Miss Buddha

by Ulf Wolf

  In the 1870s and 1880s Isaac M. Wise founded its national institutions, all of which are vital to this day: The Union of American Hebrew Congregations (UAHC), the Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR), and the Hebrew Union College, the oldest surviving rabbinical school in the world—which merged in 1950 with the more Zionist-oriented Jewish Institute of Religion.

  Once the bastion of religious rationalism, the Reform movement has, since the 1940s, while its orientation remains liberal and non-authoritarian, placed more emphasis on Jewish peoplehood and traditional religious culture.

  As an example, the Hebrew Union College—Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati, Ohio, ordained its first woman rabbi in 1972, and the Reform movement has continued its work to increase the participation of women in religious ritual.

  As another example of reforming with the times and trends of the American culture, in the year 2000 Reform rabbis voted to affirm gay and lesbian unions.

  While supporting same-sex unions, the CCAR, which passed this resolution, left it to individual rabbis to decide whether to perform such union ceremonies and what kind of ritual to use.

  Conservative Judaism

  In its American form, Conservative Judaism embodies the sense of community and folk piety of modernizing eastern European Jews. While it respects traditional Jewish law and practice, it also advocates a flexible approach to Halakhah.

  The major Conservative Judaism institutions, all founded at the turn of the 20th century, are the Jewish Theological Seminary of America (JTSA), the United Synagogue of America (USA), and the Rabbinical Assembly (RA).

  The Reconstructionist movement founded by Mordecai M. Kaplan in the 1930s is seen an offshoot of the Conservative movement. Reconstructionism advocates religious naturalism while emphasizing Jewish peoplehood and culture.

  Reconstructionists began to ordain women rabbis in the 1970s, and in 1983 the JTSA voted to admit women to its rabbinical program and ordain them as Conservative rabbis.

  American Orthodoxy

  American Orthodoxy is not so much a distinct movement as it is a particular spectrum of existing traditionalist groups, ranging from the modern Orthodox—who attempt to integrate traditional observance with modern life—to some Hasidic sects who aim to shut out the modern world altogether.

  While the immigration to America of many traditionalist and Hasidic survivors of the Holocaust has strengthened the various factions of American Orthodoxy, no single national institution represents these groups.

  Significance of Israel

  American Judaism has been profoundly affected by the Nazi persecution and destruction of European Jewry and the founding of the modern state of Israel.

  The Holocaust and Israel are closely associated by most contemporary Jews as symbols of collective death and rebirth.

  Israel is more than just a country, it has a religious dimension that embodies Jewish self-respect and the promise of messianic fulfillment, and all movements in American Judaism—with the single exception of the ultra-Orthodox sectarians—have become more Israel-oriented in the past decades.

  Both the Reform and Conservative movements are still striving to achieve legal recognition and equal status with Orthodoxy in the state of Israel, where marriage, divorce, and conversion are controlled by the Orthodox rabbinate, backed in the government by the important National Religious Party.

  Judaism in Israel

  The modern state of Israel was founded by the Zionist movement as a secular democracy to reflect the national spirit of the Jewish people.

  The founders of the new Jewish state were mainly immigrants of Eastern European Ashkenazic origins, with decidedly secularist and socialist, rather than purely religions, perspectives. However, as soon as the independent state was established in 1948, it became the home of a much more diverse set of Jewish immigrants.

  Deeply pious traditionalist Jews from the ravaged ghettoes of Eastern Europe arrived simultaneously with equally pious Jews of Islamic lands from Morocco to Persia, whose lives had become untenable in their homelands.

  While most of Israel’s Jewish population has always regarded itself as secular in orientation, today perhaps a fifth of Jewish Israelis consider themselves to be devoted practitioners of Judaism. In addition, Israel’s large non-Jewish minorities—including Arabs and Armenians—practice various forms of Islam and Christianity.

  To accommodate this religious diversity, Israel, since its beginnings, has recognized the legitimacy of not only Judaism, but also Islam, and Christianity, and sees both as established religious institutions.

  The modern state of Israel also guarantees the freedom for all its citizens to practice—or not to practice—any religion they choose.

  Official Orthodox Judaism

  Even prior to the formation of the state of Israel, the main brand of Judaism practiced in Palestine under Ottoman and British rule were of Orthodox color. This was mainly due to the fact that Palestine had for centuries been the home of highly pious Jewish communities of both Ashkenazic and Sephardic origins.

  Additionally, ever since the 1890s, an important minority of the Zionist immigration had been Eastern European traditionalist Jews who saw in Zionism the beginnings of the messianic restoration of the Israelites to its land.

  Thus, when the Jewish state was created in 1948, these Orthodox Jews were poised to dictate terms on which they would participate in the government of the state. Among the concessions they won was the right to define Judaism in accord with the halakhic norms preserved from medieval Jewish tradition.

