Part 16 (2/2)
I couldn't have described our encounter with the Dalai Lama any better. He provided us a pool of nectar to look into, sweeter than a mirror, so that we Jews could see ourselves, not necessarily as we are, but as we might be.
This is what I saw: Judaism, stripped away of all its historical baggage, the long history of anti-Semitism and the defenses it has aroused. Judaism with its own joys and sweetness, and its own deep wisdom. The Dalai Lama gave each of us a glimpse of that, a glimpse so powerful it changed every one of us who experienced it.
Seeing Judaism in the light of Tibetan Buddhism, I realized that the religion of my birth is not just an ethnicity or an ident.i.ty, but a way of life, and a spiritual path, as profound as any other. That path has three parts: prayer, study, and acts of loving-kindness.
I learned too that Jewish prayer in depth has more in common with Eastern meditation than I had realized. From my own experience at Beth Kangra-our outdoor synagogue in Dharamsala-I felt that davening is not just empty recital but can be a way of attunement, of becoming aware of relations between body, feelings, mind, and spirit. I learned too the power of ”blessing,” of finding the words to fit the occasion, seeking to make blessings and thereby making worldly experience holy.
As for study, I learned that Torah is not just a historical record, but truly a tree of life to those who hold fast to it. It is a source of wisdom that can comment on our lives, that can and must continually be made new. Our task as Jews is not simply to take it as it is, but to renew it through our study, through the creativity of our own commentary, our own midrash.
Finally, for deeds of loving-kindness: I have always known that Judaism demands we take action and enhance life. When I see Jews reaching out to the Tibetans, I know that aspect of our spiritual life continues to create blessings.
There is no reason for Jews to feel superior to any other people, nor must we separate ourselves to avoid contamination. We live in a pluralistic society and I think we are ready to take our place in it, as Jews. Our being Jewish is not an inheritance to waste, nor can we rest on our laurels. We have a constant challenge to live up to our ideals and traditions, and to let our actions speak louder than our words.
Altogether then, I came away with a deeper picture of Judaism and a message of Jewish renewal. As Rabbi Joy Levitt said, there's plenty of wisdom in the Jewish tradition, but what we need is a way to teach Doors need to be opened for the many Jews who do not have access to the richness of Jewish spiritual wisdom.
What are the possibilities for Jewish renewal? First we need to understand clearly our religious history in America, how we got where we are today.
When Rabbi Greenberg presented the Dalai Lama with the power of Jewish memory, he was speaking from an Orthodox position. He was certainly correct about the modalities of Jewish life, the prayers and customs that keep Jewish memory alive-but only as once lived in Europe and by the Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox in America. One could make a counterargument: that the thousands of Jews who fled religion in the old country and a.s.similated in America also greatly ensured Jewish survival-and that their slogan, far from being ”always remind,” was really ”always forget.”
Though the Jews who came here in ma.s.sive numbers around the turn of the century were nominally Orthodox, their degree of observance was never as great as Yitz described. For instance, in the 1960s it was estimated that fewer than 4 percent of all who considered themselves Orthodox Jews actually observed the Shabbat.
This trend also applies to the earlier wave of German Jewish immigration. The first rabbi of my own hometown synagogue, Baltimore Hebrew, was Abraham Rice. He was also the first yes.h.i.+va-trained Orthodox rabbi in America. His tenure met with despair and failure. His congregants refused to observe the Sabbath and very quickly fired him when he tried to keep Shabbas breakers from having aliyot aliyot, that is, reading publicly from the Torah. In a sad letter home, Rabbi Abraham Rice described the Jews in America as Moses described the dancers around the golden calf, as ”a people broken loose.”
The whole history of Judaism in America has been a jettisoning of most of Jewish memory. And the criterion for what to discard has been social, not spiritual. American Jews dropped whatever would distinguish them greatly from their Gentile neighbors or would keep them from competing in the secular world. This included keeping kosher and observing Shabbat.
