On Judaism

So, its now time to tackle a major part of my life and something that I hold near and dear. Judaism is the religion and history of my parents, grandparents and great-grandparents. It is a largely intellectually motivated religion, accompanying an ambitious sect of people who have somehow been able to survive over 5700 years of history. It's part of my life whether I like it or not.

And for the most part, I like it a great deal. As a young boy, my parents instilled in myself and my sisters the need to identify as a Jew, and to connect with the spiritual/religious reality of Judaism. My childhood education was focused on both gaining traditional secular studies in Math, Science and the Humanities, while also getting a healthy dose of Judaic Learning, including Tanakh (Bible), Talmud (Jewish Legal System), and Customs. The schools or 'yeshivot' that I attended also encouraged a healthy dose of questioning, focusing my young mind of sharpening arguments and understanding the underlying philosophy behind the basic tenets of Judaism. All in all, the education at these schools were quite strong, and helped solidify the main elements of Judaic thought in my mind.

The downside of a traditional 'yeshiva' education was also quite clear to me, particularly as I entered secular society while at Cornell. The 'safety' of being in a 'yeshiva' environment, in which all the students and faculty are religious Jews with a similar view of life and what is important, led to 'group-think'. The community was quite tight-knit and focused on maintaining its 'closed culture' to ensure future continuity. This is an entirely rational response of course, in light of anti-semitism and the lack of preparation that 'yeshiva' students have for interacting with non-religious Jewish people. However, as a member of an open, intellectually driven society at Cornell, it became clear that I was not like everyone around me, and that I would stand out like a sore thumb.

During my time at Cornell, I became fascinated with understanding even more about Judaism than I already had. Much of this stemmed from my new found interest in the other monotheistic religions, Christianty and Islam, both of which were fairly forbidden conversation topics in yeshiva. I began to read about Jewish history, and understand how we got from the old bible story of crossing the 'red sea' to Jews living in New York City, eating kosher pizza and wearing traditional garb. I needed to understand...

As I began to read, my thinking changed as well. Judaism is a beautiful religion, but ithe way it was practiced by my friends and family was not entirely fitting my comfort zone anymore. Specifically, the "modern orthodox" community, designed to retain religious conviction in light of Jewish emancipation in Europe, led by Samson Rafael Hirsch in the 1850s, had given up the traditional intellectual roots of the religion, in favor of maintaining the traditional lifestyle. The concept of Modern Orthodoxy has primarily failed, due to the fundamental difficulty that nearly every political or religiously liberal movement has - the contradictory nature of its underlying value system. Modern Orthodoxy encouraged young people to enter the upper echelons of society while maintaining Jewish tradition. Walking around Wall Street in New York City, one can clearly see this concept has succeeded, at least artificially. It is hard to find a trading floor, research desk or other function in the financial services business that does not have at least one Jewish boy with a yarmulke. However, by encouraging its youth to take on these kinds of roles, and not roles within Jewish academia, the Modern Orthodox lost sight of a fundamental need for sustainability of the movement - teaching and leading the spiritual lives of the community from a young age onward through life. This left a strong vacuum, occupied by two extremes: The Charedi community (which was founded as an alternative to Reform Judaism and Hirsch's Modern Orthodox in mid 1800's as well by the Chasam Sofer in Pressburg or today's Bratislava) and the Modern Conservative/Reform communities.

On the Reform and somewhat on the Conservative sides of the table, leadership from these movements pushed Jewish people to adopt modernity to a fairly strong extent, with Reform acting (at least initially) to rapidly and radically alter the religion in favor of a the Christian "belief" model, where communal activities were reduced to once a week or a few times a year, and the practice of Judaism on a day to day basis was significantly reduced. Their argument was to fully embrace emancipation and seek to blend better with Christian Europe. This was quite a shift, including a change of Sabbath day from Saturday to Sunday, and a change in prayer books from traditional Hebrew to German.

The Conservative movement, founded in the U.S., sought a compromise position between Modern Orthodoxy and Reform, and has also suffered many of the problems that Modern Orthodoxy has felt (including several identity crisis). It has struggled to find a happy medium between movements that were widening the gap for much of their existence, often failing to please anyone, including their diehard followers. As a result, Conservative Judaism has varied from city to city, synagogue to synagogue, with many looking very similar to either Reform or Modern Orthodox synagogues.

The Charedi community, led by the Chasam Sofer, took a drastic move in the opposite direction of Reform. The Chasam Sofer outwardly pushed Jews to fight emancipation, feeling that it would cause too many problems and questions of faith within his people. In fact, in 1850, he applied a fascinating concept from the Talmud, intended to cover a Jewish law about eating fruit and grain from older harvests during the "shmita year" (a year in which Jewish farmers were not supposed to farm, allowing the land to rest - probably a very intelligent model, since it elimintated overfarming problems that other communities have had over history), in which the phrase "Chadash Asur Min Ha'Torah" ("Items that are new are not permitted, according to the bible") was applied to all things new from that point on. In essence, the Chasam Sofer suggested a freezing of time, and implied that Jews should strive to live lives like their forefathers who lived during the 1850s. Hence, the Charedi community today is known to wear historical dress from the 1850s in the Eastern European region. This community and its underlying ideology has spread like wildfire, taking a major step towards adding most of the remaining Modern Orthodox people, many of whom depend on scholars from this community to teach their children (and themselves) over their Reform counterparts. The result is a very religious community, pushing for the greater community to go retro - 1850s style.

