Judaism Is Jews

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I notice that, online, people identify their "Judaism" with a laundry list of things they do (or say they do, or say that others should do). It validates them as Jews, or perhaps more correctly, real Jews, I suppose.

I also notice a growing trend amongst bloggers who are not O and take their Judaism seriously, to trot out laundry lists of what they do in order to justify their existence and validate their religious life as authentic. Recent posts by some non O bloggers suggest that the problem is not with O who will always be exclusive and triumphalist, but with the fact that there are those of us who actually care about what O thinks. And I mean the people, not the Torah or halacha or G-d.

I normally don't comment on other people's posts but this issue is close to my heart. Naomi Chana of Baraita gives reasons for not choosing Orthodoxy. And she doesn't understand why Jews other than O are still kowtowing to Orthodoxy as if it were the summit of the Jewish religion. I totally agree with her nice and reasonable observations and would like to add a few of my own, less measured though they are :

I think this hypervigilant consciousness of Orthodoxy is partially due to good PR. Just start a blog and if you, as a Jew, are remotely interested in O "observance", many will descend upon it to help you get over that "conversion" hump. If you are looking to convert, they will also descend and happen to forget to inform that Judaism encompasses more than just Orthodoxy. That plus the fact that if something is repeated a gazillion times, you too will believe. Then add to that the real PR juggernaut of outreach groups (I was sucked in by them at first), and a certain ideology gets a stranglehold and begins to dominate. It's enough to destabilise or disorient someone who may not be too sure of their choices or has just gone along with the way they were raised. Even if what they are being fed is not true!

This always reminds me of evangelicals preying on elderly, sick, lonely, uneducated and vulnerable Jews. Like the evangelicals, they "love bomb". Most of us need to belong to a community, and often we feel alienated, possess a fragile sense of belonging; when someone offers you a close-knit community, and gives you lots of attention, why would your heart not flutter a little?

Intellectual intimidation is common. Most Jews have not gone to yeshiva, most Jews will never know the ins and outs of halacha, are not professors of Judaism, most Jews don't argue for the sake of argument, a la the Talmud. Most Jews have trouble not being intimidated by services when there is Hebrew present. So, given those factors, and when the message pounded into you by O at every turn is that O is the only authentic Judaism, it is very easy to push that agenda. That brand of Judaism, sold through this sort of intimidation or bullying (sometimes inadvertently) guarantees that the other will crumble before your eyes and give in or give up. Or at the very least, be gripped with uncertainty and a huge sense of inferiority. It's a destabilising tactic, nothing more, nothing less, whether it is conscious or not. It's like being hypnotised, and people succumb. It works.

And then there is the biggest weapon of all- if you do not have confidence in your choices then it is easy for O to bring out the ultimate Holy Laundry List- that checklist of outward behaviour that includes or excludes you- keeping Shabbat and kosher scrupulously. It then becomes no longer about the religion, but about the lifestyle. And that's when Judaism becomes about Jews and not Torah, or G-d. It elevates tradition and lifestyle to a religion, at the expense of Jewish unity, and at the expense of humanity and common human decency. Often, I find myself asking if everyone is taking crazy pills. Wow, this is not the religion I signed up for.

In rebuttal, Out of Step Jew, whose blog I highly respect, tries to bridge some of the gap by ascertaining, since nc seems so "special", that is, meets a lot of the requirements set out by the Holy Laundry List, that she be treated like an honourary member and well, like a religious Jew worthy of respect. Clearly she has what it takes in terms of whatever combination of factors that allow for that respect . Even if she is not Orthodox. Wow. What does it take? To me it comes across as a little bit condescending even though I know the writer's heart was in the right place. Heck, if I were nc I would definitely take him up on his invitation to visit! But to me it is a symptom of the very concrete gap in realities- huge cognitive differences. One person's graciousness is another person's condescension. From my view, it's a nice attempt at rapprochement but totally on the writer's terms.

Until we get beyond communicating and, therefore, relating in the language of "observance" and "holy laundry lists" there is no way to bridge that gap, because we respectively speak a different language altogether. It is definitely not the language of true respect for a fellow Jew who takes their Judaism seriously. It is a grammar of requirements, in which speaking (living) the language of faith and Torah and striving hold little sway if the requirements are not stringently met or pursued.

Observance neither necessarily makes one a serious Jew or "religious".

...just because one is observant and keeps all of the ritual laws, that doesn’t make one a religious human being. A religious person is one who observes both the ritual and moral laws. Ritual observance alone doesn’t make one a religious individual. R' Muskin, Jewish Journal

I have met a lot of Jews serious about their religion in all movements. So, like nc who doesn't get why Jews in streams other than orthodoxy think O is the cat's pajamas, I don't get how anyone can take seriously the idea that there are so few serious religious Jews who happen not to be Orthodox. Perhaps it is because no serious Jew judges another on their level of "observance" or realness? Perhaps it is because that kind of loshon hara is not prevalent in non-O synagogues and so there is no telling, no list? I would hope that all "religious Jews" would be defined in terms of their pursuit of the mitzvot, in both observance and morality, and not in terms of some spurious authenticity. And to take it one step further- to recognise that while one cannot be "religious" without striving in observance neither can one be "serious" without being moral. Now that is a complete language we can all understand.