In a stunning, if gently phrased challenge, the Dalai Lama asked Yitz Greenberg if our diaspora observances have changed as a result of now having a state of Israel. Our general laughter was telling. The Buddhist leader was posing the core choice most American Jews now face: give up our Diaspora traditions as irrelevant, or make aliyah. Most American Jews know they will do neither. Instead, we have created, de facto, the s.p.a.ce for a third possibility, if only by our refusal to choose the other two.
The result has been a highly exoteric religion, conditioned by political causes such as support for Israel, and social and familial pressures. The pressing issues in American Jewish life today-intermarriage, Israel, anti-Semitism-are either social or political.
The Jews who are turned off to all spirituality, and the JUBUs and other Jews who have left the burnt house of Judaism for other traditions, are responding, then, to a real crisis. The materialism of much of Jewish life today, the lack of spirituality in our synagogue life, and the failure to communicate Judaism as a spiritual path have led, and will lead, many Jews to look elsewhere.
The house of Judaism in North America has not been satisfactorily built-it does not have a spiritual dimension for many Jews. Too many Jews are like me: our Jewishness has been an inchoate mixture of nostalgia, family feeling, group identification, a smattering of Hebrew, concern for Israel, and so forth. Yet we feel we are Jews, very strongly, and sense that somehow none of the current denominations really speak to our needs. As the state of Israel develops its own very different culture, it's clear that America will increasingly be on its own, as the Jewish historian Arthur Hertzberg argues convincingly. The vicarious relations.h.i.+p to Israel as a cause will not sustain Jewish affiliation in the long term-any more than devotion to other Jewish causes, such as civil rights, social equality, and combating anti-Semitism. There just isn't enough juice cheerleading for Israel to sustain Jews as a people in America, much less as a religion. Nor under current conditions, and despite the deep fund of world anti-Semitism, can we Jews derive our Jewishness solely by reacting to those who hate us.
Is there any hope for North American Judaism to emerge as a distinctly Jewish religion? Or will American Jews continue on the current path of staying loyal to a tradition that is not answering their needs? That is the question the Dalai Lama left us with-warning that if a tradition does not benefit people, in the long run they will not adhere to If only Jews could see themselves as sweetly as the Dalai Lama saw us. Then we would see Judaism renewed. We need to work past the divisions among denominations to recognize what we have in common as Jews, promoting more tolerance among ourselves and greater selfrespect. The terrible split between Orthodoxy and other Jews has damaged both sides. Most American Jews who are not Orthodox tend to feel that the Orthodox are the real Jews. In effect such Jews condemn themselves as inauthentic. This schizophrenia is unhealthy.
Creative Judaisms have emerged again and again in Diaspora-from Babylon to Spain to medieval Germany. I'd like to argue that we American Jews have always considered our situation different from the start, even if we didn't fully articulate it. Movements like Reform Judaism, Conservative Judaism, Reconstructionism, Modern Orthodoxy, and now the chavurah chavurah and Jewish renewal movements have all tried to come to grips with the unique opportunities and difficulties of American Jewish life. and Jewish renewal movements have all tried to come to grips with the unique opportunities and difficulties of American Jewish life.
The chavurah chavurah movement in which Zalman Schachter and Moshe Waldoks have been active is now twenty-five years old and its members are mostly middle-aged. New movement in which Zalman Schachter and Moshe Waldoks have been active is now twenty-five years old and its members are mostly middle-aged. New chavurot chavurot are being formed, and there are perhaps fifteen hundred families in are being formed, and there are perhaps fifteen hundred families in chavurot chavurot nationwide. It remains to be seen whether a new generation will continue the movement or whether it was a response to the unique situation in the 1960s. nationwide. It remains to be seen whether a new generation will continue the movement or whether it was a response to the unique situation in the 1960s.
