This article is a translation of Shaul Magid’s book review by Tomer Persico.
During the early sixties, Leo Strauss conducted a series of lectures under the provocative healidne: “Why Do We Remain Jewish”. Strauss would open with an address of liberal democrats, where discriminating against a portion of your public, is forbidden, yet cannot be avoided when done privately. These same rules which separate religion and state, also prevent the state from dictating its citizens what to believe, even if those beliefs are racist or antisemtic. Therefore, Strauss determined that Jews have no choice but to remain Jewish. Complete assimilation is simply impossible, since the general public is not ready to accept us.
There is no need for a close examination to notice how significantly American society has changed since those words were spoken by Strauss. Today, complete assimilation is not only possible, but a process that takes place at full steam. Though the state does not enforce pluralism on the religious beliefs of its citizens, individuals have taken the position of advancing open and tolerant religiosity. This is Christianity (and Judaism) for which liberalism is a mitzvah, and the brotherhood between religions is a sign of imminent salvation. This is also a far more personal religion, which derives its meaning from the soul of the believer.
While in Christianity the transition to liberal religiosity, private and introspective, is natural and in a sense required (Kant predicted it and saw it as the real kingdom come), for Judaism, as a religion of a people, an ethnic and nationhood religion which directs its community through collective mitzvoth, this transition is nothing less than a crisis. The separation from the Halacha and nationhood changes Judaism from it’s core foundation. Top that with the ease of integration in American society, and you will observe that same sadness mixed with a dash of ‘I told you so’, from the Orthodox community, that have understood this as the sunset of American Jewry. American Jews, which Strauss determined will have to remain Jews due to discrimination by their environment, experience acceptance and even love, which ironically, moves them away from their Jewishness.
Undoubtedly, American Jewry is at a crossroads. The move away from identification with the memory of the Holocaust on the one hand, and with the State of Israel and Zionism on the other, is already a fait accompli. The Judaism of the younger generation of American Jews is perceived for them less as a tribal and ethnic identity and more as a cultural identity, less communal and more individual, and above all as an open source that can be redesigned, adapted and updated. No less than fifty percent of American Jews currently married, marry non-Jews, and for years the non-Orthodox sects have been developing various initiatives and programs aimed at embracing the couples involved and not rejecting them.
Shaul Magid’s new book, Professor of Religion and Modern Judaism at Indiana University, seeks to address this situation in a pioneering way, and to examine the ways in which Judaism will survive in the future. The title of the book heralds "post-Judaism," but Magid uses this term not to herald the end of Judaism, but to examine the profound change it is going through. Magid recognizes at this time the birth of post-ethnic Judaism, a Judaism that draws its identity not from a tribal lineage or a common history, but from arrays and cultural treasures. These in turn are considered be universal and suitable for every person. Contrary to the orthodox critique of the phenomenon, Magid does not see it as the end of Judaism as a religion, much less the end of Judaism as a culture. In the same way that non-Orthodox currents, Magid embraces and does not reject the mixed phenomenon that is emerging in front of him, and even foresees a fruitful future.
Post-ethnic Judaism is not only not rooted in tradition, but also uproots itself from identification with historical Jewish peoplehood. This is one stage after multiculturalism, for it has celebrated separation and uniqueness, and now, Magid argues, young Jews in the United States have no desire to declare their uniqueness, and talk of "Segula" and are moving away like a biblical leper. Hybridism has now become a value, and the blurring of boundaries (ethnic, gender, religious) arises as a normative aspiration.
On the other hand, while many Jews simply forget about their Judaism, others certainly adhere to it, but not as a tribal origin but as a cultural capital and as an ethical framework. These Jews adopt traditional foundations such as Torah study and Sabbath observance (not necessarily according to Orthodox law) and embark on social Tikkun Olam (world correction) operations. They are proud of their Judaism and spread it as an idea, not as a blood bond.
