Reasons to add a bit of Jewish ritual into your life.
Living without a religious anchor you exist in what many Rabbis call “The Pit.”
Changes to your secular life.
Small little rituals will get you there.
Hello everybody. Welcome back to the Jew2u podcast. In the first two episodes I laid out to beginners like you who are seeking to return to Judaism how to return to your roots in the easiest possible ways.
Today I want to explain WHY you should be proud to be a Jew, WHAT you’ve been missing out on, and HOW it will add to your life. I’ll tell you things about Judaism that you’ve never heard before in your secular upbringing and your non-religious, somewhat dangerous lifestyle.
Secular and non-religious is the reality of who I was and who YOU are now. You’re a Jew and you don’t seek out the goodness of your culture by adding just a little bit of Jewish ritual into your life. Therefore, you don’t contribute as much goodness in the world as you could.
Subconsciously that pains you. In addition, you know intuitively that exploring and studying Judaism will enhance your life. Yet you still don’t do it because you don't know where to start. Well, you just started because you are here listening to this podcast.
Living in the world without a religious anchor means you exist in what many Rabbis call “The Pit,” where everything from “normal” people to deviant people are in your orbit everywhere. Moving forward in your Judaism takes you out of the pit and into a place of like-minded people trying to do good. Doing good is the essence of Judaism. In this orbit it’s not perfect but it’s safer, calmer, and really, where you belong.
Is your family life a bit dysfunctional? Are you “socially drinking” too much or taking too many recreational or prescribed drugs? Are you not succeeding where you know you should be? You know something is off inside and that things “should” and “could” be better. Keep listening and you will see new perspectives to all those situations.
Becoming more religiously, ritually, Jewish will help. A lot. It doesn’t mean becoming obviously devout or praying three times a day. If you do, more power to you! Piety is not the goal here. Moving on the Jewish spectrum from nothing to something is the goal. Adding good things to your life is the aim and you don’t have to give anything up. By adding good things to your life negative things and negative people will simply molt away.
Just by doing a few “Jewish things” will cause a change that will roll over your entire being. You’ll see things differently. You’ll dream differently. No one even has to know the changes you’ve made to your lifestyle because the changes will be in your head.
My first two podcasts suggested easy ways to return to your roots: home, the place you feel happy and secure. Why would you want to block a return to your roots? Embrace it instead. Just maybe it will change your life for the better!
The problem for the non-religious Jew today is that they exist within a powerful secular environment. This environment, what many Rabbis call “the pit,” contains the whole of the world’s culture (minus Torah believing Jews), everything from the pious of every religion to the most deviant perverts.
So if you meet a charming person in a restaurant they could be a charming person or a serial rapist. You live in the pit so it could easily be either one. I guess that’s the “thrill” of the pit if you want to call that thrilling. The reality is that most of the time living in the pit you are defending yourself against bad people. It makes you suspicious of everyone and everything most of the time. It colors you and not in a good way.
The secular and non-religious like you would never think of trying to meet someone in a Synagogue because those people aren’t cool or trendy enough. The un-cool and un-trendy are only good, reliable, trustworthy, devoted, and try hard at everything they do. What terrible qualities (sarcasm)! When you hang out with religious people you take yourself somewhat out of the pit. You may still have one foot in the pit and one foot out, but at least doing some activities with others within a spiritual setting you are not completely in the pit.
(And here's a Disclaimer: I’m not saying that there aren’t any religious charlatans out there. There are. I’m just saying that within the Jewish communities, all denominations considered, there is much, much less of it.)
In today’s secular culture people lie, steal, and cheat as easily as they breathe. They smile, joke, live high lives but know nothing of the Ten Commandments.
When the secular and the religious meet, it’s like they are talking two different languages. Secular people know that it’s wrong to commit adultery but when they are actually tempted “wrong” isn’t an issue for them. Pleasure is the main goal regardless of right or wrong.
Everyone knows that lying is bad but when you tell your child to tell a phone caller that you are not home when you obviously are, you are telling that child that small lies, “white lies,” are not so “bad” after all and sometimes actually useful. Yet when asked, that same person would say that they teach their children to be honest at all times.
