New Judaism (“West Coast Judaism”)

October 1st, Rosh HaShana, 2019

Modern Judaism is beautiful. We merge traditional and contemporary wisdom to create a life of meaning, and a meaning of life. Let us discuss.

Core Beliefs:

• Life and existence are a beautiful mystery to be celebrated.

• The human brain is limited. As far as we can tell, we cannot ever truly understand the beautiful mystery of life and existence. However, we can appreciate it and be grateful for it. We can even worship it. The beautiful mystery of life and existence is amazing.

• We shall name the beautiful mystery of life and existence as God. This word, God, will henceforth refer to life, the Universe, and everything. To this crazy weirdness of “being”; to consciousness, to physics, to reality, to all there is. This thing, that we do not completely understand. Newtonian or Quantum or String Theory, a Big Bang or a series of Turtles or a Computer Simulation. Consciousness and feelings and thoughts and experiences and meaning; joy and pain and love and life. Whatever “it” is, we don’t quite understand what’s going on, but this beautiful mystery of life and existence, all we can experience and all there is to be grateful for - we shall name it God.

• God is not humanoid. God does not have a beard. S/he does not sit in the sky. S/he certainly does not have an opinion on sex, gay people, masturbation, war, and so on. God does not experience humanoid emotions, except for the sense in which one might describe an ‘angry’ sea: poetically, not literally. For God is not a human; God is the beautiful mystery of existence. That is what the word ‘God’ means. That is what it always was meant to mean. People who do treat God as a human-like creature are missing the point like a sailor attributing real emotions to the sea.

• Since we do not (and can not) know the meaning of life, it is difficult for us to know how to live. What should we do?

• The short answer is that you should live a good life.

• “Living a good life” is meant not as a theoretical concept. This is practical advice to be applied to your real life, in a real way.

• The particulars of how to live a good life turn out to be not so simple. There is much to discuss about how to live a good life. The practice of discussing and researching how to live a good life is the point of Judaism. This research can and should be done both alone and with your community.

• Over the years, many Jewish thinkers and researchers have pondered, studied and written about what it means to live a good life, and how to do that. Their writings comprise much of the Jewish texts. If you are interested in their thoughts on this matter, you can consult their writings, or listen to others teach them. As with any historical text, old Jewish texts should be read and interpreted appropriately, attempting to decipher the author’s intention. These texts were written by men many years ago, shaped by their own agendas, understanding and knowledge. It can sometimes be hard to separate ancient wisdom from ancient ignorance; while we can draw from old knowledge, we must apply it relevantly to the present day, being mindful to incorporate what we have learned from other sources since these texts have been written.

• In the years since the Bible was written, we have learned that other groups of people have also researched similar questions. We may and should draw upon their wisdom as well as our own ancestors. Jews have never had a monopoly on wisdom, and we would be more the wiser to draw upon the wisdom of anyone who may share theirs with us, in addition to the our own research. Modern Judaism can learn from thinkers of the West and the East. Truly, the tasks of understanding the beauty of existence (God) and learning how to live a good life are shared with many humans, and we would be wise to cooperate on this effort. Together we are better.

• Some of us are on quests - both individually and together - to make sense of this world. We are doing our best to understand the beautiful mysteries of the world, and also doing our best to understand how we should live our lives. We document our results - this text itself is one such example. We do our best to outline what we have found, along with our reasoning, our caveats, our diverging opinions, and our concrete suggestions.

• Thousands of years ago, some of our ancestors were on similar quests. They, too, did their best to document their findings on their understanding of the world, in all aspects: physical, natural, social, psychological, and on. They compiled their findings in various forms; one book (or collection of books) written of these findings is referred to as “The Bible”. This text was once the main source of wisdom to rely on in life. Today, we have many sources. We can still use the Bible, but we should use it wisely. Our ancestors would have wanted that, the same way we would like our future generations to refer to this very text. Future generations, if you are reading this - please use this text carefully. If you have learned new wisdom from other sources since this text has been written, apply that new knowledge when interpreting this text. Having said all this, we can draw upon the Bible for inspiration - but we should not look to it for authority. The Bible contains life’s rules because they are important, not the other way around. With time, we grow wiser: in every domain of knowledge, all of our wisdom is built on previous wisdom, refining, extending and improving it. Such is the case with the Bible as well. A two thousand-year old map is to be taken carefully, for modern maps tend often to be better.

• As we now know, God is the beautiful mystery of life and existence, or reality, or consciousness, or whatever you would like to call all of what is going on and all that is.

