Just out of curiosity, do any of you personally know anarchists who are also practicing jews? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_anarchism Do you believe the two to be compatible?
No - Judaism is far better presented and holds a world view that stretches back many more centuries - anarchism is merely the religion of the socially ousted - judaism is the collected work of people who are by-and-large socially adept - they have a social view of the world whereas anarchists have merely a nihilist sentiment and a loathing of power structures Are you thinking of converting to judaism then shane?
Anarchists aren't all nihilists. In fact i would say most anarchists are not nihilists. In fact i know several who are theist. anarchism is not a religion just an alternative way to approach interpersonal relationships and social institutions(non-heirarchical). And many anarchists are socially adept, i get along with most people. I'm looking into various faiths and belief systems, judaism is one that i'm looking at, and am curious about.
Hi Shane. I can tell you as a Jewish person who's pretty aware of the different things going on in the community, I hadn't heard about an anarchic group, at least not as a religious organization. But if you're simply investigating non-heirarchical religion, these are all non-heirarchical expression of Judaism: Reform Judaism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reform_Judaism Reconstructionist Judaism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconstructionist_Judaism Jewish Renewal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_Renewal and because they don't really give the same type of definition as for the others: http://www.aleph.org/principles.html Also Humanistic Judaism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanistic_Judaism Reconstructionism is also very open to non-theists and is generally naturalist, but the language it uses is usually more traditional. Humanistic Judaism generally does away with the traditional liturgy and the Torah service, but it varies from place to place. It's also very small and very young, so it's hard to say exactly what form it'll have down the road. The same could be said (it's young, small (although larger than humanistic) about Renewal, which itself is transdenominational.) Dauer
couple quick question dauer before i start to dive into the reading part: 1.) do you personally subscribe to any of these sects of judaism? 2.) are the various sects as hostile to each other as the sects of christianity and islam are. 3.) how can a belief system be a)distinct from all others and b)naturalist, transdenominational and open to non-theists? That sounds more like humanism in general, what seperates jewish humanism from general humanism? 4.) is there any one thing that really ties all these sects together? (other than being called jewish of course)
Hey Shane. 1. Judaism doesn't have sects so much as denominations. The only exception would be some of the ultra-orthodox. The distinction is that there's not so much of a wall between the denominations. With certain key exceptions, Jewish theology is pretty interchangeable between the denominations. So you could have someone who's a rationalist or someone who's into all of the mystical in any of the major denominations. And as long as the individual feels that the setup meets whatever requirements they have for it, we don't have a problem for example, praying side by side, even with our theological differences. There's also nobody (except as I mentioned some of those far right groups) saying that other people aren't Jewish for not practicing Judaism their way. A Jew is pretty universally defined as someone who has a Jewish mother or someone who's converted. It's not quite that simple though. For example, reform judaism recognizes people who have a jewish father and were raised Jewish, and an orthodox Jew wouldn't recognize that person as Jewish. Conversions are not always universally accepted, because the nature of the conversion, how difficult it is, (and also whether the group recognizes the authority of the other group's rabbi to oversee the conversion) can cause conflict on that issue. It's generally the Jews more to the right, particularly Orthodox, who have more of a problem with things like that. The groups I've mentioned wouldn't be so concerned with what group did a conversion, or if it was patrilineal or matrilineal descent. Personally, I'm post-denominational. I think that the current denominational structure doesn't really make sense. People don't decide what shul to go to based on theology so much as where they're comfortable and they like the services. I think it would make more sense to localize more, which is what some shuls are doing, by withdrawing their previous associations with the larger denominational bodies. I'm also fond of the ideas found in both reconstructionism and renewal, and sometimes define myself as a member of Jewish Renewal, but at the same time ritually as much as I'm for innovation I'm probably most comfortable with a good bit of tradition and "what's-been-done" in there too. 2. The only hostility comes from the fundamentalists on the right. Not all of the Orthodox are fundamentalist, only a small