Hence the world I was brought up in. A world in which Modern Orthodox thought was losing way to Charedi Judaism, and a person seeking to study the world and be a member of greater society found less and less room to maneuver. I recall quite well my conversations with colleagues in high school, when we decided to apply to college. I was the only student in the class applying to Cornell, because it was considered a "Makom Sakana" (a "Dangerous Place"), because our ideology would be tested by the environment/surroundings. Some of my best high school friends were willing to end our friendship because I was choosing "the road not taken" - literally. It was a very tough and lonely time for me, as many of my friends took the "safe path" towards a life and career of choice for the Charedi community, namely Talmudic study, Rabbinics, and some careers oriented towards flexibility. While on some level these pursuits were intellectual and in line with my interest in being a worldly and learned person, I felt that this approach was fairly counter to my fundamental beliefs...

In fact, I felt that the choice of friends and colleagues was going to be quite difficult to swallow. In high school, my friends and I would only eat kosher, but we couldn't intelligently answer the question of why, if asked by an onlooker. We'd follow traditions that were even more obscure, using fairly ridiculous or poorly constructed arguments to back up our traditions - (Why do we celebrate Jewish holidays for 2 days outside of Israel and 1 day inside Israel? Because in the past, we didn't have a functioning Gregorian calendar to tell us when the holiday arrived, so we would rely on an inefficient mechanism of messengers to get the dates to the people in far-away towns. Should this apply today?). At the same time, the traditions were so near and dear to me that it caused internal conflict - I know this probably makes no sense to follow, but I should do it because my parents, family, and friends do.

In college, I went with a fairly open mind, convinced that I had a strong upbringing and understood the fundamentals of Jewish values. I also believed that we probably did not have a monopoly on "the truth" or "righteousness", in line with Maimonides. the pre-eminent Jewish medievil philosopher. His works are commonly used by religious scholars and philosophers everywhere, including the famous "Guide to the Perplexed". His works were influenced heavily by Aristotle and other major western philosophers. He argued profusely that Jews were not necessarily the sole owners of "the truth" and that there was an underlying value in understanding the outside world. With his words as my compass, I sought out further knowledge and began diving into all kinds of philosophical works and Jewish history accounts. I read works on all kinds of topics, including Spinoza, the Falashas (Ethiopian Jews), Sephardim (Spanish Jews, including those who ended up in the Middle East) and Ashkenazi Jews (German and Eastern European origin) history, Josephus's account of the end of the 2nd temple (and the founding of Christianity), and others.

The result was a clearer understanding of how we got here. In fact, counter to the teachings of my elementary and high school, Judaism has been adjusted many times over the course of 5000 years, particularly in the last 2500 or so, to ensure its survival. From fundamental changes, like the shift from Priest/Kohanic-led and sacrifice-oriented worship to Rabbic-led and prayer-oriented worship that occured sometime after the 1st temple was destroyed, to more minutia, such as the ability to charge interest on loans (to allow the Jews a profession within Christian Europe), and the ability to eat rice on Passover (for Sephardic Jews, in direct response to their needed diet to survive). Adaptation has been a major part of our tradition, and was encouraged, albeit responsibly, but major sages since the beginning of Rabbinic Judaism. There are countless examples, and we could spend weeks discussing them here, but i'll refrain from further boring you all...

This all changed in the 1850s, with the Chasam Sofer, and his fundamental shift towards closing the floodgates and imposing a finality on change for Judaism. This change, while arguably justifiable, does not seem intellectually honest, at least not to me. Coupled with the personalization of the world, in which everyone can have their own 'brand' of lifestyle and religion in the U.S. (and much of the western world), I find myself trying to put together a more personalized Judaism that fits me and my intellectual understanding of how things should be done. The result is a mess...

To begin with, I believe that there is beauty and truth that can be found in Judaism that is unique and provides an excellent value proposition to anyone who is interested in searching for it. I also admire how the Jewish people have stayed a relatively cohesive social network over the tough periods of 2000 years of opression, and how it has been a secret weapon to our sustainability. It's an amazing thing I hope to help further in my lifetime by helping my fellow Jewish people further grow and enhance their standing in our world.

I am also even more convinced that Judaism does not hold the only key to "the truth" nor do we own the only vehicle to interact with/please God. I have traveled across a large part of the world (according to Facebook, only 19%, but still quite a bit) and am convinced that people all over the place have found a place for spirituality and greater meaning in their lives. I don't believe we have a monopoly here. Additionally, I do not believe that a single sect of Judaism has any better sense of the truth, than any of the others. I often refer to a handful of Reform-ordained Rabbis who I find personally stimulating and significant in growing my own position, including Rabbi Ed Rosenthal in Cornell, and Rabbi Morris at the Skirball Center in New York. Both are incredibly bright, articulate and learned people who are humble enough to admit that they dont have all the answers and their approach may not have all the answers. In fact, my affinity for these guys probably speaks to my love of the Hillel organization - a student organization found on college campuses that runs events and programs for both denominational and non-denominational Jews. Its a great feeling to see students from all walks of life interact with ease, and feeling comfortable with others of differing religious views.

So, where does this all leave me? I guess one could say that in the eyes of my colleagues from elementary school and high school, I am probably a heretic and could be burned at the stake somewhere (or maybe justifiably stoned). I prefer to believe that I am on a spiritual journey that has taken a few interesting twists and turns over the last couple of years. I do not have all the answers, nor do I claim to, but I am working on understanding and finding out how best to live a moral and spiritual life. My life is probably not the one projected for me by my parents and grandparents, but it is my own and one I'm comfortable with. Frankly, thats all I can offer at this point...