An important characteristic of this Judaism is that it is entirely dependent on the choice of the individual. At other times in history this situation would have led to its rapid decline, since Judaism was not particularly popular (often even for its sons), and it is hard to believe that anyone would have chosen to be a Jew. In today's United States, where Judaism is considered a brand that carries style and chic, it is flourishing, so much so that a recent survey found that five percent of those who identify as Jews in New York do not even have a Jewish parent.
An additional characteristic of this Judaism is that it is post-monotheistic. According to Magid, post-ethnic Judaism is separate from monotheism on several levels: it does not hold religious exclusivity and uniqueness; It does not believe in a covenant ostensibly made between one God and one people; It does not perceive the deity as transcendent, but as immanent; And it, of course, sees no obligation to abide by the laws of the monotheistic god out of fear that he will judge his servants harshly. Magid diagnoses that it is, in fact, a spiritual-mystical Judaism that expresses in public and masses of esoteric currents that have been passed down through the ages in a hidden manner. The theosophy of this Judaism is not monotheistic, but neither is it atheistic or humanistic. She's a pantheist.
It is therefore a voluntary, creative, spiritual Judaism, without a tribal anchor, without rabbinic authority and without a commitment to the halachic tradition. It is coming to the surface because of the living conditions in the United States, and these are not going to change any time soon. The accelerated development of social reality, Magid claims, presents us with a Judaism that we do not have conceptual tools to define — the frequent use of the “post” plugin indicates this, of course. But Magid still wants to go deeper and chart a future path for development. He finds the tools to do so in the circles of the Jewish Renewal (hereafter JR), the New Age part, which sought after spiritual development, of American Jewry. Although a small minority of American Jews belong to the JR, its contribution to the larger Jewish streams is greater, and since the 1960s it has been used as a kind of theological avant-garde that attracts the rest (think of the contemporary influence of Shlomo Carlebach’s works among previously boycotted communities).
While Orthodoxy identifies authentic Judaism with tradition, the JR offers authenticity as a personal project, dependent on the spiritual journey of the individual. In addition, since the 1960s, the JR has established egalitarian communities that promote feminism, tolerance of homosexuality, and even accept non-Jewish content. The JR proposes a Judaism that is neither halachic, nor eternal, nor dogmatic. It does not give a complete answer to the post-ethnic situation, Magid claims, but it is the only one that formulated a global, universal, and above all pragmatic and flexible theology to begin to deal with the situation. Magid finds in him (and especially in one of his main spiritual leaders, R. Zalman Shechter-Shlomi) the new theological paradigm that can provide tools for the establishment of sustainable Judaism at this time.
Magid comes to the realization that the Judaism that has arisen today is in fact post-rabbinical Judaism, that is, Judaism that is fundamentally different from that which has developed since the destruction of the Second Temple, the one whose backbone is the mitzvoth and whose leaders are the authoritative commentators of Halacha. In the context of post-rabbinic and post-ethnic Judaism, the traditional strategies for preserving intra-Jewish cohesion prove to be worthless, because they all rely on the Halacha and tribal identification of the "nation of Israel." The anchor chain is torn, and the Jewish ship, detached from its ethnic origins, enters unfamiliar waters. This is precisely how America, which offered unlimited possibilities to its Jews, poses the greatest challenge to their development.
Magid's important book is a preliminary, clear and sober, though not complete, analysis of Judaism in America and its achievements and crises. In its various chapters, he presents complementary angles of contemporary creation of Jewish society (the attitude toward the Holocaust, Kabbalah, Christianity, and the Teshuvah movement), which merge into a portrait of post-ethnic Judaism. Accompanying the diagnosis is a careful prognosis, in which Magid tries to peek into the trajectory of the future. He is not pessimistic, and sees the changes that Judaism is going through not as the prologue to its destruction, but as the blowing of the shofar before a deep change will take place, a change in which it will become a cultural system detached from blood ties.