Two Immodest Proposal for Humanistic Judaism

Dennis P. Geller, Ph.D.

What if anything is unique and special about the Jews? Some will consider this a dangerous, even a racist question, but I think it need not be. Let's begin by distancing ourselves from the common (and incorrect) understanding of the concept of the "chosen people," or indeed from any use of that term at all. We're certainly not going to claim any innate superiority, either genetic or cultural.

• Leo Tolstoy asked, "What is a Jew" Let us see what kind of peculiar creature the Jew is, which all the rulers and all the nations have together and separately abused and molested, oppressed and persecuted, trampled and butchered, burned and hanged.? He answers in part, "The Jew is the pioneer of liberty" The Jew is the pioneer of civilization"The Jew is the emblem of civil and religious toleration.
• John Stuart Mill wrote, "The Jews"had an absolute monarchy [like other Oriental people] " but neither their kings nor their priests ever obtained " the exclusive moulding of their character. Their religion "gave existence to an inestimably precious unorganized institution -- the Order (if it may be so termed) of Prophets". [who] kept up, in that little corner of the earth, the antagonism of influences which is the only real security for continued progress. Religion was consequently not there what is has been in so many other places "a barrier against further improvement.?
• Princess Alice, granddaughter of Victoria, said "I would particularly commend the great humanitarian work of the Jewish women [in Canada]. It is carried on without fear or prejudice. No question of race or religion is allowed to intervene.?
• Eustace Haydon, the head of the Department of Comparative Religion at the University of Chicago wrote in 1940, with perhaps excessive optimism, "It would be too bad if in the great union of humanity which is coming, the Jew who has advocated Justice, righteousness, love and brotherhood, join hands with the Christian and the great human family emerge, if we were then all lost in a great common monotone. It should really be a mosaic, a unity of culture, of mind, of ideal, of program, but each of us with his Individuality and each group with its own distinctive cultural quality. And the only way you can accomplish that is by maintaining the educational program which will preserve not only the pride, but also the learning, the understanding, the appreciation of what Judaism has been and of what the Jew has contributed in philosophy, in literature, in social idealism.

No, my purpose is to consider what we,as Humanistic Jews, can connect to in our religious and cultural traditions. Not merely the latkes and the chocolate covered matzos. What is there that is quintessentially Jewish that we can adopt and transform?

I believe that this adoption and transformation must be among our most sacred -- if I may use that phrase --goals as a Movement.As an anti-doctrinal branch of a non-doctrinal religion, we do indeed have a few important doctrines. Among these is our oft-repeated observation (and defense) that Jewish history has always been characterized by adaptation and change. With a few understandable exceptions, we see Jewish history as a long sweep from the rural Canaanite semi-nomads through the conquering confederacy, the Monarchy, exile and return, theocracy, Diaspora and adaptation to a dozen different environments, on to the Enlightenment and the secular revolution. We see -- or we should see -- our movement as the keepers of this flame: despite our relatively small size and general lack of strong ambitions, we know that the best model of physical and spiritual reality is one without superstitions and magical deities; we know that if Judaism as a culture is to survive (as other than a quaint exhibit in some anthropological guided tour) it must come to grips with those realities and flower within them.

It is a characteristic of our current stage of development that we do not know precisely how to distill an essence of future Judaism from the many blossoms of the past. I propose that one way to approach this question is to ask what from our past stands out as being valuable to us and to the world, and how we can carry it/them with us. Another approach is to ask what have we historically done to maintain ourselves, and how do those strategies apply to our current situation, where for so many Jews the danger is not prejudice or destruction but merely lack of mission and of any sense of relevance.

What have Jews done in the past that enabled them to survive? One obvious answer revolves around the Jewish commitment to learning.  It is hard to say what this might have been in the earliest days, before the United Monarchy. But we can make some guesses. We are, after all, of the people who invented alphabetic writing. We are of a people whose most basic literature contains references and adoptions of literature that was written in far older civilizations. It is clear from studies of the Hebrew Bible that the text came from many different sources, which tells us that writing -- together with either individual reading or pubic reading -- was an important way that people communicated cultural information. We have seals and inscriptions and the famous engraving in the Siloam tunnel, quite possible engraved by the diggers themselves in the time of King Hezekiah. Later still we have remnants from the literarily fertile Second Temple period, in which long allegorical novels were written to make political and philosophical arguments. These writings include the Dead Sea Scrolls found at Qumran.

