The Jewish Thing (second in a series)
Apr. 29th, 2013 04:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
drwexIn this post I'm going to try to explain what kind of Jew I think I am, in relation to other kinds of Jews. It'll be useful background for framing the rest of what I want to talk about. Part 1 is here.
The first joke is short, and goes like this:
Two Jews survive a boat sinking and are stranded on a deserted island for some time. Eventually they are rescued and their rescuers are confused about three large structures that the men have built on the island. What are those?
"Oh," says one guy, "This is my synagogue, and that one is his synagogue."
And the third building?
"Well, it's a synagogue, but NOBODY goes there!"
This joke is hilarious to English-speaking mostly American Jews and a head-scratcher to a lot of other people. It's about how people (we, us Jews) define our identity not only in terms of what we are, but also in terms of what we are not. And we can be snobby about what we're not. It's not that we look down on others, except that we do, and we try not to make too big a thing of it because hello tiny minority systematically persecuted for thousands of years.
It's been said that almost every Jewish holiday can be summarized as "They tried to kill us. We survived. Let's eat." Jews in general don't have martyr complexes - we don't think anyone gets any special favors or consideration for being treated badly - but it's an inescapable fact of our history and create a lot of dark humor around it. Some of that humor can be pretty cutting if you're not part of the in group. Example joke: "Why did G-d invent goyim? Well, _someone_ has to pay retail price." I'm the kind of Jew who chuckles at both those jokes, though I cringe a bit at the second one.
Roughly speaking, you can arrange most of Judaism on a scale of "most strict" to "least strict". Orthodox Jews are the most strict, then Conservative, then Reform. Reconstructionists are a weird offshoot of Conservatism that is hard to categorize on this kind of linear scale.
I grew up in a Conservative-leaning-strict synagogue in a place that wasn't too far from New York. We hosted a number of rabbis-in-training who would come down from the religious schools in NYC and serve as assistant rabbis. They'd get a bit of practice leading real services, teaching classes, etc. One such individual showed up and seemed a nice enough fellow right up until the point where someone noticed that on his car was a bumper sticker that said: "Shiksas are for practice." He was gone less than a day later. Some things are not funny, even to the in group. Perhaps his fellows in NYC found that bumper sticker hilarious.
Jews have this weird idea of Halacha, the laws that govern everything. We talk about it as one thing, but it's very much not. Start with Torah, five books of Moses, which are divinely given laws. Unfortunately, these books are all oriented around worship through a priesthood resident in a temple. With the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem, the religion had to decentralize, radically, and rapidly. The entire notion of rabbis and synagogues and such is all a much more modern creation and it's entirely made up. Nobody claims that the substitution of prayers for burnt offerings is G-d -given in the way that the instructions on, say, when festival days should be. Those days are in the Torah, the rest is commentary.
And wow holy cow do we have commentary. It's said that Jews were the first to invent hypertext because you can find comments upon comments upon comments upon comments upon one word or phrase in the Torah. How much you revere those human commentaries and how much you think they're an interesting historical artifact defines a lot of where you fall on this strictness scale. The Orthodox revere rabbinical leaders as divinely inspired holy men whose words are often unquestionable. Other Jews feel that someone can be wise, and maybe even divinely inspired, but not necessarily infallible and certainly not beyond questioning. The Talmud - the second-holiest body of Jewish legal texts - is first a writing down of a vast amount of previously oral tradition, and then the second half is essentially commentaries and expansions on the first half.
With all that as background, I should note that I'm also (militant) agnostic, and that I walked out of two synagogues in my youth and mostly didn't intend to go back. But my relationship to G-d is separable from my relationship to the Jewish people. I'm part of the Conservative tribe, struggling to find my own path and be honest with my kids. I'll talk more about this in part 3.
For now, though, the last bit of background I want to put here is the knowledge that Conservative services generally use traditional texts (the siddur, prayer book) with Hebrew and some English. Services are often led by a cantor (classically trained singer) along with the Rabbi, and I learned the prayers and melodies that form the rhythm of the service in that milieu. It means that when I walk into most any Conservative synagogue I know what's going on, I can usually mostly sing along. This will be important to the final story I'm building up to telling.
The first joke is short, and goes like this:
Two Jews survive a boat sinking and are stranded on a deserted island for some time. Eventually they are rescued and their rescuers are confused about three large structures that the men have built on the island. What are those?
"Oh," says one guy, "This is my synagogue, and that one is his synagogue."
And the third building?
"Well, it's a synagogue, but NOBODY goes there!"
This joke is hilarious to English-speaking mostly American Jews and a head-scratcher to a lot of other people. It's about how people (we, us Jews) define our identity not only in terms of what we are, but also in terms of what we are not. And we can be snobby about what we're not. It's not that we look down on others, except that we do, and we try not to make too big a thing of it because hello tiny minority systematically persecuted for thousands of years.
