Commitment and Controversy Living in Two Worlds: Volume 5

By Jeremy Rosen

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• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jul 31, 2022
• ISBN: 9781669839767

Jeremy Rosen

Jeremy Rosen is an orthodox rabbi. He was born in Manchester, United Kingdom, and studied philosophy at Cambridge University and yeshivot in Israel and qualified as a rabbi while at Mir Yeshiva in Jerusalem. He has occupied pulpits around the world and was principal of Carmel College, professor at the Faculty for Comparative Religion, director of Yakar UK, and rabbi of the Persian Community of Manhattan in New York.

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JUDAISM

SPIRITUALITY

I often hear people say that sitting in a synagogue for a long time can be stultifying, boring, and the opposite of spiritual. My response is that they should try to meditate, shut out the world around them, bury themselves in a talit, relax and follow the great Musar¹ teachers of previous generations who practiced this, both before prayer and whenever they felt the need. And if that does not work, take a break, and go for a walk outside, in a park, along the coast, or on the banks of a river. Whatever is available. To look at nature and to wonder at the universe and then try to pray!

Looking at nature, detaching oneself from the mundane technicalities of life may well be therapeutic. Better than getting bored, distracted, or frustrated in a noisy synagogue. But is it spiritual? I often recommend meditation, contemplation, deep breathing, and yoga. They are all beneficial. But not what I would call spiritual.

To me, spirituality means connecting to something quite specific. Prayer is the usual vehicle for connecting with God. But is that the only or the best way to go? Prayer in our tradition has several functions. One of them is indeed to try to connect with God. The other is to express one’s thoughts, needs, and anxieties. The Hebrew word for prayer, tefila, has several sources that include praise, self-expression, self-analysis, and self-judgment, as well as intercession. Some of this is a public process, and some of this is private. We should not think of prayer exclusively as something we do in a synagogue as part of communal services. Even in services, part is devoted to reading Torah and study, which has nothing intrinsically to do with prayer.

According to Maimonides in his Laws of Prayer, we all have an obligation in the Torah to pray, whenever we feel like it, at any time, in any language, and in any place (so long as it is clean). This personal obligation is quite separate from praying formally three times a day, which came much later to replace the sacrificial system after the destruction of the temple.

There is a strange opinion expressed in the Ethics of the Fathers: Whoever is walking along and breaks off his study to say how beautiful is this tree or this furrow, has endangered his soul (2:7). I used to think that this implied that if one stopped in the middle of praying to look at the physical universe, this was a bad thing, a kind of pagan worship of trees and the spirits of the world. But it doesn’t say that. It talks about breaking off from one’s study to look at nature. I suspect this had something to do with the contrast between a Greek approach to beauty, perhaps Epicureanism, and a Jewish one. Or that it is referring to someone who makes looking at a tree a greater priority than study, Torah, or God.

I take the rabbis to be saying that this is the modern equivalent of abandoning university to wander in a hippie-like, spaced-out haze, worshipping little birdies and flowers. In contrast to the rigors of Torah study, which came to be considered the most important feature of religious life in rabbinic Judaism. Some even suggested in the Talmud that study even took priority over prayer as a way of expressing one’s commitment to God. Such study requires discipline, whereas loving nature is an emotional experience, something you could always indulge in. Abandoning study for looking at nature implied having different values and priorities. You could value both, but one was certainly more important than the other.

Nowadays, I often hear people say that they are not religious, but they claim to be spiritual. What do they mean? In French, the word spirituel need not have anything to do with God or religious experience. It simply means having wit or spirit in a very secular way, like team spirit, or a lively personality. Or the word spiritoso in Italian, likewise, means being a great guy or girl, not necessarily connected in any way to God. But in the English language I learned, it had and has very specific connotations to do with how we talk of God, or the Great Spirit of the universe, the Ein Sof, the endless energy of nature. Whereas in Buddhism or Spinoza’s pantheism, it can simply mean nature, in Judaism, it means something more. It is the transcendent, an identifiable sense of encountering something, some force. It is when you shut your eyes and look out into the darkness and feel a presence, which could just be in your mind, but it connects you to something outside of yourself. It is like suddenly feeling the air you normally breathe all the time without realizing it is there.