Nevertheless, certain thinkers and theologians have been conceptualizing what serious Jewish renewal might mean. Arthur Waskow moved from radical politics in the late 1960s to Jewish renewal. Since then, he's explored creative midrash in G.o.dwrestling G.o.dwrestling and the Jewish holiday cycle in and the Jewish holiday cycle in Seasons of Our Joy Seasons of Our Joy. Judith Plaskow is a theologian who has carefully formulated the groundwork for a feminist Judaism in her book Standing Again at Sinai Standing Again at Sinai. Another important figure is Rabbi Arthur Green, who partic.i.p.ated in the first encounter with the Dalai Lama in Was.h.i.+ngton, New Jersey. He founded the pioneer chavurah chavurah, Chavurat Shalom, and is a scholar of Jewish mysticism who until recently headed the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College. Rabbi Green has articulated a Jewish renewal theology in many articles and books, most recently in Seek My Face, Speak My Name Seek My Face, Speak My Name. Speaking at a Jewish Buddhist conference in Barre, Ma.s.sachusetts, in October 1993, he said, ”As a Jewish theologian I've been told, 'You know you're really a Buddhist.' There's a little bit of truth in that. But my path has been entirely Jewish. I've felt that the spiritual life calls me to simplicity, calls me to sameness, a regular discipline. I'm a Jew for whom prayer is the central act.”
Later, a partic.i.p.ant at the conference echoed Ram Da.s.s's insight that Jews know how to come together as a community. He said, ”Jews have their sangha sangha down.” Green replied that ”Judaism's dharma is less accessible than its down.” Green replied that ”Judaism's dharma is less accessible than its sangha sangha because Judaism's language is a hard language. Our dharma is harder to get to, takes a lot of patience to work on.” because Judaism's language is a hard language. Our dharma is harder to get to, takes a lot of patience to work on.”
He told an anecdote of a ”Holy Man Jam” in which he partic.i.p.ated with Bro. David Stendl-Rast, a Catholic monk. He and Bro. David patiently explained the role of holy days in their respective traditions. By contrast, the Hindu priest who followed simply chanted and the Buddhist monk led a silent meditation. Afterwards, Green asked Bro. David, ”Why couldn't we do that? Why did our practice have to be teaching our symbolic language, which is the way the West guards its spiritual treasures?”
In fact, Green argues, ”Mysticism doesn't have to be esoteric, doesn't have to be a secret, and yet Judaism kept it a secret.” He speculates about the reason for this. Perhaps it is because if everything is G.o.d (as Chabad mysticism teaches), then ”what's the difference between Jews and goyim goyim-why [eat] lambs and not pigs? If everything is G.o.d, then all the drama of distinction is hard to defend. And this threatens sanity, it threatens the order of life.”
Perhaps, too, one could argue that insofar as European Jews perceived themselves as under threat of destruction from the other-from goyim goyim-the need to keep such distinctions was an element of survival.
For Rabbi Green, the trauma of the Holocaust cut off the possibility of what he sees as a ”natural progression from Hasidism to the modern world.” For instance, within a circle of Jewish mystics in prewar Poland there was a generation of Hasidic thinkers coming to terms with modernity. ”But then three-fourths of the teachers were killed and the rest were freaked out of their minds, running away from the universal, saying, We were wrong to trust the goyim goyim. The Holocaust deeply poisoned Judaism in a xenophobic way.”
But today, Green feels, Jews must get beyond the Holocaust poisoning and pick up the thread of that more universal Judaism suggested by Hasidic thought. Jews face the problem of creating a spiritual life. He thinks it is necessary to ”be the spiritual Jew you are in a public and accessible way, to create a study group or minyan minyan that's open and accessible to people. Make the spiritual reality of the tradition available. The only salvation for the Jewish that's open and accessible to people. Make the spiritual reality of the tradition available. The only salvation for the Jewish sangha sangha will be a spiritual path.” will be a spiritual path.”
At the organizational level, there is currently a network of thirty Jewish renewal chavurot chavurot connected with P'nai Or as well as a large national network of connected with P'nai Or as well as a large national network of chavurot chavurot under the National Havurah Committee based in Philadelphia. Since many partic.i.p.ants also belong to synagogues, Jewish renewal att.i.tudes are influencing many of the established denominations and will continue to do so. So it is also possible that some form of Jewish renewal will emerge from within the denominations. It will be interesting to see what happens as a generation of Jews raised in Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox settings in America confront the contemporary world. If separation continues to work for them, they will stay within the fold. But if it doesn't, they may contribute to the development of Jewish renewal as they seek new forms of expressing Jewish life in America today. under the National Havurah Committee based in Philadelphia. Since many partic.i.p.ants also belong to synagogues, Jewish renewal att.i.tudes are influencing many of the established denominations and will continue to do so. So it is also possible that some form of Jewish renewal will emerge from within the denominations. It will be interesting to see what happens as a generation of Jews raised in Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox settings in America confront the contemporary world. If separation continues to work for them, they will stay within the fold. But if it doesn't, they may contribute to the development of Jewish renewal as they seek new forms of expressing Jewish life in America today.
