How is it that despite the occupations, expulsions, ghettoizations, blood libels and holocausts directed at Jews … from atheist to theist, from secular to ultra-religious, how is it that we continue to survive as a Jewish people?
Amos Oz and his daughter Fania Oz-Salzberger (both secular Jews) know the answer to this question: “Ours is not a bloodline, but a textline. (Jews and Words)”
Oh, how right they are! We are a people who love our stories so much that we “consecrated them…. So when you ran for your life from massacre and pogrom, from burning home and synagogue, it was children and books you took with you. The books and the children…. So what came first, sanctity or scroll?” It fully depends on which Jew you’re asking!
As Rabbi Jeffrey L. Falick, the Atheist Rabbi, put it:
“The notion that our texts do not really matter to those who don’t explore them for the will of God is utter nonsense. It denies the textline its centrality. It ignores the fact that most Jews engage with our literature. Some with more depth than others, to be sure, but Judaism and Jewishness are nothing without it. (Atheists of the Book, Secular Humanistic Judaism Magazine, Summer 2020)”
Whether we believe in “G-d” or doubt/deny “God’s” existence, we love our treasured written inheritance – whether it be Torah, Talmud, secular Yiddishkeit writings, and so forth.
This is how Amoz Oz ע”ה, a secular humanistic Israeli Jew, describes Judaism:
“Judaism is not a package deal. It is a heritage. And a heritage is something that you can play with. You can decide which part of the heritage you allocate to your living room, and which part goes to the attic or the basement. This is the legitimate right of every heir.”
Though it is true that Jewishness is not a bloodline, per se, it is equally true that Jewish identity is a Jewish community only established identity. If you are not born a Jew, a child of a Jewish parent(s), then you must be adopted (for religious Jews, converted) by a legitimate Jewish community to be Jewish.
From secular Jews to ultra-religious Jews, what will you be expected to fully embrace? Our textline! Our Jewish literatures, history, language, and relationship to the Levant land that brought forth this textline that we pass from generation to generation – through rituals, words, and examples – to the next generation.
You might say, our Yiddishkeit, our way of life, in all its diversity around the world, is our ethno-religion – in a nutshell. In all its forms, the eschatology of Judaism is about the survival of the Jewish people, our survival upon the land – full stop.
This may seem ethnocentric to an outsider, but how else can we preserve who we are as a people? As a people that is literally spread out across the continents and islands of this planet? In the face of constant pressures to assimilate by the societal majorities around us, this is why we cling so tightly to our way of life and our Jewish identity.
Without us, Jewish people, who will share the immensely wordy textline?!
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Orthodox Rabbi Ysoscher Katz’s thoughts on Judaism, Jewishness, Tzaddikim, and Ruth Bader Ginsberg (Facebook, September 22 at 3:56 PM):
“There is a mosaic of Judaisms, not just one kind. Orthodoxy is certainly a prominent tile in that mosaic, but it is adorned by Judaisms of various stripes and colors, all of which are correct — for their adherents. My (only) path to the Ribono Shel Olam is orthodoxy and halakha but others choose different paths — which connect them to the same Ribono Shel Olam I cleave to.
RBG z”l was one of them. She too, at some point in her religious journey, chose a non-orthodox path. Her Judaism was passionate and robust, but it was neither orthodox nor halakhic. Using a halakhic prism to evaluate the legitimacy of her choices (personal, familial or professional) therefore is incorrect. The only metric by which one can assess the validity of her religious choices is by their fidelity to the standards of the Judaism which she called her own.
Was she an ideal halakhic Jew? Not at all! Was she the best Jew possible according to the terms of her own understanding of the divine will? Absolutely!
And, that is all that matters.
Zichrona livracha, le’chayei ha’oalm haba’a; בגן עדן תהא מנוחתה, מעל כנפי השכינה.
The above is based on the following teaching from R. Akiva Eiger:
“The Gemara says at the end of Massechet Ta’anit that in the future Hashem will have all the Tzaddikim dance in a circle, with Himself sitting in the center of the circle in Gan Eden. Each one of the Tzaddikim will then point to Hashem and say, ‘This is our G-d; this is Hashem, Whom we have so longed to behold!’
What is the symbolism behind a dance that is specifically in a *circle* around Hashem? Rav Akiva Eiger explains the lesson of this dance of the Tzaddikim as follows:
In this world every Tzaddik has a unique, individual approach to serving Hashem. On the surface, every one of them appears to be heading in a completely different direction. The truth is, however, that this is not the case. All of the different Tzaddikim are united by a common goal — to draw closer to Hashem and fulfill His will in the best possible manner. In the World to Come this will become apparent to all. The Tzaddikim will dance around Hashem “arranged in a circle.” In a circle, every individual is facing a different direction — yet they all revolve around the same central point. The Tzaddikim, although each has a unique approach, are all trying to accomplish the same goal. Their lives revolve around the same central point, the point where “Hashem is sitting.” In the World to Come, each of them will point to Him and announce to all that this is their G-d, to Whom they had strived to come close and serve throughout their lives!” “
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