Sunday, July 12, 2009
On Retreat
I will be on retreat and most likely off line until Monday the 20th. Talk with you all when I get back. Shalom.
Friday, July 10, 2009
Being God is Hell
Judaism has a saying, “Everything is foreseen, and free will is given” (Pirke Avot 3:19). This is supposed to answer the paradox of an all-knowing God and a free-willing humanity. If you are free to do what you want, God cannot know in advance what you will, and hence is not all-knowing. If God is all knowing and knows in advance everything you will ever do, then you really aren’t free to do otherwise.
Some people try and finesse this by saying that since you don’t know what you will do, you still have to make a choice, even if God already knows the choice you are going to make. This makes free will conditioned on ignorance. While you may not know what choice you are going to make, God does—not because God willed it, but because God knows the future. It might be the best we can do, and while this may solve the problem from the human perspective, it doesn’t do God any good at all.
What must it be like being God and knowing in advance everything that is going to happen? You get up one morning and plan to look in your friends to see what they are up to, but then you remember that you already know. The same is true of your enemies, the weather, politics, and cosmic disasters. You know everything that will ever happen long before it actually happens. Everything to God is a rerun. God is stuck with eternal life without a single surprise. That is hell. God is trapped in eternal boredom. Why would anyone invent a God like this?
If I were going to invent a God I would imagine one who didn’t know what was going to happen from one minute to the next. Sure s/he might make predictions based on the past, but the opportunity for surprise would always be there. This might make each day worth creating. If you knew how everyday would turn out I advance you probably wouldn’t bother making any day at all.
No, my God wouldn’t have a clue. Much like the God in the Hebrew Bible. He never seems to know what the people are going to do. And when he takes action he is often surprised at the results. Sometimes he wishes he never created humans in the first place. He loves people and he hates people, and he is having a ball blessing and cursing and saving and killing.
Free will on the part of humanity would be irrelevant to my God. All that he would have to do is make sure he didn’t know what was going to happen next. Even if we were totally pre-programmed, God’s ignorance would save him from the boredom of our programming. But it might be hard to create the world and then forget what you had in mind, so my God would create people with free will. This doesn’t mean we can do anything we want, it only means that every once in a while we do something out of character, and that makes it fun for God to watch.
It’s like NBC’s Law & Order shows: even though I know that 99 times out of 100 the good guys win, there is always that one percent where the bad guy gets away with the crime, and that makes the show exciting.
In my theological fantasy God creates the world to be entertained. God loves stories (another Jewish saying), and wants to be surprised. Loving stories only works if you don’t already know they end before you’ve read even the first chapter.
Some people try and finesse this by saying that since you don’t know what you will do, you still have to make a choice, even if God already knows the choice you are going to make. This makes free will conditioned on ignorance. While you may not know what choice you are going to make, God does—not because God willed it, but because God knows the future. It might be the best we can do, and while this may solve the problem from the human perspective, it doesn’t do God any good at all.
What must it be like being God and knowing in advance everything that is going to happen? You get up one morning and plan to look in your friends to see what they are up to, but then you remember that you already know. The same is true of your enemies, the weather, politics, and cosmic disasters. You know everything that will ever happen long before it actually happens. Everything to God is a rerun. God is stuck with eternal life without a single surprise. That is hell. God is trapped in eternal boredom. Why would anyone invent a God like this?
If I were going to invent a God I would imagine one who didn’t know what was going to happen from one minute to the next. Sure s/he might make predictions based on the past, but the opportunity for surprise would always be there. This might make each day worth creating. If you knew how everyday would turn out I advance you probably wouldn’t bother making any day at all.
No, my God wouldn’t have a clue. Much like the God in the Hebrew Bible. He never seems to know what the people are going to do. And when he takes action he is often surprised at the results. Sometimes he wishes he never created humans in the first place. He loves people and he hates people, and he is having a ball blessing and cursing and saving and killing.
Free will on the part of humanity would be irrelevant to my God. All that he would have to do is make sure he didn’t know what was going to happen next. Even if we were totally pre-programmed, God’s ignorance would save him from the boredom of our programming. But it might be hard to create the world and then forget what you had in mind, so my God would create people with free will. This doesn’t mean we can do anything we want, it only means that every once in a while we do something out of character, and that makes it fun for God to watch.
It’s like NBC’s Law & Order shows: even though I know that 99 times out of 100 the good guys win, there is always that one percent where the bad guy gets away with the crime, and that makes the show exciting.
In my theological fantasy God creates the world to be entertained. God loves stories (another Jewish saying), and wants to be surprised. Loving stories only works if you don’t already know they end before you’ve read even the first chapter.
Weather or Not
According to the National Weather Service there is a 20% chance it might rain here tonight. Do you know that means? A lot of people don’t.
A recent study of college students by the University of Washington in Seattle shows that many completely misunderstand the notion of “probability-of-precipitation.” Some imagine that a “20% chance of rain” means that 20% of their town will get rain and 80% won’t. Others understand it to mean that it will rain 20% of the day. Can we be that dumb?
To find out, I walked out among my neighbors and asked them to explain the meaning of today’s forecast. Here are just some of the answers I received:
“It means that there is a 20% chance that God is going to flood the earth tonight.”
