MICHAEL WYSCHOGROD
MICHAEL WYSCHOGROD If God does not exist, then the survival of the Jewish people is not a matter of deep importance. Let us call one Rita, the other, Esther. They are not real persons with names...
...Esther is no great believer in the truth of Judaism either...
...He writes on Jewish theology and philosophy and is the author of The Body of Faith: God in the People Israel (Harper, 1989...
...Her basic loyalty is to the Jewish people and when she practices some religious rituals, she feels herself bound to millenia of Jewish history...
...And if any form of Judaism survives, future generations of Jews may find a better interpretation than Esther's...
...According to the ancient rabbis, truth is the seal of the Almighty...
...While still in high school, Rita began doubting the truth of Judaism...
...Part of me admires Rita, even as her decision pains me...
...Who is right, Rita or Esther (if the term "right" can be applied to this situation...
...She also understands that something that lives evolves and one cannot expect something as complex and alive as Judaism to remain fixed for all times...
...Very few Jews ask themselves, what do I believe and what do I not believe...
...But that will not happen if Rita has her way...
...In college, she quickly adopted a scientific-naturalist worldview, believing only what could be proven empirically...
...They believe Judaism to be true (in major respects, there is always room for argument about the details) and therefore practice it...
...She found very litde value in ethnic and national loyalties as these divided people and prepared the ground for endless conflicts...
...Both are almost fluent in Hebrew and can read biblical and rabbinic texts with understanding...
...At present, she has no interest in Jews or Judaism, never goes to a synagogue and does not belong to any Jewish organization...
...Rita is courageous and consistent...
...Nevertheless, the question of truth cannot be ignored...
...In some sense, Judaism must be true if it is to be viable...
...Her commitment to a universalistic, rational ethic deepened and she saw herself as a member of humanity, which elicited her deepest loyalty...
...She sees that Judaism has to be true and if it is not, there is no sense in pouring new wine into old bottles...
...Esther does not believe some of the major claims of Judaism but she loves the Jewish people, its traditions and history, its sounds and smells and, perhaps above all, its suffering...
...She did not find plausible the claim that God existed, particularly a God who chose the people Israel and issued commandments as described in the Pentateuch...
...While she shares much of the univer-salistic ethics of Rita, she would not be happy if her child married a non-Jew...
...Rita considers the humanistic aspects of Judaism the heritage of all of humanity while its anti-humanistic dimensions should " be forgotten as quickly as possible...
...Both Esther and Rita were raised in Jewishly observant homes and graduated from yeshivah high schools...
...Believers (such as I) have it easy...
...So she reinterprets the tradition, which may displease the purists (Rita is a purist) but assures the survival of a form of Judaism for one more generation...
...For Rita, Judaism is what it is and because she does not believe it to be true, she has left the fold...
...To the extent that Rita refuses to ignore this question, she is seeking God...
...Perhaps she thinks about it a litde less than Rita but she, too, is basically a secularist for whom the existence of God is rather unlikely and the commandments undoubtedly of human origin...
...They are not real persons with names changed but composites with characteristics of a number of persons I have known...
...Jewish illiteracy is not their problem...
...While the philosopher in me is attracted to consistency and clarity, I am also attracted to Esther's inconsistency...
...If God does not exist and/or if God did not choose the Jewish people and give the commandments in the Torah, then the survival of the Jewish people is not a matter of deep importance...
...Nevertheless, she has a deep loyalty to the Jewish people, belongs to a liberal synagogue and is active in Israeli causes...
...She also found some of the commandments, such as the elimination of the inhabitants of Canaan and the menstrual laws, objectionable on moral grounds...
...Esther is certainly not a total loss to the Jewish people...
...She seems a total loss to the Jewish people...
...The cultural and ethical contributions of the Jewish people over the ages—notable as they are—are not enough to make the continuing existence of this people a matter of the highest priority...
...She is not willing to be the person in whom this history comes to an end...
...Michael Wyschogrod is Visiting Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Houston...
...She is committed to the survival of a modern form of Judaism with the religious content reinterpreted to make it more compatible with an essentially secular outlook...
...She also does not believe in switching labels or, to be more accurate, in keeping the label the same and switching the product under the label...
Vol. 17 • December 1992 • No. 6
