Radical Judaism_ Rethinking God and Tradition - Arthur Green [92]
But where do we go from there? I am one of many Jews for whom the old halakhic rule book fails to work. I find it far too detailed, too restrictive. Its concerns with ritual minutiae and taboo overwhelm me and raise the specter of a civilization fallen victim to obsessive compulsion. I find its views of women, family, and sexuality quite hopelessly outdated. Its legalism in dealing with human personal and interpersonal situations, whether those filled with joy or those fraught with pain and oppression, is sometimes exasperating to me. I find its privileging of Jews over others morally inadequate and inappropriate to our age. I need an “Israel” that has the courage not merely to tinker, not to stand crippled before lack of legal precedents within the system, but to go all the way back to the Source, the One higher and deeper than “the sources,” to stand before the mountain again with only those ten words, and begin again to listen, to do, and to teach.
I believe with complete faith that new forms of Judaism will emerge in the state of Israel, America, and elsewhere, distilled from the multiple experiments in Jewish living that are currently taking place in the lives of diverse Jewish individuals, households, and small communities. This is a process that will take several generations and cannot be rushed. Those who participate in this creative process are multiple and varied, including Jews by choice, refugees from ultra-Orthodoxy, and many whom they will meet in the middle. The new Judaism will not be created top-down by committees of rabbis or (God forbid) by presidents of major Jewish organizations. The halakhah, or pathway, of the future will be more flexible, more multistranded, than any we have known. It will only emerge from a new aggadah, a new articulation of Jewish faith that succeeds in capturing the hearts of generations of Jews. This narrative will take us back to the old tales, but with contemporary eyes and ears wide open. The voice calls forth each day. When we are ready, it will address us. My prayer is that this book constitutes a small step along that evolutionary path.
This is the moment for radical Judaism. We understand that all God can do is to call out to us, now as always. All we can do is respond—or not. The consequence of our failure will be monumental. God is indeed in need of humans; and we humans are in need of guidance, seeking out the hand of a divine Partner, one who “speaks” from deep within the heart, but also from deep within our tradition and its wisdom.
Such a time cries out for leadership, for covenant, and for mitzvah, all of them expanded and redefined for this hour. The most aware and progressive human voices have heard the urgency of the call. They know how late it is, how short is the time we have in which to act. For the past half century they have been combing through ancient traditions — Yogic, Tibetan, Native American, and many more — asking whether there is some forgotten piece of human wisdom, neglected in our rush toward modernity, that might offer us guidance and help us through the dangerous and frightening age in which we live. Might the covenant of Israel, this ancient priestly kingdom, read through the eye of the mystic sages, now opened wide as a source of learning for all, have something to say in this hour? Might that be the meaning of our unfulfilled messianic dreams? Will we be open enough, free enough, strong enough to allow that voice to speak?
NOTES
Introduction
1. All biblical translations are my own.
2. I am