I recently read Rodger Kamenetz's book The Jew in the Lotus, a poet's observations, thoughts, and experiences with a delegation of Jews who met the Dalai Lama in India in 1990 to share with His Holiness the secrets of Jewish survival in the Diaspora. The Dalai Lama, faced with living in exile from his native Tibet and leading a people and religion so far from home, looked to the Jews as an example of a strong, hearty people who have not only survived but thrived in nearly 2,000 years of exile from Israel.
Among the many topics that were brought up by the delegates - which included religious and educated Jews from every corner of Judaism - Jewish mysticism was talked about at length. Though the Jewish man who served as the expert on Kabbala admitted it was not a widely-used aspect of the religion, his presentation unearthed many points of connection and similarity between Jewish mysticism and Buddhism. It seems, at least when looking at it from a purely mystical point of view, that the two religions are not so far apart.
Within an hour of reading the last page of The Jew in the Lotus, I pressed "Play" on a movie that perhaps should have been given to the Dalai Lama as a gift: The Fiddler on the Roof. What other piece of art so vividly depicts Jewish survival? And though most Jews today find no use for the confining rabbinic Judaism of an early 20th-century Russian shtetl, there is no doubt in my mind that Tevye's traditions are precisely what has maintained Judaism, at least throughout a significant portion of its existence in the Diaspora.
But after reading discussions of mysticism in Tibet and watching Tevye celebrating, contemplating, and even questioning Tradition, I began seriously considering the nature of Judaism and this dichotomy between the spirituality of Kabbala and the rationalist Judaism of Anatevka.
I fall among the population of Jews who have heard about Kabbala and know some of the ideas in it but am otherwise ignorant of this rich dimension of Judaism. In fact, I think this book alone has increased my knowledge and understanding of it three-fold. Admittedly, though, the structure of modern Judaism itself is not entirely to blame; I have never really sought mysticism, never felt a need for it in my life, never significantly questioned what lies outside the here and now. Judaism has always been a religion of pragmatic action for me, one which does not demand meditation or soul-searching. That is not to say that the religion doesn't make room for such spiritual introspection, but that it hasn't needed to be a part of my religious life in order for me to consider myself a Jew. I suppose I just identify more with Tevye than Buddha.
To be blatantly honest, I have always been skeptical about mysticism of any sort. I've never really discounted it, but I certainly didn't understand it well enough to give it any credence or bear it any mind. My limited experience with spiritually-minded people have led me to label them as benign hippies without a solid footing on earth, searching for something that may or may not be there while potentially ignoring reality. This wasn't a life I wanted to lead and I felt I had everything I really needed in the traditions with which I was raised. Any questions Judaism couldn't ask I would figure out on my own.
But I am undoubtedly the product of the traditional Judaism that has, throughout the last couple hundred years, been distinctly removed from Kabbalistic Judaism. In fact, some great Rabbis have forbidden the intense study of the esoteric before the age of 40, fearing that if a person (or more specifically, man) did not have a strong basis in Jewish law and rabbinic teachings then he could fall prey to misunderstanding and misuse of Kabbala's powerful teachings. Though the age limit is rather arbitrary now, this belief might have been a contributing factor to why much of Judaism seems to ignore Kabbala.
On the other hand, there are the Chassidic Orthodox Jews who follow the teachings of an 18th-century Rabbi known as the Baal Shem Tov. Chassidic Orthodoxy has put much more of an emphasis on mysticism and spirituality in Judaism, integrating aspects of Kabbala into its teachings and practices. For them, Kabbala is not something to be kept secret, but it is still used carefully and is firmly couched in rationalist Judaism.
Of course, the history of Rabbinic and Kabbalistic Judaism and their current relationship is much more complicated than all of this, but the observation stands: Today's Western Judiasm does not greatly advertise its own esoteric. And even though I'm personally okay with that, I wonder how many Jews have been missing out on being Jewish just because rabbinic Judaism didn't speak to them.
As Fiddler on the Roof so poignantly portrayed, sometimes Judaism suffers from a little too much tradition, making it challenging and sometimes near impossible for people to move around within the confines of generations' worth of a "This is how my parents did it" philosophy. Tevye's daughters, each wanting something a little more modern, a little more daring, a little more free, showed how this type of traditional Jewish lifestyle can be incredibly stifling.
Even now, over a century later, that problem still exists. Certainly the Reform and Conservative movements have done a lot to give Jews an outlet for creativity and modernity while still holding on to Jewish values and roots, but The Jew in the Lotus does bring up the idea of Jewish renewal - either actively modifying religious practice or simply allowing it to happen in order to increase its significance in an ever-changing world. Upon reading that I thought "Judaism? Change? But what would happen if it does?" Then I realized how silly that sounded and began to consider instead how Judaism might change and what those changes would mean for us as a people.
Anyone who suggests that today's traditional Judaism is exactly the same as 2,000 years ago is, quite simply, wrong. Even those who think that traditional Orthodox Jews are living just as their role models were five hundred years ago are wrong. If we were to somehow remove ourselves from this time and look at modern Judaism in the context of our history, we'd find that we have shifted a great deal, for better or for worse.
I've already mentioned that most of the Jews in Israel are not religiously inclined. The majority are secular people with a Jewish education, living in a secular country with religious laws. When you're surrounded by so many of your own ilk, when you're not the minority as Judaism is throughout the world, it's easy for the Old World traditions and customs to be ignored. After all, what use are they in a place where we don't have to distinguish ourselves from anyone else in order to survive? Perhaps, then, it is here, in Israel, where this Jewish renewal must take place. For if we are to continue into the future as the Dalai Lama suspects we shall, we need to make Judaism mean something for every one of us, whether it's rationalistic, esoteric, or something altogether different.
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