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I found myself recently seated beside a stranger at a banquet. He turned, saw I was wearing a yarmulke and said to me, "I hate orthodox Jews." This is called sinat chinam, unprovoked hatred. The Talmud records that sinat chinam was the principle cause for the destruction of the Second Temple. Bitter factional struggle and petty individual vindictiveness destroyed the cohesion of the Jewish Commonwealth, condemning the Jews to 2,000 years of exile. Even when the Romans had besieged Jerusalem and total disaster was imminent, hostile groups within the city fought among themselves and plundered stores of food, causing terrible famine. Each summer for three weeks, Jewish people worldwide mourn the destruction of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem. Today, as then, our response is often self-destructive. In Israel, synagogues were recently torched in Jerusalem and Neve Rotem neighborhoods; Torah scrolls and holy books burned or torn in synagogues in Rosh Ha'ayin, Neve Rotem, Yaffa, Chazor, the French Hill and Neve Yaakov neighborhoods of Jerusalem, Ein Hod, and a government religious school in Tel Aviv; pages of Scripture covered in excrement at the Technion; and mezuzahs ripped down from synagogues in Kiryat Gat and Haifa. All of these were Orthodox institutions. Then there was the horrific burning of a Conservative synagogue in Ramot. The reaction of my teacher, Rabbi Noah Weinberg, was unequivocal: "This act is outrageous. Violence is not the way. We condemn this act in the strongest terms possible." CRISIS OF IGNORANCE In America, the crisis of survival takes a different turn. A report to the Federation Council showed that only 25 percent of Los Angeles Jewry affiliates with the Jewish community. The remaining 75 percent don't contribute to the Federation, belong to no synagogue and no Jewish organization of any kind.
Statistics compiled by the 1990 Jewish Population Study indicate that intermarriage is over 50 percent, and 92 percent of the children of intermarriage choose not to identify as Jews. This is an overwhelming crisis of Jewish life. It threatens the future of all Jewish organizations and jeopardizes this country's support for Israel as well. The bitter fractionalization of the 25 percent who do care and affiliate makes any effective response nearly impossible. Most Jews today have little connection with Israel and no intention of ever living there. They are indifferent to the issues which form the nexus of intra-Jewish strife. Religious pluralism in Israel, the Law of Return, boundaries with the Palestinians -- for the majority of American Jews these are sectarian issues with all the immediacy of Hindu-Sikh violence in India. The majority have a simpler and more relevant question: Why be Jewish at all? We can't answer their question because we're too busy fighting among ourselves. We are bickering while the Temple burns. PEOPLE OF GOOD WILL We can't pretend we don't have differences. We differ greatly in our understanding of God and revelation, the authority of Torah and of Jewish law. We can't finesse these issues away, but we must remember we're in a time of great crisis. If we want the Jewish people to thrive the next 50 years, we'll have to put the sectarian issues aside. We simply don't have time to fight amongst ourselves. Because we have differences doesn't mean we can't love and be committed to one another, learn together, and work together for Jewish survival. Our differences don't mean the other side is less intelligent, less well motivated, or less desirous of truth than ourselves. Our differences mean we disagree. People of good will can and must disagree about matters of great importance without questioning their love or commitment for one another.
Two people who learn together will battle passionately, says the Talmud, and end more passionately committed to their friendship because their disagreements express a common search for truth. If we can see our differences as the honest disagreements of intelligent, well-meaning people, we can work together to confront the issues which face us all. CHANCE TO REBUILD Jewish law records the question if one Jew may take another's life to save his own (other than in self-defense). No, responds the Talmud, because we can't judge another person, and can't possibly know which of the two is more precious to God. The first assumption for true dialogue to begin is that our interlocutors are as Jewish as ourselves, as close to God as ourselves, as honest, intelligent, and well-intentioned as we are ourselves. All too often prejudice and mistrust interfere with this assumption. The Talmud says in every generation in which the Temple is not rebuilt, it is as though it has been destroyed. We have a chance still to reassert our unity and our common goals. We can reach out to the disaffected 75 percent and together commit ourselves to Israel and the Jewish people. Let's seize that chance now before it's swept away, and before famine grips the city of Jerusalem once again. Published: Sunday, July 23, 2000
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A well written article on an often neglected subject.
The proper name of a shul is "beis knesset" or the house of assembly. However, in these times it seems as though that a shul is more of people where people assemble to kvetch about the shul down the street. There is only one definition of what a "Jew" is. There is only one Torah. If you compare the Sefer Torahs of any shul (Orthodox, conservative, reform or Chassidic) you'll see that they're all the same. It is the people reading them that make the distinctions, not the Torah.
Our answer is to find what is common to all Jews, Torah. Without it we are all at risk.
(12) Joanne from North Hollywood, California , 23/7/2000
I am on of the 75% of Jews in Los Angeles who do not identify with any synagogue, nor do I contribute to Jewish Federation. If not for my various subscriptions to Aish HaTorah, I would have virtually no contact with Judaism whatsoever (there! a mitzvah you may be proud of!) Truth is, I am not welcome in most congregations. I am a poor Jew. Many of my gentile friends laugh & call me the Last Poor Jew On Earth. In fact, they base this on the fact that many people who belong to the temples in L.A. are at least middle class in income ($30,000/year +) I get a princely total of $941/month in Social Security as a disabled person - prior to this, I had worked as a temp for 3 years, having been displaced in my old job due to a fickle economy. I did earn a living, but it was sporadic and marginal. And in that time, I have lost all my material goods and securities both due to lack of work and disability. Well, well, enough kvetching. My point is that most temples in Los Angeles don't seem to want poor Jews to darken their doorsteps. Also there is no outreach effort to include Jews that have prison records, drug & alcohol addicted Jews, in sort, the very people who could most benefit from our community are being shut out through a policy of benign neglect.
We need to help Jews find their shuls again. I don't mean proselytizing, but let's not restrict ourselve to only inviting Jews who are "desireable" to come into services. Let's have an open door policy to ALL Jews, regardless of sub-denomination (Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, Reconstructionist,
(11) Doug Floyd, 20/7/2007
Thank you for the word of exhortation
Blessings. Your words stir my heart and compel me afresh to listen and live in love with a vision toward rebuilding the world.
(10) sharona, 3/7/2007
my message
To Joanne, I know a shul in La that you might like. It's called the Jewish learning exchange and it's on la brea ave. You don't have to be a member to come to the different shuls that are in my area. Although you're probably talking about the high holidays where you need to get a ticket for a seat. Well at the shul I mentioned, you could probably work something out. They are friendly there and have many types from those who are learning about their heritage to those were raised observant.
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To Daniel, I agree that we should fully accept someone who had a halachic coversion because now they are Jewish and we should see them that way. However, someone who has an Incomplete conversion is not Jewish and that causes problems because for one thing it's forbidden by the Torah for a Jew to marry a Non-Jew. Also, if the convert is a lady, she needs to have a halachic conversion so her children will be Jewish. It's okay for them to take observance one step at a time. That's what they should do so they can be successful.
Another problem is lets say this man's friend wants him to open a bottle of wine. The friend though doesn't know that this man is not really Jewish and so by opening the wine, he makes it not kosher and is making his friend do an aveirah without his knowledge.
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Unity amoung the Jewish people is very important. What unites us is the Torah that Hashem gave us. It is the same for all of us. It's just that we interpret it differently. Some of us interpret to fit our will and some of us interpret to fit His. But eventhough we disagree with each other, we can still respect each other because we are family and we are one