It can indeed give a sense of how insignificant one is, standing alone in the face of the universe. The great mystery. The awe that distinguishes an individual human body from its source. Yet it is somehow comforting to feel that one is part of this vast, eternal, endless expanse, even if we are only a speck in it.

The question is whether just looking at nature does in any way connect you with God. It certainly can give you a sense of wonder. But it need not at all. Nature is amazing in itself, but it is not what I mean by the spiritual. It is something else. Nature is, of course, absolutely crucial. But nature is not the same as what most people mean by God. So that if one stops praying (which requires focus, concentration, and intent) to look at nature, then one is going into a very different area of one’s mind and experience altogether. I am not undervaluing or negating it. Quite the contrary. I am validating it but just saying that it is not a religious experience as such.

So many people want to feel what religious experience offers. They sense there is something of importance there, but they can’t be bothered to discipline themselves with the rituals that are essential to achieve it. Perhaps they think the rewards are not worth the effort. It’s like wanting to be fit without having to exercise. Wanting to be slim without eating less just will not work.

The religious experience, in contrast to the spiritual, involves withdrawing temporarily from everyday activity and preoccupations at various moments in the day and week. It is a structured way of life and commitment. It should also involve belonging to a community rather than just having an occasional individual experience. Religious spirituality requires a recurring series of little bites of time, occasions away from the rush and noise of daily obligations. If it’s only rare or casual, then you tend to forget, get out of the habit, and become alienated, and distant. The effect is lost. It’s like all those self-help books that end up abandoned on bookshelves, all the resolutions made and forgotten.

The other side of the coin is that so many religious people find themselves in a routine or a way of life that is too mindless, going with a flow that doesn’t involve conscious commitment or thought or discipline, just learned habit. That explains why so many outwardly religious people can behave so irreligiously, so lacking in spirituality. But even they can be brought back into the realms of spirituality because they have a social support structure, a familiar routine that can be harnessed. They come together to sing and dance or pray, reinforce, and repeat the experiences that can draw them closer to God regularly. It is called Deveykut similar to the Hebrew word for glue, coming closer, that several Chasidic dynasties made the core of their worship. But it too is the discipline one needs, the regular practice to succeed at anything, to master something.

There are no shortcuts. You cannot learn a new language overnight or by a quick injection, like Botox. Anything worth having requires effort. You can’t have genuine spirituality without discipline. It is not a quick fix, a feel-good, momentary climax. It is not a personal quality or characteristic you have, like intelligence or good looks. It is a way of living that constantly revivifies and reminds and repeats. It enriches and gives an extra dimension to the way you live your life, day by day. Spirituality without religious structure is too vague. Religion without spirituality is too dry. The ideal is both.

March 2018

CHOSEN

It is not that I have any problem with the idea that different peoples may have different missions and cultures that are unique to them. It is just that I do not believe that this endows them with any automatic superiority or being chosen regardless of who or what they are.

The idea of The Chosen People long predates Judaism. Every early power and civilization thought it was chosen until it was not. According to its tradition, a nation of slaves emerged into the Sinai desert, and there were given a new constitution, a unique and universal ethical alternative to paganism. With it came the promise of a special relationship if only they would adhere to it. This relationship with God was part of the reciprocal Covenant that started with Abraham and then was reinforced at Sinai and repeated on the Plains of Moab forty years later. It was an obligation, a privilege, not a guarantee.

The history of the succeeding years shows how the Israelites failed as a nation to keep their side of the deal and as a result slowly and surely headed towards disaster. The amazing thing is that there were enough individuals who were indeed loyal and did succeed in keeping the flame of the Torah alive despite the continual failures and consequent disasters.

The Biblical source is Exodus 19:5-6: Now, therefore, if you will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then you shall be My treasure among all peoples, for all the earth is mine. And you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. Particularly in Deuteronomy, this phrase of being chosen as a people is repeated. But so is the idea of a special place dedicated to God (assumed to be the tabernacle or temple), over fifteen times. The phrase choosing life is also used several times as an imperative. To choose, or to pick says nothing intrinsic about the human being or a people any more than picking a soccer player because of a particular skill means that he or she is a good person. And if he’s no good at what he does he gets replaced.