But it is really after the Diaspora that the Jews became the people of the book. "The book? was not the Hebrew Bible but the Talmud and other rabbinic literature. Suffice it to say that this was not beach reading. Jews were the people of the book because of their focused engagement with the Talmud, itself the record of commentary on the Torah. It was that centuries-long engagement with the text that kept Jews together as a people and made their religion capable of adapting to the pressures and opportunities of the evolving world around them. Alas, scholars such as Maimonides and Joseph Caro recognized how complex the layers of commentary had become and, not realizing that it was the process of commenting and not the words themselves that was important, codified the laws they felt to be essential. Armed with such a code the average Jew had no need to participate in, or even encourage, the process, and Judaism stagnated.

The product of that process, and the content of the codes of behavior, is what we call Halakhah. Halakhah comes from the Hebrew Holeakh -- to walk. So the Jew walks the walk (and talks the talk). Jewish Halakhah is very different from notions of the path found in Daoism or the eightfold way of Buddhism. Jews believed that their books contained instructions for behavior and, for the more mystical, secrets of the universe. I was their task to understand those instructions and follow them, in letter and in spirit.

It would be simplistic to say that this is the only means by which Jews and Jewish culture survived, but until the 19^th century it is not too far off the mark. Afterward, some Jews began putting their intellectual and spiritual energy into secular   matters. They moved into the professions as soon as they were able, and it is no reflection on anyone else to note that they -- we -- have contributed out of all proportion to our numbers. Consider only one measure: Jews and persons of Jewish ancestry have been awarded 22% of all Nobel prizes -- and 36% of all those awarded to Americans. One can hardly say that living in the secular world has dampened our ability to make important contributions. When I was younger it was fashionable to believe that the successes of the first generation of immigrant children in the U.S. were due to their Yeshiva educations, which they carried with them as they entered into their professional life.But in light of the successes of later generations that argument does not pan out -- it swas just a form, I think, of fear of change and guilt about abandoning the religion. I don't know what it is in our history, culture, traditions that has enabled us to contribute so much to the world, but I would hate to lose it.

Whatever that "it" is, surely it is more than merely reading books.Most of us read incessantly -- either for work or recreationally, or both. We think that education is a Jewish value, and perhaps it is, but education isn't "it.?  Jews did more than read, in the comfort (of discomfort) of their homes. For them reading had a purpose -- to tease out the truths and deep secrets from the word of god.  The books they began with were the books of the Hebrew Bible -- folk tales, allegories, histories and a relatively small percentage of boring details about how to build a temple and what to do with lepers.

What could we do as a community to build into our lives something like that focused text study? I think this is not an easy question. But I will make a proposal. I would propose that we adopt one book a year for the entire congregation to read. This mimics a program that originated in Seattle, Washington and has been copied in many other municipalities, including Brookline. In choosing its book Brookline also chose a theme -- the immigrant experience -- so that children too young to read the selected book could read something related, and therefore be part of the experience.  We would, I think, want to be equally inclusive. We'd supplement the reading with Sunday and Shabbat programs, small book discussion groups, and perhaps other activities. For Kahal B'raira -- perhaps if our experience is good for the entire movement  -- this shared experience might well serve many of the functions, in a way appropriate to our needs and beliefs, as the study of Talmud and Torah did centuries ago.

Another characteristic of Jews throughout the ages has been the shared sense of what it meant to be a Jew.  In contrast with other religions, Judaism was not about belief. The Catechism of the Roman Catholic Church begins with Section 1, called Profession of Faith. It starts "We begin our profession of faith by saying: ’'I believe' or 'We believe.'" This section alone runs for more than 100 pages. There is really nothing like this huge proscriptive compendium in Judaism. Of course most Jews at a particular time had a common set of beliefs, but our equivalent of the Catechism is not about what to believe -- it is about what to do. Some scholars even suggest that Spinoza was not excommunicated because of his radical beliefs, but rather because he stopped practicing Halakhah.

