Religion & Beliefs
Day 1: Is Jewish Renewal the Next Step in Spirituality, or Boomer Narcissism?
By Daniel Bronstein / February 12, 2007
Here’s the rub: even as the Jewish Renewal (JR) movement makes a good deal of intellectual and moral sense to a portion of our generation—the politics, the egalitarianism, and so forth—on an emotional, visceral level, the whole scene can just gross you out.
Say you attend a speech by the prominent JR rabbi Michael Lerner. Once you experience the way he whips up a rapt audience of trustafarians into an orgy of indignation (followed, like clockwork, by a soothing postcoital bath of self-satisfaction), then you actually start to agree with conservative critics who see the movement as a lingering expression of 1960s narcissism. After that kind of trauma, it’s hard to give the movement’s theology or rhetoric a fair shake.
That JR keeps kicking despite its weaknesses is perhaps a testament to its potential. I first e
ncountered JR on a trip to Israel during a stay at Heritage House, the Jerusalem hostel Aish HaTorah uses as a Venus flytrap for disaffected young Jewish travellers. Someone had put The Jew in the Lotus, Rodger Kamenetz’s fantastic book about of a group of rabbis who travelled to India to meet the Dalai Lama, into the hostel's otherwise rigidly Orthodox bookshelf. One of the stars of the book was Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, a founder and leader of JR.
Schachter-Shalomi seemed everything Aish was not. His understanding of God was intellectually sophisticated, not archaic, and his Judaism inquisitive about other faiths rather than fearful of them. He relentlessly engaged with the non-Jewish world, rather than retreating from it or placating it.
So which is it? Is Jewish Renewal really the next step in spirituality, or just another expression of baby boomer narcissism? To demystify the issue we brought in Arthur Waskow, an influential author, rabbi, and political activist who is one of the leaders of the Jewish Renewal movement. For the next four days we’ll post his correspondence with Daniel Bronstein, a third-generation Reform rabbi and brainy young rationalist with little patience for airy-fairy posturing.
From: Arthur Waskow To: Dan Bronstein Subject: The arrogant and stupid will be scorched by the world
Dan,
When Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi and other Jewish teachers met with the Dalai Lama almost twenty years ago, they were all exemplifying renewal in their respective traditions. For centuries, the leaders of
Tibetan Buddhism had talked seriously only with other Buddhists. Most rabbis would have viewed Buddhists as idolaters bowing to the statue of a laughing fat man.
Only the impact of modernity on both Jews and Buddhists made it seem worthwhile to learn from each other.
This stems from an insight into history and God that the old paradigm of Rabbinic Judaism did not share: that other religious communities are also paths of truth.
Another insight of Jewish Renewal is that festivals need not be celebrated only as pleasant “private” ceremonies, but can also be political events. And political events need not be devoid of spirit, but can be filled with sacred energy, with awe for the Source of peace and justice.
Kabbalistic “oddball” rabbis in Safed 500 years ago created the Tu B’Shvat seder, celebrating the rebirth of trees in midwinter by eating a sacred meal of nuts and fruit. This meal did not even require the death of a carrot or a radish. It celebrated God as the Grower of the Tree of Life, reborn in every time of cold and dark.
Jewish Renewal rabbis in the 1990s turned this Tu B’Shvat seder into a framework for the protection for the earth by celebrating it where an American corporation was seeking to turn ancient redwood trees, 300 feet tall, into decorative panels for the party basements of the rich. We held the seder under a great grove of redwoods and then walked onto the corporation’s land—illegally—to plant redwood seedlings where it had cut down glorious trees.
The logging of ancient redwoods in California involves a moral and spiritual failing: arrogance. From it stems also an intellectual failing: stupidity.
The arrogant do not listen to the world around them, the world that greets invaders not with flowers but with improvised explosive devices; the world that greets despoilers of the forest with a climate crisis, the scorching of the planet.
Jewish Renewal affirms our own humility rather than the humiliation of others. It affirms that we share our lives with all the peoples and all the species and even the CO2 in the atmosphere as members of a grand community, part of the Breath of Life—YHWH.
