Mail.Liberal-Judaism

• Awaskow <Awaskow@aol.com>

• Scott Ryan <jscottr@matinfo.com>

• Hune Margulies <hm64@columbia.edu>

• Scott Ryan <jscottr@matinfo.com>

• Chaim Frazer <frazerch@carroll.com>

• David de Graaf <degraaf@genome.wi.mit.edu>

From: Awaskow <Awaskow@aol.com>
Date: Thu, 12 Mar 1998 08:44:45 EST
Subject: The King of Washing-Done & the Maid of Moniker

[Moderator's Note: I'm not quite sure what to make of this, but it seems
related to Purim, and thus should be taken in that sense.]

Once upon a time, there was a king whose empire stretched from Vermont to
Beverly Hills. His capital was called Washing-done, because that was where
everyone who had dirty laundry took it to get the washing done.

Now among the people of the King's province of Beverly Hills, the news began
to circulate that the most sacred Teaching of the people, broadcast once a
week to all the nations of the world, was soon to be scotched by the King (who
had Scots ancestry) and by the Networks (which wore plaid).

This most sacred Teaching was known by the Name "90210," which in Gematria is
12, which is 13-1, and we know 13 is Echad, or 1, so the Gematria of 90210 was
really 1-1, or"0" (zero), an emblem of the highest mystical aspect of G!d,
"AYIN" or the Great No-thingness, Whose Name is Never Present. And indeed in
the Sacred Teachings of "90210" the Name of God is never present, which proves
this interpretation of the gematria.

Now in Beverly Hills High School there was an able and ambitious lad named
Morty, who was horrified lest "90210" be scotched by the rapacious and
idolatrous Scots, and he no longer be able to learn Sacredness from the Great
AYIN.  So he asked his girl friend to join him in a plan.

What was his girl friend's moniker? Some say it was just that -- Moniker -- as
when one of the Names of God, or Shemot, is simply HaShem.  Some say that
Moniker was also called Lubavitch, others that her Moniker was Lubotsky, still
others that it was Lewdovitz because her ancestors came from the shtetl of
Lewdomir, and the archeologists and textualists have not yet settled this
question.

Morty's plan was for Moniker to go secretly to the palace of the King , not
letting him know that she was a Beverly Hillsnanny, and persuade him to keep
his hands off the sacred Teaching "90210." No sacrifice, said Morty, would be
too great.

This she agreed to do, but when she arrived at the palace she discovered that
first she must spend six months choosing the correct beret to wear (some said
it should be knitted wool and black, others that it be woven silk, still
others that it stand high on the head and be all white, still others that it
look like a miniature Azerbaijani rug) and the right wave to her hair (some
said she must wear a wig, others that she must NOT wear a wig lest she be
forbidden entry by the King's province of feminists) before she could even
enter the August presence of the king. (Some said that these chumras would not
matter as long as she entered the king's presence in July or September, rather
than August.)

She even learned to chant a verse,

What is the holy hat to wear,
What is the right wave to my hair?

which has since been encoded and included in the Sacred Teaching of "90210" as
the most sacred chant of the people, recited once a year on the anniversary of
these events, known as "Poor Him," which most scholars understand as a
reference to the pain suffered by Morty as he contemplated the scotching of
"90210," but some regard as a reference to the Morty-fication suffered by the
King.

In any case, Moniker had to face the law that forbade any woman to enter the
presence of the king without his having first sent for her.  And here in the
sacred records of the people of Beverly Hills there is a disagreement over
whether or not the King did send for her. The records say that Moniker says
the King sent for her, the King says the King did not send for her, Rav Pushy
says the Prime Minister sent for her, Rav Bushy says that Morty sent for her.

In the final passage of the history of this affair, or non-affair, there is
one clear verse:

"And Moniker said to the King, "Reach out your Golden Sceptre to me as a sign
of Your Highness's willingness. . ." 

And from this point on, the sacred manuscripts blur into unintelligibility.
Rav Pushy says he did reach out his Golden Sceptre to her, Rav Bushy says he
did not.

What we do know is that the sacred Teaching "90210" is still in danger of
being scotched, and that every year on the festival "Poor Him" the people of
Beverly Hills gather to increase its Ratings.

And to demonstrate their determination to swallow up their enemies, every year
on this festival they drink large quantities of Scotch.

May the Holy None keep watch over us all.

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From: Scott Ryan <jscottr@matinfo.com>
Date: Thu, 12 Mar 1998 08:19:52 -0500 (EST)
Subject: Re: Pantheism

I submitted this post on Sunday March 8 but I think it was lost in the
crash. I've revised it slightly to take account of further discussion since
then.

