bananabrain
awkward squadnik
where this falls down is in the implication is that judaism is basically about self-actualisation. if that were the case then i feel it would be a very different religion. judaism must include an element of command, of obligation, both to ourselves, to our ancestors and our descendants, as well as to the keneset yisra'el and the wider world. it would be a mistake to reduce it to merely another philosophy of personal development - although it is undeniably able to act as such. to put the individual, rather than the community or the Divine at the centre is a peculiarly western, post-enlightenment chauvinism. in traditional judaism, the self has little meaning without a community and a nation attached. who can be a jew by themself?[texts that]continue to have great potential to aid human beings in their quest for personal growth, empowerment, and healing
as, i note, has been done many times even within the "four cubits of the Law"those elements that are historically limited and need to be transcended.
and there's the rub. who is this "we" and what is its authority to do so? of course, we've talked about this a lot already and i am satisfied that there is, at least at senior levels, some feeling of reluctance to change merely for the sake of change.[We will] decide what to draw on and what to leave behind.
and what of the hester ha-panim? is it saying that people working in renewal have ruah ha-qodesh? is there any discipline attached to this, as it is in traditional nistar?Among our guides to interpretation of Torah [is] our own direct experience of the Divine.
now here i am in 100% agreement - with the proviso that not all spiritual traditions are equally valid - but i am sure you're not suggesting that the "secret doctrine" of scientology counts as one of these....We are committed to consult with other spiritual traditions, sharing with them what we have found in our concerned research and trying out what we have learned from them, to see whether it enhances the special truths of the Jewish path.
yeah, i guess that's my own "show me the money" - i could quibble with the semantics till the cows come home, but as long as the interpretations aren't too "woo-woo" (as my wife is fond of putting it) i will be quite happy with seeing renewal as a sort of religious r&d lab - the hesed in the sefirot of the jewish people.I can't say that I disagree with anything there, although I might certainly disagree with some interpretations of what has been presented..
i suspected as much, which of course is reassuring!I'd say that on some level, there actually is a lesser degree of authority and sacredness, because none of the stuff Jewish Renewal is doing right now would, afaik, anyone begin to think of as canon.
it is, for me, logically quite acceptable to generate appropriate new aggadah - if we are willing to adapt the halakhah to reflect emerging knowledge - up to a point, that is.I was just reading an article by a Jewish shaman about journeying up through the top of an aron kodesh to meet with the matriarchs and receive wisdom about women's spirituality that had been lost. It's not something I would readily buy into, but it is something that I would fully support.
i'm trying to express the nuances of my view.This seems to me to conflict with how you had been speaking earlier.
yes!Reform and Conservative Judaism have used approaches to halachah which are not valid according to halachah, Reform on a regular basis. Are you making a distinction between halachic Judaism and rabbinic Judaism?
because i think it gets at the heart of why i still see reform and conservative as jewish. i cannot in conscience turn round and exclude them from klal yisra'el - nobody who has really spent time in them and engaged with them, as i did until my mid-twenties, could fail to see what was jewish about them, even if i find it difficult to put it into words. the fact that they may hold heretical points of view doesn't stop them being jewish for me. i might disagree, but the fact is that r. meir still learned Torah from r. elisha ben abuya. that's how i understand it. hinuch - education - is our highest value and for the sake of both sides that is why the conversation must continue.Why?
again, i don't have a problem calling renewal in itself jewish. it's obviously jewish - even if some specific applications and positions i might have a problem with or think of as heretical. recon i have encountered very little, so it's hard to say, but i've not seen anything which would put it in the same camp as, say, jews for jesus.I guess I don't see the point in calling, Reform for example, rabbinic, unless of course we include both Jewish Renewal and Recon. What makes Reform rabbinic that would disqualify something else?
no, it's not a proof that the she-be-al peh (Oral Law) that we have is definitely the exact same she-be-al peh they had at the time of the Written Torah, but i still haven't seen proof that there was another. what is surely clear is that there must have *been* a she-be-al peh, so the question is whether the one we have is that one and, if i may appeal to the "occam's razor" principle, in the absence of another entity, i would suggest that we have a de facto winner, ladies and gentlemen. at any rate it's reasonable enough for me.IIRC, we started talking about marriage because you offered it as proof of oral torah (the fact that the written Torah doesn't explain a ceremony.) All I'm doing is using the tools at my disposal to show that it's not actually a proof.
