Dear Asaf,



First, a few words on what you write.

Judaism, in its more than 2000 year old incarnation, is a religion of technical laws whose goal is the subordination of man’s everyday life to the worship of G-d. This is an outlook which began with the Pharisees and continued in the era of the Mishnah and Talmud, until this very day. You give the example of the prohibition against picking one’s nose, and suppose that this is a law recently invented, but this is not so. This law stems from the Talmudic text which forbids combing on the Sabbath lest hairs be pulled off one’s head, an act forbidden on the Sabbath.

You must remember and understand that all Halachic decisions now made by rabbis are laws which are drawn from Talmudic issues.



As to your question of what principles should guide the secular Jew, the concept of a nation changes form during the course of years. The Biblical Jewish nation is not the same as Chazal’s Jewish nation, and the secular Jewish nation is not like Chazal’s (the religious) Jewish nation.

Today the Jewish nation champions humanism and liberalism as basic values, and we can appropriate those texts and historical rituals and give them different intentions.

For example: We can take the etrog, which has both flavor and scent and which Chazal likened to one who fulfills Torah and the commandments. We can liken it to one who maintains freedom and equality. The willow, which has no flavor nor scent, is likened by Chazal to one who fulfills neither Torah nor the commandments (a secular person). We will liken it to one who does not seek equality and critical thinking (a religious person).



Of course, I am only touching upon the very tip of your question, which really requires a greater and deeper answer.

But this must be done by the secular public, or at least the majority thereof, in answer to the central question: What ideology must we teach our children and students, and how do we integrate this into our culture?



Sincerely,



Daat Emet

Dear Asaf,



Your response is unclear to me. Didn’t I write in my answer that the issue of the Jewish nation must be discussed within the secular community itself? The secular is the largest segment of those who call themselves “Jews.” It is possible that the community will continue in its flawed path of acting secular but believing like religious people. It is possible that the community will decide that there is no room for a Jewish nation in the modern world, neither as a religion nor as a culture.

There is also a middle path in which the Jewish nation will be secular with texts and rituals which bear no religious significance, only cultural. The problem with this idea is that those rituals are based in religion.

From the start of the modern era and the Enlightenment Movement the majority of those who self-identify as Jewish accept the principles of equality, freedom, freedom of religion and conscience, etc. That means that the majority of the Jewish nation [aside from the religious and the Charedi] have already accepted the universal principles which all enlightened societies have accepted. In this sense we are already like all other nations. Your question deals only with the symbols and ceremonies, which have no connection to principles.

Therefore your question, “Why should I adopt commandments and customs from the past?” is a question of values, one which has no rational answer. Your question must be decided upon by a majority of the secular people.

In other words: Daat Emet thinks that the secular community must recognize and internalize that the Jewish religion is racist, inegalitarian, and does not suit the values of humanism. Following this conclusion the community must make a decision about the continuation of the Jewish “nation.”



Sincerely,



Daat Emet