Unorthodox Judaism

By Tzvi Freeman

Dear Tzvi,

I'm in a bind. I like Shabbat. I like Torah, especially the Kabbalah stuff and Chassidic stories. I feel a strong attachment to the Jewish people. I'm attracted to the whole thing.So, you say, what's my problem. Just do it, right? But I can't. I mean, look at me. Look at the way I grew up, where I'm coming from, where I'm at now. Can you imagine a non-conformist like me following all the strictly kosher, orthodox regulations?

-- SignedUnorthodox Jew

Finally, a man of my persuasion! Unorthodox! Yes! The most descriptive term I've heard for real Judaism! The belief that nothing is the way it is supposed to be, that the world must change, that we have to be different from everybody else. This is what Jews are all about - the recalcitrant, insurgent, revolutionary kvetchers of history -- what could be more unorthodox than that?

Didn't Judaism begin with the paradigm of all iconoclasts? Abraham smashed the idols in his father's house, defying King Nimrod and all social norms. Moses defied Pharaoh, and Rabbi Akiva and the sages defied the Roman Empire. Is this something you would describe as 'orthodox' behavior?

To be Jewish is to rebel. Keeping kosher is a rebellion against consumerism. Getting up early in the morning to wrap in a large, white woolen sheet, twist leather straps and boxes on your arm and head, join others in mystical incantations and read from an ancient scroll -- is an outright rebellion against anything normal in modern life.

Did you hear the story of the rabbi standing out on the street looking for a tenth for his minyan? Finally, he found a Jew. But the fellow tried to turn him down, explaining, "I'm not into organized religion."

"If this were an organized religion," the rabbi exclaimed, "what on earth am I doing out on the street harassing pedestrians?"

Have Jews ever been orthodox? Was there ever a time when our views and behavior were considered normal? Pharaoh thought we were crazy because we demanded workers' rights. The Romans thought we were nuts because we wouldn't dispose of unhealthy infants. The church thought we were perverse because we wouldn't surrender to the faith of the majority. The rationalists thought we were off-the-wall because of our mysticism, and the romantics considered us obtuse for our rationalism. The UN resolved that Jews are weird just because we insist on existing.

Meanwhile, everybody ended up adopting our mindset, yet we remain an anomaly. There's just too much catching up for everyone else to do.

I'll tell you: Two hundred years ago, when the Emperor Napoleon decided he was the true messiah to liberate the Jews, he appointed several Jewish leaders to form a Sanhedrin of rabbis and scholars, as in ancient times. So honored, they went about convincing their buddies to join. After all, Napoleon was the wave of the future. This was progress.

But some rabbis didn't think it was such progress. Napoleon, a messiah? And Paris is Jerusalem, right? They declined. And for this stubborn refusal to understand just how backward and narrow-minded they were, they were labeled, "ORTHODOX RABBIS!"

"Orthodox Shmorthdox," they replied, "but the little guy with his hand stuck in his shirt is not the messiah!"

It's something like the way hippies started calling themselves 'freaks.' Some homesteader at Woodstock looked on these young American youth and spat out that epithet in front of the cameras. So, they said, why fight it? They called themselves freaks.

In modern-day jargon, the term "Orthodox" has come to designate those who don't change Torah to fit in better with what everyone else is doing. In that sense, I definitely count myself among the "orthodox." But I sure don't feel orthodox. Should I?

That's another thing the Lubavitcher Rebbe taught: "Labels are for shirts." Okay, there are other things that can take labels. Like Reform Temples, Conservative Synagogues, Reconstructionist Pine Groves. But the Jews that you'll find in these places have all just one label: Jews. Because "Jew" is not a behavioral term. It's an essential state of being. It's not where you're at, it's where you belong. Or where you're going.

As for this issue you have with the yoke of doing this and not doing that, it doesn't really work that way. For starters, the system is already encoded in your DNA. It's the natural state of a Jew, for example, to do the incantation thing in the morning. That's why we're such kvetches. So that we can kvetch to Him three times a day. If we don't do it properly, we end up kvetching all day long. Once we have appointed times, we get it out of our system, and the rest of the day we can get things done.

The same with Shabbat, kosher, mikvah -- the practices Jews have ground into their souls for 3300 years. All you need to do is awaken that Jewish soul with a little deep, inner Torah, a beautiful Chassidic tale and a couple of sweet melodies, and it comes alive and does its thing. Spontaneously. With joy.