The iPod-ization of American Judaism
Remember how, just a couple of days, we poked gentle fun at New York Jewish hipsters for being dumb and shallow? And remember how two of you sent us badly edited, snarky little emails about how we were being unfair? Give us a break:
A hipster synagogue grows in SoHo, drawing large crowds with its "Torah cocktail parties" in fancy loft apartments and user-friendly prayer services designed especially for the uninitiated. A group of New York-area congregations, along with others across the country, refashion their synagogues into religious multiplexes on the Sabbath, featuring programs like "Shabbat yoga" and comedy alongside traditional worship... "There's a feeling that all the old structures aren't working," said Rabbi Richard Jacobs of Westchester Reform Temple in Scarsdale, N.Y., who was part of a group of synagogue leaders that gathered recently in Los Angeles at the University of Judaism to get advice from the Rev. Rick Warren, author of "The Purpose Driven Life" and the evangelical pastor of Saddleback Church in Orange County, Calif., which draws more than 20,000 on weekends...
"A lot of times these marketing approaches fool themselves," said Rafael Guber, a Jewish researcher who wrote a recent column in The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles entitled, "Selling Judaism: Let's Make It Harder." "They say, first, we'll make it easy and get them in, and then after they get in, we'll get the discipline and structure. The problem is nobody ever gets to Step 2."
One might say that the problem isn't that the old structures aren't working, but the opposite - that contemporary American Judaism has nothing to do with "old structures" and that's exactly why the religion is in decline. And by "one", we mean us:
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...
In a world of almost infinite shiny and distracting things, trying to make religion more shiny and distracting than everything else is a losing proposition. A religion that gets rid of "the old structures" is not a religion, it's a fad. Call this the iPod-ization of Judaism - having given up trying to make Judaism into a series of life-cycle events, they're now trying to convince kids that walking into a synagogue is the equivalent of buying the new cool mp3 player. The problem is Apple's marketing department is much, much better at telling kids what they need to do to be cool.
A hipster synagogue grows in SoHo, drawing large crowds with its "Torah cocktail parties" in fancy loft apartments and user-friendly prayer services designed especially for the uninitiated. A group of New York-area congregations, along with others across the country, refashion their synagogues into religious multiplexes on the Sabbath, featuring programs like "Shabbat yoga" and comedy alongside traditional worship... "There's a feeling that all the old structures aren't working," said Rabbi Richard Jacobs of Westchester Reform Temple in Scarsdale, N.Y., who was part of a group of synagogue leaders that gathered recently in Los Angeles at the University of Judaism to get advice from the Rev. Rick Warren, author of "The Purpose Driven Life" and the evangelical pastor of Saddleback Church in Orange County, Calif., which draws more than 20,000 on weekends...
"A lot of times these marketing approaches fool themselves," said Rafael Guber, a Jewish researcher who wrote a recent column in The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles entitled, "Selling Judaism: Let's Make It Harder." "They say, first, we'll make it easy and get them in, and then after they get in, we'll get the discipline and structure. The problem is nobody ever gets to Step 2."
One might say that the problem isn't that the old structures aren't working, but the opposite - that contemporary American Judaism has nothing to do with "old structures" and that's exactly why the religion is in decline. And by "one", we mean us:
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...
In a world of almost infinite shiny and distracting things, trying to make religion more shiny and distracting than everything else is a losing proposition. A religion that gets rid of "the old structures" is not a religion, it's a fad. Call this the iPod-ization of Judaism - having given up trying to make Judaism into a series of life-cycle events, they're now trying to convince kids that walking into a synagogue is the equivalent of buying the new cool mp3 player. The problem is Apple's marketing department is much, much better at telling kids what they need to do to be cool.
