Red & Religious

In the last year or so, I’ve been getting involved again in political activism. At the same time, I’ve become more and more involved in Jewish life, particularly in Jewish studies. So on the one hand, it seems that I’m being pulled by the radical political passions of my youth, which seemed to end with the conclusion of the Viet Nam war. On the other, my even longer roots of Jewish observance are tugging at me.

It’s a puzzlement because in the red family in which I grew up, the implicit assumption was that you couldn’t have religion and left politics together. My paternal grandfather had been raised in the orthodox tradition, but claimed to have lost his faith at the age of 25 in an apocalyptic moment of anti-spiritualism during a physics lecture. He didn’t quite become a Bolshevik, but certainly was a less radical socialist. By contrast, my grandmother became more and more observant as she grew older, influenced by devastating effect of the Shoah on a large swatch of our family in eastern Europe. Religion, thereby, became a bone of contention between these two aging Jews who had split ideologically and spiritually like a fork in a road.

My parents’ generation tended toward the radical, anti-religious attitude of my grandfather, indeed, even more so. Most of my own generation inherited the assumption that one could be religious or red, but not both at the same time. To my surprise, however, I’m not finding this dichotomy so clear anymore. I’ve been studying Torah for the last few years, which in the more general sense of the term means the Five Books of Moses plus the greater rabbinic literature. But lately, I’ve had the insight that perhaps I’ve been here before. In my teens, I devoted a significant amount of time to the study of Marxist literature, culminating with the three volumes of Das Kapital, Marx’s magnum opus. In retrospect, my absorption in Marxist intellectualism may have constituted a kind of proto-Torah study. Granted, it’s a big, big stretch to bring Das Kapital within the rabbinic tradition. And yet, I think there’s a valid metaphor at work. Because I’m not so much talking about the substance of the Marxist works I consumed as a youth, as the mind-set that I brought to the enterprise.

The same drive that I presently feel for knowledge and truth in my study of the rabbinic writings undoubtedly underlay my radical studies as a teen and a young man. The conundrum that I've only recently resolved is how I can be feeling the pull of my ancestral Jewish religious roots and my youthful political activism at the same time. I just never would have thought that the two could co-exist – the religious and the political. Look at the grandparents, look at the parents, the aunts and the uncles – it was always one or the other.

The rabbis tell us that there is no incongruity at all in what I’m experiencing. We Jews speak of ours as a religion of deeds, meaning that for an observant religious life a commitment to repairing the world is mandatory, not optional. In that sense, engagement with the political in conjunction with the religious is a perfect fit. This very logical line of reasoning seems to harmonize these two urges that I thought for so long were mutually exclusive. At least for now, this fusion of my two spiritual selves has a comfortable feel to it. I think I’ll continue to pursue it and see where it goes.

More on Atheism

A rabbinic friend of mine and liberal Protestant minister in my neighborhood have been discussing the issue atheism on another blog I regularly read. The discussion is being fueled by a couple of books in the current intellectual literature. Since I normally don’t like to comment on books I haven’t read, I won’t name the books or authors. Suffice it to say that the books, at least by report, seem to feature a style of bright-lights atheism that practically exalts non-belief to a religion of its own, not a very appealing theology as far as I’m concerned. To me, the more interesting question, then, is where to fit the atheist who isn’t doing it for the power or the glory or some other base motive, but simply hasn’t been convinced by the God argument. As indicated in a previous post ("Tsimtsum Atheism), God isn’t a concept that I entertain in my life, certainly no God north of Spinoza’s or Kaplan’s, which is to say no kind of God worth his or her salt. Presumably, this means that I’m not currently receiving any of God’s mercy, and if I am I probably should be feeling sheepish about it. And, yet, I believe with all my heart that the Torah belongs to me as much as it does to you believers. I study it, I cherish it and I think good things come from it. But it hasn’t brought me faith, the sustaining quality of being a believer in God. Instead, the Torah has reaffirmed doubt for me as a guiding principle, faith’s polar opposite. After all, the Hebrew Bible is all about moral quandaries, and what is a quandary if not an expression of doubt? The principle of doubt tells me not to accept anything on faith, but to require proof and justification. So far, no book, no argument, no natural phenomenon and, certainly, very little in the history of humanity has provided me with proof that God exists – quite the opposite. So, I’d like you to know from my friends in the clergy where that leaves me, because my non-belief seems to be a bigger issue for them than it is for me. Can you believers accept a non-believer as a fellow-traveler of sorts, or are we atheists doomed to eternal traifness in your theology? And if we are, my next question is whose Torah is it anyway, because I really feel that I have as much invested in it as you do.

