Evolving Religious Civilization - August 22, 2008

Evolving Religious Civilization   8/22/08

Shabbat Shalom!  Tonight I’m going to speak about a key tenet of R Judaism – Judaism as an “Evolving Religious Civilization.”  And since we don’t have time for hour-long sermons (or zitz fleish) I’ll focus on Evolving.  What does that mean?  And how does that affect us as R Jews?  But to start, I’d like to share these thoughts with you on Evolution:

• How do you identify a bald eagle?
  All his feathers are combed over to one side.
  
  
• One day the zoo-keeper noticed that the orang-utan was reading two books - the Bible and Darwin's The Origin of Species.  In surprise he asked the ape, "Why are you reading both those books"?
  "Well," said the orang-utang, "I was confused about my identity.  I just wanted to know if I was my brother's keeper or my keeper's brother."
  
  
• Q: Why are there old dinosaur bones in the museum? 
  A: Because they can't afford new ones! 
  
  
• Q: Is it true that a dinosaur won't attack if you hold a tree branch? 
  A: That depends on how fast you carry it!  

• Q: Why did the chicken cross the road?
• A: Evolutionist #1: Pure chance.
• A: Evolutionist #2: Only the fittest chickens survive crossing the road.
• A: Creationist: God created the chicken on the other side of the road. There is no proof it ever was on this side. 

• Q: Why did the dinosaur cross the road?    
• A: Chickens hadn't evolved yet.
  
  
  
  If Darwin was right, you will probably figure it out in a few million years.

Who here remembers the movie, The 10 Commandments?  Charlton Heston standing full-bearded, lightning and thunder all around him on Mt. Sinai getting the Torah from God – Hollywood has to be right!  But according to Jewish tradition something BIG happened at Mt. Sinai.  Sinai was where God gave the Torah and the 10 commandments.  Our tradition calls that Revelation – the time when God REVEALED the Torah to our people.

Revelation at Sinai is one of our Jewish master stories.  A story which creates the narrative for our people to which we return often in our history, holidays and practices.  The story sets the stage for defining God’s connection to us.  God’s direct link or communication.  

For the Jews, the meaning of Sinai defines additionally our relationship to the Law – is it God’s book or is it a human document?  If God’s directly, then we must follow it because God said so.  Simple, clear and done!  We even have a record of that chain of transmission recorded in the Talmud.  At Torah study on Shabbat, we’ve been looking at Pirke Avot which contains that “chain of tradition”.  From the rabbis, that chain of transmission is necessary to understand how the Torah was passed down from Moses to us. 

“Moses received the Torah from Sinai and transmitted it to Joshua; Joshua to the elders; the elders to the prophets; and the prophets handed it down to the men of the Great Assembly…and they said (or taught) these things…”  

It means that we can trace the record of the event in real human terms.

For Jews who believe in this chain of transmission, then its content or laws are commands – which gives us commandments or mitzvot. 

However, if we don’t believe in that version of Sinai, we have to find another account for what happened.  Ergo, liberal Judaism.  We need a new interpretation for Sinai.  (What would Charlton Heston think?)  We have to have a different reason for following (or not following) its’ pronouncements.  Or at least a different understanding of its meaning for us today. 

Among them are that Torah is Divinely inspired.  Although not directly from God, God inspired those who conceived of and wrote it.  And as such, the commandments and the Torah mean something to us that is very different than just laws for us to follow. 

In Ever Since Sinai, one of my rabbinical school professors, Jakob Peteuchowski, gives an analogy from which we could understand the phrase: “Torah from Sinai. (torah me sinai”  That is “ha motzi lechem min haaretz = God who brings bread from the earth.  He compared these two phrases – which Talmudists actually do – in order to discover a phrases’ meaning.  He argues that just as God provides bread from the earth, we received Torah from Sinai.  In a larger-picture sense.  In other words, while God doesn’t provide the bread, God does create the natural processes – rain, soil, nutrients – that produce the wheat which we then make into bread.  Similarly, his argument goes, God created the moral, ethical, and legal guidelines on how we should live our lives [Torah from Sinai], and we made holidays, customs, and traditions.  This enables even some liberal Jews to agree that Torah came from Sinai.

Another concept introduced by the Reform movement is “Progressive Revelation” – that each generation receives a new Revelation “from God”. 

