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Sunday, August 31, 2014

Why I Chose the Reform Movement

Orthodoxy builds "a fence around the Torah," which means making rules extra strict, stricter than actually mandated by the Torah, to make sure you cannot come even close to breaking a commandment. Contrary to (non-Jewish) popular belief, Orthodoxy is not just based in the Torah, since a ton of questions are raised and go unanswered if you were to just read the text. It's based on how a bunch of rabbis and sages decided was the best way to enforce and live out the Torah. They debated endlessly and came up with intricate rules to give people very specific answers on how to live out some of the quite vague laws set forth in the Torah. And this is amended all the time - for instance, not turning lights on and off on Shabbat was clearly not a relevant rule three hundred years ago. So when electricity was invented, they again had to put their heads together and figure out how to interpret ancient texts to apply to this. (I do wonder, when you use a loophole like asking a non-Jew to turn the lights on for you, is the point being missed?)

I'm not dismissing the strict Orthodox guidelines because they come from rabbinical consensus rather than the Torah. I love Talmud study even more than Torah study; I get so energized by watching the debates come alive through the text, and the brilliance in the sages' thinking astounds me. But people look at things differently, and I don't think that taking everything so literally and worrying about the exact right way to do things is necessarily the best way to interpret and live Jewish tradition.

For example, in regards to the following verse from Deuteronomy 6: 5-9 which we read at every Shabbat service and which is inscribed on the scrolls within our mezuzahs:

You shall love Adonai your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your might. Take to heart these instructions, which I charge you this day. Impress them upon your children. Recite them when you stay at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you get up. Bind them as a sign on your hand and let them serve as a symbol on your forehead; inscribe them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

Orthodox Jews take every piece of this literally and have come to a consensus on how to live it out. They say the Shema prayer when they wake up and when they go to bed. Orthodox men and some women wear tefillin during their morning prayers, which are small black leather boxes that actually contain verses of Torah and are wrapped around their upper arm and hand ("bind them as a sign on your hand") as well as on their forehead ("and let them serve as a symbol on your forehead"). Mezuzahs fulfill the last part of this about inscribing on the doorposts of your house.

Much of the Torah is like poetry to me, and the symbolism and messages behind the stories I find much more powerful and relevant than the literal details. Likewise, I find much more meaning in a symbolic interpretation of the V'ahavta above. The line about binding God's instructions as a sign on your hand to me means letting it show in your actions. Talking about our hands, like the expression "having blood on my hands," classically symbolizes what we are responsible for doing and not doing. How can we live and act in a way that pleases God and makes our lives valuable? How can we hold ourselves accountable for where we fall short and work to better ourselves? Meditating on that to me is infinitely more powerful than literally binding God's instructions to my hand. 

As for the line about being a symbol on our forehead, again, I think it's much more powerful to consider this symbolically in how we keep God's instructions on our mind. Do we think about them? Do we consider how this should play out in our lives? Do we stop to think about our beliefs before we make choices to ensure they are in line? Have God's words reached our hearts, or do we read them rotely and then go back to thinking about our next distraction? So much to meditate on, and I find that assists in my spiritual growth muh more than having actual boxes containing the instructions on my forehead.

But I do have mezuzahs. For me they are really such a concrete reminder of my Jewishness and of God's presence. I confess that I hardly notice them inside my house. They so quickly became part of the decor, and I don't tend to catch such small details in my periphery as I'm going from room to room. But in the few seconds it takes me to lock or unlock the door to the house, forcing me to pause, I always note the one outside and usually give it a little caress on my way in or out. It just reminds me of who I am and what is important to me in the midst of such a routine activity and before I start or end my day. I treasure those small reminders, so that is something that I have incorporated into my Judaism.

And that is the crux of liberal Judaism - studying where these traditions come from, wrestling with what that means for us individually, and finding a way to observe that is true to who we are and what we believe. Because if I start strapping boxes to my arm every morning out of obligation, I can guarantee you it would have no meaning to me and that the beautiful words of the V'ahavta would be completely lost in the details of an activity that, to me, is so far from what God intended us to take from that passage.

It annoys me when people think being Reform, Reconstructionist, or even Conservative is the "easy" way to be a Jew, or when they dismiss it as "picking and choosing." It irritates me that some people think that one would align with these movements as a shortcut because, meh, Orthodoxy is just too difficult. Being a liberal Jew is not a shortcut or a cheat. It certainly can be if one wants it to be, simply because you will not be judged for what you individually choose to do or not do in your observance. So if someone just doesn't want to be bothered with certain things even though they feel those things are important, they can do so relatively invisibly within Reform. We are all on our own journeys and have made our own choices. There is undeniably a lot of freedom in that, and there is not within Orthodoxy where everyone is expected to be living in exactly the same way (though clearly that strict level of observance feels comforting and rewarding to those practicing it). But for a liberal Jew who is conscientious and actively engaged in their own spirituality and Jewish identity, liberal Judaism offers many dilemmas and hard choices. You have to educate yourself on a rule or custom, wrestle with whether or how it is meaningful to you, and then make the choice to observe or not observe, and how to observe, based on that. That's not as easy as it sounds, because you may understand the meaning in something that is still very, very difficult for you to follow, especially when you are not surrounded by a community who is all following it. 

For example, if my own personal research and spiritual struggle around kashrut (the kosher laws) had led me to feel it was spiritually significant to me and would connect me more to God and/or to my community, it would be extremely difficult to move in that direction when my own rabbi enjoys shrimp and my wife's favorite food is bacon - both things that would be terribly difficult for me to give up. I would have to be very self-disciplined and would have to seek out the few other liberal Jews who keep kosher in order to feel supported. My own personal research and struggle did lead me to feel the need to observe Shabbat by not working, and this is definitely not always easy. I've had to turn down opportunities to make extra money or to be flexible with the possibility of going back to work only part-time after having a baby. I've had to suck up a crappy scheduling change to make it fair that I don't work occasional Saturdays when other supervisors do. For someone who is Orthodox, this would be easier because everyone within their community observes Shabbat this way and it's unthinkable that any of them would go to work. It just wouldn't even be an option. But within my own temple community, there are many people who work Saturdays without blinking. They have chosen other ways to make Shabbat separate from the week and don't feel the need for work to necessarily be the determinant. That makes it more of a challenge for me to practice this on my own.

It's not "the easy way" to have to put so much thought into every single way of being to ensure you are doing what's meaningful for you and that you have the willpower and self-discipline to keep it up when it's not consistent in your community. In a way, it could be seen as easy to just know without a doubt that you have to follow certain rules and to be ensconced in a community in which everyone is doing that and would gasp and pull you back on track if you were to slip. I enjoy the struggle and the self-accountability. I appreciate immensely that every choice I'm making is what makes me feel more solid in my Jewish identity and feel closer to God. I feel good about not doing anything just because I feel obligated to even if it is antiquated or illogical or seems to lose the point through all the obsession over details.

That is why I made MY choice. And I'm glad that all Jews have the ability to affiliate with a movement that best reflects their needs.

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