Vid: Reb Zalman on Authentic Judaism & Renewal
Judaism, Integral Judaism, Jewish culture, Jewish Community, Jewish Video, Online Media, Jewish Spirituality, Jewish Renewal May 7th, 2007I stumbled across this great video of Reb Zalman yesterday and thought it was worth sharing with others. It’s hard not to love this guy and by that I mean relate to him at a heart level. There are certainly things about Renewal that I have a difficult time accepting but Reb Zalman is not one of them. I don’t know if the Judaism which Reb Zalman speaks of is authentic but it certainly comes off as honest.
Please do check these two clips out and share your thoughts.
In this 1st clip from what I’m assuming is some kind of documentary on Reb Zalman and/or Jewish renewal . Zalman manages to cover a fair amount of ground and make some rather interesting points. Including the role of covenant and the importance of the ego in Jewish spirituality.
I often have a hard time with what I perceive as leftist mob rule within organizations such as Jewish Renewal. That’s not to say that they are always like that but simply that I’m often hit by that kind of a vibe when interacting with those involved in Renewal. However I don’t get that from Reb Zalman in the least and this video clip is worth watching just for the fact that he makes it clear that Jewish Renewal needs to be open to people of the right as much as it has been to people in the left. Listening to him I didn’t get the sense it was one of those we will save the people from the right but rather that a true Jewish Renewal is something which needs to be flexible enough to accommodate true diversity.
Anyhow after having seen these two short clips I’m definitely curious about checking out the whole documentary. If anyone has seen the entire thing please let me know what you thought of it.
Technorati tags: Reb Zalman, Jewish Renewal, Integral Judaism, Jewish Spirituality, Cocvenant, Livinh Jewishly
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May 7th, 2007 at 5:51 pm
Those are great videos. I especially appreciated the second. Generally it’s along the lines of my own thinking, that while Renewal needs some type of networking to hold it together, just as the havurah movement has its own type of networking, if it becomes a denomination it establishes boundaries, and all that can do is keep people out and become exclusionist.
One of the most beautiful shabbats in that I’ve ever been able to participate in was hosted by Jews in the Woods (http://jewsinthewoods.org/aleph/into-the-woods/) and the great thing about them is they try to accomodate everybody. They use a triangle mechitzah, which is two mechitzot to form three sections. Women’s, egal, and men’s. Each section has their own Baal Tefilah and their own minyan, and then the baalei tefilah coordinate together. It’s not a scenario that can work for everyone, and some places you couldn’t get enough people, but it was nice in that people all over the spectrum were able to attend. I even saw a couple black hats.
One of the things that I notice that Reb Zalman does, which very much goes along with being open to all the different flavors of Judaism, is he’ll pass on the message he wants to share in terms that are comfortable for the community he’s addressing. There’s a shiur he gave that was published and I think the title is “Renewal is Judaism NOW” that discusses messianism in Renewal and the similiarities and differences between Renewal and Sabbatianism. He does give mention of the need to be open to people further on the right and throughout is maintaining the attempt to create spine. I think in one place in fact he gives a bit of an elaboration on the idea, when he goes on to ask the question of what the ani ma’amin for renewal might be. But he also makes more radical statements. It’s hard for me to put a finger on it, but I really think that this too was really just put into the radicalist terms of some of the more out-there part of the Renewal community, the types who are really most receptive to the whole “Destroy the idols of our ancestors. Iconoclasm. ra ra ra” mentality.
In the same vein, he’s delivered a very similar message in different packaging in a couple sefers he wrote for the yeshivish community. The same ideas are represented, but he focuses on those things that would appeal much more to someone from a more traditional background, like basis in tradition. There are ideas mentioned in other places that he’s connected to earlier Jewish ideas more heavily that never get fully developed in texts aimed at the Renewal folks. I’d really love to see more of that type of material become more widely available and also in English because for me it’s very important.
One of the things that I’ve noticed among teacher and rabbis in renewal is that those who come from a more traditional background are generally better at inclusivism and there seems to be a more substantial attempt at forming some degree of continuity. It’s not always the case but seems to be a tendency. My hope is that now that we’ve seen a generation of Abrahams in the movement who needed to destroy in order to make room for growth, maybe now we can have a generation of Isaacs more intent on sustaining and developing a stronger foundation (more calcium and iron for the skeletal framework) for the following generation to build from, and that some of the idol-shattering that does continue is pointed at the Renewal of today instead of at tradition. Otherwise it’s just another golden calf built out of the vain adornments of a community.