levite

Yeah, I learned in studying the history of the Protestant Reformation that supposedly one of the primary goals was to wrest back from the Church the ability of each person to interpret scripture on his own. Which, I think, accounts for why I was so astonished when I then went and began talking with Protestants, almost all of whom I encountered told me quite seriously that they would never think of contradicting their pastor if they were ever to deeply disagree with him about scripture: they would just move to a different church.

But as for your own struggle for self-integrity with the existence of the divine: I respect struggle. And I respect intellect, and the work of autodidacticism. And I believe very strongly that it is not my business what other people believe in or do not believe in, so long as I and the rest of my people (and everyone else) is not so compelled to believe or disbelieve. And I'm certainly not one of those fundamentalist yahoos who thinks that you can't be a good person unless you believe in God (which inevitably means, "believe the same thing I do"). If you live ethically, I really can't see why I should be bothered by what you do or don't believe.

A fine question, but, I think, too broad. I would not say that the Torah is (simply) right, because that implies (to my mind, at least) that I might think it was The Truth and The Way for everyone, or, even worse, that it might be "perfect."

It is also key to understand that when it comes to the Written Torah (the canon of the Hebrew Scriptures) no Jew could say that it was, alone and of itself, "right." The Torah is not meant to be either read or used in isolation. Torah (and now I use the word in the sense that the Rabbis of the Talmud and the later rabbis use it) includes not only the canonized scripture, but the Midrash (the collected exegetical works of the Rabbis), the Talmud, and the rest of Rabbinic literature, plus the commentaries, interpretations, midrashim, Kabbalistic works, theological works and philosophical works, that have been composed since the time of the Second Temple-- possibly as far back as since the time of Ezra the Prophet-- and which continue to be composed today, and into tomorrow. This we call the Oral Torah, in that the uttermost roots of the exegetical and halakhic processes are said to go back to Sinai. But all agree that one cannot understand or use the Written Torah without the Oral Torah. Thus, when I speak of Torah, I am speaking of both the Written and the Oral Torah, with everything that encompasses.

I believe that the Torah represents the best attempts by the Jewish people-- including some prophets who wrote much of it-- to set into formalized writing not only our national mythos (in the anthropological sense of the term) but also our revelatory experiences over the centuries, to gain some kind of overall picture of what we perceive God is asking of us. I do think that God and the Children of Israel have a unique relationship, but to my mind, special does not equal exclusive or superior. I would imagine, although I cannot say for certain, that God has unique relationships with many peoples, and has special plans for them also, and has demanded special and unique things of them, too.

In part what I have come to cherish about Judaism (of which Torah is at the core) is that it is the hereditary, communal efforts of my people to try and best work out our side of the relationship with God. In other words, it's not something static, which can be judged "right and perfect" in a certain form; rather, Torah represents a transgenerational conversation between all the Jewish people, from Sinai to the end of the world, and God. This conversation is an evolving refinement both of our understanding of God, and of the techniques that will work for bringing our spiritual awarenesses closer to awareness of God, and also of our moral and ethical understandings, as we evolve halakhah (Jewish Law) into forms that remain applicable to the daily lives of Jews, over the course of centuries.

In part, I have come to believe what I believe because, having come to believe in God, it is then not unreasonable for me to believe that God has plans for people and the world. And in service of that notion, I believe that it is a person's first, best choice to embrace the traditional, ancestral, hereditary system of religious/spiritual discipline into which they were born or raised, in that there is probably a reason why they were born into such a tradition, and if the tradition has problems, perhaps it will be they who find solutions, and if the tradition has wisdom unknown to outsiders, perhaps it will be they who disseminate it. Which is not to say I don't make room for the possibility that people may simply be so unhappy and disillusioned with the problems they perceive in their own traditional systems that they feel they must go elsewhere. I am sympathetic to that, and I certainly wouldn't say it's forbidden. But I also think that people who reject their traditional systems often do so without fully exploring the possibilities for improving, repairing, reinterpreting, or re-understanding that tradition, whatever it may be. But in any case, to some degree, I am a Jew because I believe that, for whatever reason, God appears to want me to be a Jew. And Jews believe in Torah. That is one of the things that defines Jewish identity.

