Since I get the digest version of LOlist I will reply to everyone at once
:-) Please excuse the length, I don't post that often. (If I got the
individual messages I probably would....)
To Winfried and Donald and Rick:
Well, it was starting to look like a flame war.......if it stays at the
dialogue level, great! Taken aback by the vociferous responses, I reread
my original message, which said: "Religious flame wars ignite briefly on
this list about every 6 months...." This is an accurate and I think pretty
mild description of my experience on this list for 2 years. The fact that
they are brief or return rapidly to dialogue mode is due to Rick's
excellent moderating and the collective will to keep a certain tone on the
list. Several who emailed me privately were also disturbed by the turn
the thread was taking. ( I agree with Rick that this list is less
flame-like than any other I know -- thank you, Rick!)
Upon reflection, I think all religions and ethnic continuities are LOs,
having all grappled with challenges such reacting to persecution (or in
business, killing competition), establishing an authority and moderating
that authority, schisms (or office politics), codifying and transmitting
knowledge --both exoteric (explicit) and esoteric (tacit). (A new LOlister
-- a rabbi -- privately emailed me that he sees Judaism's process of
"midrash" (accumulated commentary on basic texts) as having something to
offer those struggling with preserving intellectual capital. I hope he
shares those insights with this list at some point.)
I know there are modern organizations which have "reinvented" themselves
in the face of annihilation. What can they learn from historical groups
which have lived through this? How to keep the connection to the valued
past is an especially poignant issue to which Ray alluded in his message
on chauvinism.
I recently reread Michael Ventura's excellent essay "Hear That Long Snake
Moan" (from his book "Shadow Dancing") about the development of Voudun in
the New World as those taken in slavery struggled to keep their religion
and metaphysics. As he describes how voudun was synthesized, under
conditions of extreme poverty and cultural stress, from disparate African
religions, so that what was created was related to but very different from
the mother religions, I am reminded of how during the 2nd century CE
Judaism was reformulated from the ashes of the Temple and the remnants of
a people battered almost to extinction by the Romans. (I have just
started a Talmud class and I expect to get more insight into just how we
transformed Temple Judaism into Rabbinic Judaism.)
David Lyle-Carter wrote:
>...it seems clear to me that all the religious teachings, East and
>West, have pointed out that there are those who talk about God and there
>are those who experience him/her. The experience, it seems, lies not in
>stirring up the mind with intellectual chatter, but rather in stilling it
>in order to allow our latent human soul qualities to be expressed
>unhindered.
Amen. Yet we are all attached to our particular routes to this experience,
and many of us have history with each other. Our particularities are
precious to us; I agree with Ray that those particularities are where the
tacit knowledge resides. It seems to me the problem is learning to respect
each other's particularities, which inevitably means working through the
history. (At the risk of stirring the flames, let me point out that
Christianity has a lousy track record of respecting others'
particularities.)
Any attempt to take spirituality into the workplace (or schoolplace) will
cause many to feel that their particularities are being threatened, and
there has been enough cultural genocide in this world that these fears
cannot be dismissed. (On another list some time ago, a Christian spoke of
being offended by what he thought of as "New-Age" practices (he meant
"talking stick" and suchlike) foisted upon him by OD practitioners who I'm
sure thought their methods were benign. So if you turn the ox loose your
butt may also be gored, as the USA founding fathers knew when they
advocated a separation of religion and state.)
David Hurst wrote:
>...The early Christians were almost certainly much more oriented to
>community than to creed and the renewals that have taken place over the
>centuries have usually (always?) been directed at getting back to the
>egalitarian, communitarian roots. For example I have argued that the
>first industrial revolution sprang from the activities of the Dissenters
>who rejected the hierarchy of the priests and the authority of the text
>in favour of an individual search for the Spirit in a communal context.
I agree, David (and Winfried too). I overstated the case a little the
other way to make a point. We do use the same Holy book, and even if
there are many divergences in translation which have LARGE effects on
practice and history, they are not 2 different books. Jesus was a Jew,
and he drew on the prophetic tradition and the Decalogue that many
Christians claim as heritage along with Jews. I am not trying to take
that away. Jewish history also has its rhythm of stifling hierarchy
alternating with populist rebellion fueled by prophets and mystics (one of
which periods Jesus participated in, another birthed the Hassidic
movement).
