Genuine Religious Jews
The Hebrew version of
this essay is to be found on the following URL: http://tinyurl.com/yfnud6
Jews inspired by genuine Divine
afflatus do not engage overmuch in ceremonies, nor do they speak in
clichés, quoting others verbatim by rote.
They are not overly punctilious and
scrupulous about ritual purity and they do not carry out formulaic actions
obsessively-compulsively.
They do not care a whit about their own
salvation and nothing they do is for the sake of ensuring an eternal place of
rest and joy for themselves.
They act in, rather than speak of, love.
They do not wax pontifical or esoteric.
They concern themselves with the needs of human beings qua human beings.
They do not sacrifice the material
levels of our beings for the sake of the "spiritual" levels.
They do not profit from the encouraging
and teaching of others to observe ritual.
They do not claim immaculate morality
on the part of their teachers; neither do they claim that their tradition or
their teachers are infallible.
They do not set themselves up and judge
and jury over humankind.
The only abomination they recognize is
injustice and the misuse of power.
They need no social acceptance or group
to be part to know what they should do or give them a sense of identity. They
are strong enough to stand alone, all alone, if need be.
Their every action, the very purpose of
their lives and their entire being is given over to the alleviation of the
suffering of humankind.
Injustice is intolerable to them and
they fight for justice for all no matter what the personal price they must pay
for it.
Gustav Landauer,
Emma Goldman, Alexander Berkman, Saul Alinsky, Martin Buber and Murray Bookchin were religious Jews. They carried within them the
whole of Torah. They received and passed on the torch of the Prophets of
Israel. This was true despite the
protestations of some of them that they were atheists. It is recorded of Emma
Goldman, the self-professed atheist Anarchist, that: "A rabbi who heard her lecture a large
conference of clergymen on atheism probably came closer than the public to
understanding her antireligious stand. "In spite of al Miss Goldman has
said against religion", he announced, "she
is the most religious person I know." (RED EMMA SPEAKS, An Emma Goldman Reader, Compiled and Edited
by Alix Kates Shulman, Preface to Part Two; Published 1998 by Humanity
Books, an imprint of Prometheus Books)
It is certainly true that some Jews who
adhere to the minutiae of Jewish Law may be true Orthodox Jews, but this is true
if and only if they do so in addition to devoting their entire lives to the
amelioration of the human condition and the alleviation of human suffering.
Their performance of the minutiae of Jewish Law is not that which defines them
as genuine Orthodox Jews. That is a mere appurtenance. Their devotion to
justice is that which defines them as genuine Orthodox Jews.
Those who teach Jewish Law in such a
way that it comes in lieu of acting in the world for the betterment of human
kind; if it obviates doing so; if it becomes so all-demanding, time-consuming
and burdensome that there is no strength or time for fighting injustice; if the
observance of Jewish Law imparts the illusion of being absolutely right and
just; if it attenuates the desire to right wrongs or puts off the doing so for
the Mashiach to take care of; if it brings one to
believe that each of us has only to tend to our own imperfections – then we may
be entirely sure that what we have is not Judaism at all, but an ersatz, painstakingly
deliberately fabricated and purposefully promulgated in order to confound us, to
keep our energies invested in that which will avail nothing and deflect us from
our duties by nefarious interests.
A great deal of money, ink and blood is
being poured in order to keep Jews distracted from our true purpose and our
true values. This is as true of the religious segments of our society as it is
of the secular segments. The only difference is the methods being employed in
order to dissipate our energies.
History has proven that Jews who are
devoted to justice en masse are invincible. It is then that HaShem
performs miracles for us.
Every effort is being made, in the
religious and secular worlds alike, to prevent us from knowing who we truly are, what our
purpose in creation is, and from mobilizing in unison, reaching a critical mass
of power and changing the course of the world. We can do it. We have done so
before. If we were not capable of changing the world, so much investment would
not be being invested in atomizing us and reducing our strength.
Do not be fooled. Do not be misled. Do
not be bought. Do not be enthralled. Do not be enticed. Do not be led astray.
We Jews were put here for the sake of participating
in the creation of a just world with every other and for every other sentient
being.
Let nothing, but nothing, be it
pseudo-religious principles or iPods and other things
that go beep in the night steer you away from what you are and what your designated
tasks are.
Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat, Israel