Quote: Antibubba
My Jewish beliefs are unorthodox. And while I said before that I might be Reform, I'm not really comfortable there either. I walk a path that Hashem has set for me, and I'm usually the only one on it.
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Antibubba, you and I are the same, both Jews. The connection is there with or without our awareness.
It rose especially in my awareness, however, when in one of your earlier posts, you wrote words to the effect that you would get on the next plane if the enemy were massing on Israel's borders.
That brought tears (they seem to come easier as I get older). I have come to believe that the reason for such an emotionally strong allegiance, to a place where we don't even live (except maybe in our hearts), goes deeper than either of us "know" intellectually. I don't think psychology and sociology alone can explain it.
And I can no longer argue with the "True Jews" (grin) as you allude to them, when they ascribe this to the pintele Yid (basically -- Jewish soul) inside (sometimes buried deep inside) each of us.
Yet, the object of this love, this loyalty -- the Jewish people, can only endure when they can focus on something tangible.
Without that, Jews, especially the brilliant ones, can drift very far afield. Karl Marx was a Jew. So was Trotsky. Many of the Bolsheviks were Jews getting revenge for centuries of brutal persecution. And look at what brutality they spawned.
Peter Singer, the guru of the animal-rights mishiginers (Yiddish for crazies) -- "...a rat, is a pig, is a dog, is a boy"-- is Jewish. Could he have come up with that if he really knew who he was?
The feminist revolution got its re-vitalization in the 60's with the publishing of the book: The Feminine Mystique. Of course the author, Betty Friedan is Jewish. So is Gloria Steinem. So are so many of these women. Many on this forum will argue that much good has been accomplished. Yes. But so has the destruction of the family, the perversion of justice -- and they have let loose the demons that ravage society, today. (Told you I wasn't {too}afraid to die (grin)).
Of course the world also owes much to the Jews, from Einstein on down, in just about every field of endeavor.
Why do we just about "own" physics and why are we at the top of so many other fields?
These same "true Jews" say that the Jewish soul burns like a flame in every Jew. It yearns for G-d. If the Jew forgets who and what he is, then the same un-extinguishable flame drives him in other directions, some of them terrible. Tikkun Olum (to repair the world) yes.
But how exactly?
Judaism is not so much about what one believes and is far more about what one does: the Mitzvahs (Commandments), as interpreted by Talmud, tell Jews what to do. Without the Commandments (613 of 'em), how is one to be a Jew? Eat bagels and Lox? Doesn't last very long (generationally) without teffilin (phylactories).
I remember sitting at my very first Shabbos table (Friday night meal, after synagogue) at the Chabad Rabbi's house.
My reasons for being there is a story that belongs elsewhere. But briefly, I was there because I felt I had to be, not because I wanted to be.
I had to find a way to pull my ex out of the fundamentalist church she had started attending. And where she would surely have soon taken my 3 yr old daughter -- and to get them to return to our city and to me. No offense meant to believing Christians whom I deeply respect, but my kid, a Jew, whose blood, through me and through my father from Warsaw and going all the way back, was NOT going to be lost to us. After 3800 years, I was NOT going to drop the ball!
(Since I mention this, then I should also tell you that my ex is not in any way "bad" in Jewish eyes. She is simply someone who is deeply spiritual, who longed to express this, and who instead had to live for years with a militant atheist (me) who would allow NO religious "nonsense" in the house. She had never experienced real spirituality -- she was brought up Conservative {sorry, folks, but true} and 4 out of 6 siblings became and still are Christians! And she DID experience true spirituality in the Fundamentalist Church -- they certainly do have it. It simply wasn't Jewish. Once I succeeded in luring her to a Chabad Shabbos, she came home and has never looked back.)
I found myself desperate and absolutely determined to "save" my daughter -- for myself -- and so she would know who she is. Her birth, literally, brought me back home.
So there I sat at the table with these people with long beards and funny clothes on. The talk ranged widely and I was polite. I couldn't help noticing that these people went deeper than many in dealing with the topics. Food for my mind! Boy, where were THEY all my life?
But then they began a discussion about exactly what constituted a kosher mezuzza (small prayer-scroll affixed to the doorways in a Jewish home). That was it! I withdrew light-years into myself. I had nothing in common with them, after all.
A kosher mezuzzah must be written on parchment, not paper. Special, India type inks must be used. And so on. The slightest age-crack in a single letter and the mezuzzah was no longer kosher -- it had to be buried with appropriate prayers.
To my secular mind, here was the Jewish version of "...counting how many angels can dance on the head of a pin." Not for me!
After a few minutes, though, out of nowhere -- tears (what, again?). Must be losing my mind.
It suddenly hit me. I carried on about Am Israel Chai (the Jewish People Live)! That was my mantra. But what was I actually doing for that? Just thinking thoughts? Or supporting Israel? That's fine but only for the short run.
What had struck me with such force at that Shabbos table was something that I had ridiculed all my life. These people, not me, were doing what was necessary for the Jews to survive.
Ritual, tradition. Was for turkeys, I used to think.
Except, when I listened to their concern for the smallest detail of keeping a mezzuzah kosher (what they gonna do, eat it?), I realized that I was observing the very process that had kept us alive, strangers in a strange land, for nearly 2000 years and for another 1800 years before that.
Taking G-d's word so to heart that one strove, with everything in him, to obey it. That's why we were still here!
Doesn't even matter, whether G-d actually exists (forgive me, The Rabbi). It is this PROCESS, of doing -- that is what keeps us still here.
That was probably (who can really know such things for sure?) the turning point for me. All the fierce pride, and loving and other forms of kvetching in the long run don't cut it.
It is written in the Shema prayer that Jews repeat 3 times a day: AND YOU SHALL TEACH IT TO YOUR CHILDREN. Teach what? Ideas? Concepts?
