God Is Not One

by Prothero, Stephen

  Life Cycle Rituals

  Jews also observe rites of passage such as birth, adulthood, marriage, and death. Traditionally the first of these two passages were celebrated more for males than for females, through the bris, or circumcision ritual, and the bar mitzvah (“son of the commandments”). Many Jews now have naming ceremonies for female infants and bat mitzvahs (“daughter of the commandments”) for twelve-year-old girls.

  Jewish mourning practices include a seven-day period of sitting shiva in the home followed by burial, Kaddish prayers for the dead, and a one-year-anniversary remembrance called the yahrzeit. Jewish views of the afterlife are harder to summarize. In the Tanakh there is hardly any mention of life after death. Patriarchs live long, die natural deaths, and are buried by their kin (or, in the case of Moses, by God Himself), with no hint of any heavenly reward. Through the influence of Greek speculation on the immortality of the soul and with the rise of a Jewish tradition of martyrdom (itself influenced by Greek tragedy), Jews came to affirm the bodily resurrection—a doctrine that would play a huge role in the origins and development of Christianity and would later be enshrined in Maimonides’s “Thirteen Principles.” Nonetheless, Jewish thought has long downplayed the world to come. While many Reform Jews deny the bodily resurrection and many Orthodox Jews affirm it, almost all Jews agree that our focus should be on this life.32 Even among the Orthodox there is less talk of the world to come than there is among most Muslims and Christians. A saying in the Mishnah takes jabs at all sorts of theological speculation, concluding with a broadside at speculation about the afterlife. “Whoever reflects upon four things would have been better off had he not been born: what is above, what is below, what is before, and what is beyond.”33

  Reform, Conservative, Orthodox

  The only form of Judaism officially recognized by the State of Israel is Orthodoxy. Elsewhere Jews have split into various branches. All these branches tell the Jewish story of exile and return, and all respect the authority of the Torah. They divide largely over how they interpret and observe halakha. So while Christian denominations distinguish themselves largely on the basis of faith and belief, these branches differ more on ritual and ethics.

  In the United States, there are three main Jewish movements: Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox. Among American Jews who belong to a synagogue, 39 percent affiliate with Reform, 33 percent with Conservative, and 21 percent with Orthodox. Most American Jews, however, do not belong to any synagogue at all.34 The simplest way to describe the differences between these three groups is to say that each focuses on one key element in Judaism: the Reform on ethics, the Orthodox on law, and the Conservative on tradition.

  The Reform movement began in eighteenth-century Europe and flourished in the United States, where it is now represented by Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion campuses in Cincinnati, New York, and Los Angeles. Jews have traditionally understood themselves as a people set apart, but the Reform impulse is toward integration and assimilation. Pioneers in the Reform movement wanted to be modern Germans or modern Americans without ceasing to be Jews. So instead of Hebrew they used vernacular languages in sermons and prayers. Some even held Sabbath services on Sunday rather than Saturday and refused to circumcise their sons.

  The Pittsburgh Platform (1885), the classic expression of Reform Judaism, described the Hebrew Bible as “reflecting the primitive ideas of its own age” and spoke of Judaism as “a progressive religion, ever striving to be in accord with the postulates of reason.” It rejected kashrut on the theory that only the moral laws of the Torah were binding. And because Reform Jews wanted to make whatever countries they were living in their homelands, this platform refused to see Jews as living in exile from their true home in Zion.35 Today Reform Jews are more ritually observant, and virtually all of them are grateful for the Zionist movement that culminated in the State of Israel. But they continue to emphasize Judaism’s prophetic tradition and its commitment to social justice, believing it is their job to repair the world by their own hands, not to wait for a messiah to do it. Reform Jews have pushed hard for gender equality, ordaining female rabbis, counting women as part of the minyan (quorum for prayer), and insisting not only on welcoming boys into adulthood via the bar mitzvah but also on initiating girls into adulthood via the bat mitzvah.

  Orthodox Jews, by contrast, define themselves as defenders of Torah and tradition. They attempt to observe all the mitzvot, including kosher dietary laws. They accept only male rabbis, and their services are conducted in Hebrew. While Reform Jewish men rarely wear a yarmulke or kippah (head covering), Orthodox men will not take more than four steps without one. And while Reform Jews allow men and women to mix in their temples, men and women are separated in the Orthodox shul.