portion. I don't know if you read about what was going on, but there was a gay pride rally in Jerusalem, and the fundamentalists there were getting really out of hand. If you go back a bit you can read about it here (a lot of coverage of that, actually): www.jewschool.com Reconstructionism is naturalist. It rejects the supernaturalism of traditional Judaism, which is found in Conservative, Orthodox, and can also be found in Reform Judaism. That is one type of Judaism. It was founded on the ideas of Mordecai Kaplan. Along with naturalism, it views Judaism as an evolving religious civilization and says tradition gets a vote, but not a veto. It sees shuls as centers not just for religion but also for culture. That's reconstructionism in a nut shell. In its behavior, it's actually a bit more traditional than say, Reform Judaism. All of that specifically refers to Reconstructionism. Jewish Renewal is transdenominational. It's a mystical movement that was started in the 60s, and the spirit of that era is still very much present in Renewal. It's probably the most progressive movement on most fronts. Transdenominational in this context means that some people who are into Renewal are affiliated with the different denominations, some just with Renewal, but it's not something separate. Reconstructionism has traditionally rejected the belief in a personal god, which is the sense in which I'm using the word theist. It refers to God, but it uses a lot of ambiguous language that removes any trace of supernaturalism to talk about him. It also changes the liturgy sometimes to make it sound less like it's referring to a personal god. As far as Jewish humanism, it's essentially humanism by Jews for Jews. Judaism's a tribal religion, not really just a belief system. It's more like being a Cherokee than being, for example, a Christian. So there was a Reform rabbi who didn't believe in God, but as a Jew, he still identified strongly with the stuff of Judaism, and was drawn to it. He didn't feel he should have to compromise his beliefs in order to be Jewish, so he created Jewish humanism. It has a Jewish feel to it, but the focus is on humanity, and they reject belief in God. I honestly couldn't guess why a non-Jew would be drawn to that form of Judaism when they could be doing regular humanism, unless maybe they're Christian. But there's gotta be some Christian form of humanism somewhere. I suppose it's also about what's accessible. Yes. As I've said previously, Judaism isn't exactly a belief system. It's far from monolithic. The denominations where you start to see the real big theological breaks, humanism, reconstructionism, only come later. Generally, beliefs are interchangeable, and what ties Jews together is practice. The focus is much more on action than on belief. A religious Jew in any denomination is going to have generally the same practice. And in all synagogues (with the exception of humanistic ones and on some occasions renewal ones) if you go to a shul the service is going to be pretty much the same, using the traditional liturgy. Some of it might be in English, or there might be an additional reading somewhere, or a piece that's left out, but you hit all the major prayers and sections of the service. And in those Renewal shuls the structure is the same as well. They just might chant some of the sections repetitively instead of saying the whole prayer.
Thank you that cleared up a lot. Especially the bit about a jew being more like a cherokee than a christian, makes sense. Thanks also for spelling things out, the only jewish writers i've read are Chomsky and Spinoza. Chomsky seems to be an atheist(or at least not a fan) and Spinoza seems to be more pantheistic than anything else. I'll definetly research all this a bit further. peace Shane
Columbo; Forgive me if i'm wrong, maybe this was meant to be sarcastic (but I dont see how) but aren't you are self-confessed 'anarchist' yourself? "Wrong end of the stick, old chap, this is a bona-fide anarchist talking - I dont need religion, government nor anyone to legislate over the actions of me - I am autonomous and a man - not a child that cannot reason and not a dogmatist that does not think for for themselves - I write the book, my friend I dont need an author to script my life." http://www.hipforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=201920&page=1 Anyway, no I dont think anarchism and judaism are compatible, everyone knows all jews are capitalists(!)
as to antagonism between Jewish groups, we DO have an old joke with two Jewish guys on an island and they build three synagogues: one attends one, the other has his own and the third, well, nobody goes there. I'm attending a fairly Ultra Orthodox Chabad shul, although my development is leaning Renewal, which also has Chabad roots, and even with us, the supposed sticks in the mud, there is no official view of anyone being more of less a Jew (observant is another matter, and kept quiet) unless they become apostate by becoming xtian.
"everyone knows all jews are capitalists(!)" LOL! Have you ever read "Mein Kampf"? He began to hate Jews based on their communist and socialist values! Then again, times change, you can make more money off of accounting than running a used book store...
