Questions about Judaism

[dauer]

BB, when I said:

I know I can't prove to you that you are most likely wrong. You're convinced you have Truth, at least on some level.

it came out wrong. It's not a matter of me being unable to prove that you are most likely wrong. It's a matter of me being able to prove that the issue is one worthy of some doubt. But the rest of it is as I meant to say it.

Poh,

good luck with wherever your road takes you. And please do let us know what the meetings and that shul are like. It sounds very cool.

Dauer

[bananabrain]

They were not widely accepted from the beginning.

but the thing is, haza"l have got a pretty dam' good track record. if renewal stands the test of time (and i'm thinking centuries rather than decades) then we can start talking real acceptance. until then, renewal is just a prototype.

if authority is linked to level of prophecy, then it really doesn't matter whether Renewal is widely accepted now or not.

umph. ok, the authority of Tana"kh is linked to that, so then it becomes a question as to the source of the authority of haza"l and what distinguishes that from the putative source of the authority of renewal and how it goes about being established. i think part of it is consensus-based, in a way kind of democratic. i think renewal has a lot of moral authority and authenticity but i think needs to build its constituency better. actually, there's a business book i can recommend which i think describes how fringe ideas create mass markets and whose principles actually apply pretty well to religion in general and to renewal in particular - it's called "the deviant's advantage". in a way, i think renewal will only become authoritative by sacrificing some of what makes it interesting (or radical, or scary depending on your PoV) in order to be less elitist. i think that authority's organic like that. i don't know if that's really the answer to this question.

If, as I have suggested before, a high level of prophecy is really available to all who are open to receiving it, then this would seem to justify seeing Renewal as having the same source of authority as Hazal.

oh, i see. well, i don't believe that the "all who are open" is a very large number. i think we're probably talking about lamed-vav, or certainly not much more than a sanhedrin-plus-benches-worth. and then we could dispute what we mean by a "high level". i think in terms of what you were talking about before with this shamanic journey thingamajig, i think i'd take some convincing that this person was sufficiently open. in fact, i'd go so far as to say that prophecy is probably linked to the ability to reach the levels commonly cited as being necessary before one can understand kabbalah properly. in other words, you have to really know your stuff. look at the qualifications for being on the sanhedrin.

And the fact of the matter is that whether or not Renewal as a trans-denominational movement is accepted as widely authoritative, the liberal communities continue to be influenced by the changes, innovations, and emphases on otherwise ignored practices and changes of emphasis within practices made within Jewish Renewal.

ok, i can accept that, certainly. in fact i could probably go so far as to say that renewal represents an important link between the liberal communities and the traditional communities.

Zalman often talks using a Gaian paradigm. It's a part of his personal theology that isn't necessarily reflective of the thinking of all of Renewal. I, however, think it's very wise. So when he looks at a system, be it all world religions, or Judaism, he'll say that one part is the liver, one part the heart, one part the kidney, etc. And the body functions best when they're all working in harmony. They each have a different role to fill. I agree with you that Renewal is not meant to be some sort of absolute authority.

actually, this isn't necessarily a gaian paradigm, whatever that means. the sefirot are also a holistic and conceptual model of the primordial body - so, in these terms, renewal are in the middle of the right pillar at the sefirah of hesed. you may be interested to know that in my analysis of organisations (which hopefully will end up being a book when i get it finished) this is also where r&d sits, so it does work out.

Of course, from my perspective, "halachic" isn't more correct. Those in the halachic community are merely filling a particular need: the need to maintain, to keep things grounded, to preserve, to conserve.

yes, i'd agree with that. it is unfortunately a sad fact that most halakhah sits in the left pillar nowadays, particularly in terms of gevurah/din, which is what makes it so necessary to look at things in a holistically integrated fashion. i must consider the entire system - but unfortunately some people are far happier just living in one part of it and ignoring the others, which makes for a very unbalanced, dysfunctional judaism - as we can plainly see! this is why it is important to see renewal in its context and see what it isn't as well as what it is.

Renewal is filling an oppositional need to explore new territory, to renew, to evolve, to adapt. These oppositions work in tandem to create a balance.

in other words, rebalancing the middle triad of the Tree to enable its resolution in tiferet.

There's plenty of preservationism in Renewal, and plenty of wanting to be relevant in Orthodoxy.

of course - remember we're in the 'omer, so this is gevurah she-be-hesed and hesed she-be-gevurah.

So what's going on with Renewal in regard to authority? It's like a tree. On the edges there are always new rings being added, but as new rings become added the formerly new rings, now old, are deep within the tree. What once was new now is old, and no longer is questioned.

yes, that works for me in terms of halakhah - but in this metaphor, it is the paradoxical, illogical, unscientific and ineffable Torah-me-Sinai that is the actual life within the tree.

At some point you reach critical mass where a good majority of the people are saying, "We're looking at things differently now. The old way doesn't work for us anymore, and we're beginning to find this new way." The critical mass hasn't been reached yet. Jewish Renewal isn't looking for a future where everybody belongs to Jewish Renewal.

oh i see. well, i can see how a paradigm shift happens for individuals and even groups. but then what is the critical mass hoping to achieve? i can understand it from the perspective of chabad, it's all about moshiach; i can understand what it is that i want, which is yihud in terms of klal yisra'el, but i don't understand what renewal wants to happen in implementable terms, unless its "all jews should be jewing it somehow".