“It means that 20% of the people want it to rain tonight.”
“It means that the weather girl only looked at 20% of the map.”
“It means that only 20% of the town will get wet.”
“It means that you are a dumb Jew-bastard who has yet to accept Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior and who has a 100% chance of going to Hell.”
OK, I made the last one up. Well, no, I didn’t make it up exactly, I simply transposed it from another conversation to this conversation about weather. The prior conversation was about whether or not I was going to Hell, so you can see how easy it was for me to make the leap from “weather” to “whether” and from one conversation to another. Homonyms are our friends.
The Seattle study found that if the weather forecaster added the probability of no rain along with the probability of rain, people understood things better. So if you say to someone, there is a 20% chance that it will rain tonight and an 80% chance that it won’t, there is a 20% chance that the person will understand what you are saying. So I tried that and got this:
“Do I have a choice? If I do, I’ll take the 20% ‘cause we need the rain. If I don’t I’ll take the 80%. Either way it don’t rain in the Hell hole you Jew bastard is going to lest you accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior. Jew bastard.” I’m paraphrasing of course.
Now you may be as confused about the weather as the people in my survey, so let me make it simple. On any given day there is always a 50/50 chance it will rain. It will either rain or it won’t rain. On or off, that’s all there is to it. It will rain or it won’t. It will snow or it won’t. We’ll be hit by an asteroid or we won’t. Jesus will return today or he won’t. It is always 50/50. That’s why I buy lottery tickets: I always have a one in two chance of winning whether or not it rains.
A recent study of college students by the University of Washington in Seattle shows that many completely misunderstand the notion of “probability-of-precipitation.” Some imagine that a “20% chance of rain” means that 20% of their town will get rain and 80% won’t. Others understand it to mean that it will rain 20% of the day. Can we be that dumb?
To find out, I walked out among my neighbors and asked them to explain the meaning of today’s forecast. Here are just some of the answers I received:
“It means that there is a 20% chance that God is going to flood the earth tonight.”
“It means that 20% of the people want it to rain tonight.”
“It means that the weather girl only looked at 20% of the map.”
“It means that only 20% of the town will get wet.”
“It means that you are a dumb Jew-bastard who has yet to accept Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior and who has a 100% chance of going to Hell.”
OK, I made the last one up. Well, no, I didn’t make it up exactly, I simply transposed it from another conversation to this conversation about weather. The prior conversation was about whether or not I was going to Hell, so you can see how easy it was for me to make the leap from “weather” to “whether” and from one conversation to another. Homonyms are our friends.
The Seattle study found that if the weather forecaster added the probability of no rain along with the probability of rain, people understood things better. So if you say to someone, there is a 20% chance that it will rain tonight and an 80% chance that it won’t, there is a 20% chance that the person will understand what you are saying. So I tried that and got this:
“Do I have a choice? If I do, I’ll take the 20% ‘cause we need the rain. If I don’t I’ll take the 80%. Either way it don’t rain in the Hell hole you Jew bastard is going to lest you accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior. Jew bastard.” I’m paraphrasing of course.
Now you may be as confused about the weather as the people in my survey, so let me make it simple. On any given day there is always a 50/50 chance it will rain. It will either rain or it won’t rain. On or off, that’s all there is to it. It will rain or it won’t. It will snow or it won’t. We’ll be hit by an asteroid or we won’t. Jesus will return today or he won’t. It is always 50/50. That’s why I buy lottery tickets: I always have a one in two chance of winning whether or not it rains.
Tuesday, July 07, 2009
It's All About Me, and Perhaps A Bit About Thee
Researcher George Barna’s new book, The Seven Faith Tribes, offers an interesting if not exactly surprising portrait of American Jews. Here are his main findings, and some quick reactions of my own. After reading this post your comments: Does this sound like Jews you know? Does this help you understand Jews better? If you are a Jew, does this sound like you? If you are not a Jew and this sounds like you, do you want to become a Jew?
1. Being Jewish is more about belonging to a community than adhering to a faith (p. 56). Our motto is, “Two Jews, Three Opinions.” We would never have lasted these past 4000 years if we had to agree about things. Family trumps faith almost every time (Orthodox Jews sometimes excepted).
2. Jews view themselves as tough, relish a good argument, enjoy verbal jousting (p. 61), and are more comfortable with argument than any other tribe. (p. 57) I appreciate a serious argument over issues, and find that I learn more from such discussions than from simply affirming or rejecting fixed ideas—even my own. We even delight in helping our opponents strengthen their arguments to provide us with a greater challenge. We love seeing all sides of an issue, as long as that issue has nothing to do with Israel and the Palestinians, in which case we are often blind as bats.
3. Jews score lowest of all tribes regarding happiness, joy, and feeling at peace. (p. 57) Happiness is overrated. I worry about people who are or want to be happy or joyous all the time; they seem cut off from the suffering of the world. I follow Ecclesiastes; there is a time to be happy and a time to be miserable.
4. Jews embrace education more than any other tribe. (p. 58) Education, and by this I mean critical thinking, free inquiry, and a trust in reason and logic, is far more important to me than accepting the tenets of Judaism. In fact, any religion that resists such honest inquiry is suspect in my eyes.
