Shap Journal 2004/2005

Shaping the Future

Shaping the future: a Jewish perspective

Clive A.Lawton

To write of ‘the Jews’ without qualification at any time will result in misrepresentation, but never more so than when considering our responses to the modern world and prescriptions for facing the future. However, one generalisation will probably stand. All Jews are concerned about survival in the future and none take it for granted that there will be Jews here in the 22nd century unless we make special and particular efforts to ensure that at least some segment (usually ours, of course!) makes the right decisions. Otherwise, what with the twin ravages of anti-semitism and assimilation, Jews will slowly – or quickly – disappear.

To the untrained ear, this sounds unnecessarily alarmist. After all, Jews have demonstrated ourselves as being more than usually good at survival, but perhaps this has been because in just about every century of the current era – and before – at least some leaders and thinkers have warned of impending doom unless we get our act together. Furthermore, we enter this century after one of the most turbulent periods of Jewish history, with the great upheaval of massive migration across the globe from East to West at the beginning of the century, the descent into hell which was the Holocaust, the stunning turnaround of the creation of the state of Israel, and then the wearing inability to stabilise Israel in the world’s eyes, where it is, for example, still uniquely not part of a continental bloc in the UN (so it can’t take its turn at the Security Council table) and its emergency services are still recognised as not part of the International Council of the Red Cross. Few thought, even at the beginning of the 20th century, that synagogues and Jewish schools would need security guards around the world at the beginning of the 21st.

But setting all that aside, broadly, in the 21st century, the Jewish people’s response to the present and the likely future can be divided into three, all of them products of the nineteenth century and all in a considerable state of flux at present.

The first is charedi (adj). This is the term given to what is commonly called in the non-Jewish world ‘ultra-Orthodox’. The English term is a slight misnomer because it suggests that this group is somehow more Orthodox than other Orthodox groups but that is not really the case. What the Charedim (n. pl.) attempt to do is keep the wider world at bay, remaining as resolutely as possible in the conceptual and cultural realities of the pre-modern world, before the ravages of the Enlightenment struck. Developed in Central Europe in the middle of the 19th century as a response to the growing Reform critique, charedi Judaism has shown itself to be both resolute and robust. With tremendous demographics – most charedi families have several children – it is the fastest growing section of the Jewish people worldwide.

Their resistance to much in the modern world does not prevent them from engaging in all kinds of modern technologies and they are not resistant to the scientific knowledge the modern age has brought. They will catch planes around the world, use mobile phones, cook with microwaves, accept heart transplants and so on. But they think the cultural norms of the modern world are both frivolous and destructive. They would rather spend their time studying Jewish law and texts than watching television. They would rather have another child than go on a foreign holiday. In this preference though might lie the seeds of their future difficulties. They are indifferent to material achievement and would far rather that they spent time learning than earning. Without many of their young men learning trades and professions, they may well become more and more dependent on the outside world for their goods and services - which may finally force them in to a more active dialogue with it.

Charedim are easily misunderstood. Their usually black garb might mislead one to the easy association with a kind of puritanical philosophy, but that is by no means the case. Charedim, and in particular the subset known as Chasidim, know how to enjoy themselves and their celebrations are second to none for the dancing, the music, the feasting and even the drinking. 

The second response is ‘Modern Orthodox’. This precarious position attempts a full loyalty and commitment to the rules and requirements of traditional Jewish living while engaging much more actively in the wider modern world. Developed in Germany in the mid-19th century, modern orthodoxy values the cultural achievements of the western world (though that took a severe knock after the Holocaust).

Modern Orthodox Jews will dress in ways no different to their non-Jewish counterparts, but they may unobtrusively be more concerned about modesty of dress. Men may well cover their heads, but in a manner that one might not particularly notice from the front. Young people will seek a university education as well as a good Jewish education, and they will be interested in eating kosher Chinese and kosher Indian food because there’s a world out there to explore.

Modern Orthodox Jews are trying to find ways to square up ancient Jewish teachings and rules concerning women and their status with modern concerns for women’s equality. They will engage in interfaith dialogue and will want to make sense of modern scientific discoveries with classic Jewish understandings.

The third is Progressive, Reform, Liberal and Conservative. I put these all together not to diminish them but because they are born of the same instinct and share one common feature. (Putting them together also simplifies the fact that the terms are used variously in different parts of the world – so that, for example, American ‘Reform’ is more like British ‘Liberal’.)

Again emerging in the mid-19th century in central Europe, the first instinct of the Reformers was to make Jewish practice sit more easily with ‘modern’ European norms. (This, of course, largely meant Christianity!) However, since then, things have moved on and the various ‘Progressive’ streams of Judaism have demonstrated a wonderful determination to rediscover anew what are the consequences of their philosophy in ever new situations.

