Great Radio Piece about Israeli "Band"

The great public radio show "The World" recently did a piece on the Israeli satire show called "Red Band."  I've been watching clips, and as a lover of classic American rock music, I think it is hilarious.  Listen to the radio story here and then watch this video of Red Band doing a cover of Neil Young.

Chag Purim Same'ach

Here's a great video of Purim in Tel Aviv in 1932.  Enjoy and don't take today too seriously.

Creeds and Dogmas

Here is another "Ask the Rabbi" questions from Leslie:

I am reading the "JPS Guide to Jewish Traditions"--and there was a passage that stated "Jews have no creed."  I am wanting to know just what exactly that means and also, how it applies to the Reform Movement and how is it different from other streams of Judaism.

To begin answering this question, we need to define "creed".  A creed is a statement of beliefs.  A similar term is "dogma" which is an established, authoritative belief held by a group such as a religion.  Many different Christian denominations state the Apostles' Creed during their worship.  They stand up and say what they as Christians believe.  Here is the Catholic Church's version of the creed:

1. I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth.2. I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord.
3. He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary.
4. He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried.
5. He descended to the dead. On the third day he rose again.
6. He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
7. He will come again to judge the living and the dead.
8. I believe in the Holy Spirit,
9. the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints,
10. the forgiveness of sins,
11. the resurrection of the body,
12. and life everlasting.   

 So, we see that most Christians have a creed, but the question at hand is if Jews have a creed.  I think the answer is a little more complicated than Lesley's book's emphatic no.  The Hebrew and the ancient rabbinic writings do not have systematic lists of dogmas like the Catholic Church, but the Rabbis of the Mishnah do teach in Sanhedrin 10:1

All Jews have a share in the world to come . . . But the following do not have a share in the world to come: one who says that resurrection is not taught in the Torah, one who says that the Torah was not divinely revealed, and the epikoros . . . 

The Hebrew Bible and Rabbinic writings do have specific beliefs like monotheism and, as seen above, there are heresies, but according to Menachem Kellner, "none of the beliefs cited is singled out as enjoying special status."  That is until we get to the Rambam in the twelfth century.  In his commentary on Sanhedrin 10:1 he elucidates thirteen beliefs that he thinks every Jew has to accept to be considered part of the community.  Here is a summary of his thirteen articles of faith according to Kellner:

1.  God exists
2.  God is one
3.  God is incorporeal
4.  God is ontologically prior to the world
5.  God alone is fit to worship
6.  Prophecy occurs
7.  The prophecy of Moses is superior to that of all other prophets
8.  The Torah was revealed from heaven
9.  The Torah will never be uprooted or altered
10.  God knows the acts of human beings
11.  God rewards the righteous and punishes the wicked
12.  The Messiah will come
13.  The dead will be resurrected 

One of the greatest sages of all of Jewish history, the Rambam, believes that Judaism has a creed.  Most Jewish scholars after the Rambam did not agree with him.  Some disagreed with the number of articles of faith, and some did not think that they were necessary.  Even though the his thirteen have never become an official creed, they have found their way into traditional prayerbooks in two poetic forms: the Ani Ma'amin (here is a great pop rendition) and Yigdal (I like this video.  It is much more traditional.  Here are a bunch of different musical renditions.)  So, Judaism doesn't really have creeds and dogmas, but it we have poems that are creed-like; it's hard to excise the Rambam from the siddur.

A lot of people like to say that Judaism is more a religion of action than of belief (hence the statement from the JPS book in the original question from Leslie).  These people say that it more important that we "do Jewish" than "think Jewish".  They might even say that "deed leads to creed."  If you live the mitzvot, belief will come.  The founders of our Reform Movement in the nineteenth century had a slightly different take on that.  They wanted to distill Judaism to what they felt was its essence.  Therefore they downplayed ritual and said that the essence of Judaism was ethical monotheism.  Ethical monotheism is the belief in the One God who demands moral behavior.  The classical Reformers therefore held that Judaism's "moral laws" were eternal and its "ritual laws" were open to change.  Rituals had to instill morals.  Since belief in the God of morals was the most important thing, many Reform Jews turned the first line of the Shema (Deut. 6:4) into a creedal liturgical moment.  They often called it "the watchword of our faith."  In American Reform temples, worshipers would go against traditional Jewish practice and stand for "Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is One.  Praised be His name whose glorious kingdom is forever and ever" like Christians did in church when reciting their creed.

