RSS
Home
Judaism is sociology; Christianity is faith
Print
Email
RSS
Subscribe
In other denominations, confession is a personal event, often realized between the confessor and a priestly intermediary. The cleric is charged with admonition but also the release, by virtue of so many devotions, mantras and other rituals.
Not so with the Jews: As the community gathers to complete the rites of the New Year, large groups are forming, mostly in congregational settings. Rosh Hashanah was celebrated as the birthday of the world, Creation's anniversary, when God separated elements, such as water and firmament, and made the Earth.
We dipped apples in honey, tasting the fruits and sweetness of this world, smacking our lips with hope and renewal. We were all doing the same thing – from Tarzana to Tel Aviv. The themes of repentance and contrition were introduced, but not fully engaged until the more severe and ascetic and fast day of Yom Kippur. We’re committed to the notion that God is preparing a judgment about us that is sealed in the legendary Book of Life.
Nearly every prayer, entreaty and appeal in the thick prayer book of these “Days of Awe” is in the plural form. “Our Father, Our King, we have sinned against you. . . . ” The climactic, sorrowful and poignant Kol Nidrei of Yom Kippur Eve is a national cry: “Let all the vows we made from last year to this year that we did not fulfill be null and void!” Surely, every individual is charged to make peace with others (the primary goal of the season, in fact), but the experience is plural, communal and collective.
Jews don't go to their rabbi to confess sins in a private, cloaked setting – though this is a powerful process that has helped a lot of people. The rabbi has no authority or leverage with the angels other than the ability to inspire good works. The very word “rabbi” means “teacher.” There is no greater title in Jewish history; we have always eschewed kings and lieges in favor of prophets and sages.
So in this season of turning leaves and changing breezes, of solstice and star shine, when even birds and trees revolve along with human beings, when the air is a bit sharper with autumnal reflection, we come together for warmth and consolation.
Unlike our Christian neighbors, we are redeemed as a group. For the good Christian, it's a question of “I can be saved.” For the Jew, burnished by history, longing for the ancestral peoplehood that heard the ram's horn as a tribe and made pilgrimage to Jerusalem, it's a matter of “We can be saved.” This is not judgmental, it is simply observational.
We Jews have always carried this semi-paranoid tremor in our national body-psyche.
We left Egypt together, we received the Law at Sinai together, we entered the Promised Land together, we were finally exiled by the Romans together. We yearned together for a return to Zion, we suffered brutish exiles and wanton Inquisitions together, we perished in the Holocaust together, we restored the state of Israel together.
When a Jew visits Buenos Aires or London or Athens, the first thing he or she does is go look for the local synagogue or the premier Jewish delicatessen. A Christian may tour churches, and he may scout out good food, but he is not looking for that indelible, blood-drenched link between himself and the local manifestation of the remnant. When I'm in Rome, I cherish my visits in the Vatican and honor the reverence of the place. I weep in the Sistine Chapel. But I've already been to the Jewish Ghetto and tasted the time-honored Jewish artichoke sautéed in oil that connects me to my ghosts.
Judaism is sociology; Christianity is liturgy. Christianity is a faith; Judaism is a people with a faith. The Jewish New Year is not just a devotion; it's a national meeting.
Tonight and tomorrow, we also thank God, in specific prayers, for the privilege of our freedom to pray in this blessed America.
Related Articles:
Comments
“If I could just go off to an island for the next month,” someone said to me, “and come back for the holiday itself, that would be …
When parents of college-bound youngsters in this remarkable nation discuss schools with their children, academics and scholarships and sports are …
- ORDER my new book of EXAMINER COLUMNS!
- Order my book, 'THE PATH OF THE SOUL'
- Jewish Outreach Institute
- Order my book, 'RAISING A THOUGHTFUL TEENAGER'
- Order my rabbi / mob novel, 'REMORA'
- Order my book, 'THINKING PASSOVER'
- National piece on 45th anniversary of MLK's 'I Have A Dream'
- NY Times Op-ed, ' A Boyhood Friendship in a Divided Valley'
- Op-ed, 'Christianity is Faith, Judaism is Sociology'
