Nobody Promised You a Rose Garden
Judith Shulevitz has an article up on Slate that concludes, among other things, that strict religions are the ones most likely to survive. The first article I ever wrote for the Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle was entitled "Where Are Our Stadiums". From the awkward title to its plodding pace, it sucked (editorial comment on my next submission: "good job - this actually sounds like an article!" I'm not kidding). Nonetheless, the argument it made was sound: American Judaism has effectively failed in the essential task of any religion - to instill commitment in the next generation, and thus continuity for the faith. Since then, I've blogged about the topic several times:
From the moment they can be shipped off to Hebrew school, American Jewish children are provided with an almost limitless number of ways to be "connected" to Judaism. And yet somehow prepackaged life cycles, canned trips to Israel, and lessons on counting in Hebrew have all failed to ignite a commitment to Judaism. In the meantime, Islam and Christianity is growing throughout the United States. College and high school students shout their devotions in gigantic stadiums.
Teenagers are not energized by painting the inside of food co-ops (although of course there's a place for Tikkun Olam). They're energized by being told that religion is hard, and that if they follow God they will be part of an elite. There's an absolutely critical element of exceptionalism - whether it's giving up oneself in submission to Allah's will or separating oneself from the rest of the high school by staying a virgin till marriage, Islam and Christianity are filling up stadiums by telling teenagers that they have a higher calling that makes them better than their peers. It's not like Judaism can't tell the same narrative - Jews survived for 4000 years precisely by instilling in every generation the conviction that they are a Chosen Light upon the Nations, a light which evil will try to destroy. Yet American Judaism seems to want nothing more than to erase that sense of distinction - I'm trying to wrap my mind around the following idea: if synagogues mimic Catholic ceremonies like confirmation, it will makes kids more Jewish.
Judaism is the only one of the major Abrahamic religions that doesn't proselytize - it's supposed to be a fairly exclusive club. Those other religions have a built-in tension: they are supposed to be open to anyone, but they still need to promise members something exclusive. They resolve that tension by making their exclusivity the basis of their proselytization: they promise their converts access to an exclusive group that has unique access to truth. Judaism has a built-in advantage in that Jews are supposed to be a nation separate from other nations, a built-in way to establish the kind of exceptionalism that youth thrives on.
And while there are a myriad of new and relatively dull ways to be Jewish, the list of things that disqualify one from Judaism has become vanishingly small. Believe what you want, behave how you want, marry anyone you want - and still consider yourself Jewish. No wonder assimilation is at 50%! If anyone who wants to can call themselves Jewish, what's the point of going to shul on Saturday, marrying Jews to have Jewish children, or keeping kosher? If you don't have to do anything specific to be Jewish (or rather, you can do anything in general and still be Jewish), then it's both very easy and totally beside the point to do Jewish things. Might as well join a book club - at least there you have to do the readings before anyone will take your opinion seriously. You can't just show up and say that Chapter 3 doesn't matter to you because you've established your own, personal relationship with the author that makes it irrelevant to being a book club member.
I don't always stay kosher outside the house or keep Shabbat (as is evidenced by the fact that I'm blogging this morning). On the other hand, when I don't do those things, I don't pretend that I'm still being religious. Modern civilization has distractions and toys and wonders, and a return to shtetl life is both impossible and undesirable. And even more so, no one is claiming that there's only one way to be Jewish - Judaism is about philosophical disputation. Jews don't have stable doctrine, let alone Inquisitors. And Jews don't issue fatwahs ordering death for other Jews who aren’t being Jewish enough. But just because Jews don't kill apostates doesn't mean that Judaism as social Judaism is good for the faith - not because what has effectively become relativism is bad doctrine, but because it makes for an unsustainable religion. American Judaism has in many cases lost even the pretense of doctrinal rigor - it has become a way of life divorced from a set of beliefs. Most those beliefs are readily available in the Barnes and Noble New Age section - and since the chairs there are a lot more comfortable than synagogue benches, Judaism needs something more.
From the moment they can be shipped off to Hebrew school, American Jewish children are provided with an almost limitless number of ways to be "connected" to Judaism. And yet somehow prepackaged life cycles, canned trips to Israel, and lessons on counting in Hebrew have all failed to ignite a commitment to Judaism. In the meantime, Islam and Christianity is growing throughout the United States. College and high school students shout their devotions in gigantic stadiums.
Teenagers are not energized by painting the inside of food co-ops (although of course there's a place for Tikkun Olam). They're energized by being told that religion is hard, and that if they follow God they will be part of an elite. There's an absolutely critical element of exceptionalism - whether it's giving up oneself in submission to Allah's will or separating oneself from the rest of the high school by staying a virgin till marriage, Islam and Christianity are filling up stadiums by telling teenagers that they have a higher calling that makes them better than their peers. It's not like Judaism can't tell the same narrative - Jews survived for 4000 years precisely by instilling in every generation the conviction that they are a Chosen Light upon the Nations, a light which evil will try to destroy. Yet American Judaism seems to want nothing more than to erase that sense of distinction - I'm trying to wrap my mind around the following idea: if synagogues mimic Catholic ceremonies like confirmation, it will makes kids more Jewish.
Judaism is the only one of the major Abrahamic religions that doesn't proselytize - it's supposed to be a fairly exclusive club. Those other religions have a built-in tension: they are supposed to be open to anyone, but they still need to promise members something exclusive. They resolve that tension by making their exclusivity the basis of their proselytization: they promise their converts access to an exclusive group that has unique access to truth. Judaism has a built-in advantage in that Jews are supposed to be a nation separate from other nations, a built-in way to establish the kind of exceptionalism that youth thrives on.
And while there are a myriad of new and relatively dull ways to be Jewish, the list of things that disqualify one from Judaism has become vanishingly small. Believe what you want, behave how you want, marry anyone you want - and still consider yourself Jewish. No wonder assimilation is at 50%! If anyone who wants to can call themselves Jewish, what's the point of going to shul on Saturday, marrying Jews to have Jewish children, or keeping kosher? If you don't have to do anything specific to be Jewish (or rather, you can do anything in general and still be Jewish), then it's both very easy and totally beside the point to do Jewish things. Might as well join a book club - at least there you have to do the readings before anyone will take your opinion seriously. You can't just show up and say that Chapter 3 doesn't matter to you because you've established your own, personal relationship with the author that makes it irrelevant to being a book club member.
I don't always stay kosher outside the house or keep Shabbat (as is evidenced by the fact that I'm blogging this morning). On the other hand, when I don't do those things, I don't pretend that I'm still being religious. Modern civilization has distractions and toys and wonders, and a return to shtetl life is both impossible and undesirable. And even more so, no one is claiming that there's only one way to be Jewish - Judaism is about philosophical disputation. Jews don't have stable doctrine, let alone Inquisitors. And Jews don't issue fatwahs ordering death for other Jews who aren’t being Jewish enough. But just because Jews don't kill apostates doesn't mean that Judaism as social Judaism is good for the faith - not because what has effectively become relativism is bad doctrine, but because it makes for an unsustainable religion. American Judaism has in many cases lost even the pretense of doctrinal rigor - it has become a way of life divorced from a set of beliefs. Most those beliefs are readily available in the Barnes and Noble New Age section - and since the chairs there are a lot more comfortable than synagogue benches, Judaism needs something more.
