Given the recent blog hubbub concerning Jews (see the links in my last entry), I thought I'd write a bit about Judaism itself. Let me preface it by saying that my understanding of Judaism is admittedly limited and that I mean no offense to practicing Jews or anyone else who might take offense to what is written here -- and that if you have something to say about the matter, barring careless accusations of Nazi-rific anti-Semitism on my part (yes, I've gotten those before), please e-mail me your comments. Thanks!

As readers may have inferred from my previous mentions of one former crush of mine, she was a Jew -- she didn't believe in the religious foundations of Jewish culture and didn't seem to take much stock in the cultural practices she did observe (she seemed to regard them with a certain nonchalance, as if she performed them out of habit), but she was enough of a Jew that I don't feel compelled to use the scare quotes when speaking of her. She also sang, and apparently still does, in Magevet, "the premier Jewish, Hebrew and Israeli a cappella group of Yale University." She had a beautiful voice; I'd seen her perform the previous semester when she was a member of the Yale Glee Club, and occasionally during our quiet moments together she would look off into the distance and sing a song softly to herself. I don't think she was always aware that she was doing it, and she might have appreciated my letting her know -- in certain situations, that might have been embarrassing -- but all I could do when she started to sing was smile at her and wait for her to finish. And naturally, given my crush on her (and all that that entails for a romantic like me), I wanted to support her in her endeavors, so when it came time for Magevet's Spring Jam I set aside the reading and papers I had to do for my seminar courses and made my way to the Slifka Center one Saturday evening.

At the end of the fifth song, deeply saddened, I edged past the applauding patrons -- the performance was far from over -- and made my way back to my room alone.

The first four songs, admittedly, sounded beautiful, though of course the meaning of the Hebrew words were lost on me. I'll admit to having been touched by the music, somehow -- though I'm a big sap; I cry during Winnie the Pooh episodes -- and I spent most of the time listening to those songs fighting to keep my moist eyes from running over while smiling for reasons I don't quite comprehend. It was a wonderful performance.

And then they sang a song in English. It was a rather light-hearted number in comparison, and certainly it was meant to be humorous. A number of lines elicited laughter from the audience. But I listened in silence, again with tears in my eyes -- though the smile was noticeably absent -- and as I've said, when they finished the number, I stood and took my leave. The song was about the Jews' return to Israel, about the realization of the Promised Land -- and they sang about how happy they would be to live in such a place where, in addition to observation of particular Jewish customs (which would have been understandable), everyone had a large schnoz and curly hair or Jew-fros. That the song was meant to be "in fun" only worsened its impact on me, and throughout the number they seemed to be saying to me, "Yea, listen now, but you have no place in our perfect world -- and we will laugh and rejoice in your absence." Everything about the song made me feel that these people would be perfectly happy to never see me again -- indeed, the realization of God's promise to them entailed my necessary exclusion. I thought, "Why wait?" So I left.

And as I passed under the streetlamps on what seemed to be unusually empty streets for a Saturday night, it dawned on me that my crush didn't even believe in the religion, yet those words still rose up from her throat in beautiful tones. My affection for her endured for months afterwards -- and in some ways, still does -- but I never felt as close to her again as I had before that night. On one occasion in later weeks, as we walked together in the rain, I asked her about that song. She didn't even appear to remember the exact words, but she did say that "Jews have a weird sense of humor."

I said sadly, "Oh."

Given my recent posts on "race" and the discussion of what makes a person a Jew -- particularly the emphasis on the ethnic component -- those past events have returned to my thoughts. And tonight I visited Judaism 101, which explains who is a Jew as follows:

It is important to note that being a Jew has nothing to do with what you believe or what you do. A person born to non-Jewish parents who has not undergone the formal process of conversion but who believes everything that Orthodox Jews believe and observes every law and custom of Judaism is still a non-Jew, even in the eyes of the most liberal movements of Judaism, and a person born to a Jewish mother who is an atheist and never practices the Jewish religion is still a Jew, even in the eyes of the ultra-Orthodox. ... This has been established since the earliest days of Judaism.

The emphasis (or lack of emphasis) is mine, because it highlights a notable difficulty: If to be a Jew means to be a member of God's elect, and "being a Jew has nothing to do with what you believe or what you do," wouldn't that essentially make God a racist -- in that God cares more about one's bloodlines than how one lives? Would that not make Judaism a racist religion?

Which isn't necessarily to say that Jews look down on Gentiles, or that the faith encourages them to -- from my understanding, there's relatively little reference to Gentiles at all when it comes to interacting with others. Of the 613 commandments that Jews must follow, only six seem directly concerned with the treatment of Gentiles:

To love the stranger (Deut. 10:19).

Not to wrong the stranger in speech (Ex. 22:20).

Not to wrong the stranger in buying or selling (Ex. 22:20).

Not to intermarry with gentiles (Deut. 7:3).

To exact the debt of an alien (Deut. 15:3).

To lend to an alien at interest (Deut. 23:21).

