Jewish Musings Monday 12/19

[hollygail]

What’s on your mind — how to make kugel? This week’s Torah reading? Life goals? Prayer? We are all engaged in weight loss/weight maintenance journeys and we are all Jewish or at least interested in Judaism. We like to eat, we like to discuss. It is our goal here to provide each other support on our journeys, to share experiences, to call on our rich cultural heritage and texts, and to help each other grow spiritually.

Some of us take weekly turns starting the thread:

Angelika
Holly
Lee
Louise
Lynne
Peachy

[hollygail]

I was inspired by certain comments yesterday not exactly about assimilation per se, but about interpretation or how to live in a predominantly non-Jewish society. I went looking for some articles more scholarly than I am. Here's one by Orthodox Rabbi Irving Greenburg. (Tomorrow, a different perspective.)

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www.myjewishlearning.com/article/defining-hanukkah-pluralism/#

Defining Hanukkah: Pluralism

Hanukkah represents the struggle to follow one's values and religion in a pluralistic world that often demands uniformity.

By Rabbi Irving Greenberg

The Chasidim (pious ones) referred to in this article comprised a group of Jews known for their loyalty to traditional non-Hellenistic Judaism around the time of the Maccabees. There is no relationship between these Chasidim and the much later Eastern European movement that developed in the second half of the eighteenth century.

from The Jewish Way: Living the Holidays

The question is: What model of Hanukkah can speak to this generation? Several important issues in Hanukkah’s origins remain central in contemporary culture.

One theme is the clash of the universal with the particular. Hellenism saw itself as the universal human culture, open to all. But Mattathias, Judah Maccabee, and the brave people who saved Judaism were not fighting for a pluralist Judea. They were fighting against the state’s enforcement of Hellenist worship because they believed it was a betrayal of Israel’s covenant with God. When, after decades of fighting, they liberated Jerusalem and purified the Temple, they established a state in which Jews could worship God in the right way — not in just any way [remember: Rabbi Greenburg's words, not mine]. Hanukkah is not a model for total separation of church and state.

On the other hand, the Maccabee victory saved particularist Judaism. It preserved the stubborn Jewish insistence on "doing their own thing" religiously; never mind the claims of universalism that only if all are citizens of one world and one faith will there truly be one humanity. By not disappearing, Jews have continued to force the world — down to this day — to accept the limits of centralization. Jewish existence has been a continued stumbling block to whatever political philosophy, religion, or economic system has claimed the right to abolish all distinctions for "the higher good of humanity." Since the centralizing forces often turned oppressive or obliterated local cultures and dignity, this Jewish resistance to homogenization has been a blessing to humanity and a continuing source of religious pluralism for everybody, not just the Jews.

In this time, too, many universal cultures — Marxism and Communism, triumphalist Christianity, certain forms of liberalism and radicalism, fascism, even monolithic Americanism — have demanded that Jews dissolve and become part of humankind. All these philosophies have claimed that Jews can depend on their principles and structures to provide for Jewish rights. The Maccabee revolution made clear that a universalism that denies the rights of the particular to exist is inherently totalitarian and will end up oppressing people in the name of one humanity.

Universalism must surrender its overweening demands and accept the universalism of pluralism. Only when the world admits that oneness comes out of particular existences, linked through over-arching unities, will it escape the inner dynamics of conformity that add to repression and cruelty.

Those stubborn Chasidim raised a subtle issue of political existence and religious truth that is only coming into its own in the 20th century. Ultimately, the touchstone of human survival will be the ability of people with passionately held beliefs and absolute commitments to allow for pluralism. National peace will turn on the capacity of groups organized around values to allow the inherent dignity of the other into their own structures. How to achieve this respect without surrendering to indifference or group selfishness is the great challenge.

On Hanukkah, Jews celebrate that challenge and affirm the Jewish determination never again to let universal rhetoric ("to make the world safe for...") cripple the Jews’ right to defend themselves. On Hanukkah, Jews urge humankind to take responsibility for the varieties and multiforms of human life. Hanukkah is also a profoundly Zionist holiday, for it asserts the right of politically self-determined existence for each group.

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Comments?