And you think Solomon was such a sweetheart?

hehe. i know he certainly gets quite a pasting from haza"l. that's how i like my biblical figures, warts and all. doesn't make him any less cool, but it does make him more human.

Do you have anything against prayer beads?

not at all. that's just a physical mantra and, besides, muslims use them, so they are almost certainly ok.

At the same time, if it works for her, and if it's working for other people, especially if it's helping Jewish women reclaim spirituality, I'm all for it.

i'm all for it up to the point where her experience is used as authority to support a challenge to halakhah as opposed to theology or midrash or minhag or something. it's a bit like the orange on the seder plate - i understand the point they're making and i sympathise, but it's got nothing to do with the seder and is muddying the waters with an unrelated and highly emotive issue, simply because of a stupid analogy made by a silly old fool.

I am saying that what is meaningful for you, what is helpful for you, what is a guide for you, what strengthens your religiosity and faith, what empowers you to act, that should guide you. That doesn't mean that I accept what you accept. But I don't have to.

what i am objecting to is the idea that "it works for me" somehow has the same status as "it's kosher for everyone". there has to be some means of discriminating - i know you agree about that, but i think that where we disagree is on the level of autonomy to be ascribed to the individual.

There is room within Judaism to accomodate varying views of reality, and contrasting Lurianic Kabbalah with Maimonidean rationalism should be enough evidence of that.

exactly, but there are things for which there are not room within judaism, things which stretch the label too far - what interests me, as you know is where that limit is. otherwise you end up with what in my terms is known as a "bacon bagel". but possibly i'm starting to repeat myself.

unlike Heschel, I am concerned with the limitations of subjectivity.

i see - because i am very much with heschel on this!

You speak of supernatural congruence, and yet it is the nature of the mind to find patterns in the world, especially when we are looking for them.

yes, that's called "confirmation bias". but awareness of it is also a safeguard.

You could not find the meaning you needed outside of traditional mystical theology, and so that is where you went.

in fact, i could not find a meaning that reflected my experience of the world without a theology that could deal with paradox and the impossibility of proof.

It's a matter of me being able to prove that the issue is one worthy of some doubt.

hang on, though - i'm not saying that doubt isn't an issue. lack of doubt is far more scary. of course i doubt. and so i should. the moment i relinquished doubt, i would become a most unpleasant, rigid individual.

an aside - ok, yes, of course, occam's razor would discount the possibility of supernatural agency, but i am taking that as axiomatic, which you don't think i should. plus, i consider that the assumptions underpinning "academic" and "scientific" points of view are similarly axiomatic, so it seems we may be at an impasse over the use of this particular principle.

You say, "mistrust and cynicism about our ancestors" when in reality it's a "general skepticism" about everything. I am not focusing on our ancestors, nor is there any intended malice. So let's not color the language to suggest it.

fair enough. i myself have, as i've said, a general scepticism about academia and science and its motivations and drivers - not that i have a problem with these systems working to produce the conclusions justified by their internal logic. i suppose what i am suggesting is that i kind of feel that our ancestors deserve better than this general scepticism. it feels sort of ungrateful to me, not precisely "who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel", but just missing the point. of course scepticism is both praiseworthy and productive, but it can be misapplied. i call this the "angels don't show up on radar" problem, or, of you prefer, "all cats are bastards". i think it's acceptable to take a look at the historical context, but i don't think it's acceptable to presume a lack of trustworthiness. perhaps i might offer a more pungent but perhaps better metaphor. you and i are presumably both able to say that we are the products of, um, ah, conjugal affection. and, with some evidence, we can perhaps extend that back a couple of generations. however, it doesn't take long before we cannot tell whether our ancestors were happily married, unhappily married, or raped/rapists. we simply don't know. but what should we assume? should we assume that our ancestors were raped by cossacks or crusaders or janissaries or whatever? or should we just accept that we're not going to be able to tell and pretty much just assume it was straightforward. of course, someone could produce a document from a few centuries back which was evidence of this happening. we could believe that document. or we could question the motives and veracity of the writer. either way we cannot really know. but to insist that absence of confirmation is grounds for suspicion is, to my mind, unwarranted and, basically, icky. that's how it feels to me when people are probing around the, ah, haemorrhoids of history. it feels unreasonable. of course i accept that your intentions are honourable, but i myself would prefer to be able to try and find some beauty in my ability to believe. don't pick at it or it'll scar.

I think the human shiviti is more controversial, because it focuses on mankind's relationship to God, ignoring the rest of the world.

hehe. you haven't seen how this relationship is expressed in the other shiwiti.

If you can imagine majestic light coming from the word revelation and the sound of a shofar, that helps. I could only manage the quotes.

fair enough - i wouldn't patronise you by regret, but i feel lucky i feel the way i do.

So that is finite revelation, vs. something that is always happening, in all places, that we just have to learn to tap into.

it is possible that i believe in finite revelation within one context and the "always-happening-in-all-places" in certain interpretatory contexts.

