The Paradigm is Cracking

With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,

Last night after a pair of classes at the Temple I came home and read the Responsa assignments for our "Jewish Issues" class. A "responsa" is a rabbinic assembly's consideration of a question put to it by someone regarding Jewish life. In Reform Judaism, Responsa do not hold the force of law, but are considered informed opinions about situations that are meant to offer guidance to local congregations.
One of our reading assignments/discussion topics involves Jews who convert to Christianity, apostasy & synagogue honors. I read this and felt for all "sides". Conscience, faith, and belief on an individual level is always in tension with "group". I remembered another responsa I had read some years ago now on the question of whether or not a Zen Buddhist priest could become a member of a Temple congregation. The responsa declared he or she could not. The issue hung on the assumptions around "ordination" viz-a-viz role conflict with rabbis and the potential "confusion" an ordained Zen Buddhist priest might cause the general public by being a member of a Jewish congregation. Also included were notes about yoga. It is permissible to practice yoga, but not to support and teach the underlying assumptions of the practice. I saw this as smoke on the one hand, and very revealing on the other hand. In reading this I was reminded that recently I was made aware that my own status as a Zen priest will affect and (I assume) limit, my activities on the bema (the place where the official religious stuff happens).

The question is where does the individual stand. With what community? Judaism lives and dies through community. We are "the people Israel" with the same or similar assumptions and connotations as any tribal organization. Subtle questions lurk under the surface: is this person a 'real Jew? Is this person here to convert us? Such questions arise from an old paradigm of place/group defined community. Its limits are being breached millions of times a day, stretching the model to a breaking point.

We Jews are a rebellious bunch, always asking uncomfortable, out of the box questions. How does Rabbinic Judaism address a very aware, individualistic, post-modern, mobile, seeking, and informed populace? Of what real value are rabbis when any member of the tribe can (and often do) lead services and perform ceremonies? Everyone fancies himself/herself the director of his/her own spiritual destiny. Nearly the entire literature of Judaism is on the Internet for anyone to study deeply and fully. We are now a highly mobile society with fewer and fewer strong links to a geographical place-point. Where, exactly, does community reside? Herein resides the real problem for modern Judaism, Reform Judaism included.

Such questions and choices are getting a lot of play in the media. According to a piece reported on CBS's "Good Morning" program, our society seeks to be 'spiritual,' defines itself as spiritual as opposed to 'religious', and notes that a significant portion of the population investigates Eastern methods of practice. The responsa I cited above even notes the value of such investigations, but quickly adds there are "Jewish" models for these practices. I think that is code for 1. if a Jew does it, its Jewish, and 2. if its Jewish its under the auspices of rabbinic Judaism. While at one point in our cultural life this might have been true, it is not so today. People do what they do, have the legal and moral right to do so, and Rabbinic Judaism must relate, adapt, or wither away as arcane relics of another time.

The truth is, alternative spiritual explorations and mind/body practices are re-vitalizing religion in America. Yoga, meditation, Zen, Mindfulness, Reiki, hypnotherapy, running and walking clubs, vegetarianism and related health foci on food, are all being brought to bear on the quest for a sense of spiritual connection, satisfaction, and, perhaps, awakening. Spirituality is being more rightly understood as a holistic event and not a particularized one. Stilted old models which are adapted without flexibility will fail under an informed, awake, and aware eye of this vastly interconnected and interdependent era.

I am a Jew. I am a Zen Buddhist priest. I am neither and both: I am a child of the universe.

Be well.