The heart of such Progressive approaches is the assertion of the right to balance Jewish tradition with the speaking of the inner conscience and what might be called ‘common sense’. Classical texts are no longer seen as bindingly authoritative. No longer does the concept of the divinely dictated text hold sway. Biblical criticism has led to more muted assertions on behalf of, for example, the text of Torah, giving commentators and teachers the right the see such texts as inspired, time bound or simply wrong. 

Across the spectrum of such views then one can come across Jewish teachers and communities that are almost indistinguishable from Modern Orthodox ones to communities that stand a very long way from what many would easily recognise as Jewish tradition of any sort.

Different strands of Progressive Jews have taken radical stands on, for example, the status of women (though in the long run this might just prove that they’ve moved faster than Modern Orthodox Judaism) homosexuality, kosher food, matrilineal and patrilineal status of Jews (according to the tradition, Jews were Jews if born of a Jewish mother. Some strands of Progressive Judaism are now prepared to recognise as Jewish someone born only of a Jewish father) and so on.

Over recent years, it would appear that most elements of the Progressive spectrum have become more ‘traditional’ ie espousing more affection for and relationship with traditional Jewish practices, most easily visible in, but by no mean restricted to, the growing return of Hebrew to their liturgy. This may be because of a growing scepticism that Western culture is not all its cracked up to be, an awareness that without a little more specificity, Jewish life may not long survive distinctively, that what was previously dismissed as ‘primitive’ in a more imperialist age is now being rediscovered as a culture with unplumbed qualities, or the general rise in ethnic identity and the acceptability of asserting it.

Taken altogether, however, the Progressive wings of Judaism stand as a very flexible and vociferous challenge to the more Orthodox sections, demanding either a proof of relevance or requiring of them that they articulate why relevance is not the issue.

To be fair, I should note a fourth emerging option, that of secularism. Before the Jews are a religion, we are a people, a clan, a tribe. We get to be Jewish mostly through birth (though conversion is possible). When a little baby Jew pops out, no-one asks first what they believe before accepting fully that they are as incontrovertibly Jewish as the Chief Rabbi. In today’s world, and particularly with the thriving Jewish culture of Israel and the rediscovery of the almost utterly crushed Jewish culture of Central and Eastern Europe, being purely ethnically Jewish, utilising much of its wealth of insights, its traditional teachings, its literature and its forms without subscribing in any way to its theology is a position that many are taking up. Whether this is a conscious philosophical option for most who manifest it – or the line of least resistance - is irrelevant. There are certainly some who are making a strong case for its acceptance as a formal further response to the modern post-religious world of the West.

Whatever the religious or non-religious stance of the group, however, all these groups have to relate to the State of Israel. 

The State of Israel is perhaps the biggest issue on the Jewish world’s agenda. For Charedi Jews, the State is probably somewhat suspect, failing as it does to adopt ‘proper’ Jewish positions on a range of issues. Many Charedim will see the creation of the State as something of a hubris when God has punished the Jewish people with exile. It is for the Messiah – yet to arrive – to bring us all back.

Modern Orthodox Jews are largely positively engaged. Whatever their particular view of this or that government, Modern Orthodox Jews see the creation and continued existence of the State as proof of God’s hand in history, and perhaps even some kind of reassurance that God, after the Holocaust, has not abandoned us.

Progressive Jews remained sceptical of Zionism for their first hundred years. Their prescription was to integrate effectively into the host countries in which Jews lived, seizing every opportunity of emancipation offered, and becoming good citizens ‘of the Jewish persuasion’. They thought that desires to return to our own land was a primitive tribal instinct from which we should have moved on – which is why Progressive Judaism had little or no say in the structures of the modern State and Orthodoxy got it all its own way on matters of religious definition.

However, the Holocaust dislodged any such certainty, and when the Six Day War of 1967 came along, when all Jews – and non-Jews – seriously feared that Israel would be wiped off the map by the huge invasion on every front massed against it, Progressive Jews were astonished to find in themselves atavistic feelings of utter association and responsibility for the people of the State. This has led to a radical reappraisal of Progressive attitudes to Israel and it is now true that most Progressive Jewish communities of every stripe are as Zionist as their Modern Orthodox counterparts.

As for secular Jews, they are caught on the one hand in the desire not to be sentimental about the Jewish state, but at the same time seeing it as the strongest manifestation of a coherent Jewish culture untrammelled by religious accretions. As an experiment in secular Jewish identity, Israel has no parallel.

In sum, most Jews will continue to struggle with ways to fit modern awarenesses together with ancient wisdoms, a sense of wanting to belong where they live with feelings of belonging to the whole Jewish people and its most exciting experiment, the state of Israel, and a nagging feeling for many that all around the world there are people who have still not entirely accepted that Jews should be able to relax.