The Lilith Blog

This week I have been thinking about what we choose to reveal and conceal about ourselves when we do political work. We’ve all heard the endless debates about “political correctness.” On one side there are the people who insist on the use of certain terminology. On the other side are those who say “What’s in a name?” Then there are those who point out that some people and institutions hide behind the “correct” language in order to mask oppressive realities (for example, “workplace diversity initiatives” that merely attempt to paper over deep-seated racism in hiring practices).

Language is obviously extremely important to political work. I constantly identify potential allies by the language they use — even when I’ve met someone minutes ago, I feel camaraderie with them once they indicate through a few key words that they’re tuned in to a particular political community. (For example, a potential new housemate came to check out my apartment yesterday. Once she said “CUNY,” “structural violence,” “locality,” and “anthology,” I started grinning and said “You should move in.”) And this is not about prejudice or stereotyping — when someone can converse freely in a particular jargon, it does indicate that they have substantial experience with a certain political milieu. This shared experience makes a certain level of intimacy possible — the same way that certain conversations become possible when you find out that the person you’ve just met is a Reconstructionist Jew just like you.

On the other hand, classifying people based on their language usage can oversimplify things. Some people share the same vocabulary but use it in different ways — and some people have entirely different vocabularies but the same — or at least compatible — values. (To continue the Reconstructionist analogy, different Reconstructionists can have different theologies, and one Reconstructionist may find that her theology has a lot in common with the theology of a particular Orthodox Jew that she meets.) Once the initial “Oh, you are? I am too!” passes, we may learn many things about each other that surprise us or contradict our assumptions. I’ve learned the hard way to be flexible about language — just because someone uses language in a different way than I do doesn’t mean that “they’ve gone over to the side of evil.” It might mean that they aren’t aware of something, and would be happy to be informed. It might also mean that I’m not aware of something, and if I ask them to clarify, I’ll learn something new. Or, it might just mean that there are different ways to say the same thing, each of which is grounded in a particular set of experiences. (Or that multiple things are all true, even if they seem to contradict at first glance!)

And sometimes, knowing all the “right language” can be a way to avoid engaging with the honest reality of doing political work. We’ve all known the people who say all the right things but don’t apparently know why they’re doing the work they’re doing, or who appear passionate and committed but then suddenly drop out and disappear. I’ve been that person in the past, easily able to rattle off a well-cited explanation for a certain phenomenon or political strategy, but struck dumb when asked a question like “Do you enjoy being part of this community?”

What I’ve noticed is that I’ve been able to develop my political self-awareness and integrity by paying attention to those moments in which language becomes messy. After all, I can’t stop feeling certain things just because I believe that I “shouldn’t” — I learn a lot more when, rather than denying or ignoring my experience, I observe and explore it. If I ask questions about why I might feel that way, I sometimes learn something new. For example, I’m all for gender egalitarianism in Judaism, and I dislike the gender binary (so much so that I prefer gender-neutral pronouns), and yet I sometimes enjoy being in a synagogue with a women’s section! What’s going on here?

My housemate told me another relevant story the other day. He used to be heavily involved in the politically conscious hip-hop scene. He told me that he met another artist who had a reputation for being somewhat self-righteous. The guy was putting on some brand-new Nikes (Nikes has been notorious for paying sweatshop workers next to nothing and then turning around and marketing exorbitantly-priced sneakers to impoverished urban youth). My housemate commented on the shoes, and the artist laughed and acknowledged that despite everything he stood for, he still liked to wear some nice Nikes. My housemate thought to himself, “Hey, this guy is human after all.” After some more conversation, the artist explained that as a biracial man, it was important to him to wear nice, styling sneakers (an important signifier of black masculinity) in order to publicly establish his black identity.

In my experience, it is important to create space for this type of conversation when engaging in political work. (And yes, a certain degree of trust needs to be established in order for such conversations to become possible — if someone says something I disagree with, I’m much more likely to believe that they’re wrestling with the complexity of the issue in a serious way if they are someone I know and trust.) I see this as one of the places in which spirituality is valuable in political work. To me, it is a spiritual process to cultivate enough self-awareness to know how we really feel about things, and to develop relationships in which we can explore those feelings honestly, no matter how surprising or shameful they seem to us at first glance. And it is through this process that we develop new insights about what we should be working towards. What does justice look like? What role does each of us have in bringing about a just world? Finding our place in the work becomes possible when we honestly assess what we, ourselves, want and need to build, and what we personally find exhausting or fulfilling.

