All Indigenous Peoples have origin stories that give us identity as a people. The Jewish indigenous story is the following (as this Rabbi so eloquently shared it in such simple words, so please listen!):
“When God created Adam and Eve, God gave them a religion. The religion was seven commandments to live by. But, when the world was destroyed [by the curse of drought and the Levant flood], because the world wasn’t living by these seven [instructions], God came to Abraham and says “I’m choosing you and your children [meaning, all descendants] to do *613 commandments*.”
This is how the Jewish people became the “chosen” people of YHWH god, Landowner of the Levant. “So what does it mean to be chosen? [It means,] I’ve got a bigger job for you [to do in life, every Jew while having the breath of life within us.]” – Rabbi Chaim in the video.
The struggle is real for Jews, and those who best meet the struggle often are the least heard in human societies. Not saying that I’m one of them! Just saying that it’s hard to shout out the Indigenous Voice in this day and age of human history. Whether “religious” or “secular,” some Jews are born “oozing and schmoozing” Jewishness, full stop!
Is this worth the multiple listening? I’ve got another story for you, if you’re interested?
https://m.facebook.com/watch/?v=868137943871694&extid=CL-UNK-UNK-UNK-AN_GK0T-GK1C&ref=sharing
Can secular and religious Jews see eye to eye?
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Shaul Magid, well said. Thank you for reminding us of these stories!
“There is a tradition that both Joseph and Judah [two brothers in a tense relationship] represent messianic figures, albeit of different sorts. Joseph bears the lineage of messiah son of Joseph, a military leader who fights the messianic wars before the messianic era, while Judah represents messiah son of David, the true messiah who will redeem Israel [by restoring the Jewish people’s sovereignty upon our land, the land of YHWH, until time and planet itself ends]. Joseph is a worldy figure, Judah a more spiritual one.
In Mei Ha-Shiloah, the Hasidic master Mordechai Joseph Leiner of Izbica famously created a typology from this narrative that, in a sense, exposes a tension lying beneath the whole of Jewish tradition. In Leiner’s view, Joseph views the world from within the confines of the law while Judah views the world from the perspective of the divine. Joseph represents fidelity to tradition and Judah the pull toward experience.
Or as Leiner’s grandson, Gershon Henoch Leiner of Radzin, put it: “Joseph is the zaddik [righteous person] who sees everything with clarity and seeks to serve God as a servant. Judah on the other hand, gives himself completely over to God such that even the law of free-will is naught for him.” Joseph lives in the world as it is, Judah lives in the world as it should be.”
Joseph and Judah: From Neo to Post Hasidism
“The step that moves neo-Hasidism out of Joseph’s shadow might be called post-Hasidism. This new phase could rebuild a Judah Judaism no longer haunted by Joseph, but which doesn’t fully abandon Joseph either. Rather, post-Hasidism reconstructs Joseph in its own image, abandoning the confines of halakha while retaining a belief in the centrality of practice and ritual as the core of the Jewish experience. (This is sometimes called post-halakha.) Joseph remains, as he must, but in this phase he does not prevent the unfolding of God’s newness in the world or trap us in a reality that is no longer operative. Joseph never disappears, he is just remade in Judah’s image.
This kind of renewal of the old in line with a new understanding of the world is not only necessary, but desirable — even holy. This is the process that Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan in the 1930s called reconstruction and Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi several decades later called renewal.”
Rabbi Ysoscher Katz provides a dissent to this idea of a Judaism completely without halacha, which I totally agree with (of course, being Joseph!):
“For me, I like to believe that I can hold on to both paradigms simultaneously. Don’t ask me to explain it, I can’t put it in words, but that’s how I suspect these masters imagined it, יהודה ויוסף משתמשים בערבוביה. One lives in constant tension between these two poles. Our halakhic commitments are subservient to our metaphysical devotions, while, at the same time, our spiritual passions are beholden to our halakhic limitations.
Such a life is not easy, but I could not imagine it any other way. Joseph without Judah is meaningless (and perhaps even pointless), while Judah without Joseph is not Judaism—for me. Jewish spiritually, the way I understand it, is situated within a halakhic framework. Halakha is certainly not the end, but it is nevertheless the exclusive means. It provides the framework and the structure; the map and road on which we embark in pursuit of קרבת אלוקים.”
Joseph and Judah: From Neo to Post Hasidism
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I’ve made it a life’s mission for me to teach Jews that have been affected by colonization and colonizer narratives about us, to reframe our way of thinking and speaking about our Jewishness (our personal, communal, and public narrative) to a more indigenous expression. Thus, deemphasizing the colonizers’ preferred narratives, both European and Arab colonizers, that Jews are just a religion and that Jews are somehow only “white” people. Further, that Jews are always the source of social problems, wherever in this world.
First, Judaism (Judāh-ism) has always been about the continuity and future of our indigenous ancestral language, literatures, ethno-religion, rituals, and halachot that tie us לדור ודור ledor vador – for all generations – to the land of our ancestors, Judea-Samaria. As such, a Jew is a recognized member of a Jewish community, as defined by this Jewish community’s halacha. Even humanistic and secular Jewish communities have a halacha of some sort, even though they reject Rabbinic halacha.
Second, because of CE colonizing religions – European Christianity and Arab Islam – we Jews have been taught to think of ourselves a little too often as a “world religion,” though we lack the physical body numbers, and a race/ethnicity that is fully derived from European racial category constructs to be this.
Third, we, the Jewish people, are the only remaining descendants of the Canāanite people out of three – Moab, Edom, and Judah – that preserve the ancestral language, inherited literatures, the original halachot/mitzvot, and seasonal rituals of the land of Southwest Asia (the Levant). It was the Canāanite people that migrated down and settled for over 400 years in Egypt, then (in several) exoduses returned to the Levant with their stories for us to inherit.
Fourth, the scroll of D’varim and extra-biblical ANE artifacts all testify clearly that the Jewish people became an ethno-religious people in ANE Moab (present day Jordan, east side of the river), crossed the river, and became an ethno-nationality in Judea-Samaria (west side of the river).
Fifth, because the Jewish people literally sprung from the Levant land, Israel is not a Colonizer nation, and it is *unfair* for the Jewish people to be expected to behave *as* one – all because Arabs, like Christians, felt the need to colonize Judea-Samaria for their newly invented religions. So, we should never apologize for our Zionism!
Sixth, we would be wise as an Indigenous People of Judea-Samaria to unite with the other 370 million Indigenous Peoples trying to survive intact within this world. Our correct focus as an ethno-religious people will help ensure all Indigenous Peoples’ futures. We absolutely *need* to consider and to respond to this! Decolonization is a must for present day Israel, the Jewish people!
Shabbat Shalom!
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