I cannot predict the future or know how-or even if-Jewish renewal will take place. But I have some notions of what it might look like if it does. Jewish renewal will recognize the power of what is holy in our lives today. Just as Rabbi Greenberg could see the call to pluralism as part of G.o.d's will, so Jewish renewal can recognize the power in the movement toward full equality for women, in granting full dignity to gays and lesbians, and in the search for a livable environment.
At the same time, Jewish renewal will be much more respectful of tradition than Reform Judaism historically has been, seeking, in Zalman Schachter's words, ”a maximum of Jewish expression.” Intense davening, mikvehs mikvehs, or ritual baths, and other customs and expressions a.s.sociated with Orthodox Judaism will also be found in renewal. Orthodox rites formerly practiced only by men will also be practiced by women, who will infuse old traditions with new energy and joy.
Jewish renewal will be pluralistic, open to dialogue with other Jews and with other religions. Just as Jews tried to be a blessing for Tibetans, so Jews in America have proven already to be a model of a successful religious minority. In that sense we can relate to burgeoning minorities of American Muslims and Asian Buddhists. Very soon, in the U.S., practicing Muslims will outnumber Jews, and they are increasingly reaching out to us. The day may well come when Muslims, Jews, and Buddhists will share a similar agenda-in America.
Here again, the pluralism in American Jewish life gives Jews a safe context to appreciate our own history more richly and variously. This contrasts with the more defended Orthodox separatism. A Judaism that is pluralistic and respectful of the wisdom of other groups will be highly consonant with American life.
A renewed Judaism will be more porous-more willing to acknowledge that Judaism has borrowed from other cultures in the past, and more willing to borrow techniques and practices from other religions today, rea.s.similating them into a Jewish context. Sufi dhikr dhikr and Buddhist meditation on the breath are influences from the Eastern prayer mode that can be easily absorbed by Jews. and Buddhist meditation on the breath are influences from the Eastern prayer mode that can be easily absorbed by Jews.
A renewed Judaism will certainly be more aware of its own mystical tradition, seeking through specific practices of prayer and meditation to increase kavvanah kavvanah, and to realize in everyday life the spiritual values of the Hasidim.
This brings me to practice, and none of these changes will be meaningful without a deepening of Jewish practice. But that deepening can no longer be seen as an all-or-nothing proposition. We Jews must become more flexible and welcoming to those who are sincere about exploring our spiritual richness. We could again learn from Buddhist teaching-and the Lubavitchers-by offering a few practices at a time.
Just as Shabbat and keeping kosher were the first practices to be discarded by many American Jews in their quest for a.s.similation, so they may be the place to begin again. Interestingly, as increasing numbers of Americans become vegetarians, keeping kosher via keeping vegetarian will no longer separate Jews from others. It will therefore be easier to commit to vegetarian kosher as a matter of health, environmentalism, and spiritual practice. As for Shabbat, it is essential that Jews learn to taste the sweetness of this core secret of Jewish life.
It's interesting to observe in the nontraditional Western Buddhist community, how its pract.i.tioners are grappling with the same problem Jews faced in coming to America: how to combine spiritual practice with daily life. Since most Buddhist pract.i.tioners hold jobs and many have families, the monastic model is not an option. Instead they have opted for a temporary monasticism in the form of weekend, weeklong, and monthlong retreats to Buddhist meditation centers. They move in and out of the spiritual and material world, and the big question they are facing is how to handle the transitions, how to move between the purity of a meditative life to the demands of the samsaric world.