I really don't think "lo bashamayim hi" is very relevant to the halachic community today. For hazal it was extremely relevant. They were constant innovators. But today I think it's more just a justification for the way things used to be done.

sadly, i am in agreement.

I didn't see you present any evidence for free will. You gave me information surrounding the issue of free will, like under what situation free will would not exist. But you did not present evidence for free will.

um, perhaps my logic's faulty. it seems to me that our free-will is evident from the operation of the laws of causality and our lack of control of the dimension of time. there's also a circular argument about sin - for sin to exist, free-will must exist. i daresay this isn't enough for you though. and don't forget that from the G!D-perspective, there is no free-will because of a control of time and a lack of sin.

A close reading of that aggadah reveals that it is an internal criticism of hazal.

please explain; you mean because G!D thinks they're wrong?

And the Israelites are the Israelites! Look at what they did when they entered the land! Horrible people!

yes - and they were punished for it and, moreover, hence the prophets were sent. in reference to the autonomy of the individual, remember the last line of shofetim: "in those days there was no king in israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes".

You understand that there are people who think about the Israelites the way you think about the Amalekites? If we can excuse the Israelites for their behaviour, surely we can also excuse the Amalekites, if of course any of it actually happened.

yes, and we can excuse the nazis and suicide bombers and everyone else. but i'm going to remain resolutely one-sided, subjective and partial. in the end, i must pick a side. and, in the final analysis, i'm sure you'd be on it too!

b'shalom

bananabrain

[pohaikawahine]

Interesting bb that you are writing a book .... would be interested in it when it is finished .... personally I think you and dauer could write a book based on this dialogue, it is much needed and healthy .... I have question for both of you if you wish to respond .... regarding mysticism (or shamanism if you prefer) or even quabbalism (is there such a word?) ....and proof .... if you experienced it would you believe it even if you couldn't offer "proof" to another? I believe that the journey itself is very personal (there is no other way), but explaining it in words if not easy unless the other has taken the same journey .... if the regathering is spiritual and not material how do we give "proof" to each other that it is taking place and we will each go with the flow .... then we are not on one side of the other, we are right in the middle ... so I think my real question is what does each of your perspectives say about the regathering and do you agree on what it means given that we have no "proof" yet about its actuality .... for myself, I not only believe, I know (and not in an arrogant or dogmatic way) that it is happening ....I can't tell you in words how I know, I just know I know ....and I see its process in the torah .... aloha nui, poh

[dauer]

but the thing is, haza"l have got a pretty dam' good track record. if renewal stands the test of time (and i'm thinking centuries rather than decades) then we can start talking real acceptance. until then, renewal is just a prototype.

As Hazal was. And if there weren't people willing to work with that prototype instead of sticking with what they already had, it would have never floated.

in a way, i think renewal will only become authoritative by sacrificing some of what makes it interesting... in order to be less elitist.

How do you see Renewal as being elitist? In response to the rest of that, I don't think it's really necessary for Renewal to do that sort of stuff. Since it's transdenominational, people from the different denominations are going to take from it and do with it what they will. Those who affiliate with one of the denominations, or act like they do, while affiliating or borrowing from Renewal, I see as doing what you are suggesting, without requiring Renewal to change itself.

oh, i see. well, i don't believe that the "all who are open" is a very large number. i think we're probably talking about lamed-vav, or certainly not much more than a sanhedrin-plus-benches-worth. and then we could dispute what we mean by a "high level". i think in terms of what you were talking about before with this shamanic journey thingamajig, i think i'd take some convincing that this person was sufficiently open. in fact, i'd go so far as to say that prophecy is probably linked to the ability to reach the levels commonly cited as being necessary before one can understand kabbalah properly. in other words, you have to really know your stuff. look at the qualifications for being on the sanhedrin.

I really have to disagree with you here. I see the opening up as a shift in awareness, in thinking, in relating to the world, not something that falls on only a favored few. And I don't think one must even know Kabbalah in order to be open. Kabbalah is a finite expression of mysticism, as were heichalot and merkavah mysticism.

. in fact i could probably go so far as to say that renewal represents an important link between the liberal communities and the traditional communities.

It definitely does. For many reasons. And a good memory I have from EC was when a "hosid" and a vocal lesbian decided, during some unstructured time the Shabbos before Shavuos when Reb Zalman was teaching, to study gemara together. And then at some point they came across something in the text that turned into a dialogue on sexuality and gender issues.

actually, this isn't necessarily a gaian paradigm, whatever that means.

Well, he makes explicit reference to gaia when he talks about it. Usually he's using it to talk about the whole world, and at those times it makes more sense to relate it to Gaia Hypothesis. But he takes it a step further and relates it to different groups. I do not doubt that he is completely aware of the kabbalistic way of relating it. It's a thought that had actually crossed my mind before, and I think he's simply trying to speak in a way that's more accessible to anyone regardless of their education in Judaism.

Oh, and count me also as someone very interested in your book when you finish it.

in other words, rebalancing the middle triad of the Tree to enable its resolution in tiferet.