  While Reform and Conservative Jews are, naturally, welcomed as Jews to the Jewish state, to this very day their versions of Judaism are regarded as deviant. Accordingly, official Conservative and Reform religious communities are denied governmental support, and the rabbis of these movements may not perform legally binding wedding ceremonies or conversions in the state of Israel.

  The Zionist Orthodox

  As far as political orientation goes, most Orthodox Jews in Israel have Zionist leanings, and, despite its secular background, they accept Zionism as an authentic movement of Jewish national expression.

  The rabbinic leaders of this branch of orthodoxy are usually those first looked to as candidates when chief rabbinates are chosen; and the Zionist Orthodox—especially those with a strongly messianic view of the rebirth of Jewish statehood—have often played leading roles in establishing Jewish settlements in the West Bank territories occupied by Israel as a result of the Six-Day War of 1967.

  The Anti-Zionist Orthodox

  However, a small, but highly vocal (and influential), minority of Orthodox Jews in Israel are bitter opponents of Zionism. Their roots lie deep in the pre-Zionist Orthodox population of Palestine, but they also include many new voices of post-Holocaust immigrants, particularly those from Eastern Europe.

  This Orthodox faction generally regards Zionism as a heretical attempt by Jews to force God to end his decree of exile, and they regard their “exile in the Land of Israel under the Zionists” as even more bitter than the exile under medieval Christian or Islamic empires.

  The Non-Zionist Orthodox

  A third faction, the non-Zionist Orthodox, has largely the same ethnic roots as their anti-Zionist Orthodox brethren. However, they view Zionism as a religiously neutral fact, and the state of Israel for them—in contrast to the claims of the Zionist Orthodox—has no messianic meaning, but neither is it a demonic force, as the anti-Zionist Orthodox hold.

  Reform and Conservative Judaism

  Most Reform and Conservative Jews in Israel have immigrated from the Western democracies, particularly from the United States. While deeply committed to Israeli statehood and a continuing presence during Israel’s modern history, they have been largely unsuccessful in a base among native-born Israelis.

  Nevertheless, in recent years both movements have ordained native-born Israelis into their rabbinates, so some progress is being made.

  Needless to say, the leaders of both Reform
and Conservative Judaism are vocal lobbyists for breaking the prevailing Orthodox monopoly on defining the nature of Israeli Judaism.

  :: Christianity ::

  Today, Christianity is, by a wide margin, the largest of all world religions with substantial representation in all populated continents of the globe. Not surprisingly, at the turn of the 21st Century Christianity saw a total membership of nearly 2 billion people.

  Like any system of belief and values—whether Platonism, Marxism, Freudianism, or democracy—Christianity is in many ways comprehensible only from the inside—i.e., to those who share the Christian faith and beliefs and strive to live by Christian values.

  Doctrine and Practice

  Christianity is a community. It is a way of life. It is a system of belief. It is a liturgical observance; a tradition. As a religion, Christianity is all of these, and more.

  While each of these aspects of Christianity share attributes with other faiths, each also bears unmistakable marks of its Christian origins. That is why it is helpful—if not unavoidable—to examine Christian ideas and tenets comparatively, i.e., by relating them to those of other religions, while we also examine those features that are uniquely Christian.

  Central Teachings

  It is easier to describe Christianity historically than to define it logically, but such a description does yield insights into its lasting elements and essential characteristics.

  One such element is, of course, the person of Jesus Christ since he is, in one way or another, the key element in every historical variety of Christian belief and practice.

  However, all Christians have yet to agree on what makes Christ, the person, distinctive or unique. Naturally, they would all affirm that his life should be held up as an example, and should be followed, and that his teachings about love and fellowship teaches the best of human nature and relations.

  While much of his teachings echo the teachings not only of the rabbis of Judaism—he was a Jew, after all—but also echo the wisdom and teachings of Socrates, Confucius, and the Buddha, for the Christian, Jesus can be no less than the supreme preacher and exemplar of the moral life.

  What we know of the historical Jesus is what we are told about him in the Gospels of the New Testament of the Bible.

  Other portions of the New Testament summarize the beliefs of the early Christian church; and from even a cursory reading, it is clear that Paul and the other writers of Scripture believed that Jesus was the revealer not only of human life in its perfection but of divine reality itself.

  Jesus gave this divine reality a name. He called it “Father.” Consequently, his followers called him “Son.”

  Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection—which is what early Christians referred to when they spoke about him as the one who had reconciled humanity to God—made the cross the principal symbol of Christian faith and devotion, the sign of the eternal and saving love of God the Father.

  This love is, all through the New Testament and in subsequent Christian doctrine, the most significant among God’s attributes.

  Even today, Christians hold and teach that God Almighty is in dominion over all that is in heaven and on earth, that He is righteous in judgment over good and evil, that He is beyond time and space and change—and, above all, they teach that “God is Love.”

