Matis, although I do understand your feelings about a Chasid a more authentic Jew than someone like myself, I resent your saying it.
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Antibubba,
The last thing I want is to post in such a way as to push you away. I wish I were eloquent enough to be able to communicate to you what I'm trying, so clumsily, to say.
I don't consider any Jew more authentic than any other. I DO, however, consider Orthodox Judaism, not only more authentic -- I consider it the only Judaism. That is why it endures while the non-orthodox fall away.
So the question of authenticity does not address the Jew himself, but only his "brand" or lack of "Judaism".
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I have considered aliyah, a few times, and I would drop everything and go over to defend our people if our enemies were massing on the border.
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In that sentiment you and I, Antibubba, are in complete agreement.
But as I wrote in my post above, what good is such feeling if it doesn't pass the test of time as The Rabbi wrote above?
If we feel so strongly about fighting for our people, why, much as it is necessary, ONLY with guns? What about fighting the cultural acid that eats away at our Judaism until there is almost nothing left?
Personally, I have discovered that only Orthodox Judaism can ultimately "fight for our people" in the sense of enduring over millenia and against seemingly impossible odds. Your life and my life are certainly important. But our lives will pass in a flash. So if the Jewish people are important to you, what about their survival after you and I are both gone?
Any brand of Judaism that fails the test of time is IMO inauthentic.
I completely sympathize with your bitterness over your early experiences at Hillel. As The Rabbi wrote earlier, it's lucky you didn't become a Zoroastrian (you didn't, did you? Just kidding.).
In my own case I grew up in Montreal in an apartment building where all 12 tenants were Jewish. My father considered himself a Marxist and so we were the only non-observant (atheist) family. (My father was a good man who meant well and I don't blame him in the slightest for believing as he did. He gave me much and much of him lives on in me.)
Outside I took beatings for being Jewish. "Dirty Jew" they called me. At home I was scorned by my fellow Jews and called "goy" (gentile). Kinda between a rock and a hard place.
My reaction was to develop a militant atheism. My hobby became arguing with the religious, using what I then thought was impeccable logic and reason to chew them up and spit them out. I enjoyed it and I got good at it.
So I can understand completely your bitterness.
Trouble is by remaining bitter you are cheating yourself, your loved ones and the Jewish people. I know from personal experience and from what I know of assimilated Jews in the West, that most do not have the faintest clue what their heritage really is.
I hope you dont take that as condescending because that is the last thing I intend.
In poetry class I remember learning to take each word in apoem separately and to pull out its denotation, its many connotations and then to analyze how each word carried its weight in supporting the authors meaning. I absolutely loved doing that, but I never again found that kind of thing. Until much later in life when I began to learn about Judaism.
That is what they do in Yeshiva. That is what those who study Torah learn to do.
I used to feel so frustrated in college because when I found something, say a poet who spoke to ME, I would come home from the library with armfuls of books about him and learn everything I could about him. Problem was the teacher didnt appreciate my doing this. I wasnt following the program. Matis, he would say, Youre still on Wordsworth? The rest of us are already way past Blake.
And I was usually terribly lonesome for someone to tear into the stuff with me. But everyone was too busy getting an education to really learn anything in depth. Or so it seemed to me.
Then, decades later, I found out that in Orthodox chaider (for younger children) and in yeshiva (high school) that is EXACTLY what they do. They pair up the kids, assign a page and direct them to tear into the material and then defend their individual understanding with each other. They actually encourage them to ARGUE with each other about the material. I was overjoyed to discover this! What a marvelous way to learn! Turns out that Jews have been doing this for thousands of years. Who knew?
This is just one treasure I found that my heritage had waiting for me -- when I finally surfaced. When after learning so much about so many topics and so many other people -- I finally began learning about who I was. And although this method means so much to me, its actually a trivial discovery by comparison to the vast riches that await anybody who begins to learn Judaism. And I havent even mentioned content yet.
Antibubba, I respectfully invite you to explicate my sentence above as I had learned to do with poetry: Most assimilated Jews in the west do not have even the faintest clue what their heritage really is.
Its just an ordinary sentence. You can fight it, you can take offense at it. But I honestly mean this with all my heart. I honestly believe that if you simply explicate it pull out every ounce of meaning you can find in it, fill a few pages of a notebook with your results, then with all respect to you -- you will never again be the same person.
And certainly not because of my sentence, but because of what it can lead you to.
To The Rabbi:
The Chassidim who treated me with so much loving patience are the Lubavitchers. My poor rabbi, Yossie, suffered my arrogance and my ignorance for years. And today, although I am a founding member of the Chabad shul here, I am still like the village idiot except in my case I am the Chabad atheist (grin).
But one who now burns like a fire for what he found.
These people believe that in every Jew burns a Jewish soul even if in some people, due to circumstances, it barely smolders. I remember saying to Yossie, shortly after I met him, But if the Beit Hamikdash (the Temple) were standing today, then I would be stoned to death for my disbelief.
No, he replied, You are a prisoner of the Galut (diaspora) and cannot be blamed for the way you are.
And that is their core belief and that is what motivates them to send shluchim, (emissaries of the Rebbe) everywhere, including the most unlikely corners of the world (would you believe Thailand? How about Nepal? Theyre there.). To find lost Jews and bring them home (spiritually). Their way is Chesed (kindness). And did I ever test them! But I was no match for them.
They are exactly opposite to the people Antibubba encountered at Hillel. They judge no one, regardless of their level of knowledge or observance. They accept everybody. And their Shabbos table (Friday night) fed me for years, intellectually, and when I was ready, spiritually and boy -- can the Rebbitzin (Rabbis wife) cook!
Antibubba, please dont allow your bitterness at people with character defects from long ago in your past, to keep you from examining what Judaism really is. After all, its your inheritance, too. Why leave it on the table? Why not at least examine whats yours, anyway? Why go through life owning a treasure chest - without ever opening it? Who knows, perhaps there is something inside you can use.
You want to defend your people? So do I. To defend them you must first find out who they really are. And that's the beauty of Judaism. By fighting for them, you fight for (or through to?) yourself.
With respect (I won't say affection 'cause I wouldn't want to embarrass anyone),
Matis
