By Rabbi Kari Hofmaister Tuling, Temple Beth Shalom, Middletown

Rabbi Kari Hofmaister Tuling

Once, when I visited a childhood friend of mine, I had the opportunity to talk at some length with her Orthodox husband. As we were returning from synagogue one morning, he turned and asked me a question which had clearly been bothering him: “Why is it that you have kept kosher at home but you think nothing of driving on Shabbat?”

To him, it made no sense that I would do one and not the other, because both are commandments; and it seemed particularly incongruous to him that as a rabbi I would not observe the entire structure of the commandments.

“I have at certain points in my life observed kashrut,” I explained to him, “because it is a religious discipline which brings holiness into daily living and it has the potential to bring me into closer contact with the rest of klal Yisrael, the community of Israel. But I will drive on Shabbat because I do not believe that I am literally commanded not to build a fire on Shabbat. In the absence of metaphysical consequences, in the absence of a meta-narrative which insists upon my observance of the full structure of the commandments, it is simply more convenient to drive.”

 

The role of theology

I doubt that answer made any sense to him. His religious practice is so much different than mine, and the structure of my observance finds no resonance in his own.

But I relate this episode because it illustrates the key role of theology in our daily practice, even if it is not immediately apparent.

Theology is the narrative we create to make sense of the chaotic nature of reality; it explains who we are, where we came from, and where we are going. We have a basic need to create these kinds of narratives in order to discern a coherent pattern of living, to deduce meaning in our lives, and to connect our lives to that which has come before us. This narrative is what allows us to function as a religious community, in that it gives us the ability to articulate shared values in a symbolic, mythic structure.

So, for example, though rabbis are not priests in any literal sense of the word — we most certainly do not sacrifice animals — we will use the structure of the sacrificial system for our worship service, claiming a continuity with the text of the Bible and our present reality because that is a core part of our theological narrative. We naturally speak the language of the Torah, referencing its theological structures.

To give another example: in the Passover Haggadah, when the simple child asks, “What is this?” we are instructed to give that child a theological answer: “…because God brought us out of Egypt.” Our first answer, the very first thing we are to teach to our children, is the content of our theological narrative, the story which forms the bedrock of our tradition. It is only as the child matures into wisdom that we are to explain the laws and customs.

But in the liberal Jewish context, in our Introduction to Judaism courses, when a newcomer raises the question, “what is the relevance of this observance?” I’m afraid that our response is usually a labored explanation: “traditional Jews do such-and-such practice because they believe that they are commanded to do so. Liberal Jews embrace the idea of informed choice, so some people find meaning in this practice but others do something else, and of course some folks do nothing at all.”

This answer gives the impression that liberal Jews do whatever moves us at the moment. Liberal Judaism is in need of a coherent, compelling answer as to the purpose of observance beyond what merely feels right.

 

A fracture to address

The difficulty, however, is that there has been a shift in our relationship to the Bible which has created a fracture in our meta-narrative which has not as yet been addressed.

As liberal or progressive Jews, we acknowledge that the Bible’s worldview is contextually derived. We readily accept the insights of history and archeology. So we want to know: How can this text remain valuable to us after the mystery is gone?

To give an example: the Bible says that we ought to observe Shabbat because God made the world in seven days. But an overwhelming majority of us have learned about the Big Bang or the theory of evolution and many have an even deeper understanding of developing currents in scientific theory.

If the literal reading of the creation story is not consonant with scientific explanations of the origins of the universe, then what does that mean for Shabbat?

We also celebrate Shabbat to remember the Exodus from Egypt. But if the biblical account has mythic elements and is not necessarily an extended exposition of historical fact, does that mean Shabbat is no longer relevant? We know at some level the answer is obviously in favor of the relevance of Shabbat, but we are faced with the dilemma of a fractured narrative: how exactly do we go about explaining ourselves?

I believe that we need to have well-considered answers to these questions which demonstrate respect for the persons asking them. And, for those Jews who have not grown up in the context of Jewish religious observance, we need to have a better answer than the inertia of tradition.

