All that Spiritual Stuff
Mar. 5th, 2007 02:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eumeliaPurim and the lunar eclipse got me thinking... again!
I've said this before, but I think it's wroth mentioning, but one of the beautiful things about Judaism is the fact that it is a living religion and that it is based on questioning authority and interpreting things in your own view.
Of course this is the ideal and not the way it actually is, a shame, in my humble opinion.
When I was in America I found Judaism there both more liberating and a touch ridiculous, since in Israel there are three, maybe four streams in Judaism (without getting into all the little sub-streams) which would be Orthodox, National-Religious (דתי-לאומי), Masorati/Conservative and Secular. There is very little wiggle room for the very lovely streams across the pond like Reconstructionist or Renewal. Israeli Jewry is in the whole, more closed to "alternative" ideas such as seeing GD as Goddess or giving the Shekinah equal standing with הקדוש ברוך הוא (The Holy One), or perhaps even grater standing as the Shekinah is considered Imminent and thus actually closer to humanity than The Holy One.
Judaism as it is today (in Israel at the very least) is in my opinion, a very repressive and oppressive religion, not the more progressive streams obviously. In the Shul my family are members, women wear Talleisim, Kippah, have proper Bat-Mitvah's just like the boys, but I still feel the closed mindedness of it all when there is this superior attitude -"my God is better than your God"- which can be found in all three Abrahamic religions (i.e. Judaism, Christianity and Islam, A subject I will expand on in the future, I promise).
And it is this closed minded attitude that makes me reject a great part of Jewish, because the teachings, interpretations and the rest of Jewish history and nationalism is based on Patriarchy and Xenophobia and I feel I've reached a point in my life where I either leave that belief system behind me and keep Judaism as an ehtno-nationality or take what Judaism gave me and twist it until it suits me.
Which would mean uprooting the basis on which Judaism is based and that is Monotheism and Tradition.
More on this subject soon.
I've said this before, but I think it's wroth mentioning, but one of the beautiful things about Judaism is the fact that it is a living religion and that it is based on questioning authority and interpreting things in your own view.
Of course this is the ideal and not the way it actually is, a shame, in my humble opinion.
When I was in America I found Judaism there both more liberating and a touch ridiculous, since in Israel there are three, maybe four streams in Judaism (without getting into all the little sub-streams) which would be Orthodox, National-Religious (דתי-לאומי), Masorati/Conservative and Secular. There is very little wiggle room for the very lovely streams across the pond like Reconstructionist or Renewal. Israeli Jewry is in the whole, more closed to "alternative" ideas such as seeing GD as Goddess or giving the Shekinah equal standing with הקדוש ברוך הוא (The Holy One), or perhaps even grater standing as the Shekinah is considered Imminent and thus actually closer to humanity than The Holy One.
Judaism as it is today (in Israel at the very least) is in my opinion, a very repressive and oppressive religion, not the more progressive streams obviously. In the Shul my family are members, women wear Talleisim, Kippah, have proper Bat-Mitvah's just like the boys, but I still feel the closed mindedness of it all when there is this superior attitude -"my God is better than your God"- which can be found in all three Abrahamic religions (i.e. Judaism, Christianity and Islam, A subject I will expand on in the future, I promise).
And it is this closed minded attitude that makes me reject a great part of Jewish, because the teachings, interpretations and the rest of Jewish history and nationalism is based on Patriarchy and Xenophobia and I feel I've reached a point in my life where I either leave that belief system behind me and keep Judaism as an ehtno-nationality or take what Judaism gave me and twist it until it suits me.
Which would mean uprooting the basis on which Judaism is based and that is Monotheism and Tradition.
More on this subject soon.
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Date: 2007-03-05 09:38 pm (UTC)The Jewitchery Yahoo list is at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/jewitchery/ -- you could join it and ask her yourself, too. :-)