(cont’d)
to return to the halakhic dynamic, it therefore seems necessary to conclude that the physical observance of halakhot is contingent upon the will of the inner self, which provides the obligation, as well as the meaning attached to this observance. location of my specific observances within the mystical frameworks of judaism can, for me, be summed up in the traditional formula
leShem yihud Qudsha Brich Hu u’Shekhinteh, of whose meaning you may be aware. although i can and do appreciate and support explanations of halakhic practices that are underpinned by rationalism, social idealism, ethics, community development, ethnic solidarity and personal mastery, all
mitzvoth must have an inner dimension that emerges with the correct degree of mindfulness and, in the final analysis, they are dependent upon this for the obligation to continue to be both meaningful and immediate. thus one can throw up all the arguments one likes about circumcision, whether they are spurious popular superstitions about hygiene or clinical statistics about the incidence of stds within different ethnic groups, but what is really operating here is a dynamic of Divine commandment, which is made meaningful by the symbolic and anagogic integrity of the specific observance within the system. however, the ancillary practices which surround the mitzvah, which operate according to the principle of ‘keeping a fence around the law’ – these need not, i believe, necessarily be observed to a universal level of strictness to the degree that is becoming unpleasantly common.
that for me, is the aim of many of our ‘born-again’ (“outreach”) organisations and its effect is, i believe, harmful to the longterm health of our judgemental faculties, whilst, of course, providing gainful employment for an increasing number of professional rabbis. the more lawyers that are trained, the more legislation will emerge for them to concern themselves with. i believe the jewish community is currently resorting to severe methods in order to deal with the sheer volume of religious bureaucracy which are harming our ability to think for ourselves. the all-encompassing methodology of jewish observance peddled by organisations such as the publishers artscroll may make it easy to simply follow instructions, but there is a cost in critical thinking and spiritual nuance. drowning in halakhic red tape, we have no time to think about the inner meaning as we plough through the enormous ‘minimums’ required. one might almost conclude that keeping up is made intentionally difficult in order to keep us in thrall to the judgement of the ‘professionals’. many of these organisations, incidentally, seem to encourage the perception that, without years of study in the right yeshiva, one is barely entitled to exercise one’s own judgement. i believe that judaism did not survive by suppressing dissent and perpetuating monolithic, monopolistic philosophies. not for nothing do people refer to artscroll as “micro$oft judaism” – certainly its publications are dominant, market-leading, widely-available and easily accessible, but they tend to get carried away with their own comprehensiveness and simplicity of outlook. theology is stated as a given when, in fact, much of this is based upon aggadic interpretation. however,
aggadah is open to multiple positions; there is not generally one that is considered to be correct, unlike in the case of halakhah.
there are some people, for example, that believe, more or less, that moses had
peyot (earlocks) and studied in yeshiva. obviously, it is possible to spot midrash that is meant to be illustrative or symbolic rather than literal *without being any less true for that*. the literalist position, unfortunately, has fossilised many of our aggadic interpretations and as a result certain positions are taken to be theologically
de rigueur when historically they can be clearly shown to have been nothing of the sort.