I still think my point was worth making. Almost all religions teach
compassion, social justice, gratitude for existance, techniques for
accessing "that which is beyond understanding," etc. In this Judaism and
Christianity are similar, but so are Islam, Buddhism, Wicca........
As Winfried points out, if you talk about the "monotheistic religions" you
must include Islam. Islam and Judaism's concepts of monotheism are more
similar to each other than to Christianity. During the Middle Ages (before
the Crusades drove the Moors back across the Mediterranean) Judaism and
Islam influenced each other and were allies against Christian aggression;
although Jews were 2nd-class citizens under Islam, they were protected
from Christian massacres. Muslims respect the Torah, and Abraham as a
common ancestor. Much Jewish poetry and philosophy was originally written
in Arabic. Moorish culture brought musical innovations and the concept of
courtly love into Christiandom. Jesus is a revered figure in Sufi Islam.
So why hyphenate Judaism and Christianity together and leave out Islam?
What is the underlying agenda?
To Barry Mallis:
Did i ever tell you that as a result of your many posts last year, you
turned me on to Rumi? I am very grateful. I included 3 Rumi poems in our
High Holy Days readings last year (as liturgy chair in a rather
experimental congregation, I get to foist all sorts of mind-bending stuff
on people......).
Also-- although Catholicism has (finally) recinded the Doctrine of
Supercessionalism (that Christianity answers all of Judaism's questions,
and therefore Judaism has no valid reason to exist), many Protestants have
not. For example, the Southern Baptists in the USA voted just this year to
make conversion of the Jews one of their top priorities! From
acknowledging Judaism as the base of Christianity, it is too easy a leap
(to judge by the centuries of persecution that doctrine has justified) to
denying the validity of our path.
To James Carrington:
Any Jew I have ever discussed this with, the phrase "Judeo-Christian" sets
their teeth on edge. I grant that you have a Jewish friend who feels
differently. To use your friend's view to try to invalidate mine ..... Ray
could probably admonish you gently if you played that game with his
people. I don't have his patience or delicacy -- I'll just say your
comment is tacky.
David continued:
>...It's also been a marvellous cradle for nurturing
>entrepreneurs........I found a similar pattern in the dynamics of the
>Quaker communities of the First Industrial Revolution. They too did not
>separate science or business from religion and excelled in these areas.
Many immigrant communities fit into this pattern. Thomas Sowell's "Ethnic
in America" (book) and "Middleman Minorities" (article, I forget which
magazine) discuss this at length. I and most Jews I know get nervous when
others praise us for this cultural trait; too often we have been
scapegoated for it. So have other ethnic groups functioning as traders in
cultures where they are the minority, for example, the "overseas Chinese"
who are major entrepreneurs throughout Southeast Asia are often referred
to as "the Jews of the East," and have suffered persecution from native
populations, likewise Indians in Uganda.
Sowell found that Black immigrants to the USA from the West Indies had a
much higher level of achievement and income, as a rule, than Blacks whose
ancestors were slaves here in the USA, and were more likely to bootstrap
themselves via shopfront entrepreneurship. His explanations: Slaves in
the West Indies were permitted to work land for themselves and sell the
produce, slaves in the USA could not and lost group entrepreneurial acumen
(talk about tacit knowledge!). Secondly, those who emigrate are
pre-selected for initiative and energy. Thirdly, shop-front
entrepreneurship is an economic niche made to order for people with no
money who don't speak their hosts' language or share their customs. It is
also a common pattern that the shop-front entrepreneurs, who are fueled by
desire for achievement or security or both, send the next generation to
college (and the generation after that drops out and goes in search of
"authentic" "primitive" culture....... :-) ).
I'm aware that this kind of analysis can be put in the service of racism,
as our Lino Graglia exhibited last week (I live in Austin). As Ray was
saying, there are many kinds of knowledge and many kinds of intelligence,
and the Western world only values some of them. A growing concern within
the Jewish community is that we institutionalize and abort Downs-syndrome
children at a higher rate than other groups. This is what an over-emphasis
on intellectual achievement can lead to (although the terror behind that
emphasis, fueled by generations of persecution, is understandable).
--Judith Weiss jsweiss@mail.utexas.edu http://galaxy.tradewave.com/editors/weiss/JSW.html
"We are weary of being tested by technology, but that seems to be the condition and challenge of the 21st century." -- Michael Ventura
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>