A Plural God

So many of the Hebrew words we used to talk about God are all in the plural -- Elohim, Adonai (rather than adoni), Tzva'ot.

For a religion that's so staunchly monotheistic, this seems really peculiar to me. I really don't know what to make of this - except maybe to think that it's a relic from the polytheistic religions upon which Judaism was built. The thing about it that most puzzles me is that it sounds so Christian - a single God who we talk about in the plural?

How does Orthodox Judaism talk about this, if at all? Anyone know?

My First Christian Wedding

In the last ten years, I’ve been to a lot of weddings. I’m not sure of the exact number, but a fair estimate would be sixty. All but two of these were (some degree of) Orthodox Jewish, at least in terms of the ceremony (i.e., sometimes the bride and groom were not Orthodox and there was minimal Jewish dancing during the party).

The first of these was my cousin’s – which I blogged about here.

The second was a few weeks ago. One of my best friends from graduate school – a devout Protestant (Baptist) – got married in a church.

As you might imagine, this was quite different from the other weddings I’ve been to. To a certain degree that difference was just sort of a novelty. It was pretty cool being at a wedding where a lot of the things that they did looked a lot like what you see in the movies.

But more importantly, the wedding provided me with a point of comparison for a clearer view of Orthodox Jewish weddings.

Let me first make a disclaimer: I am not a fan of the OJ wedding ceremony/view of marriage. Things I really don’t like:

#1 – The power structure built into OJ marriages. Namely, the whole issue of get/agunah. Even as many couples don’t get divorced, the fact that that’s built in to the marriage is just plain awful. Yes, I know there are pre-nups, etc., that can all but eliminate the problem, but sometimes they don’t work.

#2 – The actual ceremony itself, wherein the woman never opens her mouth the entire time. And remains passive. Moreover (and this is really just an extension of what I find problematic about OJ, more generally), the fact that no woman ever actively participates in the ceremony in a meaningful way. Those who read the sheva brachot, the mesader k’dushin, the witnesses, etc., are all men.

#3 – This is obviously cultural and not because of any halacha – but I cannot stand the size and the gaudiness of OJ weddings. This can definitely be changed. Come on, people - let’s do it!

This disclaimer out of the way, here’s my analysis of my first Christian wedding / being in a church:

The Rituals are Tailored by the Bride and Groom
Before we even went in, I was talking to another Christian friend of mine who made it quite clear that there is no one way to have a Protestant ceremony (probably not quite as true for a Catholic ceremony). The bride and groom design the ceremony themselves.

This was a pretty cool aspect of the wedding, because you really got the feeling that the ceremony was reflective of the people getting married. For instance, this particular couple is very musical – and the whole ceremony was filled with people singing. The groom sang the bride down the aisle, the bride sang to the groom later on, the parents sang to the couple, etc.

Women and Men Sitting Together!
And I didn’t notice any members of the opposite sex checking each other out. Or doing anything else inappropriate. In fact, the attendees were much more attentive to the ceremony than any of those I’ve seen at OJ weddings/shuls/etc. (i.e., they were actually quiet).

The Bride Participates in the Same Way as the Groom
For me, this was huge. She sang to him just as he sang to her. She said her vow as did he. She was clearly an equal, active partner in the ceremony. And not in some sort of trite or representational sort of way (i.e., the only way I could ever even conceive of an OJ rabbi allowing bridal participation in the ceremony). If she didn’t say her vow, they wouldn’t have been considered married.

Other Women Participate
His parents sang together, her sister lit the “unity candle” (something I’ll come back to), a woman read the scripture. And there was absolutely nothing shocking about it. This is a very traditional church. But they have no concept that such female participation as I’ve described could even be questionable. This put into strict relief the attitudes of OJ.

Women Sing!
Okay, again, this was just so unusual for me – to be in a place where people are really, really religious – and then to have women just get up and sing. It shows how much OJ has influenced the way I think. There is no conception of this as anything even remotely sexual or immodest.

There’s Still Misogyny
One step back: this Christian ceremony wasn't perfect.

When the woman stood up to read scripture, she read two pieces – one from the Old Testament and one from the New. The first was the verse from Bereishit where God tells Adam to leave his mother and father and cling to his wife. Not really problematic from my perspective, except that (a problem I have with most of Tanach) it’s phrased in terms of the man.

The New Testament passage, however, I found offensive even though it’s directed both men and women.

The verse went something like, “Wives, submit to your husbands. (…) Husbands, love your wives.”

Later, a Catholic friend told me that this was removed from its context in which it comes across as considerably less sexist. This may or may not be true – I’m not sure. However, the fact that is that it was read in a way that seemed to uphold contemporary sexism bothered me. And it apparently bothered my friend (the groom) too – he told me later that he didn’t know they were going to read that passage and that he felt it wasn’t reflective of his own views on marriage.

Everyone (or, at least most people) Present Can Understand What’s Going On
Even as there was a part that I found offensive, the point was, I could understand it. It was in English.

