Summer Message #2 Why Be Jewish?

Dear Friends,
We have chosen to wrap the Panim Hadashot High Holiday program around a theme: Why Be Jewish? The High Holidays is a time when Jews gather. The traditional format is to pray most or all of the days. But one of the big breakdowns in modern Jewish life is the connection of the Jew to the traditional prayers. So our experiment is based on gathering Jews to study and converse on Jewish themes as an alternative path to marking these special holidays. The theme of Why be Jewish? gets to the heart of the matter. How do we ground a commitment to living a Jewish life, of expressing a positive Jewish identity? Do the traditional answers to this question make sense? Are there new answers to this question? During the summer months I will reflect on the question in this blog. I welcome comments and thoughts and hope you will join us in examining this question when we gather on Rosh Hashannah and Yom Kippur.

Leon Wieseltier wrote a beautiful little book in the 90s called Against Identity. It is aphoristic in format and is filled with profound observations on identity and contemporary culture. Over the next few entries I would like to share some of the most thought provoking passages and relate it to our question.

This passage is found on page 25. "Kierkegaard said that it is easier for somebody who is not a Christian to become a Christian than it is for somebody who is a Christian to become a Christian. I am always at a disadvantage toward my own tradition. I am not only quickened by my intimacy with what I have been given, I am also dulled by it. I lack the wakefulness of the stranger. I should conduct myself toward the tradition to which I have fallen heir like an actor who has played a scene poorly: I should go out and come in again."

It has certainly been my experience working with converts that it is easier for somebody who is not a Jew to become a Jew than it is for somebody who is a Jew to become a Jew. Now this might sound shocking, given that Judaism carries a whole lot more cultural baggage (specific language, land, ethnicity). But I think the observation makes sense from the perspective of motivation. It is now commonplace to see Jews by Choice show much more fervor and interest in Judaism than their born Jewish partners. It is also common to find Jews either complacent or alienated about their legacy. Adulthood is a second chance for Jews to go out and come in again.

This is the basis of asking the question of Why be Jewish? To some the question makes no sense at all. Some of us feel Jewish to the bone and have never felt the need to articulate the question, much less answer it. But we no longer have singular identies and affiliations. Many ways of being tug at us. So what does the Jewish 'piece' have to add to who we are? Does the Judaism of my childhood make any sense in adulthood? If I did not get much Judaism in my childhood, what does it have to add to my adulthood?

Wieseltier adds on page 27: "To know about a thing that is yours is to know little about it." I think this is true of Jews today. It was true of Jews (Israelites) in the Exodus. God picks a stranger to lead them out of Egypt. So maybe the solution today is to make ourselves strangers temporarily to our own tradition to reassess its importance in our lives.

Judaism greatly emphasizes Kavanah-intention and purity of heart. Posing the question of Why be Jewish? restores the possibility of kavanah to living a Jewish life. Intentionality lifts up our acts and our values to a higher level. That is why the question is appropriate on the Days of Awe when we seek to move our lives to a higher level.

Shalom, Rabbi Dov Gartenberg6-18-06