But also, as I mentioned before, having come to believe in God, my preference was to live within the bounds of a system that offered me support and guidance both in living an ethical life, and in raising my spiritual awareness. One can, certainly, do those things on one's own, but in my experience (having many friends who choose to do so) it seems that one often ends up re-inventing the wheel, so to speak. Obviously, if one embraces a religious tradition, one must educate oneself deeply, and look carefully and critically at what is being passed down: some things will be fine as is, some will require nuanced re-interpretation, and occasionally, some things require very radical re-interpretation. But overall, the primary purpose of a religious tradition is to collect centuries' worth of people saying "we tried to draw closer to God; the following things seemed to work for us; perhaps they will work for you also." In other words, tradition is an attempt to spare each individual in the community from having to re-invent the wheel, spiritually speaking. Having decided to work within a system, I then looked around to determine which system of religious thought seemed to me to possess both the ring of authenticity (functionally, I mean, not theologically, although still a completely subjective criterion, I know) but also a spiritual dynamism represented by evolving tradition and thought, and by flexibility inherent to the system, and by a true lack of hierarchical authority. To my mind, Judaism was the system that best defined those characteristics, and I believe it does so because that is Torah.

I do not wish to disrespect your father in any way, shape, or form. But to my mind, someone that educated who is struggling with evolution (for example) is struggling with fundamentalism. If we were discussing Judaism, a struggle with the idea of evolution would only be found in Orthodoxy, and almost entirely in the center and right wing of Orthodoxy, not the left wing, "Modern Orthodoxy." But then, this may simply be an issue I have with Christianity. I try very hard not to judge Christianity, because I am simply not learned enough in Christian thought for me to have any basis upon which to found such audacity. But I confess, I do not understand how Christians deal with sacred text. To me, it almost always seems either simplistic, or subtle, yet somehow afraid to engage the text too aggressively. Christians have told me (often rather shocked), when I have said this, that to aggressively confront the Word of God would be to question God. But this puzzles me, because Judaism teaches us to question, and if scripture really does have a divine origin-- if it is the Word of God-- should it not contain enough potential levels and meanings that aggressive challenges will not be an affront to God? Maybe I am just idealizing the idea that there would be less Creationism with more religious education; perhaps it is an endemic problem to Christianity; and yet I have met Christians who do aggressively confront the text, whose notions are theologically both deep and complex. Of course, they often tell me that their ideas are considered radical or unpopular with their fellows.... I don't know....

Just to be clear: I believe in evolution to the degree that any responsible scientist ought to, I think. It is an excellently-reasoned theory that seems to accurately account for everything we have discovered about the progress of life on earth via our studies of archaeology, paleontology, geology, and biology. It appears to be a correct analysis. That doesn't mean that, if reliable scientific evidence were to turn up tomorrow that completely contradicted everything we have extrapolated from it, I would still cling to Darwinism like a Flat Earth Society member on the Space Shuttle, closing his eyes and ears and going "la-la-la I don't hear you."

Likewise, with religion, I believe that what we Jews have been taught in the Torah (we don't believe the Torah was meant for everyone, just for us: we presume if God has revelations or commandments for other peoples, he will discuss it with them, not with us) is right. But that doesn't mean that, in the unlikely event that Jesus Christ came back tomorrow, took me for a stroll over the Mediterranean, then sat down and poured me some vintage Beaujolais he'd made out of what was sitting in my Brita, and told me that the Christians were right, I wouldn't find myself earnestly re-evaluating what I believed about God.