This is totally different from an OJ ceremony.

When I was younger – before I understood what it meant – I used to sit with bated breath when they would read the ketubah out loud. It would give me chills to hear the bride and groom’s Hebrew names and the name of whatever town it was being held in. Of course, since it is in Aramaic, I didn’t understand the rest of the ketubah at all.

Whether or not you have problems with the OJ ceremony (and I don’t have problems with the ketubah itself – it’s put in place to protect the woman – only with the laws of marriage that necessitate it and are therefore present in its language), the ketubah is not really a romantic document. It’s legalistic and talks about things like the husband’s responsibility to provide the wife with necessities – including sex. If they read it in a literal English translation, I might even find it to be an awkward moment.

Because the Christian ceremony is conducted in English, people present – whether they find the goings on romantic, offensive, strange, etc., – understand everything that’s going on.

Cool Ritual
The one thing they did that was pretty awesome, was the lighting of the Unity Candle. After the respective parents lit one candle each, the bride and groom took one (apparently representative of their souls) and together lit a new candle in the middle.

I just really, really liked this.

Oh yeah, it was Small. And Not Even a Little Bit Gaudy
There were maybe just over a hundred people there (one of my friends commented that this was big!), people were dressed formally but not uber-fancy (though this may have something to do with the location; I have a feeling if it was a Christian wedding in New York, it might be more showy), and the party was low-key but still lots of fun (I would venture to say maybe even more fun!).

On Intermarriage

I'll start with a little context: a week ago, I attended my cousin's wedding. He married a lapsed Catholic who will not be converting. I celebrated with him. I was as happy for them as I am when I watch two Jewish friends get married.

So, intermarriage: It's one of the biggest taboos I can think of. When, as a teenager, I started to "rebel" and hang out with the non-Jewish kids in my neighborhood, my dad sat me down for a dramatic talk about why I shouldn't date the non-Jewish guys. A lot of the focus was on past Jewish suffering - especially the fact that my grandmother was a Holocaust survivor and that all her family had been killed in the Holocaust.

This, my father communicated to me without actually using these words:
If all these people died in the name of being Jewish, it's wrong for you to just give it up by inter-dating (presumably followed by intermarrying).

This lesson sunk deep. Throughout my childhood and adolescence, it was compounded by the statistics I would hear in school, at Shabbos tables, in newspapers. "Intermarriage and assimilation are the new genocide," they would say, "Today we are submitting ourselves to a Holocaust-by-choice." And then, the resulting fever: "KIRUV! KIRUV! KIRUV!"

I can remember my own feelings at the mention of someone who was intermarrying - it was this deep ache, this feeling of loss, an almost-panic.

Well, it's been a long road, but here I am, now 29 and not even phased by the idea of my cousin's intermarriage. A few relevant details: he was raised all but completely non-religious (my mom's a baal teshuva), he's currently even less religious than he was growing up. His wife, though brought up Catholic, is similarly non-religious. They share the same values, the same understandings of life, and they make an adorable couple. They dated for six years and have been living together for nearly two.

Of course, my sisters (who are both ultra-frum) didn't come -- even though my cousin & his wife came to their weddings. My parents came, but I recently found out that they came only because my aunt threatened to stop speaking to them if they didn't.

Like I said, having once been theologically closer to where my sisters are now, I know what they feel. That said, I really don't understand the line of thinking anymore. It's so strange to me to disapprove of a marriage simply because of the religious affiliation or lack thereof of one of the parties. My cousin, in many ways, is like a brother to me and I just can't imagine not being happy for his happiness.

One other note on the whole ceremony: I've never been to a secular wedding before. Never, really, even been to a non-Orthodox wedding before. (I will be going to a Christian wedding at the end of the month, though! I'm sure I'll blog about that one, too...) The ceremony was amazing in that it actually involved equal, vocal participation from the bride. This is one thing I absolutely cannot stand about Orthodox weddings - the bride shows up, circles, accepts a ring, drinks from a glass, and never speaks. Also: I (as well as 4 other men & women) was given a poem to read at the ceremony. So cool to actually participate!!

It was also just so much more intimate a ceremony. While large weddings aren't part of the Jewish law in any way, if you were ignorant of that fact, you'd be justified in believing that they are. I've never been to (or heard of) an OJ wedding that had an invite list smaller than 200. My cousin's wedding, with an invite list of 110, was large for his circles. What this meant? I actually got to talk to and celebrate with the bride and groom.

In contrast, I attended an OJ wedding this weekend where I got about five minutes dancing and a quick hello before the bedekin with the bride. And she was my good friend! If nothing else, the OJ community needs to do something about the sheer size of these weddings. They are nauseatingly large. I'm personally prepared not to be offended when I don't get invited to a friend's small wedding.

Tisha B'av with Food

Okay, so fine, I'm an agnostic. I don't really feel God or spirituality the way other people seem to.

