Halachic Cool

A huge shout out to Z and her fine post, with a fine title, Halachically Illegitimate (wish I'd thought of it! heh.). A great companion piece to the one below.

The social scientist in me can't help but wonder things, like, why is it that converts need to be caught in the crossfire in the ideological warfare between Jews? In my experience, people are not necessarily sensitive to converts, either, no matter what Torah and halacha say. In fact, some people think that converts have no right to criticise what occurs among Jews, or even think. I find converts are an easy target. From a psychoanalytic standpoint, it's comforting to place a red string around our respective or collective necks and send us off into the wilderness.

But I also think that converts stand at the fulcrum of our internecine wars, and Jewish identity. Whither go the converts, so goes the Jewish people. Because how you treat a convert affiliated with whichever stream, shows what defines you as a Jew (and that goes for converts, too); more importantly, it shows what you feel and think about other Jews who are not like you. And so, it predicts for you the future of the Jewish people- united or wretched or confused or stuck or dead, or disappeared from the face of the earth.

Perusing the J-blogs yesterday, I came across a comment from someone who said he would never marry anyone who is a convert other than one who is Orthodox. He felt that Orthodoxy was the only way to churn out legitimate Jewry. And, by the way, he stressed that he was secular. So, I wonder, what does Orthodoxy represent to him? I'm thinking, legitimacy. Ethnic legitimacy.

Moreover, in discussing The Law of Return, it became clear that for some, Orthodox conversion is viewed as a way to confer citizenship, never mind, the only way. There is no mention of religion, merely of conversion as a mechanism. And only one mechanism is the legitimate mechanism. The fact that people convert to any religion because they believe and experience certain things does not seem to enter into the equation.

It would be hypocritical to convert in a manner not consistent with one's beliefs, conscience, and sense of integrity. Or to attach oneself to something for the sake of acceptance and validation. I wouldn't want a new Jew like that. Yet this is something that is completely dismissed by the front for tribal triumphalism- bigotry, by any other name. Belief doesn't enter into it. Even if you don't believe in Torah miSinai (that Torah and Oral Torah are directly from G-d), implicitly, that is not the issue. Acceptance of and submission to a lifestyle is paramount. If you do not accept/submit, then you cannot become a Jew. Which means that similarly, the only thing left for born Jews, many of whom do not believe in Torah miSinai, nor accept/submit to the Orthodox lifestyle, is their legitimacy through ethnicity- that they were born to a Jewish mother.

So what do some Jews do in order to determine which potential converts will accept/submit? They turn the conversion process into an elitist boot camp. Make it tough. Survival is paramount. Ya gotta be nail-hard to be a Jew. If you can't stand the heat get out of the kitchen. Weed out the religious wimps because halacha is tough even though we don't necessarily follow it ourselves, because after all Jews are flawed human beings like anyone else. But of course, converts have to be superhuman. Even if they are only looking for a home and not barracks.

I found this swaggering stance surprisingly prevalent among some young, hip Orthodox adults on the net who hope to bring tender, disaffected or uninformed, impressionable young Jews into the fold. You know, show them a good time, bring them home, feed them, turn them on to new music, party with them, show them that being a Jew can be a happenin' contemporaneous experience, that it's cool to be a Jew. This explains to me why some males have taken to wearing baseball caps instead of kippot. How that shows reverence for G-d I don't know, but I guess you could call it Jewish cool.

When challenged about tzniut (modesty) in posting decidedly untzniut-like pictures (and you don't have to be Jewish to find them offensive), the response was surprising. I naïvely was under the impression that if you publicly assert and support Orthodoxy (or are any kind of religiously devout Jew), then the obvious answer to posting soft porn on a website is a no-brainer- you comport yourself with modesty. This was halacha that the posters chose to transgress, for reasons I don't get, unless coolness supersedes halacha.

Orthodoxy for some of the young and passionate, it seems, has become a way to affiliate with a weighty tradition, that to them, confers cultural and ethnic identity and, especially, status. (Kinda like O is 'Boston old money' v non-O, the 'nouveau riche', and the 'carpetbaggers'.) All this, without addressing the religious work or the roots of Jewishness which are religious. Just like our secular Jew. Or addressing it on their own terms, in choosing which mitzvot to work on, just like non-Orthodox Jews, yet without giving up the perceived status. Where religion and peoplehood have become mutually exclusive, and where, when push comes to shove, ethnicity supersedes religion. You don't have to go to a good school to be elitist any longer. Nor really be devoted. Just religiously civilised. The Diaspora cuts deep.

They will shoot from the hip: "I think you're a nice person and all and I would invite you for Shabbat, no sweat, but I won't marry you because your rabbis don't agree with mine". As if that were logical, and not subject to challenge. And as if that is kind or thoughtfully presented. If they get really pissed they will say, who cares about how religious you are, you haven't passed the tribal test, to which my rabbis, who happen to be Orthodox, hold the key. In other words, you don't possess the pedigree. Can you produce papers?

What is our future? It seems that in terms of some young Orthodox, not much has changed except perhaps the stance- very macho (and really amazingly foulmouthed). Yet, for all their fine words, and desire to unite all Jews, they continue to be enamoured of an era 200 years ago, when Judaism became changed and institutionalised in a new way, but not for their forebearers. It also resembles the unconscious stance of survivors of war.

What I see is transgenerational fear and transgenerational fantasy, none of it original. It happens all the time, in the young and in the more mature. And when in doubt, show the converts how tough you are. It's more punk than cool. And more bigoted than authentic. Rather disappointing; I was hoping for...well, hope. Meanwhile, is that a red string I see before me?

I certainly don't see all of Orthodoxy in that light. After all, some of my best friends are Orthodox. Still, those described above have some influence and they may be some of our future leaders. I'm only hoping that there will be substance behind the seduction. A novel substance, removed from transgenerational obsession with survival. A substance that desires to be something fresh and new. That truly has a shot at unity, because oneness is what matters more than all the differences and hierarchies. I think that takes imaginative genius, released from the past, like an arrow, released from its bow. A genius of the humble sort. Now that would be really cool.