• One core teaching of Judaism is the importance of being present in the moment. We cannot know the meaning of life, and all we can do is live a good life: the prime directive of living a good life is being present in the moment. (We will explore this concept, later.) This concept has also been discovered by other faiths, notably Zen Buddhism. In the original Judaism, this was embodied by the name given to God. Yawheh, יהוה, comes from the Semitic root ה.ו/י.ה., which is the root for “being”, conjugated to mean “it will be the present”. The future will feel like right now, since life always feels like “right now”, and all we can ever do is at most be present in moment. We can see how the wisdom of Zen is the also the (original) wisdom of Judaism, since mystics from different faiths discover the same universal truths. This is an illustration of why we should learn inspiration from all wisdoms, not just Judaism. Being conversant in spirituality helps us understand and improve our own.

• The process of learning spirituality - of better understanding reality and life and philosophy and psychology and how to live a good life - as well the subsequent application of the learned knowledge - is the essense of practicing Judaism. The traditions and rules we develop - as individuals and as a group - are meant to help us make sure we learn, and apply. In the same way that people might schedule a weekly day to go to the gym (to make sure we go to the gym), we designate a weekly day of rest (to make sure we rest). We can make songs about it to remind ourselves, and to make the process more enjoyable. Let us not, however, confuse the traditions with the rules, nor the rules with the point: we should always remember the point, and make sure our resultant rules and traditions serve the point, and not the other way around. What kind of person does something just because he was told to do it? That is not a good reason to do something.

• The said process of discussing how the world works, and why, and what we should do in order to live a good life, and what that means - all of this is within the practice of studying and practicing Judaism. A true devout Jew does not only study the work of others; s/he studies with a critical, skeptical eye, and validates claims for themselves. It would benefit the student to be mindful of their own thoughts and body as well as the available external education; again we see the overlap between ancient Jewish wisdom and modern alernative Eastern/Western spiritual wisdom, such as mindfulness. Indeed, the Jewish process of contemplating the essence of God and how to live life can be described as a form meditation. Meditation is a process known to convey its practitioner dramatic benefits. Here we see a delightful loop, which again is shared between Zen Buddhism and Judaism (and other faiths): In the search for how to live a good life, we learn that meditating on the question for how to live a good life both helps answer the question, and is itself the answer. And so is in Judaism; discussing Judaism with other Jews leads to a good, mindful life, with your community - and that is the good life.

• And so we see that Judaism is not ‘the point’; the point is to live a good life. Judaism is a tool to research how to do this, together with your community, which itself leads to a good life. Together we are better.

• West Coast Judaism requires no suspension of disbelief and no special leaps of “faith”. It requieres no belief in the supernatural beyond admitting an awe and ignorance of the mystery of existence. There is no conflict between true Judaism and science, as Judaism is the craft and practice of researching how to live a good life with your community and fellow Jews. If you meet your fellow Jew for dinner and discuss the details of what consitutes a life well lived, you are practicing Judaism. Remember, the point is not to blindly copy the traditions of our ancestors; the traditions are there to help us remember the craft of being mindful and grateful for life and existence, and to focus on being in the present moment together.

• It is our hope that the reader has by now begun to notice some clarity regarding the Jewish belief system – the actual, original spiritual beliefs, as expressed and passed down through generations – rather than any circumstantial traditions which have become the misguided symbolic representation of the Jewish faith. Perhaps the reader - educated in other spiritual doctrines - has noticed similarities between the Jewish mystic faiths and other faiths, such as Zen Buddhism. This is not a coincidence, and it belies the same underlying self-evident spritual truth. The resultant original traditions are likewise similar: study and prayer; contemplation and mediation; acceptance of ignorance; living a good life. For this reason, Judaism not only does not exclude alternate faiths such as Buddhism: in fact, it overlaps with them. A truly educated devout Jew believer and a devout Buddhist will have much in common in their beliefs, if not their practical traditions.

• Judaism is not an abstract concept, reserved for theory. It is a practical aspect of your life. If you, the reader, are interested in thinking about how to live a good life, and would like to learn more, you should both meditate on this yourself, and discuss this with your fellow Jews. This would be practicing Judaism together, and the act itself would already contribute both to Judaism, and to your own better life.

Having read this, if the above resonates with you, you might be inclined to look for meaning and community with your fellow spiritual Jews. If you don’t know where to start, you can write me directly at sella@rafaeli.net. If you are in the San Francisco Bay Area, you can come learn with me. If you are not, you can follow my work, and I will try to point you to local resources near you.

If this text about spirituality and Judaism has caught you off-guard, and you do not generally practice spirituality, that is fine. Sometimes we need a thousand nudges: hopefully this is one of them. If you never choose to pursue spirituality, that is also fine. We wish you luck and success on your journey, whatever it may be, and we will be here to help you through any rough times, if you ever need our help.

Good luck. Only you can live your life: make it a good one.

!שנה טובה

• Sella Rafaeli, Rosh HaShana, October 1st, 2019, San Francisco