  Orthodox Jews are themselves separated into various groups. The Modern Orthodox, for example, are scrupulous in their observance of halakha, but they are much more open than other Orthodox Jews to modern life and modern ideas, including liberal-arts education. In the United States the Modern Orthodox are represented by Yeshiva University in New York, where it is common to see young men wearing blue jeans with traditional tzitzit (fringes) hanging out over them.

  Hasidism is considered ultra-Orthodox, but when it began in the 1730s in the shtetls of Eastern Europe, it was seen as liberal and even revolutionary because of its emphasis on the heart over the head. This movement was inspired by the Baal Shem Tov (1698–1760), a man beloved not so much for his book learning as for his heartfelt spirituality, his down-to-earth stories, and his unshakeable conviction that God is near to all of us, not just the intelligent and the learned. Today the Hasidim (“pious ones”) testify to the presence inside Judaism of what Hindus call bhakti yoga, the discipline of devotion. Firm believers in divine immanence, the Hasidim attempt to commune with God always and everywhere, sensing His presence in activities as mundane as sleeping or tying your shoes. Characterized by full-throated and fully embodied enthusiasm—Judaism as joy—their services recall the ecstatic prayer of Pentecostalism and the danced religion of the Yoruba. The Hasidim revere a new Jewish exemplar, the tzaddik (“righteous one”), who is distinguished more by piety than by education. They invest in these tzaddiks, whom they also call rebbes, tremendous authority over their collective and personal lives, not unlike the guru figure in the Hindu tradition. The distinguishing mark of their movement, however, is their holy joy. “God desires the heart,” the Talmud says, and the Hasidim seek to give God what He most desires.36

  The beliefs and practices of Conservative Jews mark a middle path between Reform and Orthodox Judaism. Like Reform Jews, Conservative Jews are quite open to advances in modern thought, including Bible criticism. They are closer to Orthodox Jews when it comes to worship and law, respecting not only the ethical but also the ritual commandments as halakha, and worshipping in Hebrew. Women and homosexuals can be ordained in Conservative synagogues, however, and worshippers are permitted to drive to services on the Sabbath. Conservative Jews trace their origins to the founding, in 1886 in New York City, of the Jewish Theological Seminary, but their movement did not pick up steam until Solomon Schechter (1847–1915), a Cambridge University academic, came to the United States to lead JTS in 1902.

  Much Jewish humor pokes fun at the differences between these Jewish branches, with each joke taking aim at one group or another. One widely told joke takes a jab at the Orthodox for their obliviousness to modern life and at Reform Jews for their obliviousness to Jewish traditions:

  A Conservative Jew living in a small city bought a new Ferrari. He wanted a rabbi to say a bracha (blessing) over it, but there were only two rabbis in town. So he went to the Orthodox rabbi. “Rabbi,” he asked, “Can you say a bracha for my Ferrari?” The rabbi said, “What’s a Ferrari?” So he went to the Reform rabbi. “Rabbi,” he asked, “can you say a bracha for my Ferrari?” The rabbi said, “What’s a bracha?”

  Reconstructionist and Humanistic Judaism

  Two additional American Jewish branches ar
e Reconstructionist and Humanistic Judaism. Reconstructionist Judaism, developed by Mordecai Kaplan (1881–1983) in New York City in the first half of the twentieth century, found institutional expression with the opening of Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in suburban Philadelphia in 1968. Following Kaplan’s lead, Reconstructionist Jews rejected the notion of Jews as a chosen people and spoke of God only as an expression of the highest ethical ideals of human beings. From their perspective, Judaism was not a supernatural religion but an evolving civilization. Today Reconstructionist Jews are eager adapters of Jewish civilization to modern life. In keeping with their origins in the Conservative movement (Kaplan taught for over fifty years at JTS), they tend to be more traditional and observant than Reform Jews, speaking Hebrew in worship services, for example, and observing the full range of Jewish holy days. They distinguish themselves from the three leading U.S. Jewish branches, however, by viewing mitzvot as folkways rather than law. Like Reform Jews, they strive for egalitarianism in terms of both gender and sexual orientation. In fact, the first American bat mitzvah was held for Kaplan’s daughter Judith in 1922. Not surprisingly, there is also Jewish humor that pokes fun at Reconstructionist Judaism: At an Orthodox wedding, the bride’s mother is pregnant; at a Conservative wedding, the rabbi is pregnant; at a Reform wedding, the bride is pregnant; and at a Reconstructionist wedding, both brides are pregnant.

