Intentionality and Being Serious Rather Than Denominational
Joey
covenant? According to midrash, the mountain was held over our heads
at one point, so it could hardly be a matter of choice! (They stood
"under" the mountain.) The point being made by the rabbis was that
the ONLY response to Sinai (and divine encounter) was acceptance and
total awareness. In a post-Enlightenment world, we have re-conceived
the project at hand. We imagine that we have choice. Not only that,
but the post-modern critique tells us that all truths are no more than
propositions. They are constructed by the moment, by people who have
an audience. It's all politics, and nothing more. In this case, any
ideological commitment (and by definition, adherence to a specific set
of denominational principles) fits little more than the needs of the
movement that dictates them.
How disappointing? What ever happened to transcendent truths? Are
they a figment of my imagination? If I enter the covenant, it doesn't
seem that I'm getting much more than the echo of my own commitment -
or decision to do so? (What happened to the Voice of Sinai?)
It's for this reason that the denominational terms no longer serve us
as they used to. Reform, Conservative, Orthodox, Reconstructionist,
Neo-hasid..... The list goes on.
My own teacher Michael Fishbane has written that the covenant of Sinai
puts us in touch with the deeper Void. By Void, he references the
outer and inner space that opens up, when we no longer can rely on all
that we think and all that we know. Everything becomes fiction and no
more. Every proposition fades. Every editorial consideration pales
in the face of our ultimate helplessness to grasp what life means. In
this sense, nothing in the way of denominational ideas can suffice to
guide us. No Orthodoxy can sum up how we feel when listening to
Mozart or feeling the twilight air on the descent from South Sister.
It cannot adequately describe what we see in the way of poverty in an
eastern Ugandan village. Nor can Reform choice instruct us how to
react when we are confronted with what seems to be abundantly clear to
ALL. What is called for is nothing in the way of some piecemeal
approach to what stirs us. We are called upon to be witnesses to
human wretchedness. Even in a wealthy society, we cannot agree on
providing accessible healthcare, right! We think that in a democratic
society it should be a matter of "choosing" whether or not our
neighbors deserve to be enrolled. In fact, our instincts alone should
teach us that we are all interconnected in some profound ways - ways
in which choice itself is a distortion.
So the question we may ask is one having to do with our willingness to
"get serious". No one else can coerce us to perform certain
practices, because we no longer live in an authoritarian context. It
will be up to us - as Reform, Reconstructionist, Conservative or
Orthodox Jews - to live fully, and to PRACTICE with intentionality.
Whatever it is we are doing, we need to embrace it with awareness, our
best selves, and often with joy. To the extent that we perform
mitzvot by route, by habit, through guilt, or with spiritual
exhaustion - it will backfire. Whatever we adopt as our own, in the
way of a set of principles and deeds - we need to surpass our
momentary headaches and bellyaches. As witnesses to the big emptiness
in the world, the void in explanations and doctrinal answers, all we
can do is get our heads and bodies straight. Getting in gear, we
realize that the Covenant, ultimately, is our bargain with the big
encounter: we can respond seriously, or be shleppers! And we need
not check our critical thinking at the door - bring it with you! It's
all a part of the conversation and the refusal in the face of inertia.
I'm headed to Israel the day after tomorrow, but I look forward to
your contributions to "Quandaries". I hope all this chatter generates
some of your own! Chag Sameach!
Joey