Besides, the record shows it has never protected Jews from ignominy and destruction. God called us that too more than once, "a stiff-necked nation" (Exodus 33). And threatened to destroy us on several occasions and start anew. The Torah repeats several times that we were not privileged because we were better than anyone else (Deuteronomy 7:7).

It is true that the idea of having a mission in life, to try to show how a spiritual life should be led, has given us a sense of responsibility and pride in our heritage. Judaism is an intense religion, not for the masses. It can be a burden but then anything worthwhile only comes with effort. Which explains why even today when we are called to the Torah, we recite a blessing thanking God for giving us the Torah. But that is no more than a statement of delight in and commitment to our religion and our constitution. That is no more pernicious than saying that I am glad I am an American or a Brit or whatever.

Unlike some other religions, we do not believe that you must be Jewish to be saved or get to Heaven. All human beings are children, the sons, and daughters of God. That is the message both in the first chapter of Genesis where all humans are created together and in Psalms (82.6). A non-Jew who adheres to the basic seven Commands of Noah must be given equal civil rights and be welcomed into the community and supported. Non- Jewish sacrifices were happily accepted in the Temple. The Talmud refers to the righteousness of other nations who have a place in Heaven. Ben Azai declared that the universality of humanity was the most important principle in the Torah (Midrash Bereishit Rabbah 27).

Ironically it is the New Testament that has taken up the myth of election or chosenness in an exclusive way. You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, god’s special possession, once you were not a people, now you are the people of God, (Peter 2:4-5 and Revelation 1. NIV) And the idea that Christians were the Chosen People became the call of the crusades (Dei Gesta Dei Per Francos by Guibert de Nogent).

How often, even in America, do children still come home from school in tears because a pious Christian has informed them that they will burn in hell because they have not accepted Jesus? Why does nobody accuse Christians of being God’s Chosen? In how many Muslim Madrassas are Jews described as the doomed Dhimmis who will not enter Paradise for rejecting Mohammad? Aren’t Muslims guilty of thinking they are Chosen by Allah? Other religions claim only that their members are saved; Mormonism, Seventh Day Adventists, Rastafarianism, the Nation of Islam, and so did the Nazis.

So why are we still being attacked for claiming that we are Chosen and, in some way, better? Why does it appear on so many anti-Semitic websites along with conspiracy theories that we control the world?

Unfortunately, the problem is that many Jews, from across the spectrum, especially those with little knowledge, seem to believe they are superior in one way or another special. It may be a defense mechanism and a response to the constant de-legitimization and prejudice that simply will not die. It is not only offensive, but it flies in the face of the famous Talmudic statement that we are all the children of the one God and descended from one source and we can all say The world was created for me Sanhedrin 37a.

Some Jewish thinkers, including Judah Halevi in his Kuzari, the Maharal of Prague, R. Shneur Zalman of Lyady, R. Abraham Isaac Kook, and the Zohar, for example, believed in the idea that Jews are essentially distinct and superior to non-Jews. However, there is no biblical precedent for these ideas, nor is there much in classical rabbinic literature to support this contention which some argue gained currency only later when the degraded state of Jews in many medieval communities promoted this attitude as a means of maintaining self-esteem and surviving mentally. And as a response to both Christian and Muslim proselytizers.

Rambam (Maimonides) the great medieval rationalist insisted that there was no essential difference between Jew and non-Jews. All people must develop their intellect to know God and act morally. God chose Abraham because Abraham chose God, not because of any pre-existing metaphysical superiority of Abraham. God gave the Torah to the people of Israel because of that choice, and not because of any inherent characteristic in the people of Israel.

There is nothing wrong with trying to perpetuate one’s tradition and strengthen one’s community. Even if that makes one appear inward-looking. If anything, it has been our stubbornness and our way of life that has kept us alive. Many social, economic, and religious groups often prefer to live in communities or mix with their peers. That is free choice. So long as they are also sensitive to wider communities and express their civic sense positively. I haven’t heard people condemn money marrying money or aristocrats marrying aristocrats.