Arthur
From: Daniel Bronstein To: Arthur Waskow Subject: Before you think “outside the box,” find out what’s in the box
Arthur,
Much of your worldview is grounded in mysticism, while I’m more of a rationalist. You employ the language of the mystics, while I am more influenced by the Mussar movement and the language of Jewish humorists. And while I enjoy fruit and nuts as much as the “oddballs” of medieval Safed, I have never particularly cared for radish.
Your note sets inaccurate and superficial dichotomies; for example that there is an “old paradigm” of Rabbinic Judaism clashing with a “new paradigm” of “renewed” Judaism. As you know, Judaism has varied over time and place. To which time and place do you refer with the term “Rabbinic Judaism”? The Sages, the rabbis of Babylonian academies, and rabbis in 21st-century North America share many rituals and beliefs, but there are also many differences.
I am even less persuaded by the equation that old = bad and new = good. As someone who loves artifacts more than computer games, I’ve never had anything against “old” things. Moreover, centuries ago, Christians also bifurcated what they framed as God’s “Old Testament” from their “New” version. While you’re not saying that your branch of Judaism supersedes othe
r forms of Judaism as Christians argued in relation to Judaism, you do strike a triumphalist note.
I am a third-generation Reform rabbi. From the late 19th century through the beginning of the 20th, Reform Judaism was in a triumphalist mode. It took a lot learning, human history, and humility to realize that we did not have all the answers, nor would we alone be the salvation for Jews and humanity.
A few decades back Conservative Judaism went through its triumphalist phase, followed by various branches of so-called Orthodox Judaism. The triumphalism of Renewal is a bracha le'vatallah—a wasted effort—and merely repeats the sins of its predecessors.
You argue that Renewal possesses a new “insight” that other “religious communities are also paths of truth.” In fact, as early as 1885, a group of radical Reform rabbis publicly proclaimed that they recognized “in every religion an attempt to grasp the Infinite, and… the consciousness of the indwelling of God in man.”
Renewal is not the first expression of Judaism to be influenced or even shaped by other cultures and religious traditions, nor will it be the last.
Our willingness to learn from other religious traditions does not mean we should conflate Judaism with other religious systems. Religious differences are not simply accidents of history, but reflect genuinely different worldviews and different conceptions of human life and the Divine.
Neither one of us truly knows whether rabbinic sages would have viewed Tibetan Buddhism as idolatrous or seen in it some sort of value. I know that Jews, Buddhists, and others often enjoy being with laughing
fat men, and I can think of more than a few fat Jewish men who even now entertain society as a whole. Even so, the melting pot of syncretism can easily lead to an impoverished understanding of others’ beliefs, as well as of one’s own.
What does this have to do with the ostensible narcissism of the baby boomers? Although it is dangerous to generalize, the truth is that from the 1960s through the present the boomer generation has viewed itself as the first to question established ideas in theology, politics, or sexuality.
Narcissism has many guises, and one of the most tiresome is arrogance, a trait you properly decry in your note. There is arrogance in believing that “new” is always “improved,” that one is always more intelligent or on a higher moral level than one’s elders or ancestors. And this is the arrogance that dismisses tradition without even understanding it, and replaces it with fads.
Arrogance, presumption, and narcissism will not lead to an enduring Judaism. Even when we choose to dispense with a particular tradition, the process of religious reevaluation must be grounded in knowledge of what is being rejected. Before one can “think outside the box,” you need to know the contents of the box.
Respectfully Yours, in Peace,
Dan
POST A COMMENT
I am reminded of the comment by then Cardinal Ratzenberger (sorry if I mis-spelt this) who in the past referred to Buddhism as ‘spiritual auto-stimulation’. This is the typical comment of one who has seen the platter but not tasted of the spread.
Jewish Renewal (and I admit to being an active member in the antipode’s) is an emerging discourse that is not new. If you look at the writings of Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan you see all the underpinnings of JR. Our path has continuelly renewed itself and this is part of our ongoing Torah discussion through the ages.