  Humanistic Judaism began in 1963 when Sherwin Wine (1928–2007), the “atheist rabbi,” founded Birmingham Temple in suburban Detroit as a home for Jewish freethinkers.37 Today its congregations celebrate Jewish culture and the power of the individual without invoking God, praying to God, or reading from the revelation of God. For Humanistic Jews, Judaism is first and last about ethics—doing “good without God.” They reject the bris, or circumcision ritual, as sexist, preferring naming ceremonies for boys and girls alike. This group has strong affinities with Israel’s kibbutz movement, which was built in the early twentieth century on secular and often antireligious foundations. One spokesperson is Harvard University’s humanist chaplain Greg Epstein, a student of Wine and the author of Good Without God (2009). Although Humanistic Judaism is quite small—the International Federation of Secular Humanistic Jews claims only twenty thousand members—it expresses the sentiments of many more. According to a variety of studies, many Jews in both the United States and Israel are secular in the sense of either not being affiliated with any synagogue or not believing in God.38

  Zionism and the Holocaust

  Another Jewish impulse, Zionism (from Mount Zion, near Jerusalem), cuts across these movements. As nationalism overtook Europe in the nineteenth century, some Jews started to rethink their narrative of exile and return in more explicitly political terms. Jews had endured over the centuries a series of persecutions and indignities—from Egypt to Babylon to murder at the hands of Crusaders in Jerusalem in 1099 to their expulsion from Spain in 1492 to the anti-Semitic tirades of the Protestant leader Martin Luther’s On the Jews and Their Lies in 1543. The nineteenth century brought on a series of anti-Jewish pogroms in Russia and elsewhere, prompting a political push for a Jewish homeland, typically dated to the First Zionist Congress of 1897. There was some discussion of establishing a Jewish state outside of the Middle East, including in Argentina or modern-day Uganda, but advocates finally fixed on the biblical Promised Land.

  The key figure in early Zionism was Theodor Herzl (1860–1904), a Viennese Jew whose secular arguments for a Jewish state proceeded on pragmatic and political terms. Many Orthodox Jews initially opposed Zionism, arguing that creating a Jewish state was the job of God and his messiah alone. Many Reform Jews joined the opposition because they wanted to engage fully in the lives of their respective countries, not separate themselves from their fellow citizens. The Holocaust proved to be the tipping point for the Zionist cause. Tapping into centuries of Christian anti-Semitism, including the claim that Jews were “Christ killers,” Adolf Hitler and the Nazis killed six million Jews, roughly one-third of the Jewish population worldwide. Not long after the world learned of these horrors, the state of Israel was created, in 1948.

  Feminist Theology

  Judaism has also produced a vibrant conversation about the role of women in the Jewish community. Traditionally, Judaism has been the epitome of patriarchal religion. The biblical covenants were made with men and passed down through male circumcision. The minyan (quorum) required for certain religious activities has traditionally required ten male adults. Women were also exempted from the rabbinate and from many commandments. No wonder Jewish men have traditionally thanked God for three blessings: that they are not Gentiles, slaves, or women.

  All this is changing, at least in non-Orthodox circles. Women joined the ranks of the rabbinate when Regina Jones of East Berlin was ordained in 1935. In the United States, Reform Jews ordained their first female rabbi in 1972, and Reconstructionist and Conservative Jews followed suit in 1974 and 1985, respectively. Even the Orthodox are loosening up. In Israel today Orthodox women are gradually breaking into the male monopoly of overseeing the certification of kosher food processing businesses. More important, Modern Orthodox women are now engaging in advanced Torah study, traditionally a central aspect of Jewish life.

