Parashat Emor - Podcast Style!
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For the podcast version of this weeks e-mail, go to:
http://www.habodror.org.uk/chinuch/emor.htm
to check out past parshiot or chinuch emails go to:
http://www.habodror.org.uk/chinuch/chinuchweekly.html
In looking through articles for inspiration for this weeks parashah stuff, I remembered I have just been to Israel and spoken to a whole lot of shnatties (from the UK and Australia) and some peeps from the tnuat bogrim about Judaism and it triggered a lot of thoughts, so if you don't mind (and you don't because I've pre-typed this) I'm going to deal with an issue on a tangent from all the parshiot. Secularism and God.
God keeps popping up just about everywhere (I think I learnt the song in kindergarten: god is here, god is there, god is truly everywhere... Those kindergarten teachers didn't know how right they were). Many a time when writing one of these I have written about God and then made explicit that I don't believe in God. And plenty of Jewish discussions end up with something or other to do with God.
I look at God as a literary character. It's not a new way of looking at things, it just brings up a lot of questions when you are dealing with a Culturally Jewish movement. Here are two of my favourites:
*If I believe in God as a literary character what does that mean for how I practise my Judaism?
and follow me on this one:
*If I believe in God as a literary character...
.and I believe that the right way to live your life is secular...
.and I am in Habo because I think it stands for a better way to live your life...
.then why shouldn't Habo openly embrace secularism, in a Culturally Jewish way - because I also think that is right - But Secular Cultural Judaism is what I believe in...
.Should I have fought for Habo to become Secular?
The second question is what I would like to deal with now.
We have dealt at length with Cultural Judaism throughout the year in a variety of different formats & I am not suggesting getting ham into our machanot. I think kashrut could be followed for a variety of reasons, including making our machanot accessible to the wider community. But there are some things which we resolutely will not give up on, and some of them are taken for granted, but have massive implications.
We take for granted that we can turn lights on and off on shabbat on Habo events, but we would never revoke this right. In fact, it is a massive assertion. By saying that we will allow this we are essentially saying that we are secular. By not forcing every kid on machane to flick lightswitches we are asserting that we are not aggressively trying to convert everyone to be secular, but we are secular nevertheless.
As an almost ex-movement worker I have lived in the dilemmas of the Habo world for quite some time now. Habo encourages people to ask questions. And I am putting a question out there because I believe at some stage in the future we will have to deal with it. And if I have thought about it, surely it is my responsibility to open up these thoughts to wider debate. So the question remains, should Habo become secular?
What do you think?
Shabbat Shalom
Benji
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