Well, fair enough. It's a well-taken point. And yet I do continue to think that there is a difference, even if only in that God is not the rallying cry this time, even if religious rhetoric is grossly abused by the current administration. I also think that it makes an enormous difference in who is opposing the wars. Nobody opposed the Crusades except for the Jews and the Muslims, who were on the wrong end of them. The "War on Terror" (a worse misnomer I could not imagine) is opposed by many, both people of many religions (including members of the president's faith, and ones like it), and atheists, and agnostics of every stripe. The fact that the opposition has been deeply unsuccessful in ending the war does not, to my mind, diminish its importance. It is a step. Perhaps such opposition will actually prevent the next war from happening. Or maybe the one after that.... But it is a step, I do think that.

Again, a good point. And there certainly are those who interpret Torah very differently from me, and very differently from the majority of Jews. But I think no philosophy is ever entirely of a piece. If it is to be espoused by many, it will have many interpretations, regardless of the philosophy in question. And without wishing to get bogged down in discussion of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which we all agree is an awful morass, I believe I mentioned that even those halakhic authorities who restrict "religious" warfare agree that warfare which is for the sake of self-defense is a different matter altogether. I personally believe that the Torah embraces peace and tolerance far more than most think. But I also agree that it is not a doctrine of pacifism. The Torah teaches that self-defense is a virtue, and evil is to be confronted; great evil is to be confronted by any means necessary. Is that a double-edged sword of a teaching? Yes. Which is why one must be careful in such matters. But I am not a pacifist. I don't love war or violence, but I believe that there are things worth fighting for. Since I've been living here in Israel, where terror alerts are frequent (and they mean something here, it's not just about longer lines at the airport) and suicide bombings are a very real threat (seen the news today?) , I have come to believe even more strongly that I have no problem with Jews defending themselves when necessary. My point is, yes, I agree that some things in Torah can be interpreted to produce dangerous or negative effects. Nor is the Torah something with which every human would agree-- but what would be? Any philosophy, any community, any culture, any ideal can be abused or misused. Religion is no different, but it is hardly unique.

That's not Greek, my friend! That's Hebrew! I don't have more than a smattering of Greek, and since nearly all Jewish texts are composed in Hebrew or Aramaic, I would have very little opportunity to practice my Greek if I did improve it!

Hmmm. Yes, I have heard this. There are certainly some Jews who believe that the Written Torah (in this case, just the Five Books of Moses) was literally dictated to Moses by God, and that the words of the Prophets were literally spoken as such to them by God. Most who believe so are Orthodox. The bigger problem with Liberal Jews (that is, non-Orthodox Jews) is not literalism, it is lack of education. Assimilation is a terrible problem in the Jewish community, and the first hallmark of assimilation is lack of Jewish education. We are working hard to correct this, but it is still unfortunately true that many Jews today have simply never learned to study Torah properly. Filling the void of this lack of education are many Jewishly incorrect and foreign ideas about scripture and religion which they absorb from Christians in the media. So I cannot accurately answer how common this knowledge really is among Jews. It should be very common knowledge. Whether it is, I cannot say, but I fear that many are more ignorant than they should be-- but generally, Jewish ignorance does not result in fundamentalism. It results in secularism.

Well, that's good. And, with all due respect, I have heard many Christians say they are disconcerted by God as he is shown in the Hebrew Scriptures, and that they find that God frightening. It is my belief that this is because Christians read the Written Torah in total absence from the Oral Torah, and thus they take literally or interpret simply many verses which are not supposed to be read so. I obviously do not believe in the so-called New Testament: in my view the so-called "God of the Old Testament" is God. But I don't find him to be either scary or unduly angry or vengeful or subject to caprice. I find him to be passionate, caring, compassionate, loving, and just. And I assure you, that is an entirely mainstream Jewish view; I believe such a view is the norm because we read the whole Torah, Written and Oral, and not only one part-- arguably, the most difficult part.

__________________
Dull sublunary lovers love,
Whose soul is sense, cannot admit
Absence, because it doth remove
That thing which elemented it.

(From "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning" by John Donne)