Studying Judaism in Jerusalem

August 8, 2007

I have been at the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies now for two out of the three weeks. It is attended by people who are passionate about their Judaism and who want to know more about the religion. There are a couple of non-Jews from Germany who are attending and are considering conversion to Judaism. One found that she has Jewish grandparents and the other just feels drawn to it.

I have felt somewhat disinterested in the classes. I entered these at this time in my life mainly because I wanted a break from the Hebrew classes and also that I wanted to see what it was like to be in Jerusalem. Classes I have taken are on the Talmud, early Zionism, The Land of Israel as mentioned in the Bible (Tanach), and the teachings of Rabbi Kook and how he differs from other philosophers. We look at the writings of Nietzsche, Aristotle, Plato, Ahad Haam, Theodore Herzl, and others.

I can see how others are getting fulfillment. However, the more I learn, the more questions I have. The more questions I have, the more I find out about the differences in and the subjectivity of the interpretations of the Tanach. I am now learning about the introduction of the Talmud (The Oral Law) that was written down after the Jews were exiled from ancient Israel after having a Jewish state there for nearly a thousand years. It was said to be forbidden to write down the Oral Law that G-d supposedly gave to Moses and told him to pass down orally. In order to keep the nation and the religion together, when Jews were exiled by the Romans, they took the chance and wrote down what they thought were G-d’s words to Moses. They may have done this out of fear of losing it or they may have said its laws were divine so that the People would not assimilate into Babylon or elsewhere and so they would stay as a nation inside a host nation. The Talmud gives detailed laws outside of Torah. There are also many Rabbis whose interpretations of the Talmud contribute to today’s Jewish laws and traditions.

All of this seems to be at the wrong time for me. I keep thinking, “What does this religion have over any other? People live by Jewish laws here but these laws were interpreted from a document where some specific laws are generally considered metaphoric and interpretations of vague references are strictly adhered to as G-d’s commandments. Notorious examples of these are that “the penalty for desecrating Shabbat is death” is “metaphoric” and “the prohibition of eating a calf in its mother’s milk” means “no cheese on your chicken”.

In reading parts of the Tanach for the first time in my life (or at least when I paid attention. Sorry, Mrs. Sidman), I see the hypocrisies in the Tanach, itself: Joshua enslaved some of the Canaanites right after coming out of slavery in Egypt. There are other references to ancient Israelites having slaves here. On Pesach, we remember being slaves but we don’t remember owning them. I remember our holiday of Purim where we read the Magilla, the story of Haman trying to convince the king to murder all of the Jews. In the end, the Jews killed Haman, all of his family, and all those who followed him. We don’t seem to pay much attention to that. Anyway, there was a lot of violence in the Tanach and Christians and Muslims have to deal with these stories as well. Certainly, Christians have to as this is their bible as well. Or, at least it was until their Sequel was written.

I suppose I had hoped for a solidification of my adherence to Judaism. I am perfectly willing to change my opinion and to be wrong. However, I have not much changed my vision of the spirituality that works for me. I still love Judaism and it does work for me. I find satisfaction in the rituals and traditions. I find that going through these, regardless of their origin, ties me back with the ancient Jews of thousands of years ago as well as those to come. Unlike Christianity, I can question, doubt, and not believe and still be totally Jewish. In fact, Jews encourage the questioning and studying. Basically, as long as you do not believe in multiple gods, you are still considered Jewish. I think that had I been born of another religion, I would have found fulfillment in that. Yet, I love being Jewish. I love these traditions and rituals and I love the connection to others that also perform these.

So, it all comes down to faith. Whether it happened or anything happened. I go back to my last entry: Whatever your Truth is, is true. Whatever my truth is, is also true. Such is religion and faith. Whether it is

1) the antidote for feeling that life is meaningless,
2) a way of keeping the wretched in their place, or
3) divine boundaries within which we must live our lives because some us feel we need direction as the choices are overwhelming,

it all comes down to a subjective truth. We all search for it. How else is it that so many good people (and there are a lot of good religious people, contrary to the cynic) have faith in what they know is true yet their truth is diametrically apposed to another righteous person's truth?

Now, to my Anti-Zionist friends (you know who you are):

Although Israel makes many mistakes in its acts toward the Palestinians (some egregious), they also do a lot of good for them. Palestinians are suffering. Much of that is because of Israel. I do not support, whatsoever, the Settlements in the West Bank. The exception is that I believe there should be military outposts around Jerusalem to protect this vulnerable spot. I recently stood on a hilltop west of Jerusalem where I could see Palestine to the right of me, Palestine to the left of me, and Tel Aviv in front of me http://www.mideastweb.org/misrael.htm. The right-wing settlers that believe that all of ancient Israel should be Jewish again should be brought back into Israel-proper. I believe the Security barrier/wall/fence/whatever, seems to have made a huge difference of stopping the suicide terrorists that target civilians. This has also been a land-grab and has severely crippled the Palestinian economy and separated friends and families. If Israel can get some guarantees for peace, I believe they would have to remove the barrier and back up the border in several places. Israel annexed Jerusalem and stretched out the border into part of the West Bank. Everyone there was given Israeli citizenship, voting rights, and the ability to travel freely around the country.

I found that Israel was not, necessarily on a higher moral ground in 1947-1948 when the British were about to pull out and give land to the Jews and the Arabs. It was a land grab between Arabs and Jews. Arabs, who wanted all the land as an Arab country, kicked out the Jews from cities like Jericho, Hebron, and Eastern Jerusalem. Jews kicked out some of the Arabs in certain areas. In fact, the home where I am now renting a room was in an Arab neighborhood where the residents either fled the upcoming war in 1948 or were forced out by the Jews. This era is referred to as the Civil War. Both sides were separating from the other (they were next door neighbors for two millennia). In late 1947, they were attacking each other.

Jews were not on higher ground at the time, nor were Arabs. It was a civil war of two peoples who wanted to control the land. Jews that were forced out of cities to the east came to the Jewish sections and lost their homes in towns controlled by Arabs. In 1948, Jordan invaded and occupied what was supposed to be Palestine. In the Six Day War of 1967, Jordan invaded Israel and Israel pushed back the Jordanians from Jerusalem and out to the East Bank of the Jordan River. That was a fair military victory and Israel had every right to annex what they had won as long as they gave citizenship to the inhabitants. They chose not to. At times they have withdrawn from the West Bank only to be attacked again. There needs to be a Peace Agreement and two countries. Israel knows they can’t stay in the West Bank and they most don’t want to. If they can just get the security that they won’t be attacked, they would leave it completely.

For those that think the USA should not support a country that has religion in the government because we do not, I say that I fully support a state for these people that have been persecuted for thousands of years while disbursed throughout the nations. As long as other religions can freely practice and get similar benefits for their tax dollars, I have no problem. After all, the USA has Sunday as its day of rest. Why can’t the Israel have Saturday? There is freedom of the press in Israel. You can go online and find thousands of criticisms of the government by its citizens. This keeps the country in-line. You can’t find that elsewhere in this region of the world. There is no other country as scrutinized as Israel in the international media. Ever wonder why when there are countries such as North Korea, China, Sudan, Russia in Chechnia? Given their circumstances, they are doing fine but certainly have room for improvement.

Randy