Yes. The one thing that I think can be gained by talking about it in kabbalistic terms is that you're going to get people's attention. Of course calling Orthodoxy gevurah is bound to make you less popular among some people.

yes, that works for me in terms of halakhah - but in this metaphor, it is the paradoxical, illogical, unscientific and ineffable Torah-me-Sinai that is the actual life within the tree.

I wouldn't go so far as Torah m'sinai, but I would say it differently. I mean the structure of the tree is maintained by the old wood. But the old wood is less fresh, less alive. So in the same as I said before, and you compared to the (other) tree, both are important.

oh i see. well, i can see how a paradigm shift happens for individuals and even groups. but then what is the critical mass hoping to achieve? i can understand it from the perspective of chabad, it's all about moshiach; i can understand what it is that i want, which is yihud in terms of klal yisra'el, but i don't understand what renewal wants to happen in implementable terms, unless its "all jews should be jewing it somehow".

Well, paradigm shift isn't something that anyone's trying to achieve. If indeed this is a paradigm shift, when critical mass is reached it will just win out. The same thing happened when Aristotle was allowed to influence Judaism. You have an idea of God that stands contrary to a straight reading of the Torah. Yet there was a paradigm shift. It took a while, but the old god wasn't working. In the face of philosophy, the new one made more sense. It was more "rational." And in that age, that was the most important factor. What do I personally think Renewal is betting are going to be key factors in what might be a coming paradigm shift?

Nothing less than everything is God, with the exception of the more traditional kabbalistic position (that would also be okay.) The general view in Renewal seems to be that literal tzimtzum is an awful lot of theological footwork that was really just done to avoid having to deal with the problems that can arise when everything is literally God. Personally, I think this is one issue that's not going to work for everybody because however "theotropic" humans might be, not everyone's into mysticism, even if it is made easily accessible.

More emphasis on individualism, shaping Judaism into something that, while wholely recognizable, can be addressed to each individual and his or her needs at any given point in his or her life.

Letting go of absolutism, be it by understanding that what one accepts as Truth is what one accepts as Truth and just that, or by approaching issues of morality without a uniform influence by whatever halachah dictates.

Finding non-triumphalist ways to speak and think about formerly triumphalist theology.

Complete embracing of gays, lesbians, transgendered people, and potentially polyamorists which includes recognizing that their lovemaking is also sacred.

Oh, and of course validating the importance of embracing feminism to repair the damage done by a patriarchal religion.

Now, I do think that there is a Renewal idea that almost equates with "all Jews should be Jewish it somehow." At the very least, they should make peace with their Jewishness. I read an article in a Renewal book by a woman who at the time was a practicing buddhist, but it recalled her journey between Buddhism and Judaism. And at the time of her writing it, she had made her peace with Judaism. But mostly, yes, all Jews should be Jewing it.

hehe. i know he certainly gets quite a pasting from haza"l. that's how i like my biblical figures, warts and all. doesn't make him any less cool, but it does make him more human.

So again, how can you be so critical of Scientology as to say that nothing they do could possibly be used for good?

it is possible that i believe in finite revelation within one context and the "always-happening-in-all-places" in certain interpretatory contexts.

If it's happening only in certain contexts, which I believe you mean are Torah-related contexts, then it is not always-happening-in-all-places.

um, perhaps my logic's faulty. it seems to me that our free-will is evident from the operation of the laws of causality and our lack of control of the dimension of time. there's also a circular argument about sin - for sin to exist, free-will must exist. i daresay this isn't enough for you though. and don't forget that from the G!D-perspective, there is no free-will because of a control of time and a lack of sin.

You're right. It's not enough for me.

please explain; you mean because G!D thinks they're wrong?

If you want to do a line-by-line reading in another thread, I'd love to. It's not because God thinks they're wrong. At EC I learned a method to study aggadah from Reb David, who learned this method at the liberal Orthodox yeshivah he attended. It applies modern techniques of literary analysis to the text, while trying to avoid the common tendency to drash.

So it might take into account things like,

What is the surrounding conversation in the middle of which this aggadah was placed? Does its topic relate? What are the names of the characters in the story? Do the meanings of their names relate to their roles in the story? How is this character typified in aggadic literature? What is happening in this scene? Where are they? What are their postures? What are they arguing about halachically, and does this halachic argument relate in any way to what's going on? Does this scene reference any other events? Of course, it's going to take a close look at the ever-present word play.

Suffice it to say, that aggadah is not a simple criticism. It is very complex, multi-layered, and powerful. I used to have a copy of that aggadah in linear English and Aramaic with a copy of some of the surrounding text and the original mishna on the oven of achnai. Some of the word play was color-coded. But I lost it. So if you want to do that, you would have to supply the text, in aramaic and translation.

The aggadah study was a wonderful experience. Once during the week and again Shabbos afternoon we would gather together to study aggadah, sometimes spending both of those sessions for just one story. And on Shabbos we would always go over. After davennen we would eat, and then we would do the aggadah study, with whomever was on retreat joining in. And that was a blessing too, because it brought so many different perspectives and some real talmidim chachamim. And we would usually not end until it was time for mincha. And when we did end, it would always feel rushed, like there was so much more we could say.

yes - and they were punished for it and, moreover, hence the prophets were sent.