Thanks to Allan Tulchin for his thoughtful post under this heading in
v7n110. I especially appreciate the mention of Mordecai Kaplan and Baruch
Spinoza, both of whom have in various ways been instrumental in my efforts to
find an intellectually honest way to incorporate Jewish content into my life.

I should clarify that I spoke not of "pantheism" but of "panentheism," the
latter being the view that "God" is in some sense what everything is _in_.  My
stated view, again, is that I regard the actuality behind the word "God" as
simply reality itself, which I take to be a logically and causally coherent
whole. I said this view could be regarded as either atheism or panentheism,
depending on who did the regarding.

I don't use either term myself; I find it much easier to state my positive
beliefs than to choose the appropriate label. I'm aware that objective,
rationally-construed reality probably doesn't have the flavor most believers
expect in a deity, but I'm also aware that such major thinkers as Spinoza and
Einstein have used the word "God" to refer to intelligibly-ordered nature. And
personally, I find "reality" to be a perfectly adequate rendering of the
Hebrew word "YHVH."

I should also add that, logically, the alternatives are to regard "God" as
referring either to a _part_ of reality or to nothing existent at all.

Allan wrote:

>[R]eligious traditionalists . . . felt that pantheism was next door to
>atheism: pantheism destroyed Revelation, and therefore their specific
>religious traditions.

This consideration does not make pantheism, panentheism or atheism false.  The
tendency to preserve Jewish tradition, while perhaps important on other
grounds, is not a measure of truth.

Besides, I'm not sure what alternative Allan is offering. The difficulties of
pan- and atheism are nothing compared with those of supernatural theism.

>I guess a true pantheist could belong to a specific religion by insisting
>that by random chance, the bulk of moral truth ended up coming out of a
>specific religious tradition . . .

This is a nonsequitur; I didn't claim that any specific religion uniquely
contains the "bulk of moral truth." And even if I thought one did, I wouldn't
regard that as the result of "random chance." Jewish ethical tradition strikes
me as among the most reasonable there is, and that's no accident; Judaism has
always encouraged reasoned questioning and debate.

>Second, by completely denying the supernatural, it seems to me we destroy the
>sense of wonder (I'm thinking of A.J. Heschel here) . . .

I disagree utterly (I'm thinking of Albert Einstein here). If by
"supernatural" Allan means whatever engenders Heschel's "radical amazement,"
I'm all for it, but "supernatural" isn't a very good word for it; "nature"
already covers everything that exists, and what else _is_ there?

As I recently remarked in an off-list e-mail, my own tendency is to find
"divinity" (under whatever name) not in mystery but in intelligibility. And
the truth about reality is far, far stranger than any stories we could invent
about it. The notion that rationality destroys wonder is just exactly
backwards.

In v7n111 Rabbi Bob Kraus makes (and makes well) the related point that the
unity of reality can be a vivid "religious" experience. It is at just this
point that I become most sympathetic with Jewish mystical experience, though I
demur when I'm told that the Ein Sof is beyond logic.

Be that as it may, however, the tendency to generate wonder isn't a measure of
truth either. So far I've heard only statements of personal discomfort, not
arguments.

>Scott may feel that doing good is rational, but actually, in lots of cases
>doing the right thing is completely irrational, even suicidal. [Allan cites a
>case in which the inhabitants of a certain village protected Jewish children
>from the Nazis at potentially great cost to themselves.]

Again I must disagree. The kind of benevolence Allan cites is indeed
remarkable, but it is "suicidal" only in a straightforwardly biological
sense. Surely it makes sense to say that I wouldn't want to live in a world
where Jewish children were slaughtered by Nazis - or that I couldn't live with
myself if I failed to protect them. Does Allan really regard such a decision
as irrational? I don't.

Allan's response and one or two others I received off-list all seem to me to
be based on a misconception of the role of reason in human life. Somehow
rationality is conceived as _opposed_ to all the things that make life worth
living! What a concession to make to irrationalism!

In my view, the exact opposite is the truth; rationality is the most basic
virtue there is, and the one that makes all the others possible. But it rarely
gets the credit it deserves.

Sorry to have to disagree so much, Allan! I enjoyed your thoughtful post and
the issues you raise are real. And as Reid Heller says in his usual clear and
direct fashion in v7n111, the crucial thing is that, as liberal Jews, we be
honest about what we think.