Yet anti-Semitism looks for any false excuse to condemn Jews. Together with the myth of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, or that Mossad was behind the Twin Towers, or that the myth of chosenness makes us superior, along with the Blood Libel that Jews drink Christian blood, these are simply dangerous lies that are currently proliferating and need to be eradicated. But of course, we know they will only re-emerge under some other guise. There is no point in trying to argue rationally who is so blinded by illogical hatred.

Different peoples have evolved different ways of life and different ways of expressing themselves spiritually. The shame was that they could not get on with each other. Competition between humans seems to have infected everything on earth. We are as far from Loving our Neighbors as ever. We should all be judged entirely based on our actions not on any claims to inherent superiority. And I am afraid that we are too often found wanting as individuals and a nation.

Some people think that the very survival of Judaism against the odds says something about being beloved by God. I often think of Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof, who turns to God in despair and says Please, God, can you choose someone else for a change?

OATHS

Anyone who has attended a Kol Nidrei service on the Day of Atonement will know that there are seven terms in Hebrew and Aramaic for vows and oaths. And three for the meaning of the process of commitment. They must have been incredibly significant once. Not to mention taking God’s name in vain. Nowadays, most of us don’t take any of those so seriously. Does it matter?

The Bible is full of vows. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob all swore to God. They swore to other people and made them swear back. There are places named after oaths as well. God swears back, not to destroy the world but to keep his commitments to His followers. And the Talmud has one large volume devoted to oaths and vows, categories, formulae, and the differences and variations.

What is an oath? Is it just a commitment? Or is it more? Some oaths were and are just curses. But others are supposed to be serious commitments to God. I have never liked oaths. They sound so awesome, and yet they are so easily abused. The one thing I think we can agree on is that nowadays, we do not take oaths or vows nearly as seriously as we once did. People swear using God’s name all the time and in the most ungodly ways. Oaths are constantly taken in vain and used as a common currency. Criminals swear their innocence on the Bible when we know they are lying blind. Politicians swear their probity on their words of honor. I can recall any number of outwardly very, very religious and pious people who were happy to swear blind to other people and to civil and rabbinic courts with absolutely no intention of abiding by their oaths whatsoever.

I am ashamed to say that I have allowed the odd swear word to escape my lips. And I agree that swearing is being linguistically lazy and inadequate. My late father used to swear By the bones of Bohunkus, but he was having a laugh. As for swearing to believe, that sounds pretty pointless. How can anyone tell what another person truly believes? Most of us do not know ourselves! Surely it is behavior that counts. Any idiot can claim he believes in anything, including men from Mars.

In our religious tradition, taking God’s name in vain means using God’s name when one does not need to or mean it. Disrespectfully. And it is something that mattered once upon a time. But those were the days when one dared not be rude to one’s parents. Oaths and vows were really serious commitments. In the old days, they were the most important tools available to try to find out what actually happened when there was no other evidence. To take an oath in vain was a crime against God, monarch, and country. A challenge to the prevailing order.

In this day and age, what is the purpose of an oath other than to annoy others? After all, if under torture, a person will say whatever is required of him. Why shouldn’t someone who wants to gain citizenship swear loyalty if that’s what it takes? Who cares if I swear to be faithful to a civil constitution that humans have cobbled together and gets messed about with by whatever brand of politics its legislators are committed to? Indeed, some American Jihadists who have tried to damage their adopted country swore oaths to become citizens, and on the Koran too. So what were they thinking? All these national oaths of loyalty and arms placed in symbolic ways only remind me of narrow-minded nationalist bigots.

I was brought up in a country, Britain, where we were not in the habit of swearing loyalty to anyone. I never had to take oaths of loyalty to the Crown. And yet British history was very much preoccupied with swearing loyalty to the church, the armed services, or the monarchy, Queen, and Country. This has all but been lost, apart from ceremonial occasions, nowadays in the UK. But in the USA, schoolchildren pledge every day of the school year. New citizens have to pledge loyalty and say that they are prepared to fight for their country if called upon to do so.

