“A blogger writes about how one of Judaism’s holiest days ended, for her, in a strip club, while elsewhere a guy strolls into a tattoo parlor requesting a Star of David. Two women exchange wedding vows in a Jewish ceremony, and hipsters toss back bottles of HE’BREW, The Chosen Beer…. [Moses] couldn’t have seen these Jews coming.”

This is how a recent article begins, showcasing the so-called “New Jews” and the ways they express their Jewishness: with flagrant violation of Torah, and a heart ablaze for assimilation.  They are “making [Judaism] and its culture work for them and others in a time when, more than ever, affiliation is a choice.”  It’s an astute observation by Ms. Ravitz (the article’s author), and one that should make us shudder:  it’s happening again—as it has continually since the beginning—Jews choosing… as if we had a choice.    >> Read more…

With “the holiday season” now upon us, I thought it would be appropriate to share a few thoughts with you about Chanukah, the Jewish Feast of Dedication.

Personally, I’m not a big fan of typical Chanukah observances for one simple reason—we tend to let them steal God’s thunder, so to speak. How do we do this? By affording Chanukah equal (or greater) attention with Adonai’s Feasts and appointed times, and by using it as a replacement for Christmas.

So many of us—after deciding that Christianity in all forms is “pagan” and “evil”—run screaming from the church’s religious clutches, only to impose our residual sense of religiosity upon “the right and true way” to live for God. Chanukah, then, becomes another casualty of our religious metamorphosis, as we swap out one over-hyped Christian holiday for a Jewish one. But just because Chanukah is mentioned as a passing detail in Yochanan (John) 10:22, that doesn’t give us permission to appropriate Chanukah for our own “Messianic” needs or agendas. The fact of the matter is, unlike the Feasts and appointed times designated by Adonai Himself, Chanukah is a man-made, Jewish holiday—and we only make it more so when we heap upon it the traditions and theologies of our own making.

>> Read more…

Our local Jewish newspaper here in Phoenix lists thirteen local Reform synagogues or congregations—a little more than a quarter of the congregational listings.  Add to that the six listings for Conservative congregations, and the Reform-Conservative majority rockets past a third of all organizations listed.  The Metropolitan Phoenix and surrounding areas’ Orthodox–the expected preservers of Torah, tradition and Jewish piety–surprisingly account for almost twenty-four percent of the local listings (the national average for Orthodox is 13% according to a Special Report by the UJC), bringing the representational total for the “big three” Jewish denominations in Phoenix to just over sixty percent.  The remaining forty percent is made up of a smattering of “independent” congregations, Sephardic/Crypto Jewish cultural centers, and other types of organizations, such as the Center for Biblical Hebrew, Hillel Jewish Student Center, and the Jewish Center for Spiritual Growth. 

With such diversity of Jewish cultural and theological expression here in Phoenix, it makes me muse about why Messianic Jews are not invited for inclusion.  Of course, the newspaper’s and community’s response to an inquiry from the Messianic camp is a foregone conclusion—to them, Messianic Jews have left the faith… we are an abomination, mixing the sanctity of Judaism with the perversions of a foreign religion.  That is the way they see it.  Within the local Jewish community, we are not even tolerated as an oddity or abberation—we are shunned, excommunicated, and declared no longer “Jewish.”

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Lindsey Miller laments about Pesach in Spain in her recent article, “The Brightest Star.”  While schooling in Sevilla, she was unable to find a Passover celebration amidst the overwhemingly Catholic city, and instead found herself ogling the magnificent display of Domingo de la Resurreccion—the local celebration of Easter.  One of the things she noted about the people of Sevilla was that despite their Catholic affiliation and religious expression, far less than the majority actually believe in God.  This was, of course, a point of disconnect for her.

Ms. Miller’s most profound observation and conclusion, however, was as follows:

“… Spain possesses a religious unity that the United States lacks.  We do not have those unifying characteristics like a common hair color, face shape or type of cuisine.  In Spain, everyone has the same thick, dark-haired look: not I….  Now, back in the U.S., I feel so at home in part because of the diversity—I’m able to blend in….  But it’s more than that.  In Spain, religion is intricately interwoven with the Spanish way of life: there is no separation.  Here, perhaps because we’re allowed the luxury of deciding how and to what extent we want to celebrate our religion, the opposite is true.  We can separate it as much or as little as we want.”

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In a recent article, George D. Hanus writes,

“The United States… is a country of immigrants.  For centuries, wave after wave arrived on these shores, fleeing persecution, hoping to better their economic condition and merge into the mainstream of American society…. Immigrant Jews rapidly learned English, adopted American dress styles and sent their children to colleges and graduate schools as they became respectable members of society…. Even while we were moving up the ladder, most Jews did not forget the Torah injunctions to remember our heritage.  So we Jews set up neighborhood synagogues, spent our free time involved with Federations and Jewish fraternal organizations… we collected money, attended meetings… and to religiously educate our children, we invented… Hebrew and Sunday school.  Imagine our surprise and shock, several generations later, when… our grown children did not follow in our Jewish footsteps.  Today… they are walking away from 4,000 years of Jewish history and we are shocked…. 

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This was the question that the World Jewish Digest asked this past high holiday season in light of a 2006 Harris Poll “showing that just 30 percent of Jews in a nationwide survey said they were ‘absolutely certain’ there was a God.”¹  According the issue’s cover story, 76% of Protestants, 64% of Catholics, and 93% of “Protestant Evangelicals… will tell you they are absolutely certain there is a God.  It simply begged the question: why don’t Jews believe in God?”

Why should we?  After all, we Jews are some of the most self-reliant, independent, stubborn people who ever walked the face of the earth.  Who needs God when you can take care of yourself?  Surely, we can take credit for the success we have had assimilating into the nations of the world.  We have every right to say, “My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.” (Deuteronomy 8:16)

>> Read more…