A FEW OF THE MORE FRAGRANT ASPECTS OF THE PEW STUDY ON JEWS

 

The recent centennial conference of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism in Baltimore was impressive.  The celebratory mood of the conference, however, did not really grab me.  As a movement, we have many reasons for concern and the Pew Research Survey on Jews made public this past October has confirmed statistically that which we have recognized for some time.

Only 18% of Jews self-identify as Conservative which is dramatically down from what it was only a couple decades ago.  For a movement that prides itself on Halakhic integrity, we find that only 19% of all Jews see devotion to Halakhah or Jewish law as integral to one’s Jewish identity.  Although 78% of Jews refer to themselves as “religious,” almost a third of the millenials (those born in the 1980’s through early 2000) claim no religion at all.  36% of all Jews refer to themselves as “just Jewish,” that is, they see no reason to engage with a particular denomination at all.
 

The Pew Survey has caused yet another round of handwringing and oy-veying throughout the Jewish community as the report seemingly points to the imminent death of religiosity, and if so, what will be left of Judaism?  And the dismal decline of Jews willing to identify as Conservative plays right into our fears for the future of the Jewish people in general.  By the same token, Jews are overwhelmingly proud of being Jewish, whatever their definition of Jewish may be.   70% of all Jews participated in a seder during the past year.   73% claim that remembering the Holocaust is central to their Jewishness. And 69% claim leading an ethical life is central to Jewish identity.  (only 69%--ouch!)

As unsettling as the Pew Report may be, it needs to be tempered by a few realities or facts.  First of all, Jewish identity is not a linear issue.  That is to say, just because one group’s numbers are declining or rising, does not mean that such a trend is irreversible.  In fact, both Reform Judaism (in the 20’s and 30’s) and Orthodoxy (in the 40’s and 50’s) were in steep decline yet neither disappeared.  To the contrary, denominationally, Reform Judaism lays claim to the largest segment of Jews connected religiously and these days, Orthodoxy is both young and vibrant.   But Orthodoxy itself is not one monolithic denomination.  Of the 10% of Jews who self-identify as Orthodox, only 3% are Modern Orthodox—and that number is no success story.  The remaining 7% involve varying degrees of ultra- or haredi Judaism.  This segment of Orthodoxy is largely separated from the modern world, undereducated in secular knowledge or employable skills, and suffers from the highest degree of poverty within the Jewish world.  If this is what it takes to remain Jewish, then the future of Judaism is indeed bleak.

Another reality that may temper the results of the Pew Study is the ambiguity revolving around the term “religious.”  What does that term really mean?  If one goes to a seder, as 70% of the Jewish community did this past year, was that a religious act?  Some will say no, but others would say yes.  If one remembers the Shoah (the Holocaust) and the terrible impact it had on the Jewish people, as 73% of the Jewish people claim is integral to their Jewishness, is that a religious act?  Some will say no, but others would say yes.  Religiosity is an inherently ambiguous term.  Even more important is the fact that religiosity is schlepping around some serious baggage these days, including insipid, long and boring worship services; financial commitments that seem greater than the value received; clergy in the news that have been misbehaving; churches in the news that have been covering for the misbehaving clergy; not to mention millions of so-called “religious” Moslems who what to destroy Israel and/or dismantle western culture and values.  Given all that, who would want to lay unequivocal claim to religious sentiments?!

The Pew Study asked people to fit themselves into categories, but these categories may not be the ones that people are fitting themselves into these days.  I was fascinated by one NPR Report that interviewed three Jews, one young lady professing to be an atheist.  She admitted to a love of the High Holiday services at her synagogue and found meaning in the annual confession of her sins before God.

Excuse me?

She saw no contradiction.  And I, for one, am willing to suggest that there may not be one.  This young lady does reject God, but the God that she rejects may be the God that many believers reject as well.  When she confesses her sins—before God!—then she has, in her head, created something greater than herself to whom she speaks.  She’s not nuts or crazy or a philosophical nit wit.  She’s a Jew for whom the power of the tradition is still real, however God marginally fits into it.  God is complicated for the most serious of sages, philosophers, and scholars—why should it be any easier for this young lady?

It was Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881), twice the prime minister of the United Kingdom, and someone whose Jewish parents had him baptized at the age of 12, who purportedly wrote, “There are three kinds of lies:  lies, damned lies, and statistics.”  I don’t mean to impugn the results of the Pew Study.  They speak for themselves.  What I do question is whether we are examining the statistics as fully as possible. 