So the Amalekites should forever be typified because we don't have records of their prophets?

in reference to the autonomy of the individual, remember the last line of shofetim: "in those days there was no king in israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes".

I've always thought that refrain sounded awful like something a first-year college student would write. And I really think that it was put there by one of the king's propaganda machines, in shaping the popular view of history.

yes, and we can excuse the nazis and suicide bombers and everyone else. but i'm going to remain resolutely one-sided, subjective and partial. in the end, i must pick a side. and, in the final analysis, i'm sure you'd be on it too!

The difference here is that you take Torah as Truth and I don't, so I can't assume that what it says about the Amalekites is true. However, the historical record has a lot to say about the Shoah.

Poh,

if you experienced it would you believe it even if you couldn't offer "proof" to another?

I hope not. I don't trust my own subjectivity. I hope I never do. At the same time, I rely on the fact that many have had that experience as support for bothering with it in the first place.

so I think my real question is what does each of your perspectives say about the regathering

Do you mean the regathering of Israel? Renewal isn't interested in creating a lot of new dogma. If you have a novel view of the regathering, it may be something someone from Renewal has already considered, and if not, it will probably be warmly welcome.

do you agree on what it means given that we have no "proof" yet about its actuality

I don't really have any eschatological beliefs. I do hope for a better future. But I'm also not doom n gloom about our current present.

Dauer

[dauer]

...

[dauer]

BB,

everything I said in an attempt to further narrow down potential Jewish Renewal beliefs about what might be coming with a paradigm shift, you can entirely ignore that. I seem to have a habit of searching for more concrete answers when there are none. Certainly, there are people within Jewish Renewal who have much more concrete ideas about what a renewed Judaism might look like, but there are also plenty of people who have very little idea what it might look like.

[pohaikawahine]

[Do you mean the regathering of Israel? Renewal isn't interested in creating a lot of new dogma. If you have a novel view of the regathering, it may be something someone from Renewal has already considered, and if not, it will probably be warmly welcome.] quote from dauer

mahalo nui dauer .... I'm only going to add one small piece here and step out of the dialogue and back to the parsha with bandit (I don't want to interrupt the wonderful flow of ideas between you and bb) .... I just read a great commentary on the parsha Mayanot http://www.aish.com/torahportion/mayanot regarding the counting of days of the Omer, the 49 days between Passover and Shavuot, the day the Torah was given on Mount Sinai. Rabbi Weisz concludes (as far as I can tell) that the connection is spiritual and is "what we need to construct a spiritual vessel without hearts and minds" a "step-by-step learning process" as contrasted to the ecstasy of religious inspiration. But it seems to me that once one learns that process, which is outlined in the Torah, the meeting face-to-face with G-d does take place in a spiritual realm. I've spent well over 40 years studying this process in other paths and when I began the reading of the Torah, her process took on the same symbols and pointed to the same way .... I was captured by the beauty of the process and drawn to the Song of Songs and that part of Exodus 15:20 ....and "the women danced" .... it all relates to the regathering .... an internal spiritual process that must first take place within the human body or vessel itself, the first seven Sefirot .... we must pass through this in order to reach for the next three which will take us beyond the days of counting to the Jubilee era (beyond the realm of multiples of seven to the place where we meet G-d face to face) (the place of the pineal gland, or the third eye).... this is the regathering, in my mind, the process that makes the 12 pairs of cranial nerves work together to open the whole system .... taking us to the land of milk and honey, the promise land .... and the women danced as we left the wilderness and crossed over .... interesting in the commentary referenced above I never saw the connection to the parting of the "sea of reeds" until this very day .... in the mythology of the people of New Zealand (the Maori) it takes 12 bundles of reeds X 12 for each of the 12 men that are carried on the "reed" boat (the wa'a) that navigates one across the great expanse of ocean (across time and space) .... the symbol is in the "reed" .... this particular mythology also tells us of how to open the space above to ascend to the world of spirit .... if the countdown of days between Passover and Shavuot, the day the Torah was given on Mount Sinai, tells us about the process internally we all have the great potential to begin the paradigm shift in awareness and the seeds were planted in the Torah both in her oral and written forms .... in the consciousness of the chosen people. That's my small comment and I will return to the parsha with my friend bandit and continue to read the dialogue. aloha nui, poh

[bananabrain]

And if there weren't people willing to work with that prototype instead of sticking with what they already had, it would have never floated.

so, what we're saying is, critical mass is reached when critical mass is reached. it did with haza"l. what we're disagreeing about, it seems to me, is whether haza"l were a more impressive bunch than renewal are. i think they were and you, presumably, think i'm using rose-coloured spectacles. i think i'd be more inclined to your view if i could see more thought-leaders in renewal, rather than just zalman. i dare say you'll respond with a whole list of them, now!

How do you see Renewal as being elitist?

because it's too wacky, scary and influenced by non-jewish ideas for the mainstream to accept - at least at this point in its development. therefore understanding and working with it is necessarily the preserve of the avant-garde. that's necessarily not a bad thing, incidentally. helps keep the conversation together. religion for the masses necessarily requires a lower order of intellectual engagement imho. it's the same reason mass kabbalah is not really feasible without it turning into superstition or antinomialism - shabbetai tzsvi is a good example.