–Ri J. Turner

In last week’s post, I wrote about some of my experiences growing up Jewish in New Mexico, living with fear of assimilation as well as attraction to certain aspects of Christian spirituality.

This week I want to reflect on some of the broader political and spiritual implications of what we might call “theological assimilation,” or the fact that many of us have a “Default G-d” idea that is derived from the mainstream Protestant theology that is ambient in the US. In the US, when someone says “G-d,” the words “faith,” “belief,” and “doctrine” aren’t too far from our minds (in my experience, at least). To me, this reflects the fact that this country is essentially mainstream Protestant, and as a result, Protestant theology pervades our “national” idea of “G-d,” no matter what faith background we come from. How does this “Default G-d” contribute to Jewish theological assimilation in the U.S.? (Now, I’m no theologian, and my knowledge of the history of religion is spotty at best, so keep in mind that I’ll be speaking as a layperson. I would love to hear the thoughts of other laypeople, and also of any experts out there who think I’ve got something here, or even that I’m totally off the wall!)

To state the obvious, Christianity and Judaism have been influencing each other for centuries, so the impact of Christianity on Jewish theology is neither new nor specifically United-Statesian. However, I think the fact that many young US Jews (not to mention Christians) have grown up with little exposure to Jewish theology and practice means that Christianity has the ability to influence with a broad brush (perhaps unlike earlier eras when Christianity was subtly, or forcibly, influencing Jews who were profoundly steeped in Jewish life). In my experience, many non-observant Jews from my generation and my parents’ generation unconsciously “fill in the blanks” of what we know about Judaism with concepts borrowed from US Protestantism.

I began thinking about this two weeks ago when I was trying to explain my relationship with G-d to an agnostic friend. I found myself explaining to her that I consider myself to have a relationship with G-d, but I don’t necessarily “believe in G-d” or have “faith in G-d” or subscribe to any doctrinal “creed” about the literal existence of or nature of G-d.

At first I thought that I was using these terms because I was speaking to an agnostic — someone who feels no conviction about the existence of G-d — and thus I was attempting to emphasize the non-literalness of my relationship with G-d so that she could better relate to my experience. However, upon further reflection, I recognized that the terms I was using (belief, faith, creed, doctrine) were all terms that I associate with Protestantism’s emphasis on redemption through faith in the literal existence of a supernatural, omnipotent, tripartite God. In other words, my sense of “what it generally means to believe in G-d,” and my (correct) assumption about the G-d my agnostic friend feels distant from, were fundamentally based in a Protestant theology.

Furthermore, while I usually think of myself as a “new Jew” theologically (i.e. someone who has departed from a traditional, literal theology in favor of a highly metaphorical, eclectic theology), it is possible that my theology is actually quite traditional in some respects, and that one of the main reasons it seems highly non-traditional (or, more precisely, non-literal) is because I’m comparing it to Protestantism, rather than to traditional Judaism. (In other words, when I was explaining my relationship to G-d to my friend, I felt at first that I was explaining how G-d fits in with “modernity,” but perhaps I was simply explaining how G-d fits into Judaism as opposed to Protestantism.)

Now, the friend to whom I was speaking is a non-Jew. However, I’ve had similar experiences with Jews. For example, when I told one of my sisters that I was considering rabbinical school, she said, “That’s nice, but I really don’t get it.” After talking with her further, I discovered that “it” means “G-d”: she feels utterly unrelated to the concept of G-d. This is one reason, I think, that throughout her adult life she has been essentially uninvolved with Jewish practice. Now, far be it from me to say that everyone should be involved with organized religion. However, I think it’s somewhat sad, or at least ironic, that there are Jews who feel removed from Judaism because they experience “an inability to believe” in G-d — since the “ability to believe” is, in my experience, primarily a Protestant concept. While G-d as a figure is certainly at the core of Judaism, the “ability to believe” in a specific theological manifestation of G-d seems to me to be peripheral at most. (Admittedly, in some cases, this confusion may spring from the fact that a particular local Jewish community isn’t providing any compelling spiritual alternative to doctrinal theology.)