Let’s go right to the bottom line.  Most Jews are very proud to be Jews.  That’s a huge win for the Jewish people, especially in a post-Holocaust age.  And though we seem to be drifting away from religion, it is very difficult to weed out the religion from the culture, and a lot of that weeding is of a semantic nature.  Is Judaism in general or Conservative Judaism specifically headed for the dust bins of history?  I would answer no to both questions.  I think Jews want to be Jewish and we are in a period of extraordinary transition and tumult where we are all waiting for a Judaism that speaks to us powerfully and touches us deeply.  The real question is whether  denominational Judaism will be willing to make the changes that will ultimately reconnect the Jewish people to their spiritual roots.  As for Conservative Judaism, I have faith that we will.

SELECTIVE MEMORY--REMEMBERING THE SHOAH HONESTLY

For many years, I have told the story of how the Czech Torah scrolls came to be distributed to so many hundreds of synagogues around the world. The story goes like this. The Nazis, gloating over their continued success in making Europe Judenrein (German for: Jew-Free), devised a plan to memorialize their genocidal efforts. They sought to gather the ritual items of synagogues throughout Czechoslovakia with the intent of someday displaying these items in a Museum of an Extinct Race. So they gathered these ritual items, including hundreds of sifrei Torah (i.e., Torah scrolls), but their plans would be defeated along with their defeat in World War II. Following the war, these Torah scrolls were then distributed to willing Jewish communities throughout the world for display, a sobering testimony to the Nazi downfall so starkly contrasted with the survival of the scrolls. And we have one of those scrolls.

 

It’s a great story. It’s also false. I didn’t know it was false until recently. Many of my colleagues have told the same story, innocently, but the time has come to correct the record. And now the truth. In the middle of World War II, when Czechoslovakian Jews sensed the future growing bleaker and bleaker, the Jewish Museum in Prague asked Jewish communities throughout Czechoslovakia to transfer their ritual items to the museum for cataloguing and safekeeping. The Jews willingly transferred those items to the museum thinking Prague safe. Prague was safe, but the little Jewish communities throughout Czechoslovakia were not. The Jews were murdered on the spot or transferred to death camps, but the ritual items survived the war. The scrolls represent the prescience of the Jewish community acting to safeguard its most cherished possessions. And that’s why we at Midway, like so many others, have a Czech Torah scroll on display today.

 

It could very well be that a Nazi official here or there, spying these ritual items, thought of a Museum of an Extinct Race, but the genesis of this precious legacy was not the nefarious plan of some Nazi thug. Our story must change to fit the facts. We gain nothing in promoting fantasies. To the contrary, how we remember the Shoah will speak volumes about who we are as a people. Do we willingly perpetuate falsehood or do we demand of our memories honesty? I would hope the latter is the value by which we conduct our lives.

 

In viewing our new Shoah Memorial, designed by the talented Jewish artist, Jeanette Kuvin Oren, you will see a tribute to the Jews of Horovice (pronounced: ho-ro-VEECH-ay), the one-time guardians of this sefer Torah. They gathered in synagogue for semahot—B’nai Mitzvah and weddings—and they celebrated holidays and Shabbat. Some may have been observant and some less so. Some may have been very bright and entrepreneurial while others may have been more modestly endowed. They were people like you and me but for the way their lives came to an abrupt and cruel end. We remember them for who they were and connect our lives to theirs by assuming guardianship of their Torah.

 

We remember that although this Horovice Torah is pasul, that is, unfit for ritual use, we have a special obligation as a community to maintain the kashrut of our sifrei Torah, and as such, we have assigned a second Torah, this one kosher, in the memorial ark to be used during services on those occasions when we remember our families and friends who perished in the Shoah. And on the special mantle designed for this Torah is the design of a kiddush cup brimming with fields of flowers and grain. The kiddush cup is taken from the design of the Horovice synagogue, today a church, which features a ceremonial chalice above the main entrance. This design directly connects our Horovice Torah with the synagogue of its provenance. And the fields of flowers and grain—this is a symbol of the promise of Israel, a land of beauty and growth, a safe haven for the Jewish people. Israel is a story that does not stand as a sequel to the Shoah, but one that is not disconnected from it either. When we view our Shoah memorial, and we choose to remember Medinat Yisrael, the State of Israel, we resist the inclination to be engulfed by sorrow, and choose rather to remember the greatest symbol of Jewish autonomy and power today. This is a thought that should strengthen and empower us. And this is a memory that is far from fantasy, but based on fact. It is honest to say that we no longer are a powerless people, the hapless victims of an immoral force. To the contrary, we have become a formidable force in the Mid-East and as such, restored our fate to our own hands, to the extent that anyone’s fate lies in their own hands.

