tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-374945593972878840.post7488290432815262478..comments2023-09-22T06:24:01.470-04:00Comments on Libertarian Jew: Pirke Avot 1:1- Dealing with "Building a Fence Around Torah" in the 21st CenturyUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-374945593972878840.post-90127476113909530542012-12-26T22:21:25.766-05:002012-12-26T22:21:25.766-05:00Well said Steve. And definitely well worth ponderi...Well said Steve. And definitely well worth pondering as I trod the narrow bridge toward a Jewish conversion. I can't tell you how many times I've run across these disheartening trends of Jews who, to paraphrase Herman Wouk's "This is My God", have/had observant grandparents, less observant parents, and are themselves indifferent. The fences around Torah have, in some cases, become fences of thorn, and people are so worried about the thorns that they are missing out on the roses. <br /><br />I can't tell you what a love, what a joy, I feel for Judaism; how my heart rises in me, or maybe I can. Example: My neighbor Mrs. Ivanielli was born a Jew, which she confided to someone at our party; following this same pattern. Grandparents observed, parents less so, and she? Indifferent. She married her very Italian, very non-Jewish husband, Mr. Jim Ivanielli, and admitted to raising her son with no religion, with "nothing". Granted, I do live in a deracinated suburb where such declarations are common. Mrs. Ivanielli's non-observance of Judaism is really no different than my own parents' middle-class indifference toward Catholic roots. Yes, Judaism is sometimes difficult and trying; it is sometimes the possession of those with uneducated hearts. But the beauty is worth the difficulty; and as long as that beauty doesn't become the exclusive property of Haredim, we're all better off. <br /><br />As a Christmas present (do you still receive Christmas presents from your family?) my mother chose to give me a rosary from the cathedral of Notre-Dame in Paris, which she had recently visited. Now, my mother is not a person for having long religious discussions. But she IS at least nominally Catholic; that rosary seems to be a metaphor for an entire conversation. But knowing that I have a blood relationship to Jews, even if it is a distant one, even if it is in the "wrong" side of my family line, has made my Catholicism irrelevant, has made me acutely conscious of other histories, Jewish histories.<br /><br />On that very same cathedral, Notre Dame de Paris, there is a piece of iconography-as-allegory, quite common on medieval Catholic cathedrals but Notre-Dame's is surely the most famous. Two young maidens, Ecclesia, the Militant Church personified, beautiful, forward-looking and carrying a cross; and Synagoga, personifying medieval Jewry, blindfolded and holding the broken tablets of the Law, being speared or beaten by Ecclesia. The militant Church victorious over the submissive Jew; it's almost bifurcated my consciousness to know of these things. I am part of both these stories. <br /><br />But I am kept away by fear of the fences you mention, despite my convert ancestry. Fences exist for good, sound historical reasons; but I have no patience for those of any faith who use dogma as an excuse for bigotry. Modern Jews, to become observant, need this traditionally Jewish elasticity- as one very non-observant friend said admiringly of traditional Judaism, the freedom of HOW to think and not WHAT to think. Markhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15131069821069587814noreply@blogger.com