5. Jews are more willing to take risks than any other tribe. (p. 58). Intellectually this is true of me, but not in any other way.
6. Jews’ dominant desires are health, good education, close family and friends, personal integrity, and to be knowledgeable about the world. (p. 59) Add being able to fit into size 34 Levi’s Silvertab jeans, and I’m in.
7. Few Jews care about having a close relationship with God, (p. 59) which is why only 2% rate faith as a high priority. (p. 60) Jews are more likely to trust science, reason, and logic than ancient sacred documents or teachings based on faith. (p. 63) That’s me, for sure. Though the more I know about science I don’t trust that either. As far as God goes, it depends on how you define “God.” For me God is reality and you can’t get much closer to God than that.
8. 80% of American Jews doubt the existence of moral absolutes. (p. 60) Sure, absolutes of any kind shut down free inquiry. Of course free inquiry can become an absolute, so be careful.
9. Jews are less inclined to watch violent television or films than other tribes. (p. 60) While I am proud to belong to a people who oppose violence rather than sex in popular culture, it doesn’t fit me at all. I rate movies as good or bad based on the number of exploding space ships per minute. I want big and frequent bangs for my buck. For me, sex on the screen is just a distraction between battle scenes.
10. Jews are “notoriously liberal” in their politics, (p. 62) more likely than most Americans to be “riled up about injustice,” (p.61) and resist government policies limiting personal behavior and legislating morality. (p. 62) This finding makes me very proud to be a Jew.
11. Most Jews “perceive the Bible with suspicion.” (p. 64) Of course! We wrote it! The Bible is a human document, and all human documents should be greeted with suspicion.
12. Only 36% of Jews imagine God in ways consistent with the Torah, and most Jews do not believe God is involved in people’s lives. (p. 65) Thank God! That Guy is a Crazy Person!
13. Only 20% believe there is a satanic force in the world. (p. 66) Here I side with the minority. I do believe in evil. And while I do not believe in a separate satanic force outside of the human psyche, the evil within it is scary enough.
14. Only 25% of Jews say Judaism has been a transformative force in their lives. (p. 67) As a Jew who grew up in the synagogue I get this, and as a rabbi I am partly responsible for it. That 75% of Jews find Judaism less than life transforming says to me that we have to reinvent the rabbinate. Too bad the 25% who like things the way they are run the rabbinic institutions.
1. Being Jewish is more about belonging to a community than adhering to a faith (p. 56). Our motto is, “Two Jews, Three Opinions.” We would never have lasted these past 4000 years if we had to agree about things. Family trumps faith almost every time (Orthodox Jews sometimes excepted).
2. Jews view themselves as tough, relish a good argument, enjoy verbal jousting (p. 61), and are more comfortable with argument than any other tribe. (p. 57) I appreciate a serious argument over issues, and find that I learn more from such discussions than from simply affirming or rejecting fixed ideas—even my own. We even delight in helping our opponents strengthen their arguments to provide us with a greater challenge. We love seeing all sides of an issue, as long as that issue has nothing to do with Israel and the Palestinians, in which case we are often blind as bats.
3. Jews score lowest of all tribes regarding happiness, joy, and feeling at peace. (p. 57) Happiness is overrated. I worry about people who are or want to be happy or joyous all the time; they seem cut off from the suffering of the world. I follow Ecclesiastes; there is a time to be happy and a time to be miserable.
4. Jews embrace education more than any other tribe. (p. 58) Education, and by this I mean critical thinking, free inquiry, and a trust in reason and logic, is far more important to me than accepting the tenets of Judaism. In fact, any religion that resists such honest inquiry is suspect in my eyes.
5. Jews are more willing to take risks than any other tribe. (p. 58). Intellectually this is true of me, but not in any other way.
6. Jews’ dominant desires are health, good education, close family and friends, personal integrity, and to be knowledgeable about the world. (p. 59) Add being able to fit into size 34 Levi’s Silvertab jeans, and I’m in.
7. Few Jews care about having a close relationship with God, (p. 59) which is why only 2% rate faith as a high priority. (p. 60) Jews are more likely to trust science, reason, and logic than ancient sacred documents or teachings based on faith. (p. 63) That’s me, for sure. Though the more I know about science I don’t trust that either. As far as God goes, it depends on how you define “God.” For me God is reality and you can’t get much closer to God than that.
8. 80% of American Jews doubt the existence of moral absolutes. (p. 60) Sure, absolutes of any kind shut down free inquiry. Of course free inquiry can become an absolute, so be careful.
9. Jews are less inclined to watch violent television or films than other tribes. (p. 60) While I am proud to belong to a people who oppose violence rather than sex in popular culture, it doesn’t fit me at all. I rate movies as good or bad based on the number of exploding space ships per minute. I want big and frequent bangs for my buck. For me, sex on the screen is just a distraction between battle scenes.
10. Jews are “notoriously liberal” in their politics, (p. 62) more likely than most Americans to be “riled up about injustice,” (p.61) and resist government policies limiting personal behavior and legislating morality. (p. 62) This finding makes me very proud to be a Jew.
11. Most Jews “perceive the Bible with suspicion.” (p. 64) Of course! We wrote it! The Bible is a human document, and all human documents should be greeted with suspicion.