 

So there are all sorts of things we need to remember. We need to remember the truth. Were we direct survivors of the Shoah, knowing the terrible end our relatives and friends suffered, we would want to remember. We would have to remember. To forget their lives would be to subject them to a second death, and perhaps one more terrible than the first. We may not be direct survivors of the Shoah, but our Jewish identities are inextricably tied to those who are. Were we actual survivors, we would converse with each other using the lingua franca of European Jewry: Yiddish. And knowing what happened to us as a people, we would say to each other: Gedenkt, the Yiddish word for “Remember!” Gedenkt, we say, both the tragedies and the miracles. And we will remember them as honestly as possible.

 

A SENSE OF MISSION, INTERNATIONAL IN SCOPE

Most Jews I’ve met—99% of them!—live with a certain sense of deficiency about their own level of observance of or belief in Jewish practice. For those who live with any sense of guilt about it, they can rest assured that there are always Jews who are far more knowledgeable or observant than they. But suppose, due to some scientifically fictitious attack of aliens from a distant planet, every Jew who was more religious than you disappeared, and you remained, in fact, the most observant Jew in the world. Before anyone made a Jewish move, they would look to you for guidance and you were suddenly forced to be an example of respectable Jewish practice. What would Judaism look like?
 

The Judaism that you would end up presenting to the world would be in consonance with how so many Conservative Jews live. You would encourage Jews to evolve to deeper degrees of Jewish practice and knowledge, without judging those who may resist. At the same time that traditional practices would be held in great regard, the creation of new rituals to promote ancient values would be welcomed. Your Judaism would be highly inclusive—recognizing the complicated nature of the Jewish family which encompasses so many other religious traditions or sexual orientations. No one connected with our families would be made uncomfortable.
 

Your Judaism would make room for prayer and meditation, but the mitzvah of all mitzvot would be study, the recognition that all truth is in some way Torah, and all Torah is Godly in nature. Because of that disposition, one which values learning so highly, there would be an enhanced receptivity to the spiritual insights of other religious traditions and of the men and women who have chosen a path to God different from our own. Your Judaism would be one based on a deep regard for all people irrespective of gender. Women would clearly be first-class citizens with access to every aspect of Jewish life, on a par with that of men.
 

At the heart of your religious practice would be ethical practice. No one would ever be caught wondering how an “observant Jew” could have bilked the government, or abused a child, or engaged in illicit business practices. Because of your example, it would be clear that such a person was never an “observant Jew,” but a fraud from the beginning. And finally, your Judaism would bear no trace of triumphalism, no condescending positions that would suggest superiority over and above other peaceful religious traditions. Your Judaism would be a path toward a world repaired, a world of deep sensitivity to the environment, and a world at peace.
 

Avraham Avinu, Abraham our Father, the man who took the first bold steps to craft this thing we now call Judaism, asked God for one thing: a child. Eventually, Abraham and Sarah would be blessed with one child, but God’s promise to Abraham was far more generous, for God said, “Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them…so shall your offspring be” (Genesis 15:5). God may have been counting Abraham’s physical offspring, but equally plausible would be a census of all of Abraham’s disciples, the people who might be so inclined as to embrace Abraham’s Judaism, of which you are now the most prominent representative.
 

We are humble Jews and so we play up our weaknesses without adequately acknowledging our strengths. These days, the world is exposed to a religiosity that is irrational, violent, imperious, coercive, homophobic, and mysoginistic. And the thing about religion is that, like politics, it doesn’t go away. It is too much a part of our humanity to wish it away. Then again, like politics, not all religious sentiments are worthy of our esteem or God’s blessings. But ours is a great tradition, one that welcomes the wisdom of antiquity into an age of Twitter and FaceBook.
 

Conservative Judaism has something to tell the world, something to teach the world. But the message will never be heard as long as we leave the fate of Jewish tradition to those who are presumably more religious than we. We should never diminish the depth of our own spirituality out of some tepid respect for “a more observant” Judaism we ourselves reject. Our Jewishness deserves a large shelf in the global market of ideas and philosophy and religion. We should be welcoming those who are searching for a way to God to step onto the derekh, the path we have chosen ourselves. It is not the only path to God but it is a fabulous path which deserves to be promoted. Many speak about the Tree of Life, our Torah, as having roots deep within the soil of Jewish wisdom and ethics. And it’s true. It is now time for the branches of this Tree of Life to grow ever higher, to touch the stars in the heaven, however many we can count.