Darfur & the Jews

What I’m about to write is going to sound very meanspirited, but unfortunately I've come to believe it. From a Jewish perspective, Darfur is an excuse, salve for our collective conscience, something worthy in its own right for sure, but ultimately a diversion. I'll explain.

American Jewry has has been drawn to the issue of Darfur like nothing we’ve seen since the civil rights era of the 1960s. With the rallying cry of “never again,” Jews in America have made the plight of the Darfurians their own. I personally attended Darfur protest rallies this year in Washington D.C. and New York, and helped plan a Darfur-related program in my shul. Both rallies were Jewish-dominated events. Undoubtedly, Darfur attracts us as Jews because of our own victimization in the last century and throughout our history. It’s a good urge to identify with the oppressed, something to be proud of, so what’s the problem? The problem for me can be summed up in one word: Gaza. We’re willing to pour our hearts out for the people of Darfur, but we have very little to say about the plight of the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, except sometimes to talk about terrorism. Look, I’m not naive. I understand that most American Jews are partisans of Israel in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I understand the urge and feel it myself. But I can no longer accept it as an excuse. We owe it our own sense of morality to show the same compassion for the Palestinians of Gaza as we’ve put on display for Darfur. Compassion in this context doesn’t mean ignoring the real threat that some elements of the Palestinian society pose to Israel. There is no doubting the existence of murderous terrorists among the Palestinians. At the same time, with a true sense of compassion and an honest assessment of Israeli history, one has to admit that there’s blame to go around in the endless war between us and them. The recognition that we’re a big part of the problem would be a true compassionate step, an honest step and a moral one. It wouldn’t instantly resolve the conflict, but it may be a prerequisite for a solution.

At this point, you’re probably wondering what any of this has to do with Darfur? It’s this. I’m convinced that Darfur, worthy a cause as it may be, is a handy way for American Jews, progressive and conservative alike, to avert our eyes from what’s going on in the Middle East. Taking up the plight of the Darfurians tells us that we’re still good people, still on the side of the oppressed and the brutalized. It’s a diversion from the reality that in the Middle East we’re siding with the guys with the tanks. I’m going to continue to participate in political activities in support of the people of Darfur. My sad, cynical take on the issue is no reason not to continue my involvement with a worthy cause. However, I can no longer avert my eyes from what’s taking place in Israel. I’m a Zionist with all my heart, but I can’t lie to myself anymore. Darfur is fine, but that doesn’t change what’s going on in Gaza.

Tsimtsum Atheism

Tsimtsum, a concept from Jewish mysticism, holds that at the moment of creation God withdrew to make room for the universe. The principle of Tsimtsum has a kind of symmetry that I find appealing, but at first blush it wouldn’t seem to have any relevance for modern liberal Jewish theology. Yet, in my own theological musings, as an atheist, I’ve found not only relevance, but great comfort in Tsimtsum. Of course, it isn’t God that withdraws in my personal system of Tsimtsum, but non-belief itself. Now don’t get me wrong, I continue to be a non-believer. It’s just that by virtue of Tsimtsum, non-belief has become far less important. Should it shrink to the infinitesimal stature of a point, it will withdraw no further. It’s never going to disappear altogether, but what certainly is happening is that it’s ceasing to be in the way. With the shrinkage of atheism in my personal theology, I feel freer to pursue the mitzvot, the legal/ethical obligations, mandated for Jews by the Torah. When atheism was King, rather than a shrinking point, I always felt the need to justify any observance of the mitzvot. The Tsimtsum-ing of atheism in my life has had the effect of alleviating such feelings of guilt. Now, don’t get me wrong again. While Tsimtsum may mean not having to say I’m sorry any more for a life tending towards Jewish observance, it doesn’t mean shedding my critical faculties either, cardinal Jewish values in their own right. Tsimstum atheism doesn’t demand that these values to be relegated to the dust bin of Jewish theology, only that a comfortable intellectual construction consistent with observance and non-belief is available to those modern liberal Jews for whom the concept of God has no meaning, but most everything else about Judaism does.