And I'm not really sad about the absence of a Temple in Israel. (In fact, I think I'd be more disturbed than anything about things like animal sacrifices that are supposed to take place there.)

That said, as I wrote in my last post, I do find meaning in Tisha B'av - in remembering the loss and suffering of so many of my ancestors, in so many places, generations. But I've never been able to experience that meaningfulness because my body simply shuts down without food (see previous post for more specific details).

So this Tisha B'av, I ate.

I limited myself: only plain bread, plain pasta, juice, and water.

I didn't play any of those games where you only eat a morsel every minute or so. I didn't think that sort of activity would help add meaning to the day -- it seems like it would only serve to make me focus even more on food, etc.

I have to say that this was the most meaningful Tisha B'av, most meaningful fast day actually, I've ever had. And that includes all of those I observed when I was more religious that I am now.
It was a "fast" the way the Christians define it during Lent (only, I guess, more extreme). Every time I opened the refrigerator, I had to stop myself from taking what I really wanted - and then, got to think about why I was doing that.

And that's the thing: I was mentally present enough to think about it. Completely incredible, for me, at least.

Religious Questioning & The State of Israel

An old friend of mine with whom I've recently gotten back into contact has also "lost her religion" - to a far greater extent than I have.

While she still enjoys aspects of Jewish culture (i.e., food, music, literature, etc.), she's completely rejected anything to do with Judaism (as in the religion). Questioning religion, for her, was only a part of questioning the entire value system in which she was raised. Much like me, she was raised to be a Zionist, went to Israel for the year, went to religious Zionist camps, etc. And so, Zionism was one of the value systems which she questioned and ultimately rejected.

She's now not only pro-Palestinian, but actually anti-Israel.

I have always been more "liberal" in my Zionism than others. By that, I mean that I've always been appalled by people who implied or openly stated that the Palestinians had no legitimate side. Even as I saw certain Palestinian tactics as murderous and unethical, I've never been able to understand some people's reactions to them. One really otherwise-sweet girl in my seminary, for example, declared that if she had a machine gun, she would walk into East Jerusalem and open fire. This - and all of those people I would meet who espoused Kahane-esque philosophies - was completely incomprehensible to me. I always believed, you can't lump a nation/race all together and say they are all evil and all deserve to die. (That is, at the end of the day, the biggest problem I have with the biblical injunction to eradicate Amalek.)

It wasn't until I was in my early twenties that I actually began to read literature written about and from the Palestinian viewpoint.

Up until that point, I had always been taught as though Israel had never done anything wrong EVER (almost certainly a mistake from an educational standpoint). That every piece of land acquired by the State of Israel was done so either by purchase from absentee landlords (thus, the problem was with angry tenants, as it was) or by humane methods after the UN Resolution.

When I found out that this wasn't always the case, I was left really confused. In addition to this, because I was simultaneously questioning whether the Torah was true, I wasn't really sure how the State of Israel could be justified. If God didn't give us the land, what claim did we have to it?

Of course, the literature I was reading was very one-sided and written from an emotional perspective. And though I have since come to see things differently, for a while (maybe a year or two), I felt really strange about my allegiance to Israel. So much so, that I couldn't even bring myself to say the word "Israel" around non-Jewish people without a queasy feeling in the bottom of my stomach. That said, for some reason, I still felt really attached the country itself. When I did visit, it still felt good in that way that it always had. And I couldn't (and didn't want to) imagine a world without Israel.

Interestingly enough, it took conversations with an Evangelical Christian Zionist to balance out my perspective again.

From these conversations, I have since come to the understanding that while Israel was not ethical in every decision it has made, no country can make such a claim. Yes, there were Palestinians exiled in unfair and inhumane ways. Yes, that's awful. But Israel has been ethical in many of its decisions. And those instances in which it has not been ethical do not revoke its right to exist.

The original settlements and the subsequent founding of the State of Israel were at least partially premised on the idea that in this hostile world, Jews needed their own homeland. And world events (pogroms, the Holocaust, and other persecutions) supported this thesis. If we look at Middle Eastern countries and/or certain European countries, today's world events still point to this need.

I'm rambling, admittedly, but it really made me feel strange to talk to this girl who now believes that the State of Israel should not exist -- especially at this point in the evolution of my belief system. She says that unless we look to the Bible, we have no claim to this land (implicit in her statement is that the Bible is not a valid source).

Now, I don't really want to use the Bible as a source either for such disputes. But certainly, if the Jews are to choose any land for the purpose described above, we do at least have a historic connection to the land.

I don't even know if that's important, though. In my mind, what it comes down to, is that she's now arguing for something completely unethical. There are generations of Israelis who have now grown up in this land, who own property, who understand this as their home. How would removing these people be ethical when removing Arabs from their homes was not? Can we correct something that was unethical (from her perspective) in the past by doing something equally as unethical today? Following her line of reasoning, to me, would be equivalent to arguing that we should remove the residents of the American West and give all the land to the Native Americans.