“Too cussedly independent-minded . . . “

The Punster and I were yakking with Steg as he kindly drove us home from the blogger bash. "For me,” I told Steg,” the problem with becoming Orthodox is that it’s not enough just to be shomer mitzvot (someone who observes the commandments)—you have to buy into the whole package. I’m too cussedly independent-minded to be Orthodox.”

Steg was highly amused, responding that, considering all the Orthodox skeptics he’d encountered in the blogosphere, he wasn’t so sure about that. [Some Jewish bloggers observe all the rules of Orthodox Judaism without holding the beliefs that are often considered integral to Orthodox Judaism. This practice is sometimes described as an “Orthoprax” approach.]

I replied that, if by any chance our son married an Orthodox Jew and ask us to make the switch, “Orthoprax” is probably the kind of Orthodox Jew that I would be.

“But on the other hand, it’s kinda hard for a woman to lead musaf in an Orthodox synagogue.”

Let’s leave aside, for the moment, my hard-core egalitarian approach to Judaism (that is, my belief that women should have equal obligations and rights in terms of Jewish law and ritual observance) and consider this other issue that’s preventing me from “taking the plunge”—anyone who’s been following my blog for more than a month :) is probably aware that I have a serious problem with this perspective:

Adam Ragil said...

“ . . . Judaism does not shed prohibitions and limitations once they have been aquired and accepted. That isn't always good or always bad. It just is. . . . “

Thu Oct 14, 05:41:00 PM 2004

What it comes down to, in plain English, is that I prefer to think and make decisions for myself—if a law not only no longer makes sense, but contradicts what I consider to be logical and/or, in some cases, ethically acceptable, I’m not enough of a believer in God and/or Torah miSinai to see a good reason to continue to observe it. Keeping kosher is not such a big deal that I can’t keep at least some semblance of kashrut as a nod of respect to my ancestors and the current Jewish community. Not having an aliyah is another matter entirely—since the original reason for the prohibition against women having aliyot no longer exists (see link above), I see no good reason to maintain the prohibition. Adopting, at a minimum, a “don’t ask, don’t tell” attitude toward homosexuals seems to me to be a matter of simple human compassion for a difference that can’t be changed, and I think it’s a legitimate question whether excluding people from the rabbinate solely because Hashem made them in accordance with his will is really consistent with the pursuit of justice (“tzedek, tzedek tirdof”).

So, much as it would simply my life, in some ways, to complicate my life in other ways by becoming Orthodox, I really don’t see that as something that I would feel comfortable doing. As uncomfortable as I can sometimes be with the inconsistencies of Conservative Jewish observance (or the sometime lack thereof), I spent too much time as a member of a dual-affiliated Conservative/Reconstructionist synagogue not to believe, as Rabbi Mordechai Kaplan used to say, that “the past has a vote, but not a veto.” At this point, I truly don't see any alternative to living the rest of my life as a perpetual misfit. That's what I am. So be it.