12. Only 36% of Jews imagine God in ways consistent with the Torah, and most Jews do not believe God is involved in people’s lives. (p. 65) Thank God! That Guy is a Crazy Person!
13. Only 20% believe there is a satanic force in the world. (p. 66) Here I side with the minority. I do believe in evil. And while I do not believe in a separate satanic force outside of the human psyche, the evil within it is scary enough.
14. Only 25% of Jews say Judaism has been a transformative force in their lives. (p. 67) As a Jew who grew up in the synagogue I get this, and as a rabbi I am partly responsible for it. That 75% of Jews find Judaism less than life transforming says to me that we have to reinvent the rabbinate. Too bad the 25% who like things the way they are run the rabbinic institutions.
Sunday, July 05, 2009
Faith & Values, Rutherford Style
The Lifestyles section of my local newspaper is subtitle, “Religion: Rutherford Faith and Values.” Rutherford is the county in which my town is located. What are Rutherford values? What is Rutherford faith? Here are few highlights from the Lifestyle section:
Under GOOD IDEAS a local pharmacist warns us that the sin of America is “the abomination it truly is to God,” and urges us to repent and follow the example of Jesus Christ. Unfortunately she doesn’t define the abomination. In this town the abomination could be abortion, homosexuality, occultism, or voting Democratic.
The main article, “Letters to God,” is about a movie being made in Orlando, FL. inspired by a Rutherford boy whose faith in God helped him and his community deal with his cancer.
Beneath the fold is an essay called “Share your faith with humility” in which we learn that “Sharing your faith isn’t an easy gig… Most of all it requires you to abandon all assumptions that you know what’s best for someone else.” Really? I thought the whole point of proselytizing is that you have the truth and the other person doesn’t. If you don’t know what’s best for me, then why bother me with your faith?
The rest of the Lifestyles section deals with various church fundraisers, Bible camps, and faith programs, a complaint to Abigail Van Buren from a guy whose girl friend wears see-through cloths and no underwear, advice on how to say “no” to a wedding invitation, the comics, a listing of 125 churches—I counted— and their upcoming worship services (the town’s mosque and Hindu Temple do not list; we have no synagogue), and the daily horoscope…
…. Wait for it… DAILY HOROSCOPE!!!!!
What kind of faith and values is this? The Bible is clearly anti-horoscope: “When you come into the land which the LORD your God is giving you, you shall not learn to follow the abominations of those nations. There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, or one who practices witchcraft, or a soothsayer, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer, or one who conjures spells, or a medium, or a spiritist, or one who calls up the dead. For all who do these things are an abomination [detestable] to the LORD…” (Deuteronomy 18: 9-12)
While the constant invoking of Ronald Reagan by God-fearing Republicans might be considered calling up the dead, it is the fact that interpreting omens, which includes the stars, is an abomination to God that really matters to me.
Remember the local pharmacist’s concern about abomination and how she failed to make clear what abomination she was talking about? Now we know why she didn’t make it clear! The newspaper itself is promoting abomination by printing the daily horoscope! She clearly had the horoscope in mind, but could not say so for fear of having her “good idea” removed from the paper. If we are to repent we have to get this abomination removed from our newspapers. I don’t know about you, but I will get on this very soon.
Not today, though; my horoscope said this was a bad time for me to take up new causes.
Under GOOD IDEAS a local pharmacist warns us that the sin of America is “the abomination it truly is to God,” and urges us to repent and follow the example of Jesus Christ. Unfortunately she doesn’t define the abomination. In this town the abomination could be abortion, homosexuality, occultism, or voting Democratic.
The main article, “Letters to God,” is about a movie being made in Orlando, FL. inspired by a Rutherford boy whose faith in God helped him and his community deal with his cancer.
Beneath the fold is an essay called “Share your faith with humility” in which we learn that “Sharing your faith isn’t an easy gig… Most of all it requires you to abandon all assumptions that you know what’s best for someone else.” Really? I thought the whole point of proselytizing is that you have the truth and the other person doesn’t. If you don’t know what’s best for me, then why bother me with your faith?
The rest of the Lifestyles section deals with various church fundraisers, Bible camps, and faith programs, a complaint to Abigail Van Buren from a guy whose girl friend wears see-through cloths and no underwear, advice on how to say “no” to a wedding invitation, the comics, a listing of 125 churches—I counted— and their upcoming worship services (the town’s mosque and Hindu Temple do not list; we have no synagogue), and the daily horoscope…
…. Wait for it… DAILY HOROSCOPE!!!!!
What kind of faith and values is this? The Bible is clearly anti-horoscope: “When you come into the land which the LORD your God is giving you, you shall not learn to follow the abominations of those nations. There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, or one who practices witchcraft, or a soothsayer, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer, or one who conjures spells, or a medium, or a spiritist, or one who calls up the dead. For all who do these things are an abomination [detestable] to the LORD…” (Deuteronomy 18: 9-12)
While the constant invoking of Ronald Reagan by God-fearing Republicans might be considered calling up the dead, it is the fact that interpreting omens, which includes the stars, is an abomination to God that really matters to me.
