Yes, but what sort of Jew?
Two interesting articles over at JewsbyChoice: From Yair in the the North Woods – Why I Am Not a Reform Jew – Even if I Get the Magazine…; And from Yankel the Chabadnik: My Little Shul Part 1.
The whole politics of who is and who isn’t a Jew, or who is and who isn’t a “real convert”… this interests me greatly. These articles also address a love-hate relationship. Both writers are in places where they have problems. I’m interested in why.
Yair addresses some common issue that even Orthodox Christians might understand – about choice and Tradition. “Judaism is not a personal spiritual practice, self-help program, or monastic tradition. Although elements of the Tradition speak to all of these, Judaism has always been about community.”
Yankel hits on the idea of exclusivism – which reaches a fevered pitch in Chabad –
Then of course, there is the whole Neshamah thing, and this is the issue i find most distressing. The Tanya is a central text for the Chabad-Lubavitch movement. It was written by the first Lubavitcher Rebbe, Schneer Zalman of Liadi in 1797, and is the central text of Chabad-Lubavitch spirituality. The Tanya has many deep and lovely things in it. But a central aspect of Tanya is the belief that Jews have unique souls. The souls of Jews are directly connected with God in a way that the souls of other people are not. Thus Jews have a special connectedness with God that other peoples do not and cannot have. This is the deepest meaning of being the “Chosen People.” That God placed in us a unique Jewish soul, and it is this unique Jewish soul that makes it possible for us to serve God in the way he chose us to serve him.According to this belief, when a Jew does a mitzvah the universe in some way changes fundamentally. Some darkness in this lower world is transformed to light by a Jew’s performance of a mitzvah.
Minus the Chosen-Jew issue there is an odd parallel with Orthodox Christian teaching. Think of the line, “Acquire the Holy Spirit and thousands around you will be saved.” It is a very Orthodox idea that the average person being Holy makes the whole world holier – makes it easier for everyone else to be holy.
Both that both writers are some place where they are slightly (or more?) unhappy – and yet stay there – is, for me, an example of faithfulness that I couldn’t live up to…
Category: JBC?, Judaism, orthoparadoxy
Discussion: You came too late to this party
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I have heard it said that Orthodoxy is the most Jewish part of Christianity.
St. Paul might have agreed somewhat with the “unique” soul part. This might, in part, explain his comments in Romans about we being “grafted in” to the Jewish vine. That is, in order to save us God had to make us Jews in more than just name alone. Ultimately, however, Jesus is the only true Jew, and St. John (writing later than St. Paul) quotes Jesus as saying that he himself is the vine and everyone else is a (grafted-in) branch, even his Jewish apostles.
Hmm. I don’t know, Fr E. The Chabad idea *seems* to be some sort of Reincarnation idea, or Origen’s pre-existing souls. The idea has already come in in my own conversations where, reading my own journey, someone has opined that I “have a Jewish soul”. Um… gack.