well, i guess that's kind of the point. the rabbis didn't (and still don't) prohibit marriage with karaites (all 2000 of them that are left) so clearly they're still jewish "enough", despite being heretics. that doesn't mean it's an approach one should encourage. and, as far as goddess worship is concerned, the closest it has been determined that it is possible to get is the vocabulary and symbolism of the Shechinah and the partzufim.What's so un-Jewish about karaites and goddess worshippers (assuming that the goddess worshippers don't view this goddess as one of a pair?)
well, the sages were obviously able to cope with that, whilst hardly approving.not to mention helenizers who really aren't so different from most Jews today.
you see, this is where you and i would have a major disagreement. if we are not even monotheists, what is there left there for us to understand as jewish? now i can't understand the distinction *you're* making - if we can be comfortable with polytheism or idolatry, why can't we think of a human as somehow an incarnation of the Divine too? for me you are departing from the idea of kodesh - the very word for holiness which implies *separation* - between the OK and the not-OK. if we are unable to make this separation we are not acting as a) moral beings or b) beings with free will - in other words, it's back to the garden: free will is about the understanding that confers ability to choose between good and evil, without which there is no sin. for me, if you ditch the ability to make distinctions, you are ditching teshuvah as well and the concept of acting as a human being.Granted, I do think there are some people who are going to get off on pre-monotheistic Judaism, and I'm not sure there's anything wrong with that. There are also going to be Jews who see Jesus as something like a rebbe and I'm not sure there's anything wrong with that either (although once any type of divinity comes into play I'd certainly call it crossing the line.)
now that's quite interesting - i suppose we could argue that there were always *some* people who remained relatively faithful, like the levites in egypt.So who is to say that the prophets were speaking about all of the people? If I was God and I was sending someone to address the people, I would send that individual to address the wrong-doers.
because it's so defining. it's like christianity without jesus, or islam without muhammad.And while we're on this subject, what's the big deal with maintaining the practice of idolatry? As far as I can tell, the problem is not letting go of an old paradigm in order to embrace the new one.
if it *must* be justified (and in this case it must) then we must come up with a way for us to justify it to ourselves. in a similar way, when my wife and i were discussing taharat ha-mishpachah, we had to come up with a rationale that justified the discipline - and we did: that of personal space.Just because something can't be justified rationally doesn't mean it must be justified supernaturally.
in which case, you legislate the crap out of it so it becomes practical, as was done with the death penalty. amalek is actually a good example - although we've legislated the crap out of it so we can't define anyone as amalek any more, the law remains as an instructive paradigm; what to do if there is an evil so evil that we cannot tolerate it in any form.Some things may not be justifiable, or may need some adjustment in order to be justified.
i need both the robust systematic thought and the connection, otherwise i am merely me'aseh without being me-shem'a.It wasn't just "evidence of robust systematic thought." It was something much more. So I want to bring back that same sort of connection. Thus, renewal becomes an important factor in determining how I will approach Jewish life.
i'm saying it's excessively literal in judging what actually happened, which is illogical, given that you have just questioned the veracity and accuracy of the Text. moreover, to judge those standards of behaviour by what is in effect modern human rights law is contextually inappropriate.Are you saying that I'm being excessively literal and contextually inappropriate or that you are?
i am saying that objectivity can't be proved. nothing can. therefore only subjectivity remains and all subjectivity is open to a charge of relativism.Are you saying that possibly relativism is all that we have?
On the use of modern methods of literary analysis on scripture as well as the incorporation of archaeology and etc:
Me: This is valid and can be holy work.
BB: It is not.
i'd say rather that it's not valid for judging how we ought to behave or interpret. it's interesting - but it can never be authoritative because it definitively discounts and rules out the possibility of anything beyond the rational and scientific, which i consider to be unreasonable. apply the same principles to art and music and see what you end up with.
i'd say that syncretism is all very well, but jews are not allowed to practise it. the study of comparative religion and interfaith dialogue need not lead to syncretism, nor does it require anything beyond a meta-language.BB: Syncretism is too risky.
Me: We can use syncretism to enhance Judaism by considering the universal truths revealed in other religions, but we also need to be wary of taking in any of the specific, cultural stuff that surrounds the real fruit.
without the element of command and obligation, it is hard to see the point of all this stuff.On mitzvah:
BB: God is the Commander behind the mitzvah.
Me: I cannot relate to the idea of God being the Commander behind a finite revelation. Mitzvah for me is much more like a guide to spiritual practice.
bob, poh - i'm glad you're enjoying the thread!
b'shalom
bananabrain