Now, I know that Protestantism is more than just the Creeds, and not all Protestants emphasize doctrine (and not all Jews don’t!). But I think that there is a prevalent stereotype, among both Christians and Jews, that having a relationship with G-d means “believing in G-d.” And this is unfortunate, because there are lots of other ways to relate to G-d besides “believing,” and these other ways don’t get enough press — with the result that people who will never “believe in G-d” are unnecessarily exiled from spiritual life, which is a loss for everyone. I’ve had several friends say to me that they “just can’t get into the G-d thing,” but wish they had access to the community life and the deep meaning on which their religious friends seem to thrive. When I peel off what I imagine to be the “Protestant overlay,” it seems to me that traditional Jewish theology may provide a storehouse of useful tools for relating to G-d in ways other than through “faith,” and as a nascent spiritual leader, I’m interested in exploring how to offer those tools to those who are intrigued but as yet uninvolved.

–Ri J. Turner

Happy (belated) Chanukkah to all you readers!

The winter holiday season is a time when many United-Statesian Jews become aware of their level of visibility. (By the way, I like to use the term “United-Statesian” rather than American to respect our hemispheric neighbors, who also consider themselves American, but don’t live in the US.) We United-Statesian Jews may feel invisible when we are wished “Merry Christmas” for the hundredth time, and we may feel hypervisible moments later if we choose to respond, “Actually, I’m Jewish.” (See Nancy Goodman’s recent post below for stories of Jewish visibility in Idaho during the winter holidays.)

Since I’ve been living in Brooklyn, and avoiding malls and the radio, I haven’t been too overwhelmed by the Christmas behemoth this year. Nevertheless, I can’t help but be reminded at this time of year that I’m living in a predominantly Christian country.

I don’t know about you, but I grew up hearing my mom say things like “Oh G-d, that sounds so Christian,” for example when she encountered certain specimens of contemporary Reform liturgy. Similarly, a Jewish friend of mine (also someone I’ve know from childhood) was recently telling me that she finds it “too Christian” when a mutual Jewish friend of ours says things like “G-d was working through me.” “That Jew is too Christian” — sound familiar? (Not a rhetorical question — please leave comments about your experiences!)

As a community of “Jews becoming white folks” (click here to learn about Karen Brodkin’s excellent book on this subject), I think United-Statesian Jews are understandably jumpy about “sounding Christian.” I also think it’s no accident that the Jews I knew growing up (in Los Alamos, NM) were particularly sensitive to this issue, since many of them were displaced East Coast Jews who were raising children in an overwhelmingly white Protestant community. (Let me not neglect to mention the many Hispanic Christians who were also living in the area. However, due to high levels of professional and class segregation along racial lines, my parents and the other Jewish parents that I knew did not view most Hispanic adults as their peers–nor most Hispanic children as our peers–and thus did not consider Hispanic Christians to be a serious threat to our Jewishness.)

Something that complicated the situation in Los Alamos was that, in my experience, the Jewish community was somewhat spiritually uninspired. From my mom’s mutterings about people and things that were “too Christian,” I knew that I was supposed to hold on to my Jewishness. And, I shared some of my parents’ skepticism about and fear of Christianity (or, perhaps more accurately, of Christianity’s dominance), especially as I began to confront the subtle anti-Semitism and the conservative political leanings of the white Protestant community, who dominated local affairs. Also, my father raised me to be fiercely anti-dogmatic, and I knew well that local Protestant churches were highly doctrinal.

On the other hand, I was always deeply spiritual, and the local Jewish community, where most people seemed to attend “because it would look bad if we weren’t there,” just wasn’t doing it for me. The following anecdote will give you an idea of the extent to which personal practice went unacknowledged: I remember practicing reading the V’Ahavta in my Hebrew school class, at age 10 or 11. I was able to read it quickly, and I mentioned that this was because I recited it twice a day as part of my personal practice. Upon observing my classmates’ expressions, I quickly blushed and said “Just kidding” — because I distinctly felt that by admitting to a personal practice and a personal relationship with G-d, I had rendered myself ridiculous in their eyes, and thus dangerously vulnerable. (To be fair to the Jewish community of Los Alamos, I think there were, and are, many highly intentional and spiritually committed people at the Jewish Center. It is possible that the community was as embarrassed about faith and personal practice as I remember, but it is also quite possible that I grew up feeling so vulnerable about my own faith that I projected my own embarrassment and judgment onto the community at large.)

As a result of all this, I was slowly being drawn into the local Lutheran church, where my best friend (now studying to be a Lutheran pastor) attended services. No, I didn’t believe in the Father, the Son, or the Holy Ghost, but dang it all, the congregents seemed to be there because they wanted to be there, and because they cared about G-d and about living reflective and generous lives. They might have cared too much about doctrine and blind faith for my taste (although I did try really hard to believe in their G-d, in order to do away with these obstacles), but they seemed to have a level of intention and commitment that I just wasn’t finding over at the Jewish Center.