For the non-Jew in a mixed marriage or for a secular Jew, the reasons for Jewish affiliation and practice need to be more compelling, and more visceral than nostalgia. To tell them that we observe Shabbat “because the Bible says we should” or “because our tradition says so” is to provide an insufficient answer.

For them, neither the Bible nor the tradition is authoritative enough to be convincing on its own. If it were, they would not have left their own religious upbringing.

What should we do in the face of this challenge? How do we respond?

I suggest three things:

First, we need a framework for explaining how we might move past the difficult passages in the biblical literature without destroying the remainder of the text. Toward this end, I would suggest that we employ a psychological explanation, one that makes intuitive sense.

 

Individuation

The task of maturity is individuation: learning the boundaries between oneself and one’s parents. A healthy adult is able to heed the parental tradition yet make decisions independently of it when needed.

Sometimes the parental inheritance involves exalted moments intermixed with painful legacies, and it takes the span of our adulthood to fully respond to them.

But our task nonetheless is the integration of this history into our own personal narrative, to learn that our parents are not infallible.

Just as we learn individuation in relation to our parents, so too should we learn to approach the Bible in this manner: after all, the word Torah is built on the same linguistic root as horim, the Hebrew word for parents.

We should honor our parents’ legacy, the tradition that gave birth to us, yet we still must go forth from our father’s house.

 

Community

Second, we need to reassert the value of community. In response to the question, “why celebrate Shabbat?” our answer should reference the basic human need for genuine community experience, the kind of multi-generational concern that is exceedingly difficult to nurture in our fractured society.

It is not uncommon to have moved cross-country at least once in a lifetime; most of us have family spread over a far-flung geography, some on multiple continents.

And many of us do not have any kind of consensus regarding religion within our extended family.

At my family reunion, we have Jews, Methodists, Catholics, and prior to my grandmother’s death, a Christian Scientist. Given this situation, the synagogue has something to offer that we generally cannot find anywhere else: a community of people who share our core values.

It is true that people come to synagogues and day schools with a variety of backgrounds and a plurality of needs, but (at very least) we all ultimately agree that we should raise our kids as Jews: it is the primary reason why people join.

That common goal by itself can be used as the basis for forming a genuine community, because there are a lot of shared values inherent in that. Raising a Jewish child entails resisting the mainstream, to wade against the cultural tide. Some inchoate desire makes us want to do that: a desire for connectedness and continuity, for communion and community.

 

Praying as a community

Third, we need a meta-narrative which supports the need for communal prayer. I think that we might want to act upon an insight provided by such varied thinkers as Abraham Joshua Heschel and Mordechai Kaplan: that is, prayer allows for the possibility of gaining freedom from the oppressive narrowness of the self.

It is a genuine relief to let go of petty self-regard, to become part of a larger group with grander goals than mere pleasure. Group prayer allows for the emptying of the self and merging with a higher purpose.

In the case of Heschel, this merging involves mystical experience, the influx of divine radiance. In the case of Kaplan, this merging involves erasing the finitude of one’s life by becoming part of a larger multi-generational experience.

Either way — whether supernatural or natural in its origins — the release experienced in group prayer has the potential to be transformative.

But we also need to be clear on this point: true prayer requires discipline, in the same way that genuine meditation requires discipline.

The Kabalat Shabbat service is one of many diversions that may be enjoyed on a Friday night.

Compared to the theatre or to television, a religious service is not particularly entertaining. But television by its very nature is alienating. Good theatre, on the other hand, may be cathartic but it does not create community.

Religious service, on the other hand, weaves the strands of community close together to create a web of connection.

So, when the newcomer asks, “what is this?” we should say: We are Jews because we are committed to raising our kids in the context of a community that shares Jewish values, particularly those of social action and material support of Israel.

We celebrate Shabbat because it gives us a chance to pause in the course of our week to come together, reconnect to our community and pray.

And our communal prayer provides the context in which we may let go of the petty concerns of the individual self in order to seek the greater good, to sanctify our lives in the context of our community.