Distortions Dominate Jewish Life : Renewal: The essence of Judaism is at variance with the institutions of Jewish life.

The Prophets of Biblical times sharply contrasted the essence of God’s message with the distortions being committed in the name of Judaism in the existing Temple worship. In modern times, Jews seeking spiritual, intellectual renewal have come to recognize that the essence of Judaism--its message that the God who rules the universe is the power that makes possible a transformation from a world of oppression to a world of compassion and liberation--is at wild variance with the existing institutions of Jewish life.

Jewish liberals have a unique opportunity to change those dynamics if they can:

- Democratize Jewish communal life. The major Jewish organizations that speak in the name of American Jews are unrepresentative of Jews under 50 and are controlled by fund-raisers and large donors. We need democratic elections to create local and national leaders more in touch with the aspirations and sensibilities of all Jews, not just members of self-perpetuating Jewish organizational elites.

-- Respiritualize Jewish life. Replace the cynical focus on fund-raising and power with an emphasis on reclaiming idealism, ethical sensitivity and spiritual awareness. Eliminate the assumption that anyone who gets to be 13 and can read some words without understanding them automatically becomes Bar or Bat Mitzvah. Replace that with the requirement that each young woman or man develop a yearlong project of spiritual involvement. Similarly, ban all awards and testimonial dinners and replace them with public events honoring those who have learned Jewish texts, engaged in acts of compassion and become involved in projects of tikkun olam (healing, repair and transformation of the world). Put the Torah tradition back in the center of Jewish life.

-- Reclaim the revolutionary aspects of the Jewish tradition. Judaism was born as a religion of those who had seen the power of God to overthrow the greatest imperial power in history. Judaism proclaimed the power of a God who championed the widows, the orphans, the strangers, the powerless. Ruling elites, threatened by this message, have for thousands of years stirred up their own domestic populations to fear and distrust us. No wonder, when thousands of years of persecution culminated in the Holocaust, that so many American Jews concluded that the way to protect themselves from irrational hatreds was to persuade the ruling elites that Jews could go along, not cause problems, fit in. We American Jews must allow ourselves to reclaim the confrontative and revolutionary aspects of our religion, not only for Judaism’s survival but because the rest of the world needs to hear this message of transformation and healing.

-- Align ourselves with the poor, the homeless, the oppressed. Yes, we’ve been disappointed when blacks rewarded previous efforts with anti-Semitism. I understand why some Jews have turned inward and think that other people’s suffering isn’t “a Jewish issue.” But others’ pain often gets manipulated in anti-Semitic ways (that’s happening again in Germany and Eastern Europe), so healing the world’s pain and cruelty and creating societies that repudiate cynicism and self-interest and that value trust and mutual caring are really self-interest issues for Jews.

-- Help reshape American politics to move beyond individual rights to a politics of meaning. American society today hungers not only for jobs, though they are indispensable, but also for a sense of meaning and purpose in life, a way to root oneself in something that transcends self and roots us in a meaningful past and hopeful future. This need has been manipulated by right-wing forces in destructive ways, but the Jewish tradition has some ideas for how those same needs could be addressed within a framework committed to social justice and equality. Young Jews can be won back only if the Jewish world’s sense of mission has something to say to the larger society. If the logic of self-interest brings us to the looting after the Rodney King verdict, to President Bush’s attempt to sacrifice our trees and our endangered species to win votes among loggers, to the destruction of the resources of the planet for short-term profit, then Jews should be proposing a different logic, the logic of Torah, of stewardship and mutual caring.

The dramatic and unexpected transformation in Israeli politics has taught us that significant changes are possible. Now it’s up to American Jews to reclaim their own institutions. Nothing would be more helpful to the larger social changes that a Clinton Administration would seek than for Jews to take back their own communal life from the fat cats and conformists who run it today. What is so exciting about 1992 is that such a possibility is not a fantasy but a practical possibility. And if that can happen in the Jewish world, count on even more dramatic changes in the world of American politics in the 1990s.