Losing Our Religion?

[Note: This post predates the creation of this blog by a week - originally posted at www.cbict.org/yepblog, where I posted regularly during the last academic year.  I repost it here as it was the first in my return to blogging this year.]

Much ado is being made about a recent Pew survey suggesting that the number of those identifying as Jewish is dwindling, and that those who do identify as Jewish are not identifying religiously.

Judaism is a culture – and a religion.  Judaism is values and actions, it is rituals and community, and it is about our place in the Oneness of the universe.  Notice the word “and.”  Judaism is not one of these things, it is all of these things.

Torah – the Five Books of Moses – is filled with mitzvot, commandments.  The word mitzvah has been distilled in recent times to mean “good deed.”  But this is a simplification that neglects the values of the original words.  The Talmud, the “oral Torah” of the early rabbis, understands these commandments in a variety of ways.

One teaching says that all mitzvot are rules about relationship, either between one person and another or between a person and God.  Those things seen as the Jewish “religion” typically fall into the latter category, but in fact even those that are about interpersonal relationships are ultimately about God.  We are all made, according to Torah, “in the image of God,” and thus every encounter with another person is an encounter with a bit of godliness.  And ultimately it is through our relationships with each other that we come to know God.

An example: The mitzvah, “ve’ahavta lereyacha kamocha,” love your neighbor as yourself (Leviticus 19:18) – and the mitzvah, “ve’ahavta et Adonai Elohecha,” love your God (Deuteronomy 6:5).  The former is described by Hillel as “the whole of Judaism, all the rest is commentary,” while the latter is recited as part of the Shema in virtually every Jewish prayer service and at bedtime.  This is a commandment that encompasses emotion and experience, but also holds expectations for behavior.

Rituals help us focus.  The act of putting on a kippah (yarmulke – head covering) or a tallit (prayer shawl) or tefillin – all “commanded” through mitzvot, and all nearly unique to Judaism – can bring the prayers we are about to recite (which are not very unique) into a physical, tangible experience.  The actions and the order and timing of prayer, not the language in which the prayers are spoken nor the words themselves – this is Jewish religion.

We are commanded to remember the story of the Exodus.  The Passover seder is traditionally a family occasion, and is celebrated by more Jews than any other holiday, including people who have left the “religious” part of Judaism behind.  There are literally hundreds of different haggadot telling the story of coming to freedom – often in contemporary terms, and sometimes with no clear religious context.  The gathering in of family and friends, the sharing of a story, the reminder that we are not the first generation to struggle – this is Jewish religion and Jewish community.

The practice of mitzvot has necessarily evolved over the generations.  We no longer sacrifice in a Temple that no longer stands. Artistic variations of ritual garments and utensils (e.g. candlesticks) in every generation.  Judaism will continue to evolve.  But the ideas and rituals of Judaism are religious – whether or not an individual who identifies with Judaism identifies as religious.  So I would argue that we are not losing our religion, but rather continuing to change and shape our religion even as it shapes us.