Remember the local pharmacist’s concern about abomination and how she failed to make clear what abomination she was talking about? Now we know why she didn’t make it clear! The newspaper itself is promoting abomination by printing the daily horoscope! She clearly had the horoscope in mind, but could not say so for fear of having her “good idea” removed from the paper. If we are to repent we have to get this abomination removed from our newspapers. I don’t know about you, but I will get on this very soon.
Not today, though; my horoscope said this was a bad time for me to take up new causes.
Friday, July 03, 2009
July 4th 2009, part two
Quick:
Who wrote the Declaration of Independence?
Who is in charge of the Executive branch of the US government?
What is the supreme law of the land?
How many justices sit on the Supreme Court?
These and similar questions were asked of a group of Arizona high school students in a recent Goldwater Institute survey. The aim of the survey was to find out if native-born Americans knew enough about America to pass the citizenship test given to those seeking to become American citizens. The result: 96.5% of the students failed the test.
But our kids aren’t stupid. Ask these same students to list the ingredients of a Big Mac and they do quite well, thank you very much. The issue isn’t smart versus stupid; it is a question of what really matters to them. We know a lot about what matters, and nothing at all about what doesn’t matter. And as long as McDonald’s matters more than McCarthy (Joseph, not Charlie) Americans will be driven by fat and fear for years to come.
Who took civics out of the high school curriculum? How can we raise a free people when we have no idea what freedom is, and how our system of government was created to secure and maintain it? What hope is there when you ask kids about “moon walk” and they talk about Michael Jackson rather than the Apollo astronauts?
Yesterday I wrote about the racism being preached on right-wing commercial radio. I wrote how frightening it was to hear such ignorance spewed across the airwaves and to know that the vast majority of listeners didn’t know it was ignorance. The Goldwater survey makes it is clear that this isn’t going to change anytime soon.
Tomorrow is the Fourth of July. Most of us are going to stuff ourselves with pork by-products, and “oo” and “ah” over fireworks. Fine. But let me suggest that the best way to celebrate the Fourth of July is to sit down with friends and family to read and discuss the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. I’d say we should read the entire Constitution, but that might be too much for one day.
I worry that the United States is well on its way to becoming a failed experiment. Democracy requires more effort, civic education, and moral courage than most of us seem to possess or are willing to pursue. True, I am a pessimist. And while I would love to proven wrong, I suspect I won’t be.
So have a happy Fourth of July. And, just for fun, see if any of your kids or friends know whose buried in Grant’s Tomb.
Who wrote the Declaration of Independence?
Who is in charge of the Executive branch of the US government?
What is the supreme law of the land?
How many justices sit on the Supreme Court?
These and similar questions were asked of a group of Arizona high school students in a recent Goldwater Institute survey. The aim of the survey was to find out if native-born Americans knew enough about America to pass the citizenship test given to those seeking to become American citizens. The result: 96.5% of the students failed the test.
But our kids aren’t stupid. Ask these same students to list the ingredients of a Big Mac and they do quite well, thank you very much. The issue isn’t smart versus stupid; it is a question of what really matters to them. We know a lot about what matters, and nothing at all about what doesn’t matter. And as long as McDonald’s matters more than McCarthy (Joseph, not Charlie) Americans will be driven by fat and fear for years to come.
Who took civics out of the high school curriculum? How can we raise a free people when we have no idea what freedom is, and how our system of government was created to secure and maintain it? What hope is there when you ask kids about “moon walk” and they talk about Michael Jackson rather than the Apollo astronauts?
Yesterday I wrote about the racism being preached on right-wing commercial radio. I wrote how frightening it was to hear such ignorance spewed across the airwaves and to know that the vast majority of listeners didn’t know it was ignorance. The Goldwater survey makes it is clear that this isn’t going to change anytime soon.
Tomorrow is the Fourth of July. Most of us are going to stuff ourselves with pork by-products, and “oo” and “ah” over fireworks. Fine. But let me suggest that the best way to celebrate the Fourth of July is to sit down with friends and family to read and discuss the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. I’d say we should read the entire Constitution, but that might be too much for one day.
I worry that the United States is well on its way to becoming a failed experiment. Democracy requires more effort, civic education, and moral courage than most of us seem to possess or are willing to pursue. True, I am a pessimist. And while I would love to proven wrong, I suspect I won’t be.
So have a happy Fourth of July. And, just for fun, see if any of your kids or friends know whose buried in Grant’s Tomb.
Thursday, July 02, 2009
July Fourth, 2009, part one
Driving to a lunch meeting in the Boro this morning I turned on our local FM talk radio station to learn that almost all black people hate white people, that President Obama is a racist, and a foreign-born Moslem sympathetic to Iran and jihadists, and that the primary goal of the Obama administration is to wrest power from the white race and give it to blacks and Hispanics.
I arrived at my meeting shaking with a mixture of anger and fear. Anger that such stupidity gets commercial airtime, and fear that most people listening to it do not think it stupid.
I remember the last time we had a Democrat President. Right wing radio was apoplectic, but the talk wasn’t this vile. Sure the Clintons murdered members of their administration, were secretly Communists trying to set up single-payer healthcare, and the President could not keep POTUS Jr. in his pants, but I don’t remember it being this emotionally charged. Sure, Rush kept count of how many days American had left in Clinton captivity, but this was no more absurd that Keith Oberman continuing his count of days since Bush’s Mission Accomplished moment on the aircraft carrier off the coast of Iraq.
