Hello. I like Emerson a lot. I also agree with him about the Old Testament concepts of God at the center of both Judaism and Christianity (though I think that Jesus must have meant something different, as suggested in the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas). "The faith that stands on authority is not faith. The reliance on authority measures the decline of religion, the withdrawal of the soul." (Emerson)

Agreed. I'm sorry but, again, per the subject of this web site, traditional Judaism is the antithesis of Emerson's perspective. Judaism (read "Orthodox," the root of Jewish identity) is very heavy into LEGISLATION. Judaism is an avalanche of rules and systems of control. Judaism's God is quite a dictator. Christianity and Islam, of course, grew out of Judaism.

In a way, it's a blessing to have been born into a religious tradition that's so alien to my nature - and also to have grown up shy and introspective in extroverted, materialistic America. The experience of alienation itself has become a point of connection and empathy with other people. And if not for my Jewish origins, I wouldn't be talking with you, and anything we might have to learn from each other would be lost.

Well, I understand. I think this actually contributes to so many people of Jewish heritage crawling back to Judaism in later life (and people of other faiths, for that matter). Alienation from other human beings and the oppressively dehumanizing nature of high-tech consumer culture is a defining ingredient in modern life, especially urban life. Joining a clan of some kind can fulfill people's primal needs. A bunch of absolute rules are thrown in your direction to follow, now you're part of a "community," and you don't have to think any more. Just follow the rules.

FORMER COMMENT BY JTR WEBMASTER: The now antiquated use of "manhood" as reference to humanity aside, this quote has always interested me. It's about individualism, the way that oppressive social convention robs the individual's personal soul quest. Don't you think?

Yes...it's very true. I think that real universality (and fellowship) always starts from a place of aloneness or inwardness: the recognition that we're all strangers in a strange land, each alone in these vulnerable, improbable bodies and alone with God. "All are naked, none is safe." (Marianne Moore) And: "Great is the soul, and plain. It is no flatterer, it is no follower; it never appeals from itself. It believes in itself." (Emerson again) Universalism and individualism are two sides of the same reality.

That's an enormous paradox. But life is rife with paradox.

The most moving spiritual writings, like the poems of Rumi or the diaries of Etty Hillesum, are both universal and uniquely personal. That Rumi was a Sufi and Etty Jewish-born makes no difference to me.

Sorry. I haven't the slightest idea who Etty Hillesum is/was.

Etty's diaries are especially meaningful to me because she was a woman like me in many ways, and the diaries document her transformation from a worldly, neurotic young woman into a truly free human being. (The last words in it are: "We must be willing to act as a balm for all wounds.")

Well, your self-definition of once being "neurotic" gives me pause here. What is it about Jewish experience that foregrounds that as a kind of norm in the Jewish realm? (Woody Allen is of course the stereotype for it). I have my own ideas about it. But, irregardless of what I think, it's obvious that many, many people of Jewish descent have a serious hurdle here. It seems that "being Jewish," so often in an elitist sense, often entails this "neurosis" of which you speak. Another paradox. A key towards evolving out of this dilemma would seem to be the spirited flying away from the troubled "Jewish" cocoon, which nurtures such a problem.

FORMER COMMENT OF JTR WEBMASTER: I too have rose stories, as I suspect you do. I can conjure up favorite words and delight in the ambiguous sound of them. As you might. And I can spin in circles in a Sufi trance with no aim towards anything materially discernible as, perhaps, you may.

It was nice to read those things; you're more of a real person to me now. Yes, I have stories, too, and favorite words. (discernible. whisper. lunch.) Rumi has been my only contact with Sufism - can you recommend something to read?

Well, I'm not an expert of Sufism. (Rumi is of course one of the most famous Sufis). I've read a few academic texts about it, I've talked to some people involved in Sufism, and I respect it a great deal. But I don't accept those many Sufi sects that are headed by "masters" who are afforded leadership by virtue of their genealogical links to former "masters." (Reference here our earlier comments about the free spirit quest of individualist Emerson).

I listened to an audiotape "Poems of Rumi," translated and spoken by Robert Bly & Coleman Barks, a few weeks ago. It's accompanied by a Middle Eastern music group (sitar, flute, etc.) I found it very moving. I was almost moved to tears by a couple of the pieces. Because, you know, that's the way great poetry works (and of course this must suffer translation from the original Persian): the listener/reader recognizes the absolute rightness of what is being said, and it startles. It's like recognizing an old friend -- one you didn't know you had. It's also like being jolted awake -- in a very good sense. It's the sudden emotional release of wanting to laugh and cry at the same time -- about the human condition.