It is said that there are 613 mitzvot, but not all lists of 613 are exactly the same. The number 613 is a traditional number, and different commentators have come up with different commandments to fill out their lists. Among the mitzvot are many that are irrelevant today -- they concern Temple practice, or involve customs such as slavery, or are about the adjudication of civil or criminal law, which Jews no longer handle for themselves. Others are considered binding only in Israel -- these involve agriculture, not planting during the Sabbatical year, tithing, feeding and housing the Levites.

The remainder come in two flavors  -- affirmative and prohibitive.  A very few are tenets of the religion -- about the unity and uniqueness of god. But many are, as has been observed often, good practices for leading an ethical life in a community. Of course, even these are aimed fairly far from our own society. They would commanded us to always lend at interest to the non-Jew and always without interest to the Jew. We are told never to claim eating utensils as the pledge for a loan. And so on. Seems pretty remote from our lives.

But it was the genius of the rabbinic era to build upon these, and the other six hundred and ten, to answer important questions about ethics and behavior in their changing societies. Can we not do the same?

For example, there is a commandment "Not to give occasion to the simple-minded to stumble on the road.? It has both literal and allegorical meanings. It does indeed mean to avoid the kind of negligence that allows others to be injured. It also tells us not to lead into sin those who do not know better. Both are importantr precepts, easily derivable from Humanistic principlescoming to us through our heritage. Is it important that these principles are found in dusty tomes of Halakhah? What has Halakhah to do with us?

I submit to you that it is our intentional acts that mark us as Jews and as Humanists. There are places in the Talmud where the Rabbis discuss whether it is necessary for one to intend to perform a commandment for the commandment to be considered performed. Here's one:

This discussion continues through a number of fine points and then wanders into other arenas. But for us I think the matter is simpler. To get credit -- and surely the credit that is important is how we each measure our own actions -- for a deed it needs to be intentional. It is our choices as intelligent beings that matter, not such accidents as we may be involved in unknowingly.

I would not suggest that we should carry a copy of the Shulchan Aruch, with the theistic portions blacked out, to guide our actions. I believe that in most cases we know how to act so as to consider ourselves to be moral and caring beings. To be a humanist means that we act humanistically through habit and reflection -- not that we have a Cliff's notes to refer to. The tenets of Humanism are few and straightforward -- even a child can do it.

But, I also suspect that we often don't get or take credit for the many ways -- often creative ones -- in which we fulfill our own "commandments.  Here's a personal example: I do wish it were possible to observe the Shabbat in the way intended in Halakhah. The descriptions in literature sound so lovely and life-affirming.  Sadly I at least can't get off the treadmill for that long. But I do make a point of spending the hour between 12 and 1 every Saturday listening to "Wait, Wait -- Don't Tell Me.? I hadn't thought of it as more than a guilty pleasure before, but I realize that this hour serves, for me , some of the purposes of Shabbat. A different example: In some offices cans and bottles are recycled and the proceeds go to some charity. Is this not an example of the commandment  "To leave the gleanings for the poor?? Another commandment directs us "To discuss the departure from  Egypt on the first night of Passover.? Are we not also doing that on other days, when we explain to our children  how political actions here or abroad  can support, or decrease, liberty,  or when we take them to a Peace Rally on the Common?

I think the point is clear.  Each of us takes deliberate actions that are, in fact, in keeping with the ethical spirit of Halakhah.  True, we don't do this because it is Halakhah, but because it is right.  But viewing and discussing these actions within the framework of Halakhah can  help us better understand the strengths and beauties of the Jewish traditions that we would like to maintain and modernize.   And, let's face it, we can all use some appreciation for the many things that we each do  to make the world a better place.

So I would, finally, propose that from time to time we get together to share the creative ways that we have found to meet the challenges of Halakhah. Here are a few of the commandments that you might discover that you already perform in a modern and creative, but no less important, way. I think that this might grow into a very special and very moving way of combining our heritage with our beliefs and bringing forth a new synthesis for a new form of Judaism