsouthbury.org.