L'shalom,
Scott Ryan
home: mordke@aol.com
work: jscottr@matinfo.com

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From: Hune Margulies <hm64@columbia.edu>
Date: Thu, 12 Mar 1998 07:38:19 -0500 (EST)
Subject: Re: Pantheism - Spinoza

In a remarkable way, Spinoza cannot be defined as either pan or panentheist.
Spinoza did not believe that God was IN nature or that everything in nature IS
God. According to Spinoza Deus Sive Natura, that is, God and Nature are the
same. In Spinoza's 'religion" there is no transcendent God that either
inhabits or equates it/him/her-self to nature, there is only what it is, and
nothing more is necessary.  Spinoza predicated Godhood of nature because of
his rationalistic program concerning "correct ideas". Spinoza felt that if we
would redirect our spiritual search away from transcendence and back into what
is, the experience hitherto referred to as 'Godly", would be revealed in its
true essence. In contrast, by directing our spiritual energy outside of the
realm of the one and only substance, to a realm of transcendence, we actually
loose the potential of actualizing the divine experience in its full
sense. The sense of wonder, or what Spinoza called the love of God-Nature, can
now be directed towards each other, instead of towards the
outside. Interestingly, according to Buber, from each other, and only through
dialogue, one can reach the "outside". The importance of Spinoza is that a
secular religiosity was made possible, free, for whatever its true mind-worth,
from non-naturalistic presupossitions.

Hune
Hune E. Margulies (RainMaker)
Ph.D. program in Urban Planning, Columbia University, NYC
hm64@columbia.edu

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From: Scott Ryan <jscottr@matinfo.com>
Date: Thu, 12 Mar 1998 09:22:09 -0500 (EST)
Subject: Re: Random Musings

Under the heading "Random Musings" in v7n111, John Schlager writes:

>Scott's placing of "peoplehood first, content second" gets us back to the
>same old "WHY" question, because without the "content" it would seem that the
>"distinctiveness" that our youth are looking for is just not to be found.

Agreed, and this is very well put. I'd like to add a point to this
discussion from personal experience.

At one time, all roads allegedly led to Rome. My own experience is that all
roads, responsibly pursued, lead to Judaism. 

Judaism and Jewish history underlie nearly everything of value in the modern
West--including the philosophical objectivism/rationalism I'm known to
favor, which is a direct and immediate descendant of the traditional belief
in One God.

Law? The principles that the same law applied to the native-born and the
stranger, that all were equal before it, and that it applied even to
kings--these principles, and many others that we take for granted today, were
present in Torah hundreds of years before the Roman Empire came along.

Justice? I won't insult the subscribers to this list by even trying to
summarize Jewish influence here.

Humanity? The sense that rachmanut has something to do with being a good
human being is Jewish to the core. It was not shared, e.g., by the Stoics of
ancient Rome or the Nazis of modern Germany.

Liberty? The fate of the Jewish people has always been linked to the fate of
human beings generally; it's a fairly good rule of thumb that where freedom
exists, Jews are free, and where Jews are free everybody is free. It was
Micah who summarized the meaning of Olam ha-Ba in words quoted by the
Founding Fathers of the United States: "They shall beat their swords into
plowshares and they shall study war no more; everyone shall sit under his
own vine and fig tree, and none shall make him afraid."

The above doesn't even begin to exhaust this topic, and I know I'm speaking
in generalities. But I have to think that young Jews would find a good deal
of value in Jewish identity if they could make a significant connection --
and not necessarily a "religious" one -- with actual Jewish history. This
pesky people has kvetched at God and noodged the rest of humanity for
thousands of years, not without effect.

In accordance with John's point that we are confusing the questions "Who is
a Jew? and "Why be Jewish?" (I think he's right), I'm not raising here the
question whether such considerations are "sufficient" for someone (like,
say, me) to "convert." But surely they're important for born-Jews trying to
find value in _continuing_ to be Jewish. Any thoughts?

L'shalom,
Scott Ryan
home: mordke@aol.com
work: jscottr@matinfo.com  

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From: Chaim Frazer <frazerch@carroll.com>
Date: Thu, 12 Mar 1998 15:48:39 -0500
Subject: Re: Sacred Sexual Relationships Other than Marriage

In Volume 7 Numberm 111, S. Meric writes:

>[C]oncern[ing] taharat mishpocha, I note that the (male) sages arranged
>matters so that marital intercourse would resume at the peak of fertility.
>If this is a "protection" for the wife...! The *sages* didn't have to endure
>frequent pregnancies, with their attendant dangers at a time when childbirth
>was so often fatal.  It has always seemed obvious to me that these rules were
>made to ensure that the tribe's strength would be maintained, in the face of
>then-frequent disease and infant mortality

Actually, Meric is mistaken.  The current system of observing Taharat
HaMishpacha, though it formally has the status of "Rabbinic", was initiated by
women, and _not_ by the Sages-who merely ratified the women's initiative as
acceptable.

To simplify somewhat, the issue involved was how to count days with no
bleeding so as to preclude a woman who was a "niddah" (one type of menstrual
bleeding) from acting in such a way as to inavertantly transgress the Biblical
prohibitions involving a "zavah gedolah" (another type of menstrual bleeding).
Our Sages were perfectly content to leave in place the Biblical system
applying to both, which would have allowed women to go the the mikvah much
earlier than the current system does in terms of a "niddah".

