CC BY-SA 3.0<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>Part of me applauds the victory of my liberal theistic friends. It was not fair to exclude them from any worship at the Wall. A greater part of me, however, wishes that they would outgrow the need to worship there at all.<\/p>\nIn their desire to get what the Orthodox get, they have demonstrated how much they share in the central weaknesses of the Orthodox.<\/p>\n
Every time I have visited the Kotel plaza I\u2019ve been saddened by the sheer human energy that is focused on a place of so little actual significance. Why are twenty-first century human beings still attaching such importance to rocks?<\/p>\n
In and of itself it\u2019s not a particularly distinguished piece of real estate. It was built by that great\u00a0tyrant King Herod who was himself a vassal of his\u00a0tyrannical Roman overlords. Its purpose was to hold the landfill used to expand the Temple Mount. Today it\u2019s the closest that Jews can get to the site of the\u00a0ancient Temple, now occupied by the Muslims\u2019 shrine and mosque. Why modern liberal Jews would invest so much effort to snuggle up to the place is beyond me. They long ago abandoned any thoughts of restoring the sacrifices to Yahweh that used to occur there up top (yuck).<\/p>\n
Social justice oriented liberal religious Jews should also not forget that the entire modern plaza was born in sin. Three days after the Israeli army gained control of\u00a0Jerusalem from Jordan\u00a0in June 1967, they hurriedly demolished a neighborhood that sat in the exact spot\u00a0of today\u2019s plaza, expelling 650 people overnight. One woman\u00a0was even found dead in the rubble. Reform rabbis somehow always forget to mention this on their solidarity missions to Israel.<\/p>\n
So now liberal Jews get to worship there. Not in the regular section, of course, but over on the southern side of the big bridge up to the Temple Mount in an area that has significant archeological importance for those who care about such things. Some of them\u00a0will be filing a suit to stop the construction and the inevitable damage that will result from building a new platform to enable liberal mixed-gender worshippers to kiss the Kotel and feed it their little slips of prayer.<\/p>\n
It doesn\u2019t take a Secular Humanist to point out the absurdity of the over-attachment to this shrine. Orthodox Jews of a more rational sort have long decried what they call Wallolatry. Rabbi Yeshayahu Leibowitz famously called\u00a0it the \u201cDiskotel.\u201d<\/p>\n
No matter. Superstition trumps it all. Liberal Jews are not about to abandon their right to worship at (of?) the Wall. Neither its banal origins nor its modern birth in sin nor the physical damage it will produce\u00a0will keep them from claiming their piece of the rock.<\/p>\n
Personally, I look forward to the day when human beings have grown beyond their need for special magical places in which to\u00a0better communicate with their Imaginary Friend.<\/p>\n
In any case, congratulations to Reform and Conservative Judaism for this questionable achievement.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
If you follow news of the Jewish world, by now you have heard about the historic decision by Israeli leaders to accommodate Reform, Conservative (etc., etc.) Jews by giving them a mixed-gender prayer space at the Western Wall. Here\u2019s an illustration of where it will be: Part of me applauds the victory of my liberal […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2281,"featured_media":3030,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[20,24,31],"class_list":["post-3029","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blogentries","tag-israel","tag-liberal-judaism","tag-orthodox-judaism"],"yoast_head":"\n
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