But there is something different about the Right this time around. And, given that President Obama isn’t doing anything of things that I wanted him to do (end discrimination against the LGBT community, stop funding dictatorships, put real pressure on Israel and Palestine to make peace, withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan, cease the bailout of today’s robber barons, put real incentives behind green technology, and a host of other things that should rightly make the right crazy) the difference can’t really be political. Obama is a centrist, but he is a black centrist and that makes all the difference.
True it is hard to argue that America is a racist country when we have a black man as president, but it isn’t hard to see that those who are so afraid of his policies are not really afraid of his policies but his color. No one suggested during the Clinton years that the President was planning to give America over to poor rural whites in Arkansas.
The guest on this morning’s radio broadcast was an African American preacher in town for this weekend’s Republican Tea Party in Nashville. See, the Right is saying, we aren’t racist. Here is a black man speaking for us. Except it was this black man who told us that almost all black people were racists. It is one thing if some honky makes this claim—I can right it off as racism—but when a black man tells me that black folk hate me ‘cause I’m white then you just gots to believe!
Not only is Obama trying to sell America out to the black race, the radio host and his guest explained, it is trying to convince good Christians that Jesus was black. This Muslim in Christ’s clothing is trying to tell us that Jesus wasn’t white! How can that be? In my neighborhood not only is Jesus white, he spoke King James’ English! The fact that Jesus was a brown skinned Aramaic speaking Palestinian Jew seems to escape everyone’s notice.
As we prepare to celebrate the Fourth of July we would be wise to remember what this country stands for: White God, White Christians, and White Power—with a couple of black folks tagging along to ease our conscience.
I arrived at my meeting shaking with a mixture of anger and fear. Anger that such stupidity gets commercial airtime, and fear that most people listening to it do not think it stupid.
I remember the last time we had a Democrat President. Right wing radio was apoplectic, but the talk wasn’t this vile. Sure the Clintons murdered members of their administration, were secretly Communists trying to set up single-payer healthcare, and the President could not keep POTUS Jr. in his pants, but I don’t remember it being this emotionally charged. Sure, Rush kept count of how many days American had left in Clinton captivity, but this was no more absurd that Keith Oberman continuing his count of days since Bush’s Mission Accomplished moment on the aircraft carrier off the coast of Iraq.
But there is something different about the Right this time around. And, given that President Obama isn’t doing anything of things that I wanted him to do (end discrimination against the LGBT community, stop funding dictatorships, put real pressure on Israel and Palestine to make peace, withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan, cease the bailout of today’s robber barons, put real incentives behind green technology, and a host of other things that should rightly make the right crazy) the difference can’t really be political. Obama is a centrist, but he is a black centrist and that makes all the difference.
True it is hard to argue that America is a racist country when we have a black man as president, but it isn’t hard to see that those who are so afraid of his policies are not really afraid of his policies but his color. No one suggested during the Clinton years that the President was planning to give America over to poor rural whites in Arkansas.
The guest on this morning’s radio broadcast was an African American preacher in town for this weekend’s Republican Tea Party in Nashville. See, the Right is saying, we aren’t racist. Here is a black man speaking for us. Except it was this black man who told us that almost all black people were racists. It is one thing if some honky makes this claim—I can right it off as racism—but when a black man tells me that black folk hate me ‘cause I’m white then you just gots to believe!
Not only is Obama trying to sell America out to the black race, the radio host and his guest explained, it is trying to convince good Christians that Jesus was black. This Muslim in Christ’s clothing is trying to tell us that Jesus wasn’t white! How can that be? In my neighborhood not only is Jesus white, he spoke King James’ English! The fact that Jesus was a brown skinned Aramaic speaking Palestinian Jew seems to escape everyone’s notice.
As we prepare to celebrate the Fourth of July we would be wise to remember what this country stands for: White God, White Christians, and White Power—with a couple of black folks tagging along to ease our conscience.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Who Decides What is Judaism?
I received an email yesterday that I thought I would share with you. Rather than print the entire letter, I am highlighting the key points accompanied by my response.
1. Judaism should not be influenced by outside values and beliefs, and should stem only from God and Torah. The assumption you are making, namely that Judaism is somehow separate from the values and beliefs of the people who shaped it, is, in my opinion, false. Of course traditional Judaism claims that it comes from a transcendent source outside humanity, but history makes it clear that Judaism has changed over time, and that the changes came as the beliefs and values of Jews changed.
To site just a few examples: The use of capital punishment is rampant in the Hebrew Bible, yet anathema to the rabbis. So they changed Judaism to make the implementation of capital punishment impossible. Kosher is another example. While the Torah does lay the groundwork for a uniquely Jewish diet, the rabbis expanded this far beyond the Torah’s proscriptions. The same can be said for Shabbat and other holy day traditions as well.
Regarding more metaphysical matters, it is well established in academic circles that biblical Jews had no sense of a heaven and hell, and that it this was introduced into Judaism by those Jews who learned of it during their exile in Babylonia. The Pharisees made belief in the world to come central to their teachings, something their priestly opponents rejected as foreign.
Looking at Judaism in our own day, the role of women in Jewish life has greatly expanded not because Torah demanded it, but because the Women’s Movement became part of the mindset of most Jews and they demanded it.
