"Why I Hate Religion"
Three things I'm supposed to write about:
1) biblical prophesies being fulfilled in the modern era
2) the origins of the evangelical "end-of-times" claims
3) the lecture my long-bearded rabbi who teaches Jewish Law gave titled "Why I Hate Religion" (or "Why I Am Not Religious")
The first one is too long for today and will require more time. I was planning on posting about the second one, but I lost the paper about it -- hopefully I'll find it soon. So, the third:
Rabbi Levinger is the only mashpia (rabbinic teacher) here who wears peyos and yet he taught us a class he titled "Why I Hate Religion" (or "Why I am Not Religious"). His thesis was that Judaism should be viewed as a relationship with G-d rather than as a "religion" since religions, he argued, are based on a system of rewards and punishments. They focus on consequences and accountability. While these things can be positive, they often lead to a situation like a "bad marriage" where fear dominates love. In a bad marriage, a man only brings flowers to his wife on their anniversary because he knows that if he doesn't, she'll become upset and bad things will happen to him (sleeping on the couch is no fun). Likewise, a person with this "religious" view will only keep kosher, pray daily, observe the Sabbath, etc. because he believes that not doing so will upset G-d and then bad things will happen to him.
Rabbi Levinger believes that every relationship has some degree of love and some degree of fear. Love is positive and involves anything that a person does to strengthen the relationship. Fear is negative (though not necessarily "bad" -- there is a difference here) and involves commitment, framework, boundries, what to refrain from doing, etc.
In an optimal relationship (a "good marriage") the fear is subjugated to the love. In this case, the fear only exists to the extent that one wouldn't want to do anything that would harm the relationship, because you love the other person so much. While the religious fear is centered on the self ("I'll be in deep trouble if I do this") the relationship fear is centered on the other ("I don't want to hurt him/her by doing this").
Someone might see a marriage and exclaim, "Why celebrate marriage and commitment? Don't they see it's a prison?!" No! It's paradise! Like a good marriage, (when seen as a relationship with G-d) Judaism is easy because we love G-d so we enjoy keeping His commandments. Anyone who complains how hard it is to keep these commandments is focusing too much on himself and not enough on G-d.
It's an interesting perspective, and it's hilarious when this rabbi says "G-d forbid you should ever be religious" -- but since his definition of religion is not the commonly accepted definition, it won't be useful for me to run around condemning religion (which I believe has been an overall positive force for humanity, despite some very serious negative abuses of religion). Nonetheless, I believe this provides a useful framework to understand keeping the mitzvot and explaining why we do so. More importantly, understanding the mitzvot in this way will keep us focused on G-d rather than ourselves.
1) biblical prophesies being fulfilled in the modern era
2) the origins of the evangelical "end-of-times" claims
3) the lecture my long-bearded rabbi who teaches Jewish Law gave titled "Why I Hate Religion" (or "Why I Am Not Religious")
The first one is too long for today and will require more time. I was planning on posting about the second one, but I lost the paper about it -- hopefully I'll find it soon. So, the third:
Rabbi Levinger is the only mashpia (rabbinic teacher) here who wears peyos and yet he taught us a class he titled "Why I Hate Religion" (or "Why I am Not Religious"). His thesis was that Judaism should be viewed as a relationship with G-d rather than as a "religion" since religions, he argued, are based on a system of rewards and punishments. They focus on consequences and accountability. While these things can be positive, they often lead to a situation like a "bad marriage" where fear dominates love. In a bad marriage, a man only brings flowers to his wife on their anniversary because he knows that if he doesn't, she'll become upset and bad things will happen to him (sleeping on the couch is no fun). Likewise, a person with this "religious" view will only keep kosher, pray daily, observe the Sabbath, etc. because he believes that not doing so will upset G-d and then bad things will happen to him.
Rabbi Levinger believes that every relationship has some degree of love and some degree of fear. Love is positive and involves anything that a person does to strengthen the relationship. Fear is negative (though not necessarily "bad" -- there is a difference here) and involves commitment, framework, boundries, what to refrain from doing, etc.
In an optimal relationship (a "good marriage") the fear is subjugated to the love. In this case, the fear only exists to the extent that one wouldn't want to do anything that would harm the relationship, because you love the other person so much. While the religious fear is centered on the self ("I'll be in deep trouble if I do this") the relationship fear is centered on the other ("I don't want to hurt him/her by doing this").
Someone might see a marriage and exclaim, "Why celebrate marriage and commitment? Don't they see it's a prison?!" No! It's paradise! Like a good marriage, (when seen as a relationship with G-d) Judaism is easy because we love G-d so we enjoy keeping His commandments. Anyone who complains how hard it is to keep these commandments is focusing too much on himself and not enough on G-d.
It's an interesting perspective, and it's hilarious when this rabbi says "G-d forbid you should ever be religious" -- but since his definition of religion is not the commonly accepted definition, it won't be useful for me to run around condemning religion (which I believe has been an overall positive force for humanity, despite some very serious negative abuses of religion). Nonetheless, I believe this provides a useful framework to understand keeping the mitzvot and explaining why we do so. More importantly, understanding the mitzvot in this way will keep us focused on G-d rather than ourselves.