There is also this thing called “intention.” In the secular world “intentions” are the get-out-of-jail-free card, literally. Violent protesters are arrested but not prosecuted because their “intentions” are considered by other secularists “good.” They were protesting police brutality, racism, or any other such thing so burning down buildings, destroying the property of others, and creating mayhem is easily and “rightfully” forgiven. Out of jail they go!
Secular people will take out a loan with every intention to pay it off so when they don’t pay it off they are still “good” people. They just had a slight lack of finances problem.
All intentions become real only when actions make them real. If there is no action on the intention then the intention becomes, in reality, a lie. Somehow, in the secular world today where inactions are many times ignored, a lie then becomes “good.”
In the religious world intentions translate into “obligations” and in the Jewish world life is filled with obligations. The more you fulfill obligations the easier it gets because you become more practiced at it. Within Jewish communities an intention, even the smallest one, is almost always carried out. I like that about people and I like that about Judaism.
How did intentions gain such enormous power? It used to be that if you had every intention to plant the crop but you failed to take the action, you would have no food. The secular world has changed all that. Pretty cool, huh?
Now you can fail to produce and still succeed. Excuses and rationalizations rule the day. “Have a heart” one might say or “Give me a break.” So you can cheat on a test and still get a college degree. You never had any intention to cheat when you entered college but in order to get the degree you “had to” cheat on the test because instead of studying properly you had other things to do. Today, excuses and rationalizations defeat intentions every time.
Let me tell you a little story I had as a young man in my twenties that was so simple, yet profound. It's still so vivid in my mind. I was eating breakfast in a small coffee shop and when I finished the waitress gave me a check. On the back of the check she had written, “If everyone had a joyous attitude, oh what a wonderful world this would be!” I understand that simple statement even better every year HASHEM keeps me alive.
The secular world has brought us to the point where you don’t have to do anything and you are still prized as a human being. Think Kim Kardashian. Think no-scoring sports “contests” and “participation trophies.” The religious world doesn’t work that way. If you have an intention then you perform the appropriate action to fulfill the intention. Fulfilling those intentions is what makes you a “good” person according to the religious perspective. If everyone fulfilled intentions, oh what a wonderful world this would be!
And what’s even worse, the opposite is true. Secular people believe that if you had no intention of having a baby, then removing the fetus after conceiving it “by accident” (ah ha) is perfectly OK.
It seems obvious in the religious perspective that if you had no intention of having a baby then perhaps you shouldn’t be engaging in sexual activity that creates one. That’s the same intention with two different outcomes from two different perspectives. The former, secular, perspective permanently denies life to another human being for convenience’s sake (the get-out-of-jail-free card) while the latter perspective never even faces the nasty emotional situation.
And if you do engage in sexual activity with no intention of conceiving a baby and you are blessed with this “accident,” a new life, from the religious perspective you are then obligated to do the right thing and raise that child in a loving two-parent household. And if you are incapable of providing that, there are plenty of loving two-parent households waiting to adopt that infant. That’s the right, morally superior, thing to do because it’s the best thing for the baby. If everyone did the right thing, oh what a wonderful world this would be!
The secular non-religious rarely think in terms of morality, ethics, and values. But you can begin thinking in these terms right now, right away.
Now, honestly, which culture would you rather hang out in? Do you want to surround yourself with people who lie, steal, and cheat as easily as they breathe or with people who are doing their best not to lie, steal, or cheat? Do you want to be around people who have intentions with no follow through or around people who do what they say they will do?
The Ten Commandments are right there. Just do your best to live by them.
If you mention the Ten Commandments to a secular person their eyes glaze over. They know of them, can name a few, but they have no connection to them whatsoever. And they believe that just because YOU live by the Ten Commandments doesn’t mean that THEY have to. And that is true. But that also means that you have the free choice to remove yourself from their world or deal with their world as little as possible.
And that’s what happens when you take little steps to become more religious, adding just a few Jewish rituals into your lifestyle. The bad fade away and the good become more available to you. Your defense shield needn’t be so rigid. If everyone lived by the Ten Commandments, oh what a wonderful world this would be!