To say that Judaism avoids change is false. To ignore the role the Jewish people play in changing their religion is to ignore how civilizations grow and survive. If priestly Judaism did not evolve into rabbinic Judaism there would be no Judaism at all. The fact that the rabbis insisted that they were simply applying the Oral Torah given to Moses alongside the Written Torah was a slick marketing move, but has no legitimacy outside the rabbis themselves—hence the rejection of the rabbinic innovations by their priestly competitors prior to the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE.
2. How can we ensure that in a hundred years or more there will still be Judaism or Jews if by that time we allow our morals and beliefs to eradicate all vestiges of what makes Judaism what it truly is and not some cheap, unsatisfying, self-help program? Your phrasing begs the question “what Judaism truly is,” but I understand and even share your concern. What will keep Judaism recognizably Jewish? Some would say that the only thing that keeps Judaism Jewish is that a people who call themselves Jews insist that it is. From a sociological viewpoint this may be true. I would like to add another element: Torah.
I think that any Judaism not linked to a creative reading of Torah is doomed. But as our rabbis have shown over the past 2000 years Torah can be read in many different ways to yield many different meanings and insights. Torah is a living document and must be read with deep creativity and imagination to uncover the layers of meaning needed in each generation. So what will make Judaism of the future authentic, the same thing that made the Judaisms of the past authentic: Torah and the Jews.
3. Liberal Judaism is fake Judaism that threatens to destroy authentic Judaism. The real challenge to Orthodoxy and tradition isn’t liberal Judaisms, but the rise of the sovereign self. With the coming of the modern period and now with postmodernism the individual (especially in the United States) is seen as supreme. It is becoming more and more difficult to subsume the individual into the group. We are encouraged to think for ourselves, to make moral and ethical decisions based on our individual consciences, etc. Community is more and more difficult to maintain. Can a Judaism that hopes to reach out to such highly individualized people impose law, or does it have to take another path?
It is too soon to answer this question, but the trend seems to be against halacha/Jewish law among nonOrthodox Jews. Even Conservative Jews pick and choose among the halachot, and often do so based on values that come from the secular world.
While I have no doubt that Orthodoxy will survive, it seems to do so only through greater and greater isolation from modernity. Orthodox Judaism will not (thankfully) go away, but it may (sadly) go the way of the Amish. We may admire their faith, but they are largely irrelevant to the lives of the most people.
This is my fear: that Judaism becomes irrelevant to Jews. Given that most Jews (90% if I am not mistaken) have rejected Orthodoxy, it isn’t too much of a stretch to say that Orthodoxy is irrelevant to most Jews. But, if you are correct (and you may be) that the Judaism that is immerging in a weak, self-indulgent, self-help program more geared to Jerry Springer than the Prophets we Jews are in trouble.
4. Liberal rabbis are fake rabbis who bastardize Judaism. I can only assume that “real rabbis” are Orthodox rabbis. Yet there are some Orthodox rabbis that other Orthodox rabbis consider equally fake. So how are we to decide who is the real rabbi?
If I am reading you correctly, the only real rabbi is one who rejects all change. If that is true, there are no real rabbis. Rabbinic Judaism was a radical departure from Priestly Judaism. Hillel and Akiva, to mention just two rabbis, were agents of change. And the Rambam (Moses Maimonides) even more so! The difference between these sages and some of today’s rabbis is that they insisted they were not doing what they were doing: making changes, and, in the case of Maimonides, applying the wisdom of non-Jewish cultures (Aristotelian to be specific) to Judaism. Today’s rabbinic creatives are more honest in their borrowings.
But, I too, have to cop to the notion of “fake rabbis.” There are rabbis, or people who call themselves rabbis, whom I would call “fake.” I make this distinction based on snobbishness: did they attend a yeshiva or seminary? Do they know and use Torah, Talmud, Zohar, Tanya in shaping their teachings? Are they rooted in Jewish history, tradition, and literature? No matter how innovative a rabbi may be, if they are linked strongly to these things I consider them authentic, even if I disagree with them. But if they are not so linked, I, too, fall into the trap of name-calling.
To opt for name calling as a first line of defense, however, suggests a weakness in your own argument. What could have been a fine discussion among thoughtful Jews becomes a silly spat between eight-year-olds. The only way we will know what impact rabbis (fake and otherwise) will have on Judaism is to wait and see. I imagine that if you shift your passion from attacking Jews to enriching Judaism, your Judaism will thrive. At least I hope so. In the end, as it has been throughout Jewish history, it is the Jews who will decide. They will determine what is Jewish, who is Jewish, who is a rabbi, etc.
1. Judaism should not be influenced by outside values and beliefs, and should stem only from God and Torah. The assumption you are making, namely that Judaism is somehow separate from the values and beliefs of the people who shaped it, is, in my opinion, false. Of course traditional Judaism claims that it comes from a transcendent source outside humanity, but history makes it clear that Judaism has changed over time, and that the changes came as the beliefs and values of Jews changed.
To site just a few examples: The use of capital punishment is rampant in the Hebrew Bible, yet anathema to the rabbis. So they changed Judaism to make the implementation of capital punishment impossible. Kosher is another example. While the Torah does lay the groundwork for a uniquely Jewish diet, the rabbis expanded this far beyond the Torah’s proscriptions. The same can be said for Shabbat and other holy day traditions as well.