But the _women_ themselves felt that this was an error, and requested the more
stringent system that we now use.

This system does have the unintended side effect, for most women (especially
those with regular cycles), of first allowing sexual relations at a point of
relatively high fertility, but doing so was not its intent.

Meric, of course, is quite correct that pregnancy and childbirth are
intrisincally dangerous for women (though, thank G-d, modern medicine has
greatly reduced that danger).  Our Sages and their successors were acutely
aware of this, and for that very reason virtually unanimously held that the
Biblical obligation to procreation applied to men but not women, as the Torah
could not mandate that women had a duty to expose themselves to such danger.

This has practical Halakhic consequences, discussed in the Talmud and in later
codes and commentaries, regarding the use of contraception.  Because women
have no intrinsic obligation to procreate, they have considerable flexibility
in terms of deciding whether to use contraception (and, if so, when to do so).
Men have no such options.

Finally, while pregnancy and childbirth carry real health risks to a woman
(and before the advent of modern medicine, did so even more), it is also
worthwhile to point out that infertility also frequently has produced great
anguish for women.

The current system of Taharat HaMishpacha actually _increases_ the probability
of _infertility_ for two classes of women: those who have very short cycles,
and those prone to staining or spot bleeding for a few days following what
would otherwise be the end of a niddah time period.  (For both, the cycle's
fertile time zone is over before sexual relations are possible.)

Under these circumstances, a very interesting question of Practical Halakha
would be: Assuming that observing the current system (as established by Jewish
women and accepted by the Sages) will produce infertility _and_ that observing
the _Biblical_ system will give a realistic chance for conception for this
particular couple, should they be allowed the option of reverting to the
Biblical system?"

I have no idea what response such a question would receive, and anyone with a
personal situation should consult a knowledgeable and qualified decisor in
this field (which I am not).

Chaim Frazer

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From: David de Graaf <degraaf@genome.wi.mit.edu>
Date: Thu, 12 Mar 1998 09:57:49 -0500
Subject: School Holocaust Project

>Is anyone else slightly troubled by this? I have often thought that our
>educational efforts re: the Holocaust should *not* focus on the number.  It
>just leads to a one-upsmanship game of numbers (7 million Poles dead, 20
>millions Russians dead, whatever).  Isn't it far more important that we teach
>people that the goal was genocide? And that on one score at least Hitler
>pretty much succeeded: he eliminated our culture in that part of the world.

I happen to agree with Bonnie completely. As a second generation child and a
part time Jewish educator I have often run into this obsession with numbers. I
think that even if one could confer the enormity of these numbers upon
children, the essence of the loss of how ever many million wholly unique and
individual lives is lost, especially if you compare those lives to pop can
tabs.

>I can see the educational value of teaching children in this concrete visual
>way that a million or 6 million etc. is a huge number.  But if we want to
>communicate the impact of the Holocaust, I think the more fundamental lesson
>would be to teach about the horrible efficiency at Hitler's genocidal
>attempts--and also to convey some sense of the richness of shtetl life and
>Yiddish culture that were destroyed.

Again, I agree with Bonnie. The one valuable exercise I have done considering
numbers reversed the problem. I asked parents to come along for a special
memorial session and to sit in a room to gather with the children. We then
removed 90% of the people and put them on stage in the dark. The auditorium
had been full and suddenly was very empty. Some of the children there still
sat with one parent, some of the parents sat alone without children.

Never the less, I also feel that an inordinate amount of our energy, resources
and funding is spent on teaching about the shoah. This became very clear to me
when I saw a newspaper article about a 9 year old in Chicago (and I am sure
that someone will correct me if I don't recall this well), who won $5000 to be
donated to his favorite charity. He gave the check to the holocaust museum in
DC!

Although this is very generous and kind, I thought what kind of education led
this child to donate money to such a well established institution when
religious schools, youth groups, shelters for abused women and children,
environmental causes all need financial help desperately. All of these impact
this child's future directly.

I often have the feeling that - especially in Liberal Jewish circles - an
inordinate amount of identity is derived from this horrendous catastrophe in
our history. I hope we can encourage our children and our children's teachers
to invest in other measures of identity and to support other organizations
that add to our Jewish identity outside of the realm of the shoah.

I know that this can be a very sensitive subject. I apologize in advance for
any feelings I may have hurt. It was written with my best intentions.

David

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"It is not our task as liberal Jews to complain about the Orthodox attitude or to be bullied by it, but rather to choose our legitimate path according to the inner logic and development of liberal Judaism" (Rabbi Walter Jacob)

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