Judaism in Modern Culture
posted by Krista | 11/27/2003 9:22:37 PM | Permalink | 
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I've been doing some research on Jewish education, both formally and informally, for a project, and one of the fundamental questions that everyone is asking is how do you get younger people from the ages of 14 (right after bar/bat mitzvah) to mid 30s (when people start having small children and bringing them to synagogue to start their Jewish education) interested and engaged in their 'Jewishness'? This question may sound strange to those of us non-Jews because as I initially wondered, isn't Judaism a religion and therefore being Jewish would mean being spiritually involved in practicing the religion of Judaism - whether that be Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, Reconstructionalist, or whatever movement you belonged to. Well, like most things, the answer isn't that simple, and so in today's society, a number of Jews relate to the more cultural elements of Judaism - the ritualistic Shabbat dinners with family, the music, feeling connected with Israel and other Jews in a community setting - in general, pretty much anything that isn't spiritual. The elders of the religion are extremely concerned with assimilation - Jews marrying non-Jews and not raising their children Jewish - to the point where everything seems like it boils down to numbers... superficially, it doesn't matter how you define your 'Jewishness' but that you identify as a Jew and raise your children Jewish, whatever that means to you.
The topic fascinates me - should you look at Judaism as a religion or an ethnicity? In America, people tend to relate to religion over ethnicity because America is so religious focused. Such a large percentage of the population is Christian, and of those that aren't, many find spirituality in other 'religious' practices such as the new age <- insert religion here --> or wicca or eastern practices or whatever. Yoga has taken off. New age Kabbalah from the NY based Kabbalah Centre is being promoted by a number of celebrities. Every time you turn around, Madonna has a new religion she's supporting. Music videos use religious symbolism for everything from critiquing institutionalized religion to just because it looks cool.
And so Judaism too, is finding that it is losing the younger generation and the question is why? How do you stop it? This isn't really a problem isolated to Judaism, as if you look at the Catholic Church history since Vatican II, they've pretty much lost the Generation Xers and their kids (known as Generation Y or the Millennialists - those that graduated from high school around the turn of the millennium). These two generations, particularly the GenYers, have grown up with the internet and information at their fingertips. A quick Google search and you can find information on anything and people to go along with that point of view. People can get a multitude of information, so it's not a matter of what your parents teach you, or what your rabbi or priest teaches or just what you learn at school - those information sources that existed before the internet. (look for something on this in another blog in the upcoming weeks)
So, in my research, I stumbled across a book by Douglas Rushkoff, who wrote a book called Cyberia back in 1994. For anyone that has seen the anime, Serial Experiments Lain, Rushkoff's Cyberia had a significant influence on that anime. I was intrigued, so I started reading his critique on Judaism called Nothing Sacred: The Truth About Judaism, in which he criticizes Judaism for not offering more than marketing hype to this generation. I recommend reading the book as my very brief overview here & in subsequent posts will not do it justice.
His fairly extensive arguments go through the history of Judaism - how around the 18th century when biblical scholars started studying the bible as a historical document subject to literary criticism, the Orthodox could no longer claim the Torah as a historical document, but was meant to be seen as allegory. For instance, the Exodus story is understood by historians as the mythological birth of the Jewish people. The elaborate plagues mentioned in the story represented the systematic destruction of each of Egypt's gods at the time. Blood desecrates the Nile, worshipped as a god, Locusts desecrate the corn god. And so on. The lamb's blood on the doors symbolizes the Jews' abandonment of child sacrifice, as it was illegal in ancient Egypt to kill lambs because a lamb was one of the most sacred Egyptian gods. The sacrifice of a lamb was then seen as the ultimate defiance.
And since ancient times, it's been a practice of Judaism to talk about and debate religious and ethical beliefs within Judaism, hence the vast amount of extra-biblical literature in the form of the Talmud and the mishnah and other rabbinical commentaries. There's a saying in Judaism - two Jews, three opinions -because everyone comes at the religion with a different perspective.
However (skipping ahead here), the Holocaust kind of brought an end to the vast debate and evolution of Judaism and instead turned the focus onto the survival of a race. Because of the severity of the Holocaust, many Jews either completely lost faith in God altogether or viewed the Holocaust as God's punishment of Biblical proportions. Many people went back to viewing the Torah as a historical account of Jews as opposed to the allegories that enriched the meaning of the text.
And (fast forwarding again) we come to modern times whereby there's this problem with how people relate to Judaism - as a religion... (and few Jews refer to themselves as religious, which seems to be a distinction the Orthodox hold) or observant (Conservative, Reform, etc) or secular - or as a race/ethnicity... those that are meant to inherit the land of Israel - given to them more or less as a reward for suffering the atrocities of the Holocaust - which itself brings about a number of issues (in Israel, the Orthodox control the government but don't fight in the military. There's also the expectancy of both messianic Jews and a number of Christians that when Jews control all of Israel, it will bring about the end days...)
To be continued...