While most Reform Jews today still stand for the first line of the Shema, I don't think that Reform Judaism still thinks of Judaism in creedal terms.  To quote Kellner again:

Today, for all intents and purposes, the question of dogma qua dogma in Judaism is a dead issue.  Orthodox, Conservative, and Reconstructionist Judaism all emphasize, each in its own way, practice over dogma, and even Reform Judaism, despite its repeated attempts to dine itself in quasi-dogmatic terms, basically appears to operate in the same framework.

So, I believe that answers Leslie's question.

       

     

Go Cards or Shabbat Shalom?

As I hail from St. Louis, I was born a Cardinals fan.  For my very traditional grandfather, Shabbat was Shabbat, unless of course the Cards were playing.  So, what to do tonight?  Here is a great post on the Forward about this dilema.

New in 5772: Ask the Rabbi

I have started a new feature on Darchei Noam called "Ask the Rabbi."  You can ask me any Jewish questions (you get to define what "Jewish question" means), and I will attempt to explore them on the blog.  Notice that I didn't write answer them because sometimes good questions don't have answers, they just bring up more questions.  You can send me your questions via the Beth Israel webpage, and I will periodically select questions to feature on the blog.  

So, here is the first question of 5772 from Karen, and it is very timely:

Where exactly did the Hebrew year come from? We're going into 5772. I've read it's supposed to be the start of the world, which we know isn't true, but how was this derived?

Great question.  You mean the world isn't 5772 years old?  To answer Karen's question, we have to go back to the Tannaim who attempted to calculate the date of Creation.  The ancient sage Rabbi Yossi ben Halafta calculated, by using the Bible's account of lifetimes and kingdoms, the creation of the world to have been on (in our secular calendar system) on Monday Oct. 7, 3761 BCE.  Here is Rabbi Yossi's scheme.  A work attributed to Rabbi Yossi callled Seder Olam codified this view, and by the Middle Ages, this became the standard Jewish date.  "Christians count from the birth of their guy, but we count from the birth of everything," I can see one of our ancestors exclaiming.

Now does this mean that to be a Jew you have to believe that the world is only 5772 years old?  The simple answer is: no!  Some Jews do take it literally, but they are very small in number.  Some try to find mystical meanings in the number and then reconcile it to science and the Big Bang.  Others, like me, read it as a myth.  When I use the word "myth", I do not mean "fairy tale" or "lie" as it is usually defined in today's parlance.  I mean "myth" as a foundational story that give our personal and communal lives meaning (see Neil Gillman).  When we Jews say that we are counting from Creation, we are saying the world and our role in it is important.  In other words, our lives are orientated towards the world.  We live in creation, and it our job to help bring perfection to God's creation.

Shabbat Shalom.            

   

Mah Tovu--How Fair are Your Tents, O Jacob

For the last several weeks in services I have mentioned the huge "tent protests" happening all over Israel.  Here is a great commentary on what is happening from the eminent political philosopher Michael Walzer in the New Republic:
Why The Mass Protests In Israel Are Cause For Hope | The New Republic

Joplin, MO

Every other weekend during the academic year of 2004-2005 I had the pleasure of serving the United Hebrew Congregation in Joplin, MO as their student rabbi.  During my third year of rabbinical school the small but dedicated Jewish community helped teach me what it means to be a rabbi.  They helped me decide to go into the pulpit rabbinate after my ordination.  I found out the other day that luckily no member of the Jewish community was seriously injured from the tornado, but the community does need help.  The Jewish community of St. Louis (where I am from) is leading an effort to assist them, and so is this year's student rabbi from Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati Ariel Boxman.  May the Jews in Joplin have a Shabbat Shalom.