I'll tell you one of my stranger stories...the summer after college, I volunteered in an inner-city shelter for the homeless. I worked as the cook, though I had no qualifications for the job at all. It was overwhelming, and the guests of that place were generally not nice people. I got harrassed a lot by young men hardened by prison and life on the street. On a particularly bad day, I was in a foul mood, wondering what I was doing there cooking for these awful people. There was a window cut into the wall between the kitchen and the common room, and I served the meals through it. A mentally retarded man with whom I'd never spoken came up to the window for his mid-day snack. He filled his plate, then looked at me with gentle blue eyes and said, "Thank you. You're a good person, and God will take care of you. God will bless you." After he walked away, I went into the pantry and cried. It's a powerful thing to be blessed by a stranger. It changed everything.

True. My life may have been saved by a stranger a couple years ago. In any case, he saved me an ENORMOUS amount of trouble and suffering. After his aid, I offered him the $100 I had on me for his help (about an hour of his time, which he simply volunteered in my behalf). In some sense my offer was crass, but it seemed like the "polite" thing to do in our consumer culture. As I knew he would, he refused it. Such was his moral fibre. It was a very humbling experience for me, to be lifted from suffering by this man's mercy. And I told him that, you know, I will pass his compassion on to a stranger too. It's a kind of energy, a circle, a loop, a chain, and when the time comes that I can pull someone out of well or drag someone out of a burning car, I will do it. I must. It is linking hands in some kind of vast continuum. And it's karma too. If you avoid the chance to help someone at your footsteps in need, you will be afforded your own medicine when it's YOUR turn to be in trouble. You must help, if you can. Even if the person at your feet is your enemy.

I point out to you that this is not Talmudic tradition. And, in this context, I again point out to you "karma": what goes around, comes around. As metaphor for Jewish history.

I also point out that, as you surely know, GIVING is far, far more satisfying than RECEIVING. I learned this a long time ago. There is an enormous sense of self-worth in sacrificing part of oneself for the aid of others. Maybe sounds corny. But it's true.

Ultimately I end up with...it's very difficult to be a human being. The hardest thing is to accept the gift and responsibility of our freedom. It's easier to be safe than free (but "none is safe.") Anyone who is struggling with their personal spirituality vs. the demands and restrictions - and comforts - of their culture or tradition has my compassion and support. I also admire anyone who returns to their community of origin as a "stranger" (Jesus suddenly comes to mind) to help bring about transformation.

Well, I'm not sure what you mean here. Jesus was a rebel in his day. He rebelled, of course, against the Jewish religious hierarchy.

My personal sense, for what it's worth, is that the transformation of Judaism must come from the re-emergence and expansion of its long-ignored mystical tradition, in which Jerusalem has no meaning as a place, only as a state of being...and that human spirituality in general must move from the fundamentalist to the mystical (where the universal and individual mind meet). Any thoughts?

Well, I've read commentary by people I respect (including Israel Shahak, who is a SEVERE critic of Judaism) who points out that strains of Jewish mysticism are racist in nature. In any case, how can mysticism be "Jewish?" Or Christian or Muslim for that matter. It's absurd. The true mystical searcher transcends such inane anchors. The idea is to get past such ethnocentric folly. The mystic is a mystic. Period. And when he/she floats into true Consciousness even the term "mystic" is senseless -- just another rope holding down the air balloon.

In other words, the "transformation of Judaism" is totally meaningless/trivial to a true mystic. That's like looking for the life pulse in a plastic ornament on a giant oak tree.

Some lines from Rilke came to mind:

Our life passes in transformation. And the external shrinks into less and less. Where once an enduring house was, now a cerebral structure crosses our path, completely belonging to the realm of concepts, as though it still stood in the brain. Our age has built itself vast reservoirs of power, formless as the straining energy that it wrests from the earth. Temples are no longer known. It is we who secretly save up these extravagances of the heart. Where one of them still survives, a Thing that was formerly prayed to, worshipped, knelt before -- just as it is, it passes into the invisible world. Many no longer perceive it, yet miss the chance to build it *inside* themselves now, with pillars and statues: greater.
Jody

These are fine words by Rilke. But one of my philosophies of life is that you -- whoever you are, Queen or washerwoman -- also have the full capacity to write, to see, to know, to articulate, in every sense as valuable as famous "Rilke." That most people cannot do it -- and are not even interested in trying -- is a consequence of consumer culture value systems and priorities. When I said that I nearly wept to Bly's and Coleman's translation of Rumi, I meant too that the truth I understood encouraged me to pick up a pen and write too. To dance too. To sing too. To play a stone like a flute. To toss my little dirty hat like an acorn in the ENORMOUS Ring of everything. To listen, you know, to the awesome music of our blood climbing up our veins.

Are we straying from the subject of this web site? Maybe. Maybe not.