Many of us believe that Judaism is thriving.After all, we have greater religious observance, more Jewish schools, yeshivot, women’s colleges and outreach programs than ever before. The truth, however, is radically different.Judaism is nearly irrelevant. It suffers from a major malady.In truth, it is not only Judaism that suffers from this disease but the whole world. We have fallen in love with an endless supply of all-encompassing but passive information, which does not get processed but only recycled.We no longer produce bold ideas.They demand too much effort and do not suit our most important need: instant satisfaction. With the exception of science, we only admire bold ideas when we feel our empty pockets, but not when they dare challenge our empty souls. We love the commonplace instead of the visionary.While in ages past, discussions within our faith could and did ignite the fires of debate, incite revolutions and fundamentally change our views about Judaism and the world – as when the Baal Shem Tov founded Hassidism – we are now confronted with an increasingly post-idea Judaism. Provoking ideas that would stagger our minds are no longer “in.” If anything, they are condemned as heresy.Most of our yeshivot have retreated from creative thinking. We encourage the narrowest specialization rather than push for daring ideas. We are producing a generation that believes its task is to tend potted plants rather than plant forests. We teach young people what to think instead of teaching them how to think. The onslaught of halachic works, which educate them in the minutiae of the most intricate parts of Jewish law, hardly generates inspiring new ideas about these laws.AS A result, we are faced with our youth either walking out on Judaism or becoming religious extremists who can’t see the forest for the trees.We fail to realize is that this is the result of our own educational system.Information is not simply to have but to produce ideas that make sense of the information gathered and move it toward higher latitudes.But Jewish education today is mostly about producing a generation of religious Jews who know more and more about Jewish observance but think less and less about what they know.This is even truer of their teachers.Many of them are great Talmudic scholars, but these very scholars do not realize that they have drowned in their vast knowledge. The more they know, the less they understand. Just as a bird may think that it is an act of kindness to lift a fish into the air, so these rabbis think they are providing their students with spiritual oxygen but may actually be choking them.They are embalming Judaism while claiming it is alive because it continues to maintain its external shape.
Judaism: The art of bold ideas
It is time to start thinking big about Judaism.
Many of us believe that Judaism is thriving.After all, we have greater religious observance, more Jewish schools, yeshivot, women’s colleges and outreach programs than ever before. The truth, however, is radically different.Judaism is nearly irrelevant. It suffers from a major malady.In truth, it is not only Judaism that suffers from this disease but the whole world. We have fallen in love with an endless supply of all-encompassing but passive information, which does not get processed but only recycled.We no longer produce bold ideas.They demand too much effort and do not suit our most important need: instant satisfaction. With the exception of science, we only admire bold ideas when we feel our empty pockets, but not when they dare challenge our empty souls. We love the commonplace instead of the visionary.While in ages past, discussions within our faith could and did ignite the fires of debate, incite revolutions and fundamentally change our views about Judaism and the world – as when the Baal Shem Tov founded Hassidism – we are now confronted with an increasingly post-idea Judaism. Provoking ideas that would stagger our minds are no longer “in.” If anything, they are condemned as heresy.Most of our yeshivot have retreated from creative thinking. We encourage the narrowest specialization rather than push for daring ideas. We are producing a generation that believes its task is to tend potted plants rather than plant forests. We teach young people what to think instead of teaching them how to think. The onslaught of halachic works, which educate them in the minutiae of the most intricate parts of Jewish law, hardly generates inspiring new ideas about these laws.AS A result, we are faced with our youth either walking out on Judaism or becoming religious extremists who can’t see the forest for the trees.We fail to realize is that this is the result of our own educational system.Information is not simply to have but to produce ideas that make sense of the information gathered and move it toward higher latitudes.But Jewish education today is mostly about producing a generation of religious Jews who know more and more about Jewish observance but think less and less about what they know.This is even truer of their teachers.Many of them are great Talmudic scholars, but these very scholars do not realize that they have drowned in their vast knowledge. The more they know, the less they understand. Just as a bird may think that it is an act of kindness to lift a fish into the air, so these rabbis think they are providing their students with spiritual oxygen but may actually be choking them.They are embalming Judaism while claiming it is alive because it continues to maintain its external shape.