Summer is a time for many of us, especially those whose work lives are tied to the academic year, to kick back and catch up with all those books that we haven’t yet had time for.
Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz’ “We Jews: Who Are We and What Should We Do?” is one of those books that’s been on my “to read” list for a quite while.
Too profound for a quick read, but too important to ignore, it has sat, an intimidating ocean of ideas, waiting for me to dive in.
With this review as a motivator, I finally took the plunge, but wading my way through this idea-dense work has taken me much of the summer.
Luckily, the book is structured to allow readers to easily put it down, take time to contemplate its complex theories and then to return to it refreshed and eager.
The book is a collection of 12 essays, each short enough to be read (and I’d advise re-read) during a plane flight or while taking the kids to the beach. Each essay explores a formidable but essential question of interest to Jews, their admirers and their detractors:
What price have Jews paid in their efforts to identify with the surrounding culture? Why, despite the outside perception that “Jews stick together,” have Jews never developed a unified leadership?
Are Jews a nation, a religion, an ethnic group or a race? Do Jews have a particular set of character traits? Why do Jews want to save the world? What attracts Jews in such disproportionate numbers to various “isms” and ideologies?
What does it mean to be “a nation of priests?” Is there a peculiarly Jewish mode of thought that has influenced Jewish artistic and intellectual achievement?
How is anti-Semitism a barometer of a host nation’s lack of health and growth? And finally, what will become of the Jewish people in this era of declining faith and population?
Complicated? Steinsaltz, who is internationally regarded as a scholar, teacher, mystic, scientist and social critic, simplifies these disparate questions with the unifying theory that Jews have been shaped by a combination of historical forces and self-selection to be a people whose essential selves are constituted to seek and serve G-d. All the rest, as they say, is commentary.
Steinsaltz claims that the internal and external pressures of being Jewish — from centuries of violence, persecution and forced conversion to the attrition of Jews due to assimilation, intermarriage and simple lack of interest — have culled out those who do not share certain characteristics.
This has created a people that cannot help but be Jewish and that, in one way or another, suffers when they do not act Jewishly.
Writing with the challenges of Diaspora living in mind, Steinsaltz reminds us that assimilation occurs with a loss of our essential selves so deep that it creates a craving that we, in our ignorance of what our tradition has to offer, attempt to fill with just about any material object, utopian political idea, religion or philosophy that comes along.
We will create “idols” and attempt to embrace them with the same faith and fervor that we once invested in G-d.
In fact, disproportionate numbers of converts into new faiths and cults, as well as devotees of various political and revolutionary causes, tend to be Jewish.
We carry over many of the key ideas of Judaism — oneness, the tolerance and indeed encouragement of diverse opinions, the value of the individual balanced against the need for community, and the desire to repair the world — into our secular pursuits.
It is no coincidence then that Marx, Freud and Einstein, disaffected Jews though they were, were still trying to understand the world through a single unifying principle and to change it.
Also of interest is Steinsaltz’ conception of world Jewry, not as a religion, race or nationality, but as a family that shares a way of life.
Like a family with many branches, Jewry crosses national and racial borders. It encompasses people of the same descent, but embraces those who enter into to it through conversion as a family often grows through adoption.
Ethnicity cannot be the tie that binds the family as its various branches have different histories, languages and customs. Instead, the family is drawn together by its acknowledgment of Torah and its shared relationship with G-d.
Sadly, it is a family that is shrinking and, in Steinsaltz’ view, in spiritual trouble as well. Steinsaltz places the world Jewish population at approximately 13 million and dropping as we fail in our attempts to pass down an increasingly worn-out and meaningless Judaism to our children.
Diaspora Jews, comprised mostly of the 6 million or so Jews living here in the United States, have two options. The first is to simply give up. The second is to create a new and vibrant Jewish civilization, a second Bavel on American soil while we still have the talent, numbers and fundamental goodness to do it.
It seems daunting, but Steinsaltz is himself no stranger to monumental tasks. A resident scholar at Yale University, he has written approximately 60 books, many of them dealing with Hasidic thought and Kabbalah.
He is best known for his interpretations, commentaries, and translations of the Talmud, a labor of over 25 years, and is widely considered to be an extraordinary teacher.
“We Jews” makes evident his halachic knowledge, his intensely spiritual orientation and his love of sharing his wisdom with klal Yisrael. It is a must read for anyone interested in the Jewish past and concerned about the Jewish future.
JoAnne S. Gaudynski is teen enrichment coordinator at the Coalition for Jewish Learning, the education program of the Milwaukee Jewish Federation.
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