I really have to disagree with you here. I see the opening up as a shift in awareness, in thinking, in relating to the world, not something that falls on only a favored few. And I don't think one must even know Kabbalah in order to be open. Kabbalah is a finite expression of mysticism, as were heichalot and merkavah mysticism.

kabbalah is necessarily finite, as anything elite, complicated or constrained must be. what i'm talking about is what the effect on the mainstream/normative jewish world is. i don't know and i don't think you do either. what i do think is that "more judaism" need not be a bad thing, even though you and i might not mean exactly the same thing by it.

And a good memory I have from EC was when a "hosid" and a vocal lesbian decided, during some unstructured time the Shabbos before Shavuos when Reb Zalman was teaching, to study gemara together. And then at some point they came across something in the text that turned into a dialogue on sexuality and gender issues.

now that's an example of exactly why i think renewal probably *is* a good thing which puts me on the opposite side from the kiruv guys and fundamentalists.

Oh, and count me also as someone very interested in your book when you finish it.

*groan* it is taking an age. i started it in late 2003....

Of course calling Orthodoxy gevurah is bound to make you less popular among some people.

well, if it quacks like a duck... besides, gevurah is not necessarily a bad thing in context.

I mean the structure of the tree is maintained by the old wood. But the old wood is less fresh, less alive.

harrumph. that's me condemned to 'beat my wife' again - the equation of 'old' with 'less good' and 'progress' with 'better'. not that i would support the opposite either, unlike some people in the Torah mi'sinai camp.

The same thing happened when Aristotle was allowed to influence Judaism.

yeah, people tied themselves in knots for centuries trying to make judaism aristotelianism. a centuries-long fad remains a fad when your viewpoint is sufficiently long. same goes for rationalism or falsafa - from that PoV, s.r.hirsch and the maskilim are not much different from yehuda ha-levi: "G!D forbid that there should be anything in the Torah which contradicts reason". what an utterly misconceived remark. where i think renewal might be OK is its ability to graft itself onto authentic traditions of innovation which *have* caused a paradigm shift, such as the adoption of the zohar as canonical.

More emphasis on individualism, shaping Judaism into something that, while wholely recognizable, can be addressed to each individual and his or her needs at any given point in his or her life.

sounds good to me, as long as it leaves room for Commandment to remain the source of ultimate authority from outside the self.

Letting go of absolutism, be it by understanding that what one accepts as Truth is what one accepts as Truth and just that, or by approaching issues of morality without a uniform influence by whatever halachah dictates.

umph - i think that one needs some more work.

Finding non-triumphalist ways to speak and think about formerly triumphalist theology.

i don't know about this. unfortunately the track record of trying to do this tends to result in the eradication of folk culture on the grounds of its lack of political correctness. the depredations of the "melting-pot" idea of zionism on sephardic/eidot mizrah culture in israel up until recently is a case in point.

Complete embracing of gays, lesbians, transgendered people, and potentially polyamorists which includes recognizing that their lovemaking is also sacred.

the first three, i am fine with. it is polyamorists that are a step too far for me towards the "bacon bagel", although i have had an extremely cordial and productive dialogue in the past with a pagan polyamorist.

Oh, and of course validating the importance of embracing feminism to repair the damage done by a patriarchal religion.

as long as it's actually damage and not just a faddish rebalancing of a supposed injustice. for me, this has to be consistent with "tzedeq, tzedeq tirdof". blanket assumptions, condemnations and categorisations will do nobody any favours. for example, i'm buggered if i'm going to be forced to go to an egalitarian minyan. and if anyone starts tampering with the folk music because of its lack of political correctness i shall really have something to say about it.

So again, how can you be so critical of Scientology as to say that nothing they do could possibly be used for good?

show me something good they've done and i'll see if i'm prepared to moderate my position. so far, they seem to me like an unscrupulous bunch of charlatans intent on extracting the maximum amount of power and influence for very dubious aims.

If it's happening only in certain contexts, which I believe you mean are Torah-related contexts, then it is not always-happening-in-all-places.

i don't think that's what i mean. i believe there is a possibility of revelation to other religions, so it can't all be Torah-related.

If you want to do a line-by-line reading in another thread, I'd love to.

go ahead!

So the Amalekites should forever be typified because we don't have records of their prophets?

we're supposed to blot out their memory, not record their prophets! besides, didn't balaam hire himself out to them?

However, the historical record has a lot to say about the Shoah.

well, when the historical record has something to say about the amalekites i shall consider it. but given the debunking agenda usually associated with biblical archaeology, i shall treat it with similar scepticism.

I hope not. I don't trust my own subjectivity. I hope I never do. At the same time, I rely on the fact that many have had that experience as support for bothering with it in the first place.

if i didn't trust my own subjectivity (at least within certain clearly limited contexts) i would be a lousy musician. part of this is about believing in oneself.

i will continue...

b'shalom

bananabrain

[dauer]

so, what we're saying is, critical mass is reached when critical mass is reached. it did with haza"l. what we're disagreeing about, it seems to me, is whether haza"l were a more impressive bunch than renewal are.

