God is cool again
It's the hottest new trend to strike secular Israel – ‘Connecting to Judaism’ and ‘being inspired’. It includes Bar Mitzvah musicals, visits to the Western Wall, Talmud study and driving on Shabbat, all without becoming ‘religious.’ Thousands of ‘secular’ Jews crammed into the Western Wall over the holidays, Talmud classes are full, and it’s in to wear a trendy kippah. A passing phase or a new romance between religious and secular? Part one in a series
Part 1
It’s 7:30 a.m., traffic is jammed at the entrance to Jerusalem. A sleep-deprived family from Tel Aviv groans to itself as it makes its way towards the Great Synagogue. G’s mother, a secular Tel Avivian, is connecting to her roots - she separates milk and meat but would never dream of eliminating her plunging necklines.
She decided her son’s Bar Mitzvah
The trauma caused by the Jerusalem morning scene isn't easily erased, even when the Klezmer Band at the entrance to the hall does its best to loosen up the Tel Aviv crowd and get them excited. There is an elaborate buffet complete with rugelach, bagels, and dripping with Yiddishkeit. And this is only the quiet before the psalm.
“Great things will come from this little one,” but first there are four “young Torah scholars” who spend two hours performing the Kosher covers of a variety of popular songs, from “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” ala Judy Garland to the yeshiva-world standard “The Whole World is a Very Narrow Bridge” by Yehoram Gaon.
For NIS 2,000-3,000 (USD 430-650), you and your guests can be standing before Mount Sinai in person. This is Torah and this is its reward.
The show is put on by Yehuda Bar-Yosef, a secular Israeli who drives on Shabbat but loves the holidays and makes a nice living out of it.
“Many secular people are affected by Jewish tradition,” he says. “It catches on quickly. Few religious people come to me. In my (Bar Mitzvah) show I re-enact Mount Sinai complete with set, smoke and fireworks. There are even those who imitate my shows.”
A taste of Judaism
Similar Bar Mitzvah ceremonies, like the drastic increase of children who want to celebrate their Bar Mitzvahs at the Western Wall, are only a small part of the new trend being sold to a non-observant community thirsty for Jewish tradition in a pleasant and non-threatening framework.
This new connection to tradition is different from the 1990’s trend of connecting to religion as part of a process of becoming Orthodox. Many people hesitated to define themselves as "religious," but they were being led safely by people who openly declared their intention to transform them into a member of ultra-orthodox society.
Today, in comparison, people are enjoying religion without being overshadowed by a commitment to observe traditional mitzvot (commandments). It's Judaism without pressure, without preachers, without seminars and without an ultra-Orthodox destination. Adherents are usually from bourgeois, middle class, secular homes looking to infuse meaning to their Jewish identity, without being overshadowed by restrictions and without lifestyle changes.
It’s like sampling the religious menu without getting fat: Bar Mitzvahs, Sukkot, synagogue and occasional prayers, visits to graves of the righteous, and also… yes, here it is...belief in God.
The word “religious” has become a curse. “Becoming religious” a fatal illness that everyone is careful to stay away from. But connecting? Becoming inspired? It almost sounds elegant.
Social trend
Connecting to religion is one of the most interesting social trends in the Jewish world today, an unexpected outcome of various factors such as the weakening of the secular framework, cutting off the ultra-Orthodox politics from the udder of the government and the need for the religious and secular to connect strategically.
Dr. Neri Horowitz, an expert in religion and society, explains “we are talking about a trend that in the eighties existed amongst the Sephardic middle class. The mechanism is “cheap religion”- high religious feeling with a low religious price in terms of commitment. It fits in the new age and lifestyle and is reaching new levels of society. It is possible that in a global society, where solitude is shrinking and people create spaces for themselves where they can express their own identities. In a society that is undergoing the process of individualization, people are drawn towards religion.”
The newly inspired gather around rabbis that convey happiness, where their appealing rules are more important that their Talmudic brilliance. According to Yossie Elituv, assistant editor for the popular ultra-Orthodox magazine “Mishpacha” (Family), these rabbis convey their messages without the typical rabbinic pestering.
“The longing for spirituality in circles that have not experienced Judaism for three generations has been answered by the “new Rabbis”. These spiritual personalities have chosen to establish themselves in areas far from the ultra-Orthodox population and dedicated their lives to one sole purpose: Making the name of God loved by his creations and to market Judaism at eye level, in the appropriate language for each Jew.
"Leaders like Rabbi Yitzhak David Grossman from Migdal HaEmek and Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau from Tel Aviv have succeeded in projecting the virtues of Torah without creating antagonism like religious politicians do. Looking back the importance of these leaders is no less than the importance of rabbis chosen to lead closed communities. Over many years they have become the diplomats of the Jewish people. Thanks to them the plague of assimilation has not infiltrated Israel and many Israelis have met God for the first time through them.”
Observing, not religious
Yael Polak, a 20-year-old psychology-sociology-anthropology student at Tel Aviv's Jaffe College, began to connect to Judaism in the last two months. In that time, she has placed a note in the Western Wall, spent Rosh Hashanah in the Belz Chassidim Synagogue, put on tefillin (with the Reform) and is now looking for a study partner for Talmud studies.
“Judaism intrigues me. I have been introduced to things I had never seen before. I don’t think that I can connect to the totality and the intensity of the religious world. Even so, I don’t think that I have to ignore it completely,” she says.
45-year-old Jerusalemite Nili Aharoni, who translates movies from French and English and practices classic homeopathy, was born into a traditional home, rebelled against her parents and lives a completely secular lifestyle.
“I prefer to say that I am ‘observing’,” says Aharoni. “In the past few years I have been returning to my roots. It is primarily a spiritual issue, not practical. After learning many subjects such as Buddhism, I see that the source of all things is in Judaism. I find a lot of spirituality in Judaism, a lot of wisdom and a lot of logic”.
Is there any chance that you will become religious?
“No way. Judaism motivates intellectual things for me. The chance that the practical will spark in me is very weak. I don’t keep all the mitzvot, but I eat only Kosher, because it is important to me to eat healthy, clean food. I don’t eat pork, because pig has dirty energy. On Shabbat we don’t watch TV or use the computer. I prefer to take the car to see the country, so that Shabbat will have a culture of recreation. It is not a secular or religious Shabbat. Between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur I went to the Western Wall. I hadn’t been there for 20 years. There were many secular people there and the prayers really spoke to me.”
“I define the new ‘connected’ as people looking for a new dimension spiritually and searching for the truth”, says Zeev Pearl, the former Mayor of Tzfat. “They are not finding it from the classic rabbis and spiritual leaders, they are not prepared to be herded like sheep, but the secular social order doesn’t provide all the answers."
