The Project

So here are some basics to the background of the project.

Jews have followed the same rules for centuries upon centuries. Some of the practices that some Jews still keep (take the Sabbath day, for instance) are literally ancient.

The world that we live in now is so, so, so different than the world that these ideas were originally put together in. Why do we still follow them? (and by we, I don't really mean "we" - I certainly don't follow them). Are they still applicable today? Do we help or hurt ourselves and others by following the rules (and maybe even by following them to different extents).

I think that who I am (as a half-er, as I usually say) says a great deal about where the Jewish community in North America is. Alan Dershowitz argues in The Vanishing American Jew that intermarriage and assimilation are ending Judaism in America. So really, these two trends (upon which my existence is dependent) are killing Jewish culture in (North) America, according to Dershowitz. I own the book but I haven't been able to actually read it past maybe the first 20 pages because it makes me too angry. Anyways (as far as my understanding goes), he is saying that since Jews are accepted in general (North) American society (e.g. there isn't any systemic discrimination anymore - discrimination in employment, social club participation, and that sort of thing) we have begun to lose our roots. I have to say that I wouldn't be surprised if I could never finish his book because that idea makes me so frustrated. It makes me feel like I am unwanted in Jewish society, which I think is opposite to how I've felt about it being raised the way I was, even at arm's length of any Jewish community.

Enough about me though. How the project will work is that I will look into one (or a few - if they really go together) commandment and try and see how one might practice it and try and figure out what the point of it might have been originally. And then I will try and theorize to see if and how it can address issues that are going on today.

I would also like to see if I can get some other people to weigh in about what I'm talking about. I might be able to ask some questions of a few Rabbis, friends and family members who know about Judaism, and who knows who else!

Hopefully I will figure some things out and provide some interesting (and maybe even helpful) commentary. I would really appreciate that if you stumble across any of my thoughts and would like to leave a comment - please do! I would love to engage in some discussion about this because I really don't know what I'm doing or what I'm talking about.

With that, I'd like to leave you with a quote that I found in a great book today (Hope, not Fear: A Path to Jewish Renaissance, by Edgar M. Bronfman and Beth Zasloff). I started reading this today on the train and after about 15 or 20 pages I had already highlighted two passages and had goosebumps about a million times.

(In the preface to the new edition, page xi)

"The signs that the American Jewish community has indeed begun on a path to Jewish renaissance can be read not in the financial health of Jewish organizations, but in the energy and commitment of Jewish youth"

I would like to see us (young people, but specifically young Jewish people) take charge of our own destiny and do what we can to make this world what we think it can and maybe should be. I think that we have great potential and we often waste it, so I suppose this blog is my way to see if any of these ancient Jewish ideas (ideals?) can be translated into action that helps us make this world a more amazing place. We've inherited a lot of good and a lot of bad from our parents. Let's see if we can do a little better than they did, shall we?

Wish me luck folks - and keep me posted about your thoughts in the comments section.