To say that JR is to be viewed by the style of one Rabbi is to limit the movement to sound-bytes. I would no more judge Orthodoxy upon the anti-Gay pronouncements of certain quarters, than I would denigrate those who embrace ‘New Age’ approaches as narcissistic dilettantes.
The great revolution of the Torah was to empower the individual within the collective consciousness of our people. I am sure many thought Avraham Avinu some New Age kook, but with time the new model melded with the old and we still live with the ramifications of this evolutionary/revelatory experience.
The Baal Shem Tov was thought of as a mad-man then (and some still hold this view), but no-one denies the effect he had on rallying the troops after the events around Shabbatai Zvi.
Herzl was thought a patent lunatic when he started making his family speak Hebrew, though no-one spoke it as a living language. But in 2009 we see Hebrew not just being a vibrant language, but one that is spurring on a renaissance in Hebrew poetry, literature, and yes, even porn.
Narcissism is the love of the self above love of the other. Anyone who has encountered either Rav Zalman, or any JR practitioner knows that they have an equal love of Am Israel, and Torah. Becuase we do not always embrace the harsher elements of the Mussar movement (though I have met proponents of neo-Mussar in JR settings) does not make us narcissitic. Because we promote individual liberty, we do not enter into some isolated discourse, but are part of a conversation that has gone on as long as humans have done more than grunt, eat and reproduce.
The true strength of JR, is that we honour your right to hold these opinions. No true narcissist would concede so. They would evoke rulings of long dead Rebbe’s, and Bateim Din, and say you hold dangerous views. But I thank you. Because you have made me reflect on those elements of JR that are important. Community, spirituality and Torah.
Nice website, but you're stealing my copyrighted drawing of the guy on the cross. Please take it down or contact me for payment. It is registered with the library of congress, so I can sue for lost revenue plus damages. Let's not go there. Thanks,
Robert Neubecker, staff artist, Slate.com
I have sent you an email about this with my contact information.
I'm glad to see this dialogue happening here; I'm always pleased when there's conversation about the nature(s) of Jewish Renewal. (Full disclosure: I'm a student in the ALEPH rabbinic program, studying toward Jewish Renewal ordination.)
Renewal is a transdenominational movement. It's multifaceted and it takes a variety of forms. For me, that's one of its strengths.
I'd like to respond to the portrayal of Renewal in the introduction to this dialogue. I've never met Rabbi Lerner, so I can't speak to what his speeches are like or what his public (or private) persona might be, but I would posit that there's a lot more to Jewish Renewal than individual rabbis and their charisma or style.
From where I sit, Renewal's greatest strengths lie in the Renewal approaches to prayer, the emphasis on spiritual experience and connection with God, and the creativity and vitality with which we aim to continue our unfolding of Jewish tradition and practice. I hope some of that will unfold in a visible way as this dialogue continues.
http://velveteenrabbi.blogs.com/blog/ | http://www.zeek.net
Jewish Renewal is not, as you seem to assume, about "having all the
answers," or even about being "right" at all. I have several points to
address:
"I am even less persuaded by the equation that old = bad and new = good"
Creating a good-bad, us-them mentality is exactly the sort of thing
that Renewal encourages us to avoid. The idea of "progress" is not
inherently a "good" or "bad" thing. It means change, and the world IS
changing. People themselves are changing. The issues we have to deal
with on a day to day basis can be so different from even 10 years ago, or
more, with the advent of new technology, etc. etc. This is certainly
not a new idea. Renewal is dedicated to using the current vocabulary
and current expressions of things that are, as you say, old ideas. It
isn't about being the first to say that other religions reflect truth;
it's about continuing to say that. To say it in the most up-to-date and "progressive" way
possible. That doesn't make anyone better or worse than anyone else.
It's simply the Renewal approach.
