Many Jewish leaders tell us that we are in a new age, one in which one can no longer suppose that religious identity is supplied to us primarily by ancestry and tradition. The new message is that in this 'Age of Choice', or rather of Multiple Choice, Judaism must offer itself as a product on the market that consumers of religion and identity can choose to make their own.
This is perhaps too simple a definition of the situation we are in, but it does raise the question of what being Jewish has to offer.
I think that one central thing 'being Jewish' has to offer is 'belonging to a people'. This people is historically one of the great peoples of mankind. Its greatest contribution, I believe, is in its providing Mankind with the idea of one moral creator God, who brought the universe into being, and who cares for it. It also gave the world ideas of justice and freedom, fundamental values that inform the life of Mankind to this day. It is the predecessor faith to two other faiths that, between them, have half of mankind as their adherents.
Belonging to the Jewish people and their history is belonging to the people who gave Mankind what is arguably its greatest book. It is belonging to the people who taught the ideals of humans caring for each other, of loving one's neighbor as oneself, and not doing unto others as one would not have done to oneself.
But belonging to the Jewish people is also belonging to a people with a rich history, one very great in triumph and suffering. No individual Jew can really know or understand all these worlds and their complexities. And so, belonging to the Jewish people is belonging to something far greater, far more remarkable, than oneself.
As with the Chinese, the Jews, for a good part of their history, placed very great value on learning and study. And the Jews have, along with a vast tradition of learning of their own texts and holy writings, made outstanding and remarkable contributions to almost every field of human learning and endeavor, especially in the last two European centuries. Belonging to the Jews is, in this sense, belonging to an elite people of creators, whose gifts to mankind stand outside all proportion to their numerical weight.
But belonging to the Jews also means something else; it means something that has led many Jews to cease being Jews. It means belonging to the people that has been most hated and persecuted by Mankind. And it means having a special connection to the one state whose very existence is threatened today by a considerable share of mankind. Being a Jew, then, means taking special risks upon oneself and one's family. And centuries of human history have meant millions of Jewish martyrs killed only because they were Jewish. In the twentieth century alone, in arguably what is the greatest crime in human history, over one-third of this people were murdered for no other reason than that they were Jewish.
In Israel, belonging to the Jews means having one's world, one's family, threatened by radical, fundamentalist Islam, and by a brand of secular, radical leftism that would wholly destroy the Jewish state.
To belong to the Jews then means one has taken a special situation upon oneself.
It is not recommended for the faint of heart.
Belonging to the Jews means also many other things that are more mundane and yet, nonetheless, highly problematic. It means that, depending upon how you become a Jew, you may or may not be recognized as a Jew by other Jews. It means getting to know that this nation of 'great prophets' is also the nation of hundreds of thousands of ordinary people who care far more about their own private lives and world, than about their own public identity. It means meeting all kinds of disappointments and broken expectations as to the quality and character of the people. But it also means meeting and coming to know many, many remarkable individuals of very distinct worth and character.
What it cannot mean is something easy, straightforward and always positive. To choose to be a Jew is to choose to be something difficult. Though Jews, or a certain kind of them, are commanded to be always in a state of joy, it is very rare indeed to find many Jews in such a situation. No small state in the world has anything like the number of difficult, seemingly impossible, problems as does Israel.
If you choose to be a Jew, then you most likely will not become more happy, but your life will probably (and that is only probably, because nothing is guaranteed) become more interesting.
And one more thing. If you happen to become a Jew because you do believe that G-d has created this world, and the Jewish people also, then you may well come to feel that in joining the people of Israel, whatever contribution you make will have a real religious purpose.
I don't say that you should join the Jewish people. I don't really recommend it in that way, anyway. But as one who was born to it and does feel an obligation to many of those who lived for it and suffered for it through the generations, I can say for myself that I am grateful every minute of my life that this is what G-d and my parents gave me.
This is perhaps too simple a definition of the situation we are in, but it does raise the question of what being Jewish has to offer.
I think that one central thing 'being Jewish' has to offer is 'belonging to a people'. This people is historically one of the great peoples of mankind. Its greatest contribution, I believe, is in its providing Mankind with the idea of one moral creator God, who brought the universe into being, and who cares for it. It also gave the world ideas of justice and freedom, fundamental values that inform the life of Mankind to this day. It is the predecessor faith to two other faiths that, between them, have half of mankind as their adherents.
Belonging to the Jewish people and their history is belonging to the people who gave Mankind what is arguably its greatest book. It is belonging to the people who taught the ideals of humans caring for each other, of loving one's neighbor as oneself, and not doing unto others as one would not have done to oneself.
But belonging to the Jewish people is also belonging to a people with a rich history, one very great in triumph and suffering. No individual Jew can really know or understand all these worlds and their complexities. And so, belonging to the Jewish people is belonging to something far greater, far more remarkable, than oneself.
As with the Chinese, the Jews, for a good part of their history, placed very great value on learning and study. And the Jews have, along with a vast tradition of learning of their own texts and holy writings, made outstanding and remarkable contributions to almost every field of human learning and endeavor, especially in the last two European centuries. Belonging to the Jews is, in this sense, belonging to an elite people of creators, whose gifts to mankind stand outside all proportion to their numerical weight.
But belonging to the Jews also means something else; it means something that has led many Jews to cease being Jews. It means belonging to the people that has been most hated and persecuted by Mankind. And it means having a special connection to the one state whose very existence is threatened today by a considerable share of mankind. Being a Jew, then, means taking special risks upon oneself and one's family. And centuries of human history have meant millions of Jewish martyrs killed only because they were Jewish. In the twentieth century alone, in arguably what is the greatest crime in human history, over one-third of this people were murdered for no other reason than that they were Jewish.
In Israel, belonging to the Jews means having one's world, one's family, threatened by radical, fundamentalist Islam, and by a brand of secular, radical leftism that would wholly destroy the Jewish state.
To belong to the Jews then means one has taken a special situation upon oneself.
It is not recommended for the faint of heart.
Belonging to the Jews means also many other things that are more mundane and yet, nonetheless, highly problematic. It means that, depending upon how you become a Jew, you may or may not be recognized as a Jew by other Jews. It means getting to know that this nation of 'great prophets' is also the nation of hundreds of thousands of ordinary people who care far more about their own private lives and world, than about their own public identity. It means meeting all kinds of disappointments and broken expectations as to the quality and character of the people. But it also means meeting and coming to know many, many remarkable individuals of very distinct worth and character.
What it cannot mean is something easy, straightforward and always positive. To choose to be a Jew is to choose to be something difficult. Though Jews, or a certain kind of them, are commanded to be always in a state of joy, it is very rare indeed to find many Jews in such a situation. No small state in the world has anything like the number of difficult, seemingly impossible, problems as does Israel.
If you choose to be a Jew, then you most likely will not become more happy, but your life will probably (and that is only probably, because nothing is guaranteed) become more interesting.
And one more thing. If you happen to become a Jew because you do believe that G-d has created this world, and the Jewish people also, then you may well come to feel that in joining the people of Israel, whatever contribution you make will have a real religious purpose.
I don't say that you should join the Jewish people. I don't really recommend it in that way, anyway. But as one who was born to it and does feel an obligation to many of those who lived for it and suffered for it through the generations, I can say for myself that I am grateful every minute of my life that this is what G-d and my parents gave me.