  Feminist theologians have done their best to retrieve examples of Jewish female leadership: Deborah the judge, prophet, and military leader described in the book of Judges; the Hasidic adept Oudil; and Israel’s prime minister Golda Meir. These theologians speak of God in both the feminine and the masculine and invoke the memory not only of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob but also of Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah. But there is no pretending away the patriarchal history of Judaism. The term “texts of terror” now used to describe passages in the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim scriptures that condone violence, referred originally to texts in the Tanakh describing murder, rape, and other violence against women.39 The Talmudic preference for males over females begins at birth. Or, as the Talmud puts it, “Happy is he whose children are sons and woe to him whose children are daughters.” 40

  Kabbalah

  Each of the great religions does certain things well and other things poorly. Buddhism is strong on the experiential dimension of religion and weak on the ethical dimension. Judaism is just the opposite. Because of their community focus, Jews (with the notable exception of the Hasidim) have not cultivated personal spirituality with the care or intensity that Buddhists have. Recently, many Jews hungry for spiritual experience have gravitated toward various forms of Buddhist meditation. “Ju-Bus,” as they are called, are attracted not only to the experiences these contemplative practices offer but also to the fact that they are delivered inside a tradition that does not have a jealous god. This same hunger for spirituality is also driving many Jews to tap into their own religion’s experiential resources, including the mystical tradition known as Kabbalah.

  A few years ago I was peppering a Jewish friend with questions about Judaism, and she was answering them patiently. After a while she blurted out, “You know I’m not Jewish, right?” This friend is one of the most Jewish people I know. Her mother is Jewish, her father is a rabbi, and her brother lives in Israel. She spent years studying Torah. She observes the commandments. She knows the blessings. And she embodies much of the best of the Jewish tradition. So why did she deny she is Jewish? Well, she was not really denying it. What she was telling me is that her experience of what we call God is bigger and more mysterious than anything the term Judaism might convey.

  My friend is a mystic, though she would resist being put in that box too. But she has had experiences of God that most of the rest of us can only imagine, and she understands the Jewish tradition largely in light of Kabbalah. Because of the difficulties and dangers of this esoteric path, Kabbalistic study has traditionally been limited to married men advanced in both age and Torah study. Kabbalah had considerable influence in the medieval and early modern periods, but fell into decline during the reason-besotted Enlightenment. In recent years, Kabbalah ha
s come into public view (and ridicule) because of the association of celebrities such as Madonna, David Beckham, Ashton Kutcher, Demi Moore, Lindsay Lohan, and Britney Spears with the Kabbalah Centre run in Los Angeles by Philip Berg. Kabbalah’s roots, however, run much deeper than this pop Kabbalism. In fact, they run to thirteenth-century Spain and an Aramaic book called the Zohar. This sprawling text of many volumes is traditionally attributed to a second-century figure named Shimon bar Yochai, though the faithful claim that its traditions go back to Moses and Sinai and even to creation itself. Scholars say the Zohar was likely written by the man who claimed only to have “discovered” it: Moses de Leon (1250–1305) of Avila, Spain.

  Kabbalism contains all sorts of esoteric speculation not only on God but also on numbers, letters, vowels, and consonants. Ultimately, God is said to be Ein Sof, which is to say endless and limitless and beyond mental grasping. But Ein Sof manifests in ten sefirot, or emanations—a view opponents say pushes Kabbalah perilously close to polytheism. Another key concept in Kabbalah is Shekhina, the feminine and immanent aspect of God, which according to Kabbalists complements and balances the more masculine and transcendent aspect of God emphasized in the Tanakh and Talmud. The Shekhina makes an appearance in the Talmud, where she is said to go into exile in Babylon with the Jewish people. In Kabbalah, however, she takes center stage.

  According to Kabbalistic thought, before creation all was one. But with creation came multiplicity. In a sort of spiritual Big Bang, everything exploded out into the cosmos in fragments but with a spark of the divine tucked inside each. So creation is a broken but redeemable vessel. Our job is to reverse this primordial exile of the many from the One, to return the sparks inside us and inside everything around us to their original wholeness. This is accomplished by doing the commandments, which bring one closer to God and to the rest of the Jewish community. But mitzvot also operate on another plane, by helping to lure the Shekhina out of her own exile and back into union with the more masculine aspect of the divine. Kabbalists speak of this union as a marriage of God and the people of Israel, where the Shekhina plays the role of God’s people in exile returning to their/her true home and repairing the world in the process.