Judaism and social activism

Morgan writes:

Social action is important. But it's not inherently Jewish, so, almost by definition, Judaism can't survive by raising money for the hungry, saving the environment, or promoting "spay your pet" week.

I'm not sure I agree. Certainly the protest movement doesn't seem to have a lot in common with Judaism. But there are examples of zealotry throughout our texts (whether these things happened or not doesn't matter, they're still part of our tradition). Avraham is a great example. Aside from the midrashic examples of him taking a stand against his father's idolatry, he interceded with God on behalf of S'dom and went to war against the four kings, rescuing not just Lot, his nephew, but other people as well. Other examples (of varying palatability to modern sensibilities) are Shimon and Levi, Moshe, Pinchas, Eliyahu, and several incidents in the Purim story. So that's activism.

What about social justice, which is in essence the other half of the equation of "social activism"? Well, off-hand, let's see. There's tzedakah (charity), tikum olam (repairng the world), ba'al tashchit (don't waste), return of land in yovel (jubilee year, every 50 years), free produce in shmita (sabbatical year, every 7), pe'ah (leaving a corner of your field for the poor), kindness to widows and orphans, kindness to converts, kindness to animals, fair wages and treatment of employees. I'm sure I've missed some concepts, but to me, Judaism has always covered the basics of humanitarianism and environmentalism. Of course, there are conflicting messages -- it's really not clear if God is loving or vengeful -- but at the end of the day it's up to us how to interpret our patchwork tradition. I think it's a real shame that minute laws (like whether you can separate a bone from your fish on Shabbat) are viewed as more important than these major world issues.

I guess I feel that if that's how things remain, Judaism doesn't really deserve to survive. It only deserves to survive if it has something to offer the world. We're not an ohr l'goyim (light unto the nations) if we measure our success on how long our skirts are or how big our kippot are. We only deserve that title if we earn it by making a positive difference. Jews have contributed to many fields: arts, science, politics, economics. This will wane if the move to the right continues: we'll become a curiosity like the Amish and nothing more.

(Well, there's my dvar Torah for the year. Hope you enjoyed it!)

Judaism by numbers

This article by Douglas Rushkoff (from 2002) is really interesting.

Summary: Jews are too concerned about survival and not enough about Judaism. The best way to ensure Jewish continuity is to make it meaningful, not obsess over intermarriage rates.

Continuity

An argument that OJ apologists often throw at skeptics is that we must stay frum in order to keep our tradition alive. If you "frei out", become secular, it's a slippery slope down to them being even worse: prostitutes, or Christians or something.

I find this argument flawed on a number of levels.

Firstly: the slippery slope argument is not really valid. In some cases, sure, successive generations become less and less religious. Some of my family members are from very assimilated backgrounds. But I have seen so many families where the kids are much frummer than the parents: it's part of the general move to the right, and the success of the kiruv clowns. At the end of the day, though, people make their own choices. They're influenced by what their parents did, but there are many other factors at play, so it's not correct to predict that kids will be less connected than parents. And of course once you're looking at tradition, rather than religion, it's easy to see that many families keep the tradition without being strictly halachic -- and have for generations.

Secondly, and more selfishly: I don't believe in the underlying premises of Judaism. I think there are many positive aspects of it, and I would like to pass those on to my daughter (and any other children we may have). But I'm certainly not going to bend over backwards to force her into a system that I myself don't believe in, and that it would be a struggle for me to indoctrinate her in. It's like trying to make your kid eat broccoli if you don't like it: eventually it's going to become clear that you were being a little hypocritical about it.

Once you don't believe, Jewish continuity is a different beast. Instead of maintaining our link to Sinai and moving forwards towards Mashiach, for me all it is now is a link to heritage. Tradition is important. It's cool to belong to a group of people with ancient origins, and to still follow some of the traditions (well, versions of them). But ultimately I'm going to put my happiness, and my family's happiness first. If my daughter wanted to marry someone non-Jewish, I wouldn't be sitting shiva.

Our tradition is only valuable subjectively. It's not worth keeping just because our ancestors did it. To me, it's only worth keeping if we gain something positive from it. And if in 1000 years, it dies off because no one care anymore, I think it will be sad, but not tragic. I'd love it to be there (preferably in an improved form) but if it wasn't, I'd point to the flaws in the system rather than guilt-tripping individuals.

Show me the way

I got an email from one of my rabanim from yeshiva today. Not "my" rav, but one I liked very much. It was just a short note, but it really took me back to those days. I took TMS for granted then. I was cementing my MO philosophy (which isn't what I grew up with) and learning, filing away details and processes and putting the halachic system together in my head. I loved it. And I felt like I could ask the rabanim anything. I was innocent. I didn't have any difficult questions to ask. My toughest questions were "Can I wear pants?" and "Will I need a hatarat nedarim to stop keeping chalav Yisrael?"

On a good day, I'm confident in my skepticism and I know it's the right move. But on a day like today, when I'm tired after work and agnosticism isn't very comforting, I wish I could email my rav, or better yet, call him, and tell him what's been on my mind. Of course, I also wish that he had all the answers to my questions. That's when I remember that there are no answers, so there's no point.

It's a pretty depressing train of thought. Maybe, though, I'm not really looking for answers. Maybe what I'm looking for is mentorship, which is something I haven't really had since those days. Maybe I should email Richard Dawkins.

The truth is, though, I'm done with having people tell me what to think. So even though I might want a mentor, I don't need one. I have to grow up and go it alone.*

Related

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* Of course, I can cheat and soundboard off TO, but we're at the same stage, so that's not the same as mentorship.

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