BB,
my last post wasn't very serious. I was trying to be as hippyish as possible by blending yiddishisms with words that have been adopted by new age like "karma", "gaia", also a good reference to Deut, and my declaration that all I really want to do is sing, along with some very grandiose statements about what this time and place means. The internet just isn't the place for humor. Oh well...
I actually had figured you somewhat to the left of mainstream Orthodoxy based on some thing's you'd said which I cannot recall. And there is definitely room to argue a number of groups are "leading edge." I don't think we can really know what the leading edge is until we've grown beyond it. In retrospect, it all becomes clearer. When it comes to interfaith, a small group that I think is doing amazing things, particularly in their approach, is The Tent of Abraham, Hagar, and Sarah. I honestly don't know how much of a difference this website does make, but as it is a website, I would imagine it is minimal.
I can understand your interest in using instruments that have been traditionally Jewish, but I would question how they became Jewish, and why other instruments cannot become Jewish in the same way, or similar ways as global communication expands. The hasidim find great significance in the violin, yet there were no violins in Israel. And this would be my question when it comes to most issues of integrating foreign practice, including reformatting mitzvot set by chazal, such as replacing maariv with meditation. Or even mitzvot set by the Torah.
But I think that there are many approaches and one of the things I am wrestling with right now is how to find balance between tradition and innovation without being held back by the tradition, but instead doing as I believe our ancestors did, and continuing to birth it in a new stage of development. I, however, think Renewal is moving away from the time of breaking away from the old ways of doing things to a sustained time of building roots, where innovation will be slower and will have more to do with building foundation, so that from that ground more creation outward can take place, and greater wrestling.
Dauer
my last post wasn't very serious. I was trying to be as hippyish as possible by blending yiddishisms with words that have been adopted by new age like "karma", "gaia", also a good reference to Deut, and my declaration that all I really want to do is sing, along with some very grandiose statements about what this time and place means. The internet just isn't the place for humor. Oh well...
I actually had figured you somewhat to the left of mainstream Orthodoxy based on some thing's you'd said which I cannot recall. And there is definitely room to argue a number of groups are "leading edge." I don't think we can really know what the leading edge is until we've grown beyond it. In retrospect, it all becomes clearer. When it comes to interfaith, a small group that I think is doing amazing things, particularly in their approach, is The Tent of Abraham, Hagar, and Sarah. I honestly don't know how much of a difference this website does make, but as it is a website, I would imagine it is minimal.
I can understand your interest in using instruments that have been traditionally Jewish, but I would question how they became Jewish, and why other instruments cannot become Jewish in the same way, or similar ways as global communication expands. The hasidim find great significance in the violin, yet there were no violins in Israel. And this would be my question when it comes to most issues of integrating foreign practice, including reformatting mitzvot set by chazal, such as replacing maariv with meditation. Or even mitzvot set by the Torah.
But I think that there are many approaches and one of the things I am wrestling with right now is how to find balance between tradition and innovation without being held back by the tradition, but instead doing as I believe our ancestors did, and continuing to birth it in a new stage of development. I, however, think Renewal is moving away from the time of breaking away from the old ways of doing things to a sustained time of building roots, where innovation will be slower and will have more to do with building foundation, so that from that ground more creation outward can take place, and greater wrestling.
Dauer