As far as triumphalism, and believing the new to be "better" than the
old, I believe I've already started addressing that. You say: "There is
arrogance in believing that 'new' is always 'improved,' that one is
always more intelligent or on a higher moral level than one’s elders or
ancestors." This is very true. I don't see any place in Rabbi Waskow's
letter that indicates such a position. In fact, he appears to be making
exactly the SAME point. Jewish Renewal "affirms," it has "insight," it
encourages "humility."
It isn't about reinventing the wheel. It isn't about abandoning
tradition in favor of fads. In fact, Renewal is specifically NOT a
denominational deal. I have personally met people involved with Renewal
who are Orthodox, Reform, Conservative, and even those without much
knowledge or affiliation at all. Renewal isn't trying to replace
anything.
Lastly, you say this…
"Even when we choose to dispense with a particular tradition, the
process of religious reevaluation must be grounded in knowledge of what
is being rejected. Before one can 'think outside the box,' you need to
know the contents of the box."
…as though first of all Renewal exists to undermine tradition, and
second of all as though those involved with Renewal are in some way
inherently ignorant of past traditions. This is simply not the case.
Every single facet of Judaism, every single movement or denomination or
group, contains people who are knowledgeable and people who are not.
Renewal, Reform, Conservative, everyone. I'm not completely sure what
you're trying to say, but I am curious.
If you mean that people should study as much of the traditions within
Judaism as possible, I certainly agree, and so does Renewal. If you
mean that those who dismiss tradition without fully understanding it
are missing out, then I agree, and so does Renewal. Renewal encourages
understanding, and learning as much as you can, as much as you want.
If, on the other hand, you mean that there is some kind of minimum
knowledge requirement to make spiritual decisions, then I'm confused.
In summary, I think your biggest misunderstanding is equating "new"
with "inherently better." Renewal doesn't make that claim; it's
unfortunate you think so. Renewal supports the idea of everyone trying
to better themselves, become more conscious, of keeping spirituality.
Being the "first" to do so or not is totally irrelevant, and as you
said, arrogant. If Renewal was about being the first to achieve
anything, it would be fundamentally contradicting the tenet of
understanding and humility that we all continue to pursue.
I should also say that I'm not a Rabbi, or even a real scholar; this is
all from the years I've spent observing and becoming involved with
Renewal. I'm not trying to advocate Renewal as a spiritual panacea, or
bring people into the fold, or something like that. People can become
involved or not as they choose, at any level they wish. I just don't
want to stand by without adding my perspective, especially regarding
the good-bad thing.
~ Sarah Beck-Berman
“The Judaism of baby boomers flirts with New Age hokiness and lacks the feeling of authenticity and dignity younger Jews desperately crave in a belief system and cultural heritage.”
I vehemently disagree. I am an 18-year-old young woman who has grown up in a predominantly Reform community. I have listened to sermons that vilify Orthodoxy and categorize other movements as fundamentally undemocratic, illogical and absurd – on the high holidays to boot. Other times, I’ve encountered a liberal agenda on marriage, bat mitzvah and poverty, but when it came time to discuss the Middle East, congregational leadership often classified Palestinians as Judaism’s historical adversaries, the perennial destructive force endeavoring to destroy the Jewish people. As a movement, I find that we are too quick to homogenize the other (religious, political, etc.), without regard to historical specificities that have created unique groups of people with different religious and cultural experiences. Renewalism has done an excellent job in identifying the factors that push people away from Judaism and the ego distortions that inhibit our understanding of Torah. These observations have enlivened my Judaism and helped me greet holy texts with caution and honesty. In short, I am a stronger Reform Jew because of the learning process I’ve absorbed from Renewal.
Respectfully submitted,
Devon
As the son of former hippies, I want to applaude Dan’s letter. The Judaism of baby boomers flirts with New Age hokiness and lacks the feeling of authenticity and dignity younger Jews desperately crave in a belief system and cultural heritage. In addition, weaving Leftist political culture into Judaism will cause many in my generation to recoil, since many of us simply don’t share our parents’ romanticized views of the Left.
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