  According to the majority of Christians, the creation of the world out of nothing and the creation of the human race are expressions of God’s love, and so was the arrival and suffering of Christ, His only Son.

  The classic statement of this trust in the Love of God came with the words of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount: “Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?”

  In such words early Christianity found evidence both of the unique standing men and women have as children of such a heavenly Father and of the even more special position occupied by Christ, His Son.

  In fact, that special position led the first generations of believers to rank Jesus Christ along with the Father in stature—and eventually with the Holy Spirit as well, whom the Father had sent in Christ’s name—in the formula used in baptism and also in the several creeds formulated during the first centuries of the Common Era.

  After some additional reflection (and a healthy helping of argument and controversy) that view eventually settled down as the doctrine of God as Trinity.

  Baptism “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,” and sometimes just “in the name of Christ,” has from the beginning been the means of initiation. At first it seems to have been administered chiefly to adults after they had professed their faith and promised to amend their lives, but this would later turn into a more inclusive practice with the baptism of infants.

  Another universally accepted Christian ritual is the Eucharist, aka The Lord’s Supper, in which Christians share bread and wine (representing the body and blood of Christ) and, through them, express and affirm His spiritual presence.

  As the Eucharist developed, it became an elaborate ceremony of consecration and adoration, the texts of which have been set to music by numerous composers of masses. However, the Eucharist has also become one of the chief points of conflict among the various Christian churches, which disagree about the “presence” of Christ in the consecrated bread and wine and about the effect of that presence upon those who receive it.

  Another fundamental component of Christian faith and practice is the Christian community itself—the church. Since the word “church” appears only twice in the Gospels, some scholars question the assumption that Jesus intended to found one; but his followers have always been convinced that his promise to always be with them, “to the close of the age,” found its physical fulfillment in His mystical body on earth: the holy catholic church.

  Today, the relation of this holy catholic church to the many ecclesiastical organizations of worldwide Christendom is the source of major divisions among them. Roman Catholicism has tended to equate its own institutional structure with the catholic church, as the common usage of the latter term suggests, while some extreme Protestant groups have been all too ready to claim that they, and they alone, represent the true visible church.

  Increasingly, however, Christians of all denominations have begun to acknowledge that no one group has an exclusive right to call itself “the” church, and, today, a movement is afoot to work toward the reunion of all Christians.

  Worship

  Over the years, Christians of all traditions have placed strong emphasis on private devotion and individual prayer, as Jesus taught. But Jesus also prescribed a form of praying, universally known as the Lord’s Prayer, the opening words of which stress the communal nature of worship: “Our Father, who art in heaven.” Our Father.

  Since the times of the New Testament, the prescribed day for the communal worship of Christians has been the “first day of the week,” Sunday, in commemoration of the resurrection of Christ.

  Like the Jewish Sabbath, Sunday is traditionally a day of rest. It is also the time when believers gather to hear the reading and preaching of the word of God in the Bible, to participate in the sacraments, and to pray, praise, and give thanks.

  The needs of communal worship have spawned the composition of thousands of hymns, chorales, and chants, as well as instrumental music, especially for the organ, and since the 4th century Christian communities have also constructed special buildings for their worship—churches and cathedrals—thereby also helping shape the history of architecture.

  Christian Life

  The two principal Christian commandments are to love God, and to love your neighbor.

  However, the application of these two commandments alone to the various situations in life, whether personal and social, does not necessarily result in uniform moral or political behavior.

  Many Christians, for example, regard consuming any amount of alcohol as a sin whereas (many) others do not. Also, on any give
n question, you can find Christians on both sides of the political spectrum, as well as in the middle. Even so, with these obvious divides, we still speak of a single and unequivocal Christian way of life, a life informed by the call to reverence and service.

  And what the Christian “way of life” normally entails is the conviction of the inherent worth of every person as one who has been created in the image of God; it emraces the sanctity of human life and of marriage and of the family; it includes the imperative to strive for justice even in a fallen world. These dynamic moral commitments are accepted by most Christians, no matter where they fall on the political spectrum, and no matter how much their own conduct may fall short of these norms.

  This trait, however, is not uniquely Christian: almost every religion set moral standards that are almost—for the average follower—impossible to maintain, and it is evident already in the pages of the New Testament that the task of working out the applications and implications of an ethic of love under the conditions of worldly existence has never been easy; it is clear that there has, in fact, never been a “golden age” in which this was otherwise—think: Romans burning Christians for entertainment.

  Eschatology

  Christian doctrine, however—especially as expressed in the Christian hope for everlasting life—does hold the prospect of such a time. In fact, the historical Jesus (at least according to the Gospels) spoke of this hope with such immediacy that many of his followers clearly expected the end of the world and the arrival of the eternal kingdom in their own lifetimes.