Did it ever occur to you that for 2500 years the smartest people of your Jewish heritage, indeed the smartest people in the world, have read, many times over, the Torah that contains the Ten Commandments? And yet you haven’t read it even once! You surround yourself with people who haven’t read it either. Is that wise? If smart people have been reading it throughout millennia, don’t you think there might be something in the Torah that could enhance your life even a little?
Secular culture today is in a downward spiral and you are in the middle of it. Movies, music, art, sports, everything has become political with little redeeming social value. America was founded upon a Judeo-Christian ethic based on the Ten Commandments but secularism is now winning the day. Prayer is out of the schools, the Ten Commandments are out of the Courthouses, and even saying “Merry Christmas” can be hazardous to your health.
To a secularist the brilliant answer to stopping the increase in gun violence is to ban guns from law-abiding people who don’t commit gun violence (should we ban cell phones because texting while driving causes death?). Yet movies and musical artists romanticize guns and all manner of violent behavior. Hollywood stars tote and shoot guns on the movie set one day and then call for gun control the next day. They have no consciousness that their “art” is a major contributor to the chaos.
Being ubiquitous this constant show of violence “normalizes” aggressive, arrogant activity. The numbers of weekly deaths in our big cities from illegal gun possession is more than alarming. Perhaps we should not ban guns from law abiding citizens but rather ban the sight and use of guns in movies, music, and art in order to stop normalizing this negative behavior.
When someone recommends a movie to me the first question I ask is, “Are there any guns in it?” Of course I already know the answer is yes. It seems Hollywood can’t make a movie today without guns, car chases, explosions, gratuitous sex, lots of cursing, and subtle acceptance of deviant behavior. This is the animal side of human behavior oozing its way out into the culture. Since I already know what’s in the movie why should I go see it? I don't need to see deviant behavior because it disgusts me and it should disgust you, and it does not make the world a better place.
Needless to say, I haven’t seen a Hollywood movie in over 30 years. Can’t there be drama, can’t there be an interesting story told, without the use of guns or bloodshed? Even before my current Jewish studies changed my perspective I knew this form of entertainment was harmful to the psyche.
I own a gun and I know others who do. None of us ever brandish the gun or handle it irresponsibly and I know of no one who has been shot by a gun. I carry the gun because the American culture has surrounded me with people who are constantly exercising their animal nature, glorifying and romanticizing it, so the chances of violent behavior being used against me is increasing every day.
Almost all gun owners carry their weapon and at the same time pray that they will never have to use it.
In reality the secular Jew has trapped himself. You are a slave to the constant barrage of secular deviancy and potential danger surrounding you. The good news is that you are your own Pharaoh and there is an escape hatch. You just have to wriggle through it and you can. You don’t have to convince Pharaoh with devastating miracles to let you go. You just have to convince yourself to let you go. If everyone could wriggle away from secularism, oh what a wonderful world this would be!
All you have to do is turn away from your current lifestyle for a short period of time each day to do something Jewish, something good.. And what you will see happen to you will be remarkable.
A view of HASHEM is quite remarkable. So, on one hand you have a mundane life and on the other hand you can have amazing perceptions. With that in mind this new shift in your life should actually be quite stimulating and motivating. You already have the natural desire and “Spark” within you to move from the animal to the spiritual. Currently you just don’t see it that way, but your vision can change.
So, walk right into the desert with no food or water. HASHEM will be there with you. Start doing some easy Jewish rituals like lighting Shabbat candles EVERY Friday night. Takes two minutes. Buy a mezuzah for your door. Each week there is a chapter read by Jews from the Torah. Take 30 minutes and read it. You'll then have some questions begging for answers and you'll start finding ways to get those questions answered like reading more, going to a class, meeting a Rabbi or two. Then you'll realize, “Hey no one talks about this stuff in my non-religious world.” And then you're on your way!
If everyone lived with more Jewish ritual, oh what a wonderful world this would be!
Shalom! See you next week!!
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