Download Life with jews is not yet Jewish life

was made by new criteria. The new members were
selected in terms of whether the new group could
live side-by-side; the requirements of pursuing active
Judaica, Israel and a Jewish house were given lipservice, but not much more. The essence of Habayit
was changing. The center for active Judaica was effectively becoming a Jewish dormitory.
In its new capacity, Habayit again became relatively
successful. For half a semester, people lived side-byside. The house functioned as a residence hall,
although the number of public events was minimal —
almost nonexistent. After half a semester, the tension
started building again. Likes and dislikes were surfacing. There was a tension between "veteran"
Habayit members and newer members. The hint of
sexuality persisted. By December, the tension was just
as high as it had been the previous May, but this time
the rationalizations were gone. Habayit simply was
not functioning as a Jewish center.
In January (still the third semester), the American
Students for Israel terminated its experiment at
Habayit and established headquarters in the student
office of the Hillel Foundation. A.S.I, left Habayit for
two reasons. The first was methodological. An experiment is meaningless unless the data is analyzed and
conclusions are formulated. At no point had all the
members of Habayit communally attempted an honest
self-evaluation. The second was a question of purpose.
A.S.I, had nothing against a Jewish dormitory, but a
bayit which A.S.I, supported and was prepared to subsidize was intended to serve the Jewish community —
not, simply, the ten people who lived there.
An uncertain future
Habayit is now beginning its fourth semester. In
January, three people left and were replaced. It is
functioning, primarily, as a dormitory, although
several of its members are still active in Jewish
affairs. Since Habayit has always reflected the values
of its members, there is talk of remaining a dorm.
There also is talk of returning to the original ideals. It
will again be hard to find new people, but I assume
that there will be a Habayit again next year. What its
nature will be, I cannot guess.
After two years, I have outlived Habayit. Of the founders, I am the only one still living in the House. In
June, I will graduate and I, too, will be gone. Upon
reflection, Habayit was worth the trip. I don't know
how long this Habayit will remain, but already others
are talking of forming batim on this campus. At least
one group has begun planning for a bayit which will
begin next September.
110
For years, people spoke of organizing a bayit on this
campus. Until we did it, it was only talk. We were a
partial success and a partial failure. Yet each of us
learned more about our Jewish commitment and identity. If others can look, realistically, at what we did —
if others can learn from our mistakes and either improve Habayit or form other batim avoiding the traps
into which we fell — then Habayit has been a worthwhile experience — both for its members and for the
entire community.
Life with jews is not yet Jewish life
Jon D.
Levenson
Many Jews today attach great hopes to the revival of
what they call "community." "Community" means
for them a warmer, more organic way of relating to
one another, a context of relation which mitigates
anxiety and alienation. Many Jews attribute the
malaise which afflicts so much of our society to the
dissolution of the bonds which held premodern societies together, so that only the repair of those bonds
can restore a sense of wholeness to modern life. In
the past several years, many experiments have been
born whose aim is to realize in practice the ideal of
community. Thus, we see around us chavurot, free
universities, discussion groups, etc.. The ideas upon
which these experiments are conceived vary widely.
It is therefore fitting to inquire as to the realistic
requirements for community in contemporary
American Jewry.
Exclusivity and the need for goals
We should first note that community requires exclusivity. In any real community, members relate to
each other differently from the way they relate to
outsiders. The warmth we experience in community is
in direct proportion with the coolness and rejection
we experience when we set foot out of our community. Community is thus a source of pain as well as joy.
A community can aspire to bring everyone under the
wings of its warmth and love, but when it encounters
communities founded on different principles, friction
results. In a highly pluralistic society, where geographical isolation is precluded, that friction will be
more frequent, though perhaps less dangerous. Anyone unwilling to bear the burden of the friction is not
really dedicated to the ideal of community
In fact, men do not assemble in communities simply
in order to exist in community. This is the "paradox
of instrumentality" — that every community is orga-
'
nized about particular goals — economic, ideological
or whatever — and the existence of the community is
a by-product of their pursuit. Every real community
must pursue a goal outside itself. The question to ask,
then, is, "What shall be the goal about which our community will assemble?" For most American Jews
today, curiously, the answer is "the well being of
another community." I shall give three illustrations:
liberalism, counter-culture, and Zionism.
> The liberal goal of social reform
For the liberal expositors of Judaism, Jewish existence
is a more intense dedication to the goals of social jus:« tice in the society at large. The rationale for Jewish
community thus lies in the general American com11 munity, and the Jew merely feels a stronger motivai tion than most people to build a kingdom of justice
ii on earth. (Their hypothesis, of course, is that liberalism promotes social justice.) Should that just society
i« appear, Jewry would thus lose its rationale. Therefore,
| those who make social justice the Absolute are for| ever working for their own destruction. If, on
S the other hand, the kingdom of justice is impossible
I for man to achieve, then this suggests the necessity
for a structure of ideas in terms of which that imposi sibility makes sense.
The concept of Judaism as a religion of social justice
alone is, thus, too full of contradictions to be a sound
basis for Jewish community; and it comes as no surprise that this idea, so popular a few decades ago,
today faces extinction.
The youthful goal of oppositon
Like liberalism, the Jewish counter-culture locates the
rationale for Jewish community outside its own communities. The counter-culture exists in opposition to
the prevailing tone and institutions of American Jewish life. But opposition cannot be an end in itself, and
the youthful mystics of the counter-culture have not
proposed workable alternatives to the present structures. Their institutions, such as the chavurot, speak
only to a small percentage of American Jewry, even
though they may speak powerfully and Jewishly to
their own members.
