Summary:
The human community seems poised on the threshold of a new
era. The old boundaries are dissolving as our “flat world” enables each of us
to fashion a more eclectic identity. Yet this new era is seen as extremely
threatening to some, who feel safe behind their particularistic national,
ethnic, religious and ideological barricades. This is the real struggle in the
post-modern world; not the struggle between national, ethnic, religious and
ideological groups, but between those who will fight for the barricades and
those who struggle to tear them down.
Last Sunday, I attended the annual “Cantor’s Concert” at my synagogue.
Designed by our cantor as part pleasure, inspiration and entertainment for the
congregation, and part fundraiser, the concert normally combines her musical
talents with those of other Jewish musicians in the community.
This year’s format was different, reflecting the storytelling
milieu of the forthcoming Passover ritual and its libretto, the Haggadah, literally, “the telling.” The
stories emerged from a diverse cross-section of the community, but not the
traditional Jewish community that one might expect. Here was NPR commentator Neda Ulaby, self-described
daughter of an Irish mother and an Arab-Muslim father, who spent her life in
the company of Jews. At one point she discovered that her Arab-Muslim father
was not her biological father. The latter was a Jewish man who had abandoned
her mother when she became pregnant. As Ulaby told it, the combination of an Irish
mother, an Arab-Muslim step-father and a Jewish biological father yields a
Jewish woman.
Another storyteller described his experience as a “gentile”
man married to an Israeli woman and raising a Jewish family. (“Gentile,”
according to this storyteller, is a word Jews use around gentiles in lieu of
the standard word “goy.”) This man speaks what seems to be a fairly decent
Hebrew and is proud of his Jewish family. So why not convert? “Because I don’t
feel Jewish,” he mused, “and that would be an important criterion to
conversion.”
“I want to hold on to my heritage,” he continued, “and that
is probably the most Jewish thing about me.”
The world seems poised on the edge of some sort of major social
revolution. A new form of human social interaction is being born, and a new way
for humanity to understand itself in the cosmos and within the human community.
It is a part of humanity that literally thinks and acts out of the box—not in
the conventional sense of thinking differently, but actually removing ourselves
from the ideological, philosophical, theological, ethnic, national and
religious boxes that have defined the individual from very early times.
We’ve actually understood this trend for some time. What
sociologists label our post-modern world is one in which the social
boundaries have become fluid, permeable. Certainly in pluralistic America, the
post-baby boom generations tend to eschew ethnic labels and affiliations in
favor of a blending of ethnic identities. These are the so-called “nones” of
the 2012 Pew Research Foundation’s study of religion in America, the people who
report no religious affiliation. It turns out that many of these people are not
irreligious, but understand their spirituality and religious identity as open
to inspiration regardless of the particular religious tradition from which it emerges.
There is an entire sweep of humanity reflected in diverse
human communities all over the world that are emerging from these boxes. I
would suggest that what we have seen in Tahrir Square in Egypt and at the
Maidan in Kiev is also part of this trend. These are expressions of the “flat
world” that columnist and author Thomas Friedman has been writing about for
years. These movements are more than expressions of a desire for some inchoate
vision of “freedom.” They reveal an urge to break down the barriers to a larger
world that oppressive regimes have imposed. The Ukrainians in the Maidan want
to be part of Europe not only to improve their political and economic
conditions, but to participate in the dissolution of boundaries that the
European Union represents.
To those living in the old world of the boxes, this trend is
seen as anywhere from naïve to dangerous. The world outside the boxes is
frightening. It’s nice and cozy and secure inside the old boxes. It’s simple:
there’s us and there’s them, and they threaten us, so we have to be prepared to
fight them to protect us. I would go so far as to suggest that the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict is no longer a struggle between Israelis and
Palestinians. It’s a struggle between those Israelis and Palestinians who feel
safe and comfortable inside the boxes of their national narratives of
victimhood on the one hand, and those Israelis and Palestinians who are anxious
to come out of the boxes and create what could be a truly fresh and inspiring
blended Mideast culture.
So this is the struggle that I believe will lead to the next
phase of human history, the next era. Will those of us who cherish the
opportunity for self-awareness and growth offered by the permeability of the
boundaries and the dismantling of the boxes prevail, or will it be those who
take to the barricades? The latter seem prepared to fight and even die for
their boxes. Are the former prepared for this struggle?
Back when I was in high school, our Zionist Youth Movement debates often centered around the idea of what "authentic" Judaism is. I'm no longer convinced that makes sense, but the idea still has strong appeal to many people.
ReplyDeleteAnd one thing that I think is fundemental to Judaism is the idea of separation---of Jews as being our own community. This isn't really possible if we don't have definitional lines that allow us to agree on who is in and who is out. (For example, what about Messianic Jews? Do we consider them Jewish).
No answers here, just questions. The world has changed a lot since I was in high school!
And then I was looking at your links and came to this:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/atheologies/7774/why_christians_should_not_host_their_own_passover_seders/