So I didn’t want to be one of those “too Christian” Jews, but I also was beginning to be attracted to some aspects of local Protestant communities (and I was bombarded, like most United-Statesian children, by the ambient Protestant theology of the mainstream US). What was I to do?

I’m going to sign off for now, but next week, I’ll share some of my questions and reflections about the prevalence of Protestant theology in the US mainstream, and its effects on Jewish theological assimilation.

–Ri J. Turner

Hi everyone, my name is Ri, and this is my inaugural post as a Lilith blogger. To find out more about me and my writing, check out my bio here.

Here’s the question that I hope to explore with you all here on the Lilith blog: What does Judaism — and particularly Jewish spirituality — have to do with activism?

To me this is a question about understanding the relationship between my tiny personal world and the “big world out there.” If I sleep poorly, or have a fight with a friend, or start keeping Shabbat — do these things have anything to do with race? Gender? Economic systems? International relations?

Sometimes I see myself as a magnet, being drawn back and forth between two poles. Sometimes I throw myself wholeheartedly into the political, only to be drawn back, sometimes violently, to focus on developing balance in my personal life (balance — which for me is at the core of spirituality). Inevitably, that focus only lasts so long before I am snatched back into political life with a bump. Is it possible to integrate these two aspects of my life, to acknowledge their intersections, to get beyond the feeling that they’re in conflict?

I’ve known for a while that my activism is inspired by my knowledge about how I fit into the big picture. When large-scale social injustice feels irrelevant to me (as it sometimes can, due to the insulation afforded me by my relatively privileged race, class, and citizenship statuses), or when oppression seems so big and overwhelming that I don’t know where to start — in those moments, it’s easy to throw up my hands and say “I can’t do anything anyway, so forget about it.” And yet I know that I’m implicated, and that even if I could “forget about it,” “it” will never forget about me.

I also know that when I work on these issues without understanding why they matter to me personally, I am not effective, and I don’t find the work sustainable. A quote attributed to Australian Murri activist Lilla Watson sums up this idea: “If you have come here to help me, then you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.”

I don’t think I’m alone in the experience of trying to figure out where I fit into large-scale social justice issues. I think that most activists spend time working out the relationship between our own lives and the broad movements in which we take part. I also think that the relationship between self and political issue differs depending on whether, in a particular context, we are working to end the oppression of an identity group to which we belong (for example, Jews working to end anti-Semitism) or are working in an “ally” capacity (for example, straight people working for LGBTQ rights).

As a white US Jew who cares about ending racism, one of my particular political commitments is organizing other white folks (including or perhaps especially white Jews) against racism. And I believe that the first step to organizing is education — and I believe that a key part of education, for white allies in particular, is coming to understand, in the words of Watson, why our liberation is bound up with the liberation of people of color, both in the US and globally.

I believe Judaism has a lot of insight to offer about the relationship between microcosm and macrocosm. In mainstream Western culture, to generalize broadly, we are often encouraged to compartmentalize. By contrast, in my experience, Judaism encourages integration: scholarly, legalistic texts provide insight for communal living, the pursuit of social justice is conjoined with the celebration of life’s pleasure, and everything in life is shot through with the search for spiritual vibrancy and ultimate meaning. This integrative model is well symbolized by one of the core organizing principles in Kabbalah: the Tree of Life, or Etz Chayim.

In addition to being a metaphor for the Torah (and, perhaps, a relic of ancient goddess worship — click here to read more about that), the Tree of Life is a diagram that describes the fundamental structure of the universe. Its graphical depiction often looks like something out of modern topology (click here to see an example), with edges connecting ten (or, controversially, eleven) nodes known as “sephirot.” Sephirot are sometimes described as emanations, or aspects, of G-d or divinity. The underlying structure delineated by the Kabbalistic Tree of Life unifies all things: not only do the sephirot describe the nature of divinity, they also describe the structure of the universe as well as the structure of the human body and spirit.

Thus, the Tree of Life is a key Jewish representation of the relationship between micro- and macrocosm, local and global — and spiritual and political.

Stay tuned to “Etz Chayim” for more explorations of the sacredness of activism and the politics of spirituality over the coming weeks and months.

–Ri Turner