However Jews understand the “Sinai event,” we Rec Jews look at Sinai differently.  For us, it’s about evolution – an evolving religious civilization – not a ONE-TIME EVENT.  Evolving means more than adapting to changing circumstances – all civilizations do that.  Rabbis Rebecca Alpert and Jacob Staub provide a good Rec understanding of evolution in their book: Exploring Judaism: A Reconstructionist Approach.  They suggest that we “continually adapt to the ever-changing conditions with which Jews are confronted.”   

Situations change, the world progresses and we therefore adapt to those new and altered situations.  (p. 21)  And, it’s not that we know more or are more sophisticated than Jews of other ages, but,

“Rather we think that because our environment is different from our ancestors, that we must transform their beliefs and practices into a contemporary idiom (language or expression).” (p. 22)   

In other words, as Reconstructionists, we must creatively bridge the gap between contemporary understandings, and ancient customs & traditions. 

The point of this is: How to keep Judaism vital today and tomorrow and into the next millennia?  Jews are devoted to the highest ideals of our religious civilization.  That being the case,

“The Jewish people who share in that priority should determine in any given era what Judaism will be like.  [Even as we continue to be] deeply immersed in the worlds of our ancestors as well as in our own world; thus, Judaism at any given time becomes a blend of our inheritance, of our own experiences, and of our vision of the future.” (p.23)

Let’s take one example, Kashrut, the kosher laws of slaughtering.  On Wednesday, NPR did a story on the kosher slaughterhouses in Iowa which were raided not long ago because undocumented and underage workers were found there.  Hundreds of people were arrested.  As a result of this, questions arose as to the meaning of kashrut today.  Is meat kosher IF:  only (1) the laws and techniques for slaughtering animals are observed?  OR is there another Jewish standard, an additional Jewish standard today?  Today, should “kosher” also include, (2) the ethical practices of proper treatment of a worker including pay, benefits, healthcare, and their treatment?  One rabbi proposed that a second seal be placed on food, alongside the “OU or other hechsher symbol” indicating whether the preparation practices were up to certain ethical standards!  Should Jews buy ONLY products which have both seals – 1) the authorization of proper technique, proper treatment of the animals during the process, and 2) a seal reflecting proper treatment of people who do the work?!

Double sealed approved foods would fulfill Mordecai Kaplan’s emphasis on the core values of our faith – those of  “…being an ethical nation, treating others as reflections of the divine image, and the responsibility of each community to seek… justice…”  (p. 24) 

Do we buy or boycott grapes to protest or support farm workers?  Do we pay taxes or social security for inside home “help”?  How do we read labels today – and the stories behind the food we buy and eat?  What are the ethics of buying a new car in a world of resource challenges?  What about use of public transportation?  (My bus story.)  The argument continues, and choices abound.

Those are the questions that we as Rec Jews are being asked to consider. 

Rabbis Alpert & Staub:

“The question that remains to be addressed is how we, the Jewish people, should go about reconstructing a Judaism for our day that will make us want to perpetuate ourselves – that will make us feel that we are passing a good heritage to the next generation.”

A STORY: After months of negotiation, a Jewish scholar from Odessa was granted permission to visit Moscow. He boarded the train and found an empty seat. At the next stop a young man got on and sat next to him. 

The scholar looked at the young man and thought:
This fellow doesn't look like a peasant, and if he isn't a peasant he probably comes from this district. If he comes from this district, he must be Jewish because this is, after all, the Jewish district. On the other hand, if he is a Jew where could he be going? I'm the only one in our district who has permission to travel to Moscow.

Wait - just outside Moscow there is a little village called Samvet, and you don't need special permission to go there. But why would he be going to Samvet?  He's probably going to visit one of the Jewish families there, but how many Jewish families are there in Samvet?

Only two - the Bernsteins and the Steinbergs. The Bernsteins are a terrible family, so he must be visiting the Steinbergs. But why is he going?

The Steinbergs have only girls, so maybe he's their son-in-law. But if he is, then which daughter did he marry? Sarah married that nice lawyer from Budapest and Esther married a businessman from Zhadomir, so it must be Sarah's husband. 

Which means that his name is Alexander Cohen, if I'm not mistaken. But if he comes from Budapest, with all the anti-Semitism they have there, he must have changed his name. What's the Hungarian equivalent of Cohen?  Kovacs. 

But if he changed his name he must have some special status. What could it be? A doctorate from the University.

"Oh," replied the scholar, "it was obvious!"

It may not be obvious, and it will take some work, but in our search for meaning we reconstruct Judaism to speak to our lives today as we evolve to ever greater understandings of our place in the world.  Shabbat Shalom