Obviously, since most American Jews have dumped the Sabbath, it's difficult to say that it's a real model for Western Buddhists. But Shabbat, when done right, does create a very carefully planned retreat from the world in the context of family life.
What Jews might learn from Buddhists is how to deepen Shabbat, heighten its meditative content. A rabbi once declared to me her experience of a Buddhist monastery, ”It's Shabbat all the time!” What Buddhists might learn from Jews are the forms or sh.e.l.l of the Shabbat, the rituals such as the mikveh mikveh, the candle lighting, and the blessings, which enable Jews to make a transition from a worldly to a spiritual realm and back again.
Deepening the prayer experience is essential to Jewish renewal. When the Jewish spirit was renewed in eighteenth-century Eastern Europe, the Hasidim turned away from an emphasis on studying Talmud, because the community in the small towns and shtetls shtetls of Podolia was poor and poorly educated. Instead, the Hasidic masters opened wide the door of prayer. I'd like to suggest that an emphasis on prayer would also be the best door for Jewish renewal in America today. Because we too are poor-in spirit-and poorly educated, in Jewish techniques of inner transformation. of Podolia was poor and poorly educated. Instead, the Hasidic masters opened wide the door of prayer. I'd like to suggest that an emphasis on prayer would also be the best door for Jewish renewal in America today. Because we too are poor-in spirit-and poorly educated, in Jewish techniques of inner transformation.
In effect, I'm calling for a kind of neo-Hasidism, because without an infusion of Jewish spiritual fervor in prayer and blessings and observances, the reason to stay Jewish, the juice, will be lost.
I can only offer this brief sketch of Jewish renewal. Others have been working hard to fill in the outlines-theologians, activists, rabbis, and leaders, and of course the Jewish women and men in chavurot chavurot and Jewish renewal communities. Even if their numbers are relatively small, their work is important. If, as Yitz Greenberg a.s.serted, Judaism is now facing a crisis as great as the first century, then, too, like the first-century rabbis, we must renew to preserve. and Jewish renewal communities. Even if their numbers are relatively small, their work is important. If, as Yitz Greenberg a.s.serted, Judaism is now facing a crisis as great as the first century, then, too, like the first-century rabbis, we must renew to preserve.
The dialogue with Tibetans has heightened my awareness of the precious value and fragility of all of our world's ancient spiritual traditions.
The Chinese attack on Tibet's religion is a particularly virulent example of the global destruction of the religious ecosystem by materialists who uproot religious environments along with natural ones in their quest for productivity and profits. It is an attack predicated on scientism-the belief that the objectivity of the laboratory is the only model for knowing truth.
I confess that before I encountered the spirituality of Buddhism-and Judaism-in Dharamsala, I was more inclined to the scientific, if not scientistic, viewpoint. I was a materialist and a skeptic, at least when it came to defining reality. The transformation in my own life tells me that the subtlety of consciousness-the quiet mind-that a Dalai Lama develops cannot be denied. It is as real as anything-it is as real as any thing thing. And far more precious.
Our ancient sources of wisdom call on human beings to rise to their highest capacity and behave in extraordinarily open and generous ways to one another, under difficult circ.u.mstances to transcend differences and create understanding across all barriers of convention and fear. This wisdom is fragile as our environment is fragile, threatened by an overwhelming material culture. I believe in a spiritual ecology. In today's world, Judaism and Tibetan Buddhism and other wisdom traditions are endangered species.
Like the Dalai Lama and Rabbi Greenberg, I worry in particular that Tibetan Buddhism will not survive. Not just for the Tibetans' sake, but for the world's sake. As the Dalai Lama has stated, ”Tibetan culture belongs to all humanity, and its extinction would not just affect Tibetans, but all humanity.”
I worry too about my own people. I am grateful we have an Israel and that some remnants of the great Talmudic and Hasidic traditions have survived the Holocaust and propagate themselves in America. Perhaps it is true that the only Judaism to survive in the long run will be among these separationists, these preservationists. Or perhaps in the future there will only be two types of Jews: totally a.s.similated and Israelis. I am hoping for a third alternative. I am hoping Judaism will survive and renew itself, because it has something vital to offer the world.
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