There was a move a while back in the Israeli cabinet to impose a loyalty oath on any non-Jew wanting Israeli citizenship. People requesting citizenship were going to be required to make a declaration in which they commit to being loyal to the State of Israel as a Jewish, Zionist, and democratic state, to its symbols and values, and to serve the state as much as required through military or alternative service. In then Prime Minister Ehud Barak’s alternative draft, prospective citizens would have been required to say, I declare that I will be a citizen loyal to the State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state, in the spirit of the declaration of independence, and I am committed to honoring the laws of the state.

The Knesset threw it out. Long ago, Samuel Johnson said that patriotism is the refuge of a scoundrel. In which case it seems to me that Avigdor Lieberman and his party, Yisrael Beiteinu, who initiated this are a bunch of scoundrels. So too were the cabinet for agreeing. The matter is now before the Israeli Supreme Court.

But for the fun of it, let us examine this idea. What if we do not subscribe to the stated aims of our country? What if I do not subscribe to secular Zionism? What if I think the pursuit of happiness is meaningless fluff? North Korea is called the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, and it is neither democratic nor do its people have any say as to how it is run. And which definition of democracy are we going to have to swear to uphold? Are not gerrymandered American voting districts undemocratic? And values? Which values? Religious? Which version and whose? Do these include economic values? I ask you.

It is meaningless twaddle. It is tokenism mixed with politics, seasoned with prejudice and idiocy. It is one thing to claim that Israel is a Jewish state; it is quite another thing to insist that its citizens swear loyalty to it as a Jewish state whatever that means. Just keep the law of the land, for goodness’ sake. Isn’t that enough? Soon, no doubt, these zealots will try imposing oaths on nonconformist Jews too. Most of the Charedi world shares my objection to oaths. Indeed, they are no fans of democracy, and many of them are opposed to the secular state on principle. Just try forcing them to swear loyalty!

We Jews cannot even agree on a definition of who a Jew is. Are we going to ask an Arab Christian or a Muslim to swear to be a Jew? How are we going to define a Jewish state for a meaningful oath? Will secular Israelis have to swear loyalty to the Torah? Oaths are common, it is true, among the nations of the world. But nowadays, they reflect the pettiness of nationalism and reinforce the humbug of formality.

Jews cannot agree on anything. Nominally Jewish/Israeli actresses (usually married out of Judaism) lend their names to campaigns against Israel encouraging Jewish identity. It does not surprise me that the gulf between assimilated and committed Jews is growing wider and wider. What, I wonder, have publicity-seeking Jews ever done for the future of Judaism other than furthering their political careers?

Before World War II, there was a famous debate in the Oxford Union entitled King and Country. By a majority vote, the students rejected the notion of my country, right or wrong. And this apparently, persuaded Hitler that the Brits would not go to war. In the end, they did, which proved that words are cheap and unreliable. And thus it is with defending or undermining the State of Israel. Any formulation of oaths will increase negativity rather than rally support. When it comes to standing up for one’s land, I prefer action anytime over words.

My theory is this. David, when he ran away from King Saul to Achish, the Philistine king, pretended to be mad to be left alone. The current Israeli political leadership is pretending to be mad so that the peacemakers will leave them alone too. Loyalty should be tested in actions, not words.

SILENCE

The fourth book of the Bible was called Numbers by early Christian scholars. I guess because it starts with a national census. But we call it B’Midbar, in the wilderness, because it deals with the events that led to the forty years a whole generation spent in the wilderness. The Hebrew word root of wilderness, MDBR, is the same as the word for speaking. The opposite of silence. Can there be a message in the silence? My late father, when he was in Mir Yeshiva in Lithuania, was influenced by Musar, the nineteenth-century movement that dominated the Lithuanian yeshivot of Eastern Europe. It was a movement of introspection and self-analysis. Silence, being alone, meditation—all played very important roles.

In the school he founded, he had the custom of getting everyone to sit in the synagogue in silence on Shabbat evenings in the hour or so before Shabbat ended. The sun would be setting. It would get progressively darker as we sat there in the synagogue before we could turn the lights on. Not an easy thing to do, to sit in silence, for some three hundred youngsters. Yet the atmosphere was quite magical. Then, after a while, my father would start humming the slow, reflective tunes he had heard in Mir from R. Yerucham Levovitz, his mentor. And finally, he would give us a little homily on being a good person.

At sixteen, I was packed off to study in Israel in