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Norman B. Mirsky Norman B. Mirsky Unorthodox Judaism $12.00 UNORTHODOX JUDAISM By Norman B. Mir sky In America the non-Orthodox branches of Judaism have historically been expected to help Jews adjust to the tensions of being Jewish and American: the "post-Orthodox" synagogue, with its rules of decorum, its emphasis on solemnity and dignity in wor­ ship, its urging that ostentation and excess of any kind be avoided, socialized millions of Eastern European Jews into the upper- middle classes of Western society. Ibday American non-Orthodox Jews are in the throes of a severe identity crisis. The modern-day Jew finds himself living in a time when the synagogue is no longer needed as a socializer, and sociological forces beyond the control of organized Judaism help shake his already wavering faith in the traditional values of his religion. The gen­ eral acceptance of Jews into American life; the decrease in adherence to religiolegal norms as essential to being a "good Jew"; the confrontations between the traditional "Chosen People" concept and the American "all men are created equal" theme; the Nazi Holocaust, the consequent decimation of a religiohistorical community, and the rapid assimilation of its remains into general Western culture; the emergence of a strong drive toward ethnic identification centered about the State of Israel—all have tended to increase a marginal Jewishness. How the Jew remains a Jew against the immense magnetic forces emanating from the larger non-Jewish society around him — a struggle that the author likens to Jacob's wrestling with the angel — is the subject of Rabbi Mirsky's study. In it he demonstrates his conviction that "the application of theories of deviance . seems highly promising in determining the direction in which American Jews are moving." He dis­ cusses the man y traditions and crosscur­ rents that pose paradoxes and dilemmas for the American Jew in search of a secure (Continued on the back flap) Unorthodox Judaism B Norman B. Mir sky Unorthodox Judaism Ohio State University Press: Columbus Some of the material in this book has been published previously in somewhat different form and is reprinted here by permission of the original publishers: chapter 1, "Evolution and the Stork," as "Reform Judaism: Evolution and the Stork" in Judaism, vol. 23, no. 3 (1974); chapter 2,"To Solemnize or Not to Solem­ nize," as "Mixed Marriage and the Reform Rabbinate" in Midstream, vol. 16, no. 1 (1970); chapter 6, "Unbinding Isaac," under the same title in the Journal of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, vol. 21 (1974); chapter 8, "The Jesus Hang-up," as "The Jesus Jews" in the Reconstructionist, vol. 39, no. 9 (1973); chapter 12, "Yavneh versus Masada," as " Yavneh versus Masada: The Uses of Myth and Legend in the Formation of American Jewish Identity" in A Bicentennial Festschrift for Jacob Rader Marcus, ed. Bertram Wallace Korn (New York: Ktav Publishing Co., 1976); and chapter 14, "I Think I'd Rather Work!", as "Shabbat, Work and Play in Contemporary Society" in the Journal of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, vol. 16 (1969). Excerpts from Fear of Flying: A Novel, copyright ® 1973 by Erica Man n Jong, are reprinted with the permission of Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Publishers; Erica Jong, c/o International Creative Management; and Seeker and Warburg, Ltd. The selection is reprinted from Childhood and Society, by Erik H . Erikson, 2nd Edition, Rev., with the permission of W . W . Norton & Company, Inc. Copyright 1950,© 1963 by W. W . Norton & Company, Inc. Acknowledgment for permission to reprint is also made to The Hogarth Press and the author. Copyright © 1978 by the Ohio State University Press All Rights Reserved Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Mirsky, Norman B 1937­ Unorthodox Judaism. Includes index. 1. Judaism—United States—Addresses, essays, lectures. 2. Jews in the United States—Identity— Addresses, essays, lectures. I. Title. BM205.M5 7 296'.0973 78-8683 ISBN 0-8142-0283-7 For Elaine, Rebekah, and Aaron Epigraph When the gifted young Jew, still flexible in respect of his men­ tal habits, is set loose amon g the iron pots of [the] mechanistic orientation [of modernity], the clay vessel of Jewish archaism suffers that fortune which is due and coming to clay vessels amon g the iron pots. His beautifully rounded heirloom, trade­ marked "B.C," goes to pieces between his hands, and they are left empty. H e is divested of those archaic conventional preconcep­ tions which will not comport with the intellectual environment in which he finds himself. But he is not thereby invested with the gentile's peculiar heritage of conventional preconceptions which have stood over, by inertia of habit, out of the gentile past, which go, on the one