Regarding more metaphysical matters, it is well established in academic circles that biblical Jews had no sense of a heaven and hell, and that it this was introduced into Judaism by those Jews who learned of it during their exile in Babylonia. The Pharisees made belief in the world to come central to their teachings, something their priestly opponents rejected as foreign.
Looking at Judaism in our own day, the role of women in Jewish life has greatly expanded not because Torah demanded it, but because the Women’s Movement became part of the mindset of most Jews and they demanded it.
To say that Judaism avoids change is false. To ignore the role the Jewish people play in changing their religion is to ignore how civilizations grow and survive. If priestly Judaism did not evolve into rabbinic Judaism there would be no Judaism at all. The fact that the rabbis insisted that they were simply applying the Oral Torah given to Moses alongside the Written Torah was a slick marketing move, but has no legitimacy outside the rabbis themselves—hence the rejection of the rabbinic innovations by their priestly competitors prior to the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE.
2. How can we ensure that in a hundred years or more there will still be Judaism or Jews if by that time we allow our morals and beliefs to eradicate all vestiges of what makes Judaism what it truly is and not some cheap, unsatisfying, self-help program? Your phrasing begs the question “what Judaism truly is,” but I understand and even share your concern. What will keep Judaism recognizably Jewish? Some would say that the only thing that keeps Judaism Jewish is that a people who call themselves Jews insist that it is. From a sociological viewpoint this may be true. I would like to add another element: Torah.
I think that any Judaism not linked to a creative reading of Torah is doomed. But as our rabbis have shown over the past 2000 years Torah can be read in many different ways to yield many different meanings and insights. Torah is a living document and must be read with deep creativity and imagination to uncover the layers of meaning needed in each generation. So what will make Judaism of the future authentic, the same thing that made the Judaisms of the past authentic: Torah and the Jews.
3. Liberal Judaism is fake Judaism that threatens to destroy authentic Judaism. The real challenge to Orthodoxy and tradition isn’t liberal Judaisms, but the rise of the sovereign self. With the coming of the modern period and now with postmodernism the individual (especially in the United States) is seen as supreme. It is becoming more and more difficult to subsume the individual into the group. We are encouraged to think for ourselves, to make moral and ethical decisions based on our individual consciences, etc. Community is more and more difficult to maintain. Can a Judaism that hopes to reach out to such highly individualized people impose law, or does it have to take another path?
It is too soon to answer this question, but the trend seems to be against halacha/Jewish law among nonOrthodox Jews. Even Conservative Jews pick and choose among the halachot, and often do so based on values that come from the secular world.
While I have no doubt that Orthodoxy will survive, it seems to do so only through greater and greater isolation from modernity. Orthodox Judaism will not (thankfully) go away, but it may (sadly) go the way of the Amish. We may admire their faith, but they are largely irrelevant to the lives of the most people.
This is my fear: that Judaism becomes irrelevant to Jews. Given that most Jews (90% if I am not mistaken) have rejected Orthodoxy, it isn’t too much of a stretch to say that Orthodoxy is irrelevant to most Jews. But, if you are correct (and you may be) that the Judaism that is immerging in a weak, self-indulgent, self-help program more geared to Jerry Springer than the Prophets we Jews are in trouble.
4. Liberal rabbis are fake rabbis who bastardize Judaism. I can only assume that “real rabbis” are Orthodox rabbis. Yet there are some Orthodox rabbis that other Orthodox rabbis consider equally fake. So how are we to decide who is the real rabbi?
If I am reading you correctly, the only real rabbi is one who rejects all change. If that is true, there are no real rabbis. Rabbinic Judaism was a radical departure from Priestly Judaism. Hillel and Akiva, to mention just two rabbis, were agents of change. And the Rambam (Moses Maimonides) even more so! The difference between these sages and some of today’s rabbis is that they insisted they were not doing what they were doing: making changes, and, in the case of Maimonides, applying the wisdom of non-Jewish cultures (Aristotelian to be specific) to Judaism. Today’s rabbinic creatives are more honest in their borrowings.
But, I too, have to cop to the notion of “fake rabbis.” There are rabbis, or people who call themselves rabbis, whom I would call “fake.” I make this distinction based on snobbishness: did they attend a yeshiva or seminary? Do they know and use Torah, Talmud, Zohar, Tanya in shaping their teachings? Are they rooted in Jewish history, tradition, and literature? No matter how innovative a rabbi may be, if they are linked strongly to these things I consider them authentic, even if I disagree with them. But if they are not so linked, I, too, fall into the trap of name-calling.
To opt for name calling as a first line of defense, however, suggests a weakness in your own argument. What could have been a fine discussion among thoughtful Jews becomes a silly spat between eight-year-olds. The only way we will know what impact rabbis (fake and otherwise) will have on Judaism is to wait and see. I imagine that if you shift your passion from attacking Jews to enriching Judaism, your Judaism will thrive. At least I hope so. In the end, as it has been throughout Jewish history, it is the Jews who will decide. They will determine what is Jewish, who is Jewish, who is a rabbi, etc.
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