[lee058]

Good morning everybody. Hope you are all well today. I liked today's reading because it echoed some feelings I have had about interactions with various universalists of the left-leaning "Coexist" type. Some of them have been blatantly anti-Jewish, under the guise of wanting everyone to get rid of what makes individuals "different." Others have even asked me WHY we Jews won't just accept what has become ordinary ways of living (i.e., semi-Christianity with a dose of modern paganism). For the former, I'm thinking specifically of political groups that see Zionism as evil or wrong. For the latter, some people are just so --- how can I put this --- absorbed by their own "in-tune-ness" with the way most people live that they don't know how to put themselves in other people's shoes if they are different (and they definitely see Jews as different, if we don't want to be ordinary). I realize this must sound very ill-defined, but I hope you will understand what I mean.

Anyway, I have another busy day ahead of me, but I will be back. Have a peaceful day, Lee

[savtele]

Boker Tov All! I just finished reading yesterday's thread - good discussion! I came here early in the AM yesterday - there was nothing here but the opener, went away for a while, and then our power went down. Fortunately we have a good supply of wood, the fire burned nicely, the house was warm, & today we have lights again! I'll be going to the pool - I'm feeling decidedly "house-bound" from all the snow, and main roads are open again.

When I was growing up there was much talk of "the American melting-pot," as if we were some sort of stew that cooks for so long that the parsnips & potatoes become indistinguishable. All while distinctly Irish, Italian, Jewish & German neighborhoods rubbed elbows in the cities. We lived outside Santa Cruz, CA, where my dad was going to school, on a culdesac with only 2 neighbors - the Italian couple next door, and the students next to them. The Italians provided vegetables to all of us (and probably kept the students from starving) & taught us about home-made ricotta & mozzarella, and the students taught us about rock 'n' roll. Odd assimilation, I admit!

I suppose ANY type of Orthodoxy or Fundamentalism, by definition, MUST be intolerant of change - at least on paper. If what is being taught are the very Words/writings of G-d, then humans dare not make any changes. IRL, there must be an openness to interpretation, otherwise we would all still be baking our bread over an open fire & tossing an olive-sized bit into the fire with a blessing. (no doubt there are bakeries that do this)

I always remember a friend from the Philippines, years ago, exclaiming: This country is so colorful! She was talking about skin, hair & eye color - in her country, skin is brown, hair is black & eyes are brown. But it fits for everything. Whether a sheitel, hijab, or sari - I have options, based on my personal beliefs or preferences. And if my belief-system changes, at this time it is illegal for my relatives to physically punish me (although that is a grey area - I'm certain more of this goes on than the news reports to us)

So if, in a neighborhood of lights on every roof & bush, my house displays a menorah in the window - that is my expression. Then again, if the neighborhood association mandates some sort of "holiday lights" because we are on a "lights circuit" where people drive by in droves every single night, I might have to come up with something more inventive. (I do not live in such a neighborhood) Stars-along-the-roof-line? Dreidels-on-a-bush? However, if they were to mandate that I put up a manger-scene or a sleigh with reindeer in the front yard - I would have to fight them on it.

It's raining, the snow is melting. I'm heading to the pool, then to run some errands - John dug my car out of the snow yesterday. I'm happy to be getting out!

Have a good day everyone!

[louise]

While we have shades of agreement there is something of a superior tone to this that puts me off (Holly, I think you are responding similarly by pointing out that "in which Jews could worship God in the right way" (— not in just any way remember: Rabbi Greenburg's words, not mine.)" When he's more on the track of "Only when the world admits that oneness comes out of particular existences, linked through over-arching unities, will it escape the inner dynamics of conformity that add to repression and cruelty." and the like I think he is well spoken. I am not very political and do not claim to understand the goings on in Israel but the power of the Haridi over the people is to me a case in point of particularism run amuck.

[happysavta]

It's easy to say that universalism must yield to pluralism when you're sitting in the U.S. or Israel. But go try that line of thought in Iran or in Syria and good luck to you.

[lee058]

Hi again. Hope you have all been having a good day. Reading everyone's comments makes me think --- again --- how lucky I am to be living in the USA. If my grandparents and great-grandparents hadn't had the guts to come here, I probably would never have been born. I'm glad to be here and glad to be able to talk about my thoughts and feelings!

Nothing to add at the moment to my previous comments, but if I think of anything before bedtime, I'll write something. Otherwise, see you tomorrow and have a peaceful night.

[louise]

Did everybody hear about the Cuisinart recall of some blades? Mine is one of the ones; they are sending me a replacement. Cuisinarts from 1996-2015 with 4 rivets on the blade may be in the problem group. recall.cuisinart.com/