Unlike Christianity, however, it's noteworthy that the Gentile is not referred to as a "brother" (though one of my many Bible translations replaces "brothers" with "Christians" or "fellow Christians"), but as a "stranger" or an "alien." Similarly, in "Who is a Jew?", it is explained that even "non-Jews who lived among Jews, adopting some or all of the beliefs and practices of Judaism" are yet regarded as "the strangers who dwell among you" or "righteous strangers" -- righteous, perhaps, but strangers still. And not to uphold the stereotypical depiction of Jews as greedy, but it's a bit unsettling that three of the above commandments are concerned with money, whereas only one refers to love (and even that one seems partly negated by another). There are, of course, other commandments that might also apply to the treatment of Gentiles -- for example, "Not to stand by idly when a human life is in danger (Lev. 19:16)" -- but then again, perhaps not.

I own a book of Jewish fairy tales -- appropriately titled Elijah's Violin and Other Jewish Fairy Tales -- and if I had to sum up the nature of Jewish obligation based on the stories in that book, I would say that the Jew is accountable only to his/her immediate family, a little less so to other Jews, and not at all to anyone "outside the covenant." Of course, not all of these tales are rooted in scriptural texts, and it is noteworthy that most of the non-Jew characters in the book are depicted as either demons or witches, but that is the overwhelming sense I got from the book. I picked it up because the demon Asmodeus -- who has long been a curiosity of mine, and who was the catalyst for my limited studies of Jewish texts -- is a prominent character in a number of the stories. What interests me more about this King of Demons is that, following his murderous first appearance in the apocryphal Book of Tobit (and even there, arguably, he killed for love of Sarah), Asmodeus is no stranger to good works: In the tales in Elijah's Violin, for example, he shows compassion for suffering humans, is instrumental in the building of a Jewish Temple, and teaches Solomon a valuable lesson about how to distinguish illusion from truth. In other places the demon is described as studying in the "Academy on High," and there is even a tradition that maintains that Asmodeus was martyred alongside the Jews of Mainz in 1096. All this despite being a demon -- so perhaps my interest in the character is easily explained.

But there is one story in Elijah's Violin -- "Partnership with Asmodeus" -- in which the demon is "given his due," so to speak. The story tells of a Jew whose wife curses him daily and eventually gets so distraught that he climbs to the height of a mountain in order to commit suicide by jumping, whereby he is rescued by Asmodeus. When the man tells Asmodeus of his plight, Asmodeus responds by saying that he too has troubles with his wife, so he is willing to enter into a partnership with the Jew to solve their problems. According to the terms of the deal, the troubled husband will masquerade as a doctor who specializes in curing "complicated illnesses" while Asmodeus possesses the daughters of wealthy persons, whereupon the doctor will be called upon to exorcize the girls -- and be paid hefty a hefty sum for doing so -- and they agree to meet up afterwards to split the money equally. So their scheme works twice according to plan, and the money is split both times, but upon the third success the Jew decides that he should keep the sum in its entirety and refuses to pay Asmodeus his share. Short story shorter, Asmodeus swears vengeans, is outwitted, and the crafty Jew makes off with even more money than before. But what is this story trying to say? Asmodeus kept his end of the bargain, and moreover -- as the demon notes upon the Jew's betrayal -- was responsible for saving his life at the onset of the story. And it's not as if he returned the money to the people from whom it had been won by trickery -- no, the Jew kept the money, satisfied his wife, and lived happily ever after. What is the moral of this story?

Finally, a word on eschatology. In Christianity, the fate of unbelievers is clear and upfront: Hellfire. Yet while there are (apparently) sparse references in Judaism to the effect that non-Jews who follow the seven laws of Noah will have a place in "the world to come" (see "Jewish Attitudes Toward Non-Jews") -- but apparently that verse was left out of the Magevet song. And we hear relatively little about the ultimate fate of the Gentiles, and apparently some versions of Judaism state that they have only the suffering in Gehenna to look forward to:

The place of torment for the wicked was called Gehenna (the valley of Hinnom or the Sons of Hinnom, where the bodies of criminals were cast out, is described in Is. lxvi. 24). Here corporal as well as spiritual punishment was endured; it was inflicted on apostate Jews or the wicked generally; the righteous witnessed its initial stages but not its final form. In later Judaism it was the purgatory of faithless Jews, who at last reached Paradise, but it remained the place of eternal torment for the Gentiles. (see link)

A former acquaintance of mine once told me about the time she lived in a house with both a Catholic and a Jew, and about how the former was always very interested in discussing and arguing about religion, whereas the latter generally avoided conversation on the topic altogether -- and when he spoke, much of what he said had an air of relativism. But of course the Jews are not relativists proper; they believe in truth (though perhaps their truth in application is different for different peoples). There is no reason for the Jews to try and gain converts, since it is ultimately blood that makes one a Jew (and therefore a participant in God's covenant), and ultimately (barring the seven commandments given to Noah, which are for the most part fairly obvious) that will determine one's place in "the world to come" -- so there is no reason to crusade for the salvation of others. Why bother? Judaism marks the Jews as God's chosen, and whether that translates to feelings of superiority or not, it certainly causes them to set themselves apart from others and cleave to themselves.

But those who would assist them, those who would support them, those who would live among them, those who would die with them, those who would love them -- on a very fundamental level, these people will always be strangers, righteous or not, and the doors of Israel are closed to them. In Judaism, at the end of the day, the Gentiles are little more than a footnote in the story of God's people.

And as I walk alone in the streets at night, I think of my distant crush, and sadness fills my heart.

By the way, I bought bootleg Turtle Hero roleplay sets. Click for larger image. Cowabunga.