There is more to American Jewry than can be served
by small conventicles of mystics, all in their twenties,
huddling in proximity to major universities. There
comes a time when graduate school must end, when
Daddy (inevitably an establishment Jew) stops footing the bill, and when the contradiction of chasidim
without a rebbe becomes too painful to ignore any
longer. In short, the Jewish counter-culture is a
desirable protest against the easy conscience and
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genteel agnosticism of our contemporary Jewish institutions, but it cannot be the basis for an enduring
community.
The zionist goal of israel
Zionism locates the rationale for Jewish community
on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean. Consistent Zionists emigrate to participate in building communities there. Obviously, consistent Zionism is
incompatible with the ideal of community in American Jewry. Most American Jews are possessed of too
little passion for consistency, however, to ask the
critical question: Are we American Jews merely an
extension of the Israeli self? Is our existence purely a
supportive one for the Israeli state? Is there nothing
left to Judaism after political Zionism is subtracted?
It will do no good to take a critical stand towards the
Israeli government, since the issue is not the policy of
a regime but the role of the sovereign state in our selfimage. Some have tried to obscure the question by a
reversion to the semi-nomadic life-style of our patriarchs — a semester in Jerusalem, a semester in New
York, a year there, three years here. But commuting
is no answer. Others are forever planning to emigrate
— after college, after medical school, after retirement
— but are somehow always with us. Their solution also
is to avoid the problem. Nor will it do to transplant a
piece of the Israeli state, as some have tried, onto
American soil. The State of Israel is more Israeli than
any American summer-camp or coffee-house. And
we cannot revive failing faith by a few weeks in the
State of Israel any more than we can acquire a permanent tan by a few weeks in Miami. People who
resort to all these dodges refuse to face the issue of
community.
For the peripatetic Zionists, the State of Israel results
from a search for roots and for authenticity, but
always outside permanent community structures. Perhaps they recognize unconsciously that settling in the
Israeli state will raise the question of community
again and that the potential for alienation, even alienation from Judaism, is no smaller there than here. The
issue cannot be evaded permanently. Sooner or later,
American Jews will have to give up on the gimmicks
and face the crucial question of their own future.
There must be transcendent goals
Liberalism and Zionism pursue political ideals, goals
which are entirely enclosed within history. Thus,
neither can deal with the transcendent dimension of
human existence, the dimension rooted beyond history. Today there is a growing scepticism, especially
among young people, about the absoluteness of poli-
tical goals and a renewed interest in spiritual life. At
its worst, this results in an evasion of social responsibility and a lack of appreciation for the system that
allows them the freedom and the leisure to pursue
their private visions. The private visions are many —
Jesus, macrobiotics, all kinds of Eastern mysticism —
but underlying them all is a thirst for a contentment
that even the best politics will never provide.
It is exactly that thirst that American Judaism, with
its lopsided emphasis on Zionism, cannot quench.
Young people eager to hear about "revelation" and
"resurrection" will not rest content with "mandate"
and "occupied territory." Much of the mindless
support of young Jews for Arab aggression is due to a
reaction against the servile Zionism of their parents.
And I suspect the Jewish Jesus freaks are a result of a
similar process. Sometimes the failure of our institutions to deal with the spiritual dimension to Jewishness reaches ludicrous proportions. I once took an
Arabic class with a girl with only an elementary knowledge of Hebrew who was tackling the harder language
in order to read the Sufi mystics! She is only one of
many young Jews alienated from Judaism partly
because they seek a more fulfilling and immediate
experience than the vicarious Israeli-hood of the
American Zionists.
The goal of torah
The diagnosis is easier to give than the prescription,
but some elements of the latter should now be clear.
The bonds of relation characteristic of community
will not come into existence until we pursue a higher
goal. The cultivation of Yiddishkeit for its own sake
cannot succeed. On the other hand, the hoped-for
Jewish community will not emerge here so long as its
rationale is the contradictory one of support for
another community. We American Jews must develop
the self-confidence to be, in part, for ourselves, even
though the many assimilated liberals and verbal
Zionists among us urge us in another direction.
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What do we have that can serve as the beginning of
this new self-confident community? Its embryo is
already to be found in the synagogues, and it is to be
hoped that rabbis will stop lecturing their captive
audiences on Freud, the welfare-state, or the Golan
Heights and will start to speak about the transcendent
concerns of Judaism — God, Torah, Israel, creation,
revelation, redemption. The most urgent need is for
the rabbis to stress the personal obligations of their
congregants under Jewish law, particularly their liturgical obligations. There is no better way to gain a
quick knowledge of Jewish beliefs than through the
siddur (prayer book), and when a group of Jews learns
that prayer in Judaism is not optional, common prayer can be the shared activity which becomes the basis
for a deeper and wider commitment to the study and
practice of Torah. Jewish community such as existed
in Eastern Europe is irretrievable and sought only by
sentimentalists. But through Torah we may yet come
to know some of the joys and sorrows that characterize life in community.
May we hear from you?
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JON GRONER, who has served as a Sh'ma Fellow this
year, brought together the articles in this issue on
Jewish residences. The authors of the articles live in
the residences they describe.
JON D. LEVENSON studies Near Eastern
and literature at Harvard University.
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