{"id":699,"date":"2010-10-02T02:01:00","date_gmt":"2010-10-02T02:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/2010\/10\/some-simchat-torah-heresy.html"},"modified":"2010-10-02T02:01:00","modified_gmt":"2010-10-02T02:01:00","slug":"some-simchat-torah-heresy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/2010\/10\/some-simchat-torah-heresy.html","title":{"rendered":"Some Simchat Torah Heresy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>
Today I celebrated Simchat Torah by putting the finishing touches on a journal article surveying some rabbinic thought on the creation narratives.<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/span><\/div>\n
On my first visit to a secular humanistic Jewish congregation, the first thing I noticed was that there was no ark or Torah scroll.\u00a0 Oddly, considering my beliefs, this bothered me a little for about three minutes.\u00a0 Rather quickly I began to think about what the Torah actually said and then I reflected on the way that the scrolls themselves have been revered in traditional Judaism.<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/span><\/div>\n
I thought of all the times that I led services and how, when we arrived at the Torah service, we made such a fuss about standing for it and parading it and kissing it.\u00a0 On reflection, I felt some resentment about growing up with this fetishization of a scroll.\u00a0 I soon learned that this humanistic congregation kept its Torah scroll in a place of honor in the library.\u00a0 It\u2019s the perfect location for it.<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/span><\/div>\n
One of my professors, the quite traditional Jakob J. Petuchowski, once described a scene that he claimed to have witnessed at Chicago Sinai Congregation, bastion of Classical Reform Judaism.\u00a0 He told us how the congregation would make an enormous fuss over the Torah service.\u00a0 It would go on for quite a while, until finally the rabbi would pull open the ark, take out the scroll, lift it high for all to see and announce, \u201cThis is your Torah, O Israel!\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/span><\/div>\n
Then he would put it back.<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/span><\/div>\n
I wonder if he was just too embarrassed by its contents to engage in a ritual reading.\u00a0 That is certainly the case with the Yom Kippur afternoon reading in the Reform movement.\u00a0 They do not read the traditional portion, Leviticus 18:1-30, opting for the next chapter instead.\u00a0 Even there they read only verses 1-4, 9-18, and 32-37.\u00a0 (This is a pain in the tuchis<\/i> when you\u2019re trying to read from the scroll.)<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/span><\/div>\n
The sacralization of the scroll and its contents is anathema to a modern understanding of morality.\u00a0 We can\u2019t yield moral lessons from a text that favors misogyny, homophobia and the slaughter of innocent people.\u00a0 The Torah absolutely has intrinsic value as the foundational mythology of the Jewish people.\u00a0 That doesn\u2019t mean I want to dance with it.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today I celebrated Simchat Torah by putting the finishing touches on a journal article surveying some rabbinic thought on the creation narratives. On my first visit to a secular humanistic Jewish congregation, the first thing I noticed was that there was no ark or Torah scroll.\u00a0 Oddly, considering my beliefs, this bothered me a little […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2281,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[7,23,39,40],"class_list":["post-699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogentries","tag-bible","tag-jewish-holidays","tag-secular-humanistic-judaism","tag-simchat-torah"],"yoast_head":"\nSome Simchat Torah Heresy<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Today I celebrated Simchat Torah by putting the finishing touches on a journal article surveying some rabbinic thought on the creation narratives. 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