Mayor Daley: A Man for All Seasons

Reading David Brooks’s column this morning in the New York Times, I was reminded of a famous malaprop committed by Mayor Richard J. Daley, of Chicago. After the Chicago police became the big story at the 1968 Democratic National Convention, Daley had the impossible task of defending a police riot reminiscent of the Nazi era. Indeed, in a speech during the convention, Senator Abraham Ribicoff, a mainstream politician, had referred to “gestapo tactics” in the streets of Chicago by the police. Afterwards, Daley classically lectured the press that “the policeman isn’t there to create disorder. The policeman is there to preserve disorder.” And that’s about what where we are in Iraq. It’s going to be interesting to see who turns the light out when we finally leave. I had thought Bush was the last person in America still speaking in earnest about staying the course. (I’m not counting McCain who’s got to be doing it for political effect – presumably, he’s staking out the “I told you so” concession for the 2008 election). But after reading Brooks this morning, it looks like Bush still has some company with him guarding the light switch. I suppose that even the most ardent advocates of leaving Iraq, and I count myself in that number, have to allow the possibility that a quick American withdrawal will lead to even greater disruption. If that were to happen, who knows? Maybe Brooks is right, and the chaos would spread like wild fire. I don’t happen to believe that, but I wouldn’t presume to make any predictions about anything in the Middle East at this point. But the tenor of Brooks’s column is that our exit from Iraq is a catastrophe waiting to happen. The problem, of course, is that the catastrophe has already been with us for almost four years and we all know what caused it. It’s clear what kind of problems the American occupation is causing every day for the Iraqi people and our beleaguered soldiers. The far more compelling school of thought is that our departure is the only way to help this infection to start to heal, however long that might take. It’s difficult to see anything positive in our continued presence, unless, as Mayor Daley might have put it, you believe that we are in Iraq to “preserve the disorder.”

ISRAEL: ON BEING HONEST ABOUT OUR OWN HISTORY

I’ve become convinced as a Jew, and a Zionist, that we have a hefty measure self-repairing to do. We can’t perform tikkun olam without coming to grips with our own shortcomings. We, ourselves, have some history to answer for and if we continue to live by the myths that admittedly have sustained us in the past, they are going to swallow us. We share much in common with the Palestinians in that way. For a long time, many Zionists, and I include myself, have gone on the assumption that we weren’t part of the problem – we wanted to make peace and it was only a matter of the other side coming around. But too much has been written in the last 20 years to justify that premise any longer. There is simply too much evidence that the early Israeli leadership had its eye on more than our fair share of the land. The gleam in that collective eye became a reality with the spectacular victory of the Six Day War and the advent of the settler movement. We need to be willing to put ourselves in the shoes of the Palestinians and imagine, if we can, what the course of Zionist history, especially starting with the Balfour Declaration, looked like from the other side. If we as a People could do that, the intransigence of the Palestinians might be more understandable and the generous positions we’ve convinced ourselves that we’ve taken might not look quite as generous in retrospect. None of this is to exonerate the murderous tactics that our adversaries have resorted to in this conflict or their failure to negotiate in good faith at certain crucial points. But what about the occupation? Hasn’t that been terribly brutal too? Doesn’t it continue to be? And what of our own missteps in the world of diplomacy? Sometimes we’ve had to employ less than palatable measures in defense of ourselves, but too often it seems to have been in defense of the status quo, meaning our ongoing land grab on the West Bank. The bottom line for me is that both sides have to be a lot more honest with themselves before they can make peace with each other. It takes humility to recognize that the truth is unflattering to oneself. The question is whether we really want to? I’m not sure.