I think the real issue of our disagreement has more to do with at what point a radically different idea can begin to be considered Jewish.

i think i'd be more inclined to your view if i could see more thought-leaders in renewal, rather than just zalman. i dare say you'll respond with a whole list of them, now!

Of course: Arthur Waskow, Art Green, Rami Shapiro, Mordechai Gafni, Gershon Winkler, David Cooper, Shefa Gold, Goldie Milgrom, Marcia Prager, Daniel Siegel, Shohama Wiener, and a handful of other people without mentioning anyone outside of the first generation of Renewal leadership.

because it's too wacky, scary and influenced by non-jewish ideas for the mainstream to accept - at least at this point in its development.

Maybe at its most extreme, but I see liberal Judaism in America becoming more and more accepting of forms of meditation with non-Jewish influences as well as yoga. I think you may not realize exactly how the syncretism effects Renewal, so some examples might be useful. Reb Rami created a fictional rebbe and wrote stories about him influenced by zen buddhism, some of which you can read here:

http://www.hasidicstories.com/Articl...s/virtual.html

As you can see, he's primarily dealing with Jewish concepts, although the way he's dealing with them is influenced by Zen. This shows far less influence by a foreign philosophy than Rambam did. You might want to make specific note of the stories "The Way You Teach" and "Prayer or Meditation?"

Another good example, perhaps even a better example, is Reb Gershon Winkler's book Magic of the Ordinary: Recovering the Shamanic in Judaism. Not only is ever chapter heavily footnoted with references to classical midrash, talmud, kabbalistic sources, and tanach, but the actual practices he suggests are usually fairly normative.

And as an example of non-syncretic renewal material, I would point you to Arthur Waskow's Godwrestling: Round 2. It's primarily modern midrash.

kabbalah is necessarily finite, as anything elite, complicated or constrained must be.

And one of the original goals of hasidism, which has been picked up by Renewal, is to make mysticism more accessible. It's been suggested that the reason many Jews headed East in the 60s is because the mystical there is so available, whereas in Judaism it is not.

what i'm talking about is what the effect on the mainstream/normative jewish world is. i don't know and i don't think you do either.

I'm not sure what this is in reference to. But I imagine that if I did I would agree with you that it's an unknown.

harrumph. that's me condemned to 'beat my wife' again - the equation of 'old' with 'less good' and 'progress' with 'better'. not that i would support the opposite either, unlike some people in the Torah mi'sinai camp.

Maybe if I gave a clear example of what I was talking about. We spoke earlier about how certain rituals had a powerful meaning for their original practitioners and, while having a sense of what this meaning might be can give a some sense of structure to the system of rituals, the lack of deep relevancy makes it less powerful for the modern practitioner than it was for those original practitioners.

New theology and new ritual practices envigorate the system. It is easier to change theology, but it offers less relevance. It is harder to change ritual, but it offers more relevance.

yeah, people tied themselves in knots for centuries trying to make judaism aristotelianism. a centuries-long fad remains a fad when your viewpoint is sufficiently long.

I don't think anybody's arguing Rambam's take on aristotelianism is right to a "T" anymore, but it sure helped wean Judaism off of the anthropomorphic God of the bible and the gemara.

where i think renewal might be OK is its ability to graft itself onto authentic traditions of innovation which *have* caused a paradigm shift, such as the adoption of the zohar as canonical.

I think more than adopting any particular text as canonical, Renewal is simply making the shift to say that real spiritual value can be found in all of the writings of the Jewish people, and I think that this is one of the things that helps to form a bridge between Renewal and the Orthodox community.

it is polyamorists that are a step too far for me towards the "bacon bagel", although i have had an extremely cordial and productive dialogue in the past with a pagan polyamorist.

What is the primary difference between a modern polyamorist and a polygamist, assuming that you would be more open to a man having multiple wives?

for example, i'm buggered if i'm going to be forced to go to an egalitarian minyan. and if anyone starts tampering with the folk music because of its lack of political correctness i shall really have something to say about it.

I've never heard of someone being forced to go to an egal minyan. My favorite compromise is, of course, the triangle mechitzah. I think the future of Judaism is more and more going to be about individual communities arranging themselves based on what works best for them, less about the standards of large denominations, and if there have to be two separate services running at once to accomodate everyone in a town, then so be it. My hope would be that someday, in every town, both will happen in the same building. There are shuls where this happens. Of course if it's a huge city let's build legions of synagogues!

And I really doubt anybody's going to tamper with folk music, lyrically. I love me some klezmer!

show me something good they've done and i'll see if i'm prepared to moderate my position. so far, they seem to me like an unscrupulous bunch of charlatans intent on extracting the maximum amount of power and influence for very dubious aims.

It was a hypothetical. I mentioned Solomon to point out that good can come from bad. The same could be true here, although I am in no position to prove it.

i don't think that's what i mean. i believe there is a possibility of revelation to other religions, so it can't all be Torah-related.

I thought you might go there. But you will still maintain that revelation to the Jewish people can only happen through Torah, yes?

go ahead!

I told you, I don't have the text anymore. If you can supply the aggadah in English and Aramaic, then I can start the thread.

we're supposed to blot out their memory, not record their prophets!

