Hmm…this article has been all over the wires, posing the question of whether all this media Jew love is going to help get people back into synagogue or inspire them to keep kosher:
A marriage of hip and Jewish that emerged in the late 1990s has redefined religious identity for irony-loving 20- and 30-somethings from New York to Los Angeles and beyond. They flock to all-night multimedia celebrations of Jewish holidays; fill nightclubs where Jewish storytellers are the headlining act; start magazines, journals and web sites all while wearing a wide array of irreverent clothing. Among the edgier items is a bra made out of yarmulkes.
Craaazy Jewish T-shirts? Yarmulke bra? Irony? Gee, it all sounds so familiar.
Not that I can lay claim to “hip” anymore, anyway. I drive a minivan now, remember?
While writing this blog about mostly silly aspects of Jewish life has certainly inspired me to explore some of the deeper, more difficult aspects of what it means to be a Jew, I’m not entertaining any illusions that you’re gonna run out and strap on tefillin after spending some with the Yenta.
But the article asks that weird question that no Jew I know can really answer: Are we a religion or a culture? Whether you’re going to shul and just wearing the T-shirt, a Jew is a Jew, nu?
Do you really want to hear the answer to that?
Here’s an excerpt from kabbalah.info:
Q: Kabbalah belongs to all souls. Yet, Kabbalah is attributed specifically to Jews. Why?
A: Every Hebrew ( Ivri , from the Hebrew word Ever (passage), meaning he who wants to cross the barrier between our world and the spiritual world), or a Jew ( Yehudi , from the word Yechudi – he who wants to unite with the Creator), or an Israeli (Israel, from the Hebrew words Yashar-El – straight to God, meaning he who wants to go directly to the Creator), takes two lines from above, and bit by bit builds a middle third line. The left line consists of one’s uncorrected attributes; the right line consists of the attributes of the Creator that one by one are shown to a person from above. The middle line is the result of the correction of the left line using the right line. The result of one’s work, one’s spiritual ego, is the Hebrew, the Jew and the Israeli, in each person in this world. As a result of the law of Root and Branch, there is a great inclination to correction among people who are called Hebrews, Jew sand Israelis. But it is only an inclination. If a Jew, in terms of this world, does not implement his inclination, then he is considered to have a greater will to receive for himself than gentiles. Therefore we can only speak of inclinations, not about a person having two souls. The revelation within us must come with great effort.
The Hebrew etymology in that passage cited above is all wrong – it bowdlerizes the words by intentionally changing the letters. For a ‘science’ that relies so heavily on numerology, such truncation is disingenuous and unconscionable, not to mention misleading to an honest spiritual seeker. If the entire premise (i.e. Hebrew etymology) is wrong, then how can anyone trust the conclusion?
Wow, you two, I don’t know what the heck you’re talking about.
Josiah: How does that answer my question? If Jews have more of an inclination to “meet God” halfway but most of us don’t, are we still Jews?
And Heshy: What entymology? Must one speak Hebrew to grasp Kabbalah?
Man, I was just trying to stay hip, yo…