It's been said that almost every Jewish holiday can be summarized as "They tried to kill us. We survived. Let's eat." Jews in general don't have martyr complexes - we don't think anyone gets any special favors or consideration for being treated badly - but it's an inescapable fact of our history and create a lot of dark humor around it. Some of that humor can be pretty cutting if you're not part of the in group. Example joke: "Why did G-d invent goyim? Well, _someone_ has to pay retail price." I'm the kind of Jew who chuckles at both those jokes, though I cringe a bit at the second one.
Roughly speaking, you can arrange most of Judaism on a scale of "most strict" to "least strict". Orthodox Jews are the most strict, then Conservative, then Reform. Reconstructionists are a weird offshoot of Conservatism that is hard to categorize on this kind of linear scale.
I grew up in a Conservative-leaning-strict synagogue in a place that wasn't too far from New York. We hosted a number of rabbis-in-training who would come down from the religious schools in NYC and serve as assistant rabbis. They'd get a bit of practice leading real services, teaching classes, etc. One such individual showed up and seemed a nice enough fellow right up until the point where someone noticed that on his car was a bumper sticker that said: "Shiksas are for practice." He was gone less than a day later. Some things are not funny, even to the in group. Perhaps his fellows in NYC found that bumper sticker hilarious.
Jews have this weird idea of Halacha, the laws that govern everything. We talk about it as one thing, but it's very much not. Start with Torah, five books of Moses, which are divinely given laws. Unfortunately, these books are all oriented around worship through a priesthood resident in a temple. With the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem, the religion had to decentralize, radically, and rapidly. The entire notion of rabbis and synagogues and such is all a much more modern creation and it's entirely made up. Nobody claims that the substitution of prayers for burnt offerings is G-d -given in the way that the instructions on, say, when festival days should be. Those days are in the Torah, the rest is commentary.
And wow holy cow do we have commentary. It's said that Jews were the first to invent hypertext because you can find comments upon comments upon comments upon comments upon one word or phrase in the Torah. How much you revere those human commentaries and how much you think they're an interesting historical artifact defines a lot of where you fall on this strictness scale. The Orthodox revere rabbinical leaders as divinely inspired holy men whose words are often unquestionable. Other Jews feel that someone can be wise, and maybe even divinely inspired, but not necessarily infallible and certainly not beyond questioning. The Talmud - the second-holiest body of Jewish legal texts - is first a writing down of a vast amount of previously oral tradition, and then the second half is essentially commentaries and expansions on the first half.
With all that as background, I should note that I'm also (militant) agnostic, and that I walked out of two synagogues in my youth and mostly didn't intend to go back. But my relationship to G-d is separable from my relationship to the Jewish people. I'm part of the Conservative tribe, struggling to find my own path and be honest with my kids. I'll talk more about this in part 3.
For now, though, the last bit of background I want to put here is the knowledge that Conservative services generally use traditional texts (the siddur, prayer book) with Hebrew and some English. Services are often led by a cantor (classically trained singer) along with the Rabbi, and I learned the prayers and melodies that form the rhythm of the service in that milieu. It means that when I walk into most any Conservative synagogue I know what's going on, I can usually mostly sing along. This will be important to the final story I'm building up to telling.
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no subject
Date: 2013-04-29 11:34 pm (UTC)As a non-Jewish woman who brushed up against that sort of thinking a couple of times, I'd like to thank your synagogue.
For now, though, the last bit of background I want to put here is the knowledge that Conservative services generally use traditional texts (the siddur, prayer book) with Hebrew and some English. Services are often led by a cantor (classically trained singer) along with the Rabbi, and I learned the prayers and melodies that form the rhythm of the service in that milieu. It means that when I walk into most any Conservative synagogue I know what's going on...
I feel the same way about Catholic Mass. Catholicism isn't my religion anymore, but in some important way it is still "home".
no subject
Date: 2013-04-30 02:03 am (UTC)This, so much this. Have attended two masses with
no subject
Date: 2013-04-30 11:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-04-30 01:01 pm (UTC)As for the "familiar," familiar ritual is often welcoming in some way, even if you don't agree with all of it. It's like a mostly warm quilt with a few holes in it. It's likely you remember the holes, and are still annoyed by then, but the rest of it is still comfortable.
(And, yes, I have been reading these posts - both so far, and I'm looking forward to the rest.)
no subject
Date: 2013-05-01 05:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-04-30 04:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-04-30 11:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-05-01 05:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-04-30 09:00 pm (UTC)I understand about the feeling of home and the familiarity of the ritual. I'm Lutheran, raised Lutheran and then away from it and practicing pagan for years, and now back to it. I am SO happy to have found a church that does the traditional liturgy (at some services) that feels so right to me, but also is very liberal and inclusive, and the pastor *knows* I'm agnostic and doubting and just don't do the faith thing really and heck no I won't be a bible literalist and is good with all that.
Please keep writing.