my journey towards a traditional, mystically powered theology was thrown into sharp relief by my interfaith activities. how can you be a jew to other people without knowing what that means for yourself? how can you address questions about judaism without knowing something about the tradition? i was always being asked “what do jews believe about x?”, so i began to feel the need for a comprehensive statement of theology. the best place to look turned out to be the classic statement – maimonides’ “thirteen principles of faith”. controversial at the time (other rabbis thought he was being too categorical) i eventually realised that what he had done was find the thirteen things in judaism that rely on faith alone – you *have* to believe them, because there’s no way you can *prove* them, nor can they be derived from other teachings. these thirteen (rather than the ten commandments) are the basic axioms from which all other teachings in judaism can be directly derived and they can be found in various places on the web – i recommend wikipedia or ou.org:
OU: Torah Resources
Jewish principles of faith - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
however, they are a pretty short list. nowhere is it explicitly stated, for example, that the Torah we are obliged to believe was given
min ha-shamayim contained vowels – an insight which i gained after being challenged on it here at CR by bob_x, in the thread “tilting at windmills”. many key texts, in particular bereshit rabbah, allude to the fluid nature of the primordial Torah. the devil, as it were, is in the details. jewish theology is meant to be like this. one is not obliged to believe the cosmology of the zohar any more than one is obliged to agree with yehuda ha-levi in the kuzari that ‘G!D forbid that there should be anything in the Torah which contradicts reason.’ theological maximalism drives a hardening of attitudes and underpins a growing lack of halakhic flexibility. a generation ago, the then chief rabbi, lord jakobovits, with the head of the federation beth din, were accustomed to going to the royal opera house. no longer is this the case, as nowadays the
kol isha (prohibition of men hearing the female singing voice) standards of gateshead and me’ah shearim are enforced in mainstream orthodoxy. practically speaking, this means my band can’t perform at most orthodox synagogues because we have a female singer – yet the canon of traditional sephardic song was clearly developed for and by women. the position of my own rav – that kol isha is only a consideration in a liturgical setting, which is adhered to in practice in the mainstream sephardic world – is seen as being dangerously liberal, when in fact it is the prevailing opinion that is not only obsessively hardline but utterly inappropriate for the community that the ruling is supposed to serve. this creeping ‘haredisation’ of the mainstream is bolstered by the dominant publications and organisations, which draw their strength and values from the yeshiva world. not that this would necessarily be a bad thing – except for the fact that they seem to expect everyone to do things the same way as them and see things the same way. and their motivations are not at all the same, as anyone who studies them will gradually understand. not that they’re bad motivations, necessarily – i just don’t think that people would sign up to them if they were explicitly set out.
at the end of the day, theology, like everything else, seems to come down to trust. the first sentence of the tractate
‘avot, (‘ethics of the fathers’) in the Mishnah, describes the transmission of the chain of tradition – G!D to moses, moses to joshua and so on all the way down to the writers of the Mishnah. if we don’t believe this transmission was correctly done, we cannot trust that the tradition we have received is correct. likewise, from my perspective in the 21st century, if i don’t trust the tradition i was transmitted by my teachers, i must find a chain of tradition that i can. i believe this is the same whatever one’s field. in science, one must believe in the purity of motive and scientific credibility of the work upon which one’s own work is based. when i get into a car or an aeroplane, i am exercising trust in the method by which these machines are designed, built and operated. scientists will claim that their methods and principles are borne out by the evidence. i too feel i can claim that the survival of judaism in more or less the same form it has had for the last two millennia at least is evidence that the tradition was transmitted correctly and that this tradition included an element of sustainable design. the fact that it has survived proves to me that it was sustainable. the fact that people whose learning and motives i trust are willing to sign up to this system is evidence of its integrity. if those people found it impossible to sustain their belief i believe i would have a challenge on my own hands – just as it is apparently difficult for people to trust reputable scientists or even disreputable politicians when deciding whether they believe in climate change. one must examine not only the evidence, but one’s own judgement and value system. if one cannot trust one’s teachers, if one suspects their motives or those of the teachers that taught them, it must be very difficulty to believe anything at all, whether we are talking about scientific principles or religious ones. the sages understood this issue of credibility very well, as can be shown by the following tale:
trust is a much ignored ingredient of belief. but, when it comes down to it, there are people whose motives and knowledge i trust, as well as those who fail to inspire my trust on either or both counts. the inner, experiential knowledge of what resonates with me may be subjective rather than scientifically verifiable, but it seems to resonate with a whole bunch of other people that i trust. religion is nothing if not a people-centred issue and a G!D who cannot inspire belief – as well as followers who themselves inspire trust – does not deserve my trust. i may not always find it easy to understand or act in accordance with the message, but as long as i feel i can trust the messenger, or the system by which the messages are designed, encoded and transmitted, i can believe that the message is one that reflects the ultimate truth of the Infinite Divine.
b'shalom
bananabrain
