Really long version crossposted at Crystal Decadenz
I predicted that about eleven o’clock was the latest I could show up Saturday in time for Kaddish, but of course I got in a little early, right before the Torah reading. I looked at my watch and decided next week I could come in half an hour later.
I don’t know when it happened. I used to like going to services. But suddenly—sometime during Musaf—I just got so depressed. Nobody ever seemed to react to the services as seriously as I often did. Whatever other people see in the synagogue—and what I used to see—isn’t there so much these days. I thought I could fix that by learning the rhyme and reason to the services, but that only brought attention to the fact that no one else knew why they were doing the calisthenics.
My Torah partner just told me that she thinks Judaism should be more centralized and institutionalized, but despite any political or pragmatic appeal she sees in that, I have to disagree. If you ask me, keeping it the way it is now (which I see as quite institutionalized already), it encourages us to rely too much on packaged answers when we don’t really need to.
For example, in my synagogue, the rabbi always leads every Shabbat service and every minyan and gives every d’var Torah. And so therefore people have come to think that you need a rabbi for every event; that they can’t do it themselves. That’s centralized.
Lately, I’ve been interested in the trend toward post-denominationalism:
Over the last decade and more, social scientists of American life have been writing about the decline of long-standing attachments to political parties, commercial brands, and religious denominations…[W]e find clusters of highly engaged Jews who may be labeled trans-denominational, post-denominational [whose institutions] speak to new signs of vitality and creativity in Jewish life, albeit often at the expense of the Conservative Movement. [Steven M. Cohen]
Previously, as an almost visceral reaction, I’d probably bemoan this break from affiliation: “Obviously everyone’s becoming non-committal! Judaism’s dying!” But let me ask you something. What’s good about our strict denominational lines, besides having a convenient category for your general observance level, give or take? And never mind altogether if your theology fits but your observance level doesn’t!
Part of the problem is that there are very few places that offer Jews an opportunity to experience the power and mystery of Jewish tradition firsthand. [Even people who are in-married] are dependent on others to translate Judaism for them, and they trudge to High Holiday services to receive the requisite “Be good!” sermons, only to return to their lives unchallenged and unchanged. [Elie Kaufner]
I see this. There’s no dialogue. We have Judaism classes here, but they’re on things like the history of the Omer and the wars of Israel. Now, in my synagogue’s case, that’s probably fine for the older people who aren’t really interested in learning about things that are applicable now, but there are 1,000 Jews in my town (the rabbi said so)—at least some of them must want to know. We’ve also had enough focus already on the cultural aspects which, not intuitively, seem to focus on the negative—”Seinfeld and guilt”, as Kaufner writes. We’re ultimately giving the wrong answer to the question: “Why be Jewish?” We’re giving the easy answer.
We’re starting to recognize that we desperately need to move past a post-Holocaust survivalist mentality—but aren’t really sure how. To some, Judaism’s still a private embarrassment, if only due to their parents’ rote, detached, “It’s not worth it but I like some of the songs” approach. Bringing serious intellectual engagement to Judaism is a hard task:
Take young Jews returning from Birthright Israel. After a 10-day trip, they have been opened to the possibility that there is real substance in Judaism. But upon returning home, they have no clear educational option. They want to learn Hebrew, but there are not enough high-quality Hebrew classes. They are interested in basic Jewish knowledge, but are unable to connect to synagogues…So what do Birthright alumni do? They get funded to have beer nights, ski trips and at best a Shabbat dinner (with no intellectual or traditional content necessary or encouraged). Because their enthusiasm for deeper Jewish engagement has no substantial outlet, it eventually fades away. [Kaufner]
We can’t rely on the mainline institutions to do it for us. “We do not have the luxury of assuming that Jews will feel engaged in the Jewish tradition just by experiencing a few inspiring programs. Jews must become self-directed translators of the Jewish tradition — for themselves and their peers,” writes Kaufner. We need the tools to recognize whether our own communities need to change. We must be able to support ourselves with knowledge of halacha and tradition; not a faceless monolith’s attempt to preserve the status quo—satisfied that we wouldn’t know enough to question—under the guise of its own interpretation of halacha or tradition.
Judaism is yours. It’s mine. My Judaism tends to resemble The Jewish Catalog, and maybe yours has a bigger emphasis on the role of the rabbi and the synagogue. But the minute you give it to someone else to live out for you, you’ve forfeited it.