hand, to make the safe and sane gentile, conserva­ tive and complacent, and which conduce also, on the other hand, to blur the safe and sane gentile's intellectual vision, and to leave him intellectually sessile. The young Jew finds his own heritage of usage and outlook untenable; but this does not mean that he therefore will take over and inwardly imitate the traditions of usage and outlook which the gentile world has to offer; or at the most he does not uncriti­ cally take over all the intellectual prepossessions that are always standing over amon g the substantial citizens of the republic of learning. The idols of his own tribe have crumbled in decay and no longer cumber the ground, but that release does not induce him to set up a new line of idols borrowed from an alien tribe to do the same disservice. By consequence he is in a peculiar degree exposed to the unmediated facts of the current situation; and in a peculiar degree, therefore, he takes his orientation from the run of facts as he finds them rather than from the traditional in­ terpretation of analogous facts in the past. In short, he is a skeptic by force of circumstances over which he has no control. Which comes to saying that he is in line to become a guide and leader of men in that intellectual enterprise out of which comes the in­ crease and diffusion of knowledge amon g men , provided always that he is by native gift endowed with that net modicum of intel­ ligence which takes effect in the play of that idle curiosity. Thorstein Veblen, 'The Intellectual Pre-eminence of Jews in Modern Europe" Contents Preface xi Acknowledgments xiii Introduction 1 Part One: On the Frontier 1 Evolution and the Stork 11 2 To Solemnize or Not to Solemnize 22 3 111 Wind or High Tide? 32 4 Why Me, Lord? 52 5 A Rabbi Named Sally 65 6 Unbinding Isaac 80 Part Two: Out in the Field by Chance or by Choice Introductory Note 89 7 Flirting with Bankruptcy 91 8 The Jesus Hang-up 105 9 The Vision of Ma n Triumphant 112 10 Makom—Yiddish and Yoga 126 11 Unorthodox Alternatives 142 Part Three: Children, Women, and Men—The Use and Misuse of Myth in the Formation of American Jewish Identity Introductory Note 149 12 Yavneh versus Masada 151 13 What Ever Happened to Lilith? 172 14 I Think I'd Rather Work! 179 Conclusion 187 Glossary 203 Index 207 Preface Wh y have I written this book on unorthodox Judaism? I do not suppose that I know all of the answers, but I do know some of them. I a m a Reform rabbi with a Ph.D . in humanistic sociology, teaching at a Jewish seminary that has a tradition of its own. I a m a father worried about the future of Judaism and the Jewish people, yet longing for his children's total self-fulfillment as American Jews. I therefore want to clarify for myself what the term "Jewish identity" signifies. I a m sure that I a m not alone in confronting this question and in craving a meaningful answer. It is m y hope that m y exploration of existent Jewish and American phenomena may in some way shed some light on paths presently shrouded in darkness and confusion. Perhaps this effort of mine will help illumine the way for others groping toward a positive American Jewish resolution to conflicts inherent in the identity crisis of our age. In this book I have employed m y understanding of the Jewish past and two methodological systems that have proceeded from the behavioral sciences. One approach is that of sociologists rep­ resented by Kai Erikson, Howard S. Becker, Everett Hughes, and Erving Goffman. These me n employ theories of deviance, not so muc h to establish the cause of deviance, but rather to enable deviants to determine for us, by the reactions they arouse among the "normal," the strengths and weaknesses of the static and fluid xii Preface boundaries of the collectivity. Since Judaism has the aspects of both an eternal value system and an entity that has survived by means of adjustment and flexibility of its values—and since America is a land ever in flux and the home of the world's largest Jewish community—the application of theories of deviance as spelled out above seems highly promising in determining the di­ rection in which American Jews are moving. The second methodological approach I have recourse to in this book relies heavily on the theories and case histories of ego psychoanalysts such as Heinz Hartmann, Erik Erikson, and Jacob Arlow. These analysts probe identity formation on the biological, conscious, and unconscious levels, thereby providing us with tools with which to examine not only how Jews are striv­ ing toward an integral identity, but also ho w this striving can be either abetted or set awry through legend, fantasy, stereotyping, and more concrete phenomena such as child rearing, sexual ex­ perimentation, and intrafamilial as well as intrainstitutional transactions.
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