According to a biased text.

besides, didn't balaam hire himself out to them?

If I tend to be skeptical about the existence of other figures in the Torah, why would I automatically buy into the existence of Balaam?

if i didn't trust my own subjectivity (at least within certain clearly limited contexts) i would be a lousy musician. part of this is about believing in oneself.

As I've stated before, although I don't trust my own subjectivity, it's all I have to go on, because I deny there's any true objectivity -- although the word is still useful as a reference to a larger group's collective subjectivity -- and so I most certainly do act on it on a regular basis. But I don't believe it can accurately tell me about reality, only about my own perceptions of reality based primarily on what comes through the senses.

Dauer

[bananabrain]

I think the real issue of our disagreement has more to do with at what point a radically different idea can begin to be considered Jewish.

indeed - when is our "bacon bagel" not jewish any more?

Arthur Waskow, Art Green, Rami Shapiro, Mordechai Gafni, Gershon Winkler, David Cooper, Shefa Gold, Goldie Milgrom, Marcia Prager, Daniel Siegel, Shohama Wiener, and a handful of other people without mentioning anyone outside of the first generation of Renewal leadership.

ok, well arthur waskow i've met (too much of apparently a bonkers hippy to go over well in the UK, although i think he's a heavyweight in his own way) green, winkler, cooper, gold, prager and wiener i've heard of as influential without having read any of their stuff. goldie milgrom i've read - she's accessible, but i wouldn't call her a heavyweight. that might be my own prejudice though. mordechai gafni i've met and learned with. i can see why he'd be considered a heavyweight but all i can really say is that he is not approved of in my circles for reasons of conduct i'm not going to allude to in a public forum. suffice it to say that i find him troubling.

I see liberal Judaism in America becoming more and more accepting of forms of meditation with non-Jewish influences as well as yoga. I think you may not realize exactly how the syncretism effects Renewal, so some examples might be useful. Reb Rami created a fictional rebbe and wrote stories about him

you see, i don't think i'd call this syncretism - or problematic really. syncretism to me is something closer to "jewitchery" or, say, "zen judaism", or "jewish buddhism" or whatever. my criterion tends to be whether it is something that creates halachic problems down the line, particularly through intermarriage. ditto the way you describe winkler's work.

And one of the original goals of hasidism, which has been picked up by Renewal, is to make mysticism more accessible. It's been suggested that the reason many Jews headed East in the 60s is because the mystical there is so available, whereas in Judaism it is not.

it ought to be obvious that mass mysticism has a bad press in judaism for historical reasons. like i say, mysticism is an elite pursuit and when it becomes popular, it tends to turn into superstition. paradoxically, i am all for the popularising of its study, if only because it highlights the importance of traditional texts - the more you get into kabbalah, the more you understand how necessary the rest of it is; that's certainly been my experience.

We spoke earlier about how certain rituals had a powerful meaning for their original practitioners and, while having a sense of what this meaning might be can give a some sense of structure to the system of rituals, the lack of deep relevancy makes it less powerful for the modern practitioner than it was for those original practitioners.

what i would always suggest is trying to understand that deep relevancy and making that itself part of us. the best example i can think of is mary douglas' work on leviticus, which brought this to me in a way i didn't think was possible. obviously one could argue that there's no way to tell whether this is really the original meaning and i don't really know how to get past that, but it seems to match the mystical interpretations independently, which is why it strikes such a chord of authenticity for me.

New theology and new ritual practices envigorate the system. It is easier to change theology, but it offers less relevance. It is harder to change ritual, but it offers more relevance.

says you. i think changing actions are a lot more easy to do than changing the way people think.

it sure helped wean Judaism off of the anthropomorphic God of the bible and the gemara.

except i don't accept that this concept of G!D was explicitly anthropomorphic - except insofar as *we ourselves* needed the anthropomorphic concepts to understand what was going on - the "finger of G!D" was being used to illustrate quantity of plagues compared to the "hand of G!D" even at the time of the mishnah, so i don't think you can definitively state that haza"l thought in unsophisticatedly anthropomorphic terms.

Renewal is simply making the shift to say that real spiritual value can be found in all of the writings of the Jewish people, and I think that this is one of the things that helps to form a bridge between Renewal and the Orthodox community.

well, this is the complete opposite of the counterproductive standpoint one hears in the reform of texts being discarded as "irrelevant" and "old-fashioned" - and, as such i approve totally.

What is the primary difference between a modern polyamorist and a polygamist, assuming that you would be more open to a man having multiple wives?

it would still not be allowed. as you are no doubt aware, polygamy was banned by the herem of rabbenu gershom in the middle ages. now, considering that the shasniks and yemenis have adopted this as binding and not merely a question of minhag, i'd be inclined to think that there were other reasons than merely not wishing to differ from the hasidei ashkenaz - after all, that doesn't generally bother them. i would also be inclined to disapprove of it on grounds of dina de-malchuta dina on formal expressions of it such as bigamy. i'd put polygamy in the same category as "exterminate the canaanites" - it's no longer possible to do it correctly, so don't try or you'll be in breach of tzedek tzedek tirdof.