Response To A Response

Yesterday, a rather lovely lady named Lisa, who also happens to be my sister-in-law, left this comment on my post about judaism and me.

Lisa's comment brought up some issues, so today's post is, as it were, a response to her response. So thanks, Leez, my blog is no longer a monologue, but a dialogue. I feel a warm glow of satisfaction already.


Dear Lisa

Thank you for the comment you left on yesterday's blog post about me and judaism.

In it, you say that you would like to see me draw up "a little table" with ticks and crosses next to various aspects of judaism (religious, practical and cultural) indicating which of those aspects I agree and disagree with. In response to reading your comment, I actually, and I mean immediately, began to do just that - opening up a new document on Word Pad and beginning a series of little lists. I started with "Religious" aspects (under the uber-heading of Lisa's Little Judaism Table), with monotheism, rather predictably, being the first item on the list.

Here's the thing. Rather than putting a tick or a cross, or even the word yes or the word no, next to my emboldened Monotheism, I double-returned and, without even thinking about it, began to type. I typed the following:

"I do not literally believe in a god or gods as people usually think about them. However, the concept of holiness is meaningful to me. The idea that there is something, however abstract, that binds everything together, and brings meaning out of the chaos."

At this point I stopped, took a metaphorical step back, and looked at what I had just written, realising that if I had not paused and checked myself, I would have carried on typing, probably for pages and pages, about what I mean by the word god and how I understand the concept of sacredness and my personal vision of the spiritual and the story of exactly how I became interested in exploring judaism.

My point is this. Monotheism, and brit milah, and covenant, and peoplehood, and davening, and mikveh and shekhina are not fixed, easily-defined, uncontroversial, free-standing, uncontextualized concrete things that I can put a tick or a cross next to. It just isn't that simple. Or at least, it doesn't seem to be for me. I could probably write you essays on each one of them; on how I see them, on how they relate to me.

Here's the good news though. I am going to write all those essays, and explore all these issues - and I'm going to do it right in front of you. That is a big part of what this blog is about. Exploring judaism and its relationship to me. So please don't think I'm ducking out of the challenge by failing to produce the little table. I'm not. It's just that the table is going to end up being a whole lot bigger than envisaged.

I also hope that my interest in judaism, and indeed, my potential future conversion to judaism, will not represent any kind of spiritual or intellectual exclusivism on my part. Here I'm referring to the lovely Ravi Shankar quote with which you ended your comment. I understand that I am me, and that I will never be anything else. I understand that I will never be anywhere other than where I am, anywhen other than the present moment. I understand that the universe is very big, and that meaning is very personal. I'm not trying to buy my way out of that. I'm not trying to buy my way out of the complexity, of the reality, of the complicatedness. For me, judaism is the first category of spiritual journey that has let me feel that I don't have to compromise those things. That I don't have to be less than me, and that I don't have to pretend that life is something it isn't, in order to belong.

Again, I will come back to all these things later, I'm sure.

Anyway, thanks once again for what you wrote, and I hope that my future dialectic meanderings live up to my promise to fully and honestly explore the issues you raise.