The recent tragedy of the crash of American Airlines flight number 588 in New York has further diminished the appetite of the general public to travel and especially to fly. I found it to be shuddering that we all felt a wave of relief pass through us when the Federal Aviation Agency in the United States confirmed that the death of over 260 innocent people was due to a technical malfunction and not to the malevolence of the hatred of other human beings. The very advance of technology, of comfort, instant communication and the speed of modern life has made our world a very dangerous place to live in.
People long for an escape from our world society and speak of a "post-modernist" world. The anti-globalization protests, the electoral successes of the "green" political parties, the pursuit of "spiritualism" in all sorts of new age religions and exotic Eastern faiths by many of the young of the West (including a disproportionate amount of Jews) are all part of the growing fear and disillusionment with the technology that now dominates our life. For it is this very technology, which in itself can be the source of such blessings, that allows the evil in the world to be so dangerous and omnipresent.
This trend of fear and confusion leads to a simplistic rejection of the modern world. There are many of us that would like to retire to an isolated place in the world and escape from what surrounds us. There was a long running play in London and New York a few decades ago that was called "Stop the World, I Want to Get Off." It was very popular because all of us have moments in life that we would like to "get off," but life is rarely that accommodating. Our responsibilities, commitments and circumstances force us back into the world that we live in. Rejection of that world may be possible for the few, for the individual, but it is not possible for an entire society. Therefore, anti-modernism, in the nostalgic sense of returning to a simpler pre-technologically-modern world, is not really possible and is therefore irrelevant to our search for solutions to our problems. Not flying in planes is possible for individuals. It is an impossibility for an entire society or economy.
One of the hallmarks of Jewish greatness has been the ability to adjust, prosper and yet retain its integrity in all societies. In the ancient world of paganism and tribes, in the world of the Greeks, the Romans, the Persians, in the societies of Islam and Roman Catholicism, in the time of the Renaissance and the Reformation, Jewish society remained strong and vital. Even though in all of the above-mentioned times, Jews suffered intense physical persecution and terrible societal bigotry, the flexibility of Israel and its faith in its eternal heritage and destiny allowed it to benefit from the society while not being overwhelmed by it. It has only been the advent of the modern society that has truly challenged Jewish life and caused great disaffection in the Jewish world. Assimilation, intermarriage, abandonment of Jewish values and lifestyle, all mark the path of Israel over the past two centuries of modernism. It is modernism that poses perhaps the greatest challenge to Judaism and the Jewish ethos in our long history. Modernism and technology will not disappear and to pretend that it can be shut out from our lives is an illusion. Therefore, the necessity of dealing with the challenge of modernity remains the main task of Judaism in our time.
It should be apparent by now that adjusting Judaism itself to make it more relevant to modernism is a counterproductive process. The woeful intermarriage rates that afflict the non-Orthodox sections of the Jewish world in the Diaspora are proof of the danger of constantly redefining Judaism to make it currently politically correct. What is necessary is a concerted effort by the religious and intellectual leaders of the Jewish people to create a policy - other than complete rejection of modernity - to keep the Jewish people strong and vibrant and loyal to its Torah and ideals in this dangerous and dizzying world of modernism and technology. There are signs of this process actually beginning to happen in sectors of the Jewish world. It will require bravery and innovativeness to develop such a program that will be acceptable to the various groupings in the Jewish world, but we cannot afford to be permanently grounded. Hence, there is no doubt that necessity will help us create the Jewish society that successfully remains Jewish in our technologically advanced modern world. In fact, it is our Judaism itself that will allow us to survive and prosper in spite of the frights that modernity otherwise imposes on world societies.
Shabbat shalom.
-------------------------
Originally published in the Jerusalem Post. The article is posted with permission of the author.
Rabbi Berel Wein, noted author and lecturer, is founder of the Destiny Foundation, dedicated to educating Jews about their historical and ethical heritage (JewishDestiny.com ).
People long for an escape from our world society and speak of a "post-modernist" world. The anti-globalization protests, the electoral successes of the "green" political parties, the pursuit of "spiritualism" in all sorts of new age religions and exotic Eastern faiths by many of the young of the West (including a disproportionate amount of Jews) are all part of the growing fear and disillusionment with the technology that now dominates our life. For it is this very technology, which in itself can be the source of such blessings, that allows the evil in the world to be so dangerous and omnipresent.
This trend of fear and confusion leads to a simplistic rejection of the modern world. There are many of us that would like to retire to an isolated place in the world and escape from what surrounds us. There was a long running play in London and New York a few decades ago that was called "Stop the World, I Want to Get Off." It was very popular because all of us have moments in life that we would like to "get off," but life is rarely that accommodating. Our responsibilities, commitments and circumstances force us back into the world that we live in. Rejection of that world may be possible for the few, for the individual, but it is not possible for an entire society. Therefore, anti-modernism, in the nostalgic sense of returning to a simpler pre-technologically-modern world, is not really possible and is therefore irrelevant to our search for solutions to our problems. Not flying in planes is possible for individuals. It is an impossibility for an entire society or economy.
One of the hallmarks of Jewish greatness has been the ability to adjust, prosper and yet retain its integrity in all societies. In the ancient world of paganism and tribes, in the world of the Greeks, the Romans, the Persians, in the societies of Islam and Roman Catholicism, in the time of the Renaissance and the Reformation, Jewish society remained strong and vital. Even though in all of the above-mentioned times, Jews suffered intense physical persecution and terrible societal bigotry, the flexibility of Israel and its faith in its eternal heritage and destiny allowed it to benefit from the society while not being overwhelmed by it. It has only been the advent of the modern society that has truly challenged Jewish life and caused great disaffection in the Jewish world. Assimilation, intermarriage, abandonment of Jewish values and lifestyle, all mark the path of Israel over the past two centuries of modernism. It is modernism that poses perhaps the greatest challenge to Judaism and the Jewish ethos in our long history. Modernism and technology will not disappear and to pretend that it can be shut out from our lives is an illusion. Therefore, the necessity of dealing with the challenge of modernity remains the main task of Judaism in our time.
It should be apparent by now that adjusting Judaism itself to make it more relevant to modernism is a counterproductive process. The woeful intermarriage rates that afflict the non-Orthodox sections of the Jewish world in the Diaspora are proof of the danger of constantly redefining Judaism to make it currently politically correct. What is necessary is a concerted effort by the religious and intellectual leaders of the Jewish people to create a policy - other than complete rejection of modernity - to keep the Jewish people strong and vibrant and loyal to its Torah and ideals in this dangerous and dizzying world of modernism and technology. There are signs of this process actually beginning to happen in sectors of the Jewish world. It will require bravery and innovativeness to develop such a program that will be acceptable to the various groupings in the Jewish world, but we cannot afford to be permanently grounded. Hence, there is no doubt that necessity will help us create the Jewish society that successfully remains Jewish in our technologically advanced modern world. In fact, it is our Judaism itself that will allow us to survive and prosper in spite of the frights that modernity otherwise imposes on world societies.
Shabbat shalom.
-------------------------
Originally published in the Jerusalem Post. The article is posted with permission of the author.
Rabbi Berel Wein, noted author and lecturer, is founder of the Destiny Foundation, dedicated to educating Jews about their historical and ethical heritage (JewishDestiny.com ).