Of course. But these are, by definition, evanescent, they float in air, are easily, even inadvertently, changed. They can even transmogrify into marxism. They must be anchored to action. Something to do every day and many times in each day.
One reason I love Judaism is because it contains so profound an understanding of human nature (no accident that Freud and the early psychologists were all Jews. Even today their proportion is amazing).
Just knowing and thinking is not enough. One must DO.
Do what? Whatever seems like a good idea at the time?
Well, there are numberless ideas, some very good, some terrible.
To anchor Jews to their G-d -- Torah and tradition tells them exactly what to do.
And thereby they preserve their values and themselves.
I used to think that this created automatons, people afraid to think for themselves.
So how is it that we transmitted a system of concepts and values that undergirds western civilization? Is it because we are automatons that how we rise to the top of every science and so many of the arts (well, maybe not tattoo artistry)?
Life is full of paradox. This is one of the greatest. But maybe not. To be truly free one must first master oneself. One must develope self-discipine.
Judaism requires nothing, if not powerful self-discipline. How many commandments did I mention above? 613! One cannot get out of bed, cannot eat, cannot go to sleep again without appropriate prayers. I used to wonder how such Jews got so much done. Turns out they do all that prayer and ritual -- and get more done than many of us. Connection somewhere?
And does this make them automatons? Actually this is simply a way to remember who provides all that they have. Including themselves. These Jews say that animals eat when they're hungry. People, because of Whose image we were made in, must be more conscious than that. The prayer, actually blessing, keeps us conscious, awake to reality. Sometimes, circumstances or lack of something kosher to eat, puts off eating for awhile. So they learn that just because you feel hungry, doesn't mean you have to eat. Self-control! I now believe that such Jews are so successful in dealing with material reality -- because they have the reality principal itself nailed down.
Instead of automatons they to about their day are MORE conscious than most. Like I said: paradox.
You're concerned about Jewish survival? Then DO SOMETHING!
Do what? Keep the mitzvas (commandments). All 613 of 'em. ('Course it's alright to start with even one or two. Good thing, too, or I'd be in real trouble.) We can't keep the ones that cannot be kept until the Temple stands again? Keep the mitzvahs you can and the time will come when we can keep all 613, again.
Over the LONG HAUL, nothing else works.
That way we'll remember who we are. And who we are not.
We are the people chosen to be a light unto the nations.
We are NOT G-d, himself.
So concentrate on what he commanded us: "Justice, justice you shall do!"
Not Cosmic Justice (see Thomas Sowell's book), where we try to right ALL "wrongs". To the point where we try to turn day into night, women into men; men into women, redistribute wealth (by whose standard?), make everybody equal (that is, beat them down into an equal mediocracy) for the sake of fairness.
When you try to make heaven on earth, as in socialism, you inevitably make hell on earth instead.
Strive for justice; leave cosmic justice to G-d.
Just do the mitzvahs.
quote: Antibubba
Is it what G-d meant, or is it just the result of of Judaism's version of "How many angels can dance on the head of a pin"?
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See, I told you, Antibubba? Somewhere in there, we do think alike. We get the same thoughts. Just needs some polishing, for both of us.
Quote:Antibubba
And everywhere we go we change the conditions. We improve them, by being a light and an example to others. And although we touch every point on the spectrum of politics, devotion, economics, and every aspect of human life, we are driven by Tikkun Olam.
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Not everywhere; see above.
Quote: Antibubba
Matis, if I could spend many days with you, in conversation,
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Antibubba, I'd absolutely love that!
Antibubba said:
I still could not explain to you fully what it is I'm supposed to do. It's never been done. I barely have the vocabulary for it. In a small way, it's like I was on a Sinai, and I've been shown something.
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According to Jewish teaching, Antibubba, you (your soul) WERE at Mt. Sinai "being shown something."
Antibubba said:
I have great respect for the profound devotion that you and The Rabbi have in your practices and expressions of Judaism. But doesn't make you sad to think that you have more in common with the Evangelicals, who fifty years ago wouldn't have shared a hotel or a table with you, than with other Jews?
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Antibubba, some years back, yes.
Now, no. Actually, I love the Evangelicals -- not because they may want to convert me (NO CHANCE), but because they are far more honest than most of us in their devotion to their religion. Their religion originated in and closely resembles Judaism. And therefore they are anchored to the values that raised up mankind from savagery. And they don't just paste their religion on when it suits them. They do their best to live and be true to it. My ex and I home-schooled our daughter. It was believing Christians who paved the way, fought the legal battles, so we could do that.
Now IS NOT 50 years ago. Very many of their number (I call them "believing Christians") not only will share a table or hotel with me; they round up and give millions of $$ to Israel. They support her more than most Jews do.
Many Reform and Conservative Jews are still suspicious of Christians, but support what they consider to be "fairness" toward Muslims. They have NO CLUE what terrible dangers face them (yes, even in America) right now. And it isn't from Christians.
Those who refuse to live in the present are doomed to extinction.
Antibubba said:
There are a lot of intermarried in Reform temples and even in Conservative synagauges, but have you noticed that they and their children are there, and not in Church?
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If you think in generational terms, for most of them, Reform and Conservative synagogues are just way-stations on their way out of Judaism. And many of their children and grand-children ARE on their way to church.
Antibubba said:
I have great respect for the profound devotion that you and The Rabbi have in your practices and expressions of Judaism.
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I understand what you mean, Antibubba, and I thank you.
But The Rabbi and I differ in one important respect: I express my love for Judaism, but I am, basically, not observant.
The Rabbi expresses his love for Judaism and he IS observant. For me, as I struggle, it's important to remember that kind of difference.
With respect and affection,
Sholem Aleichem,
matis
