When we think of Judaism today, things that probably spring to mind are delis, the holocaust, little Kippah hats and the poor kids in kindergarten that had to go away when we made crepe paper Christmas trees. How did one of the first recorded monotheistic faiths, the great religion that profoundly influenced Christianity and Islam, become the subject of music channels VH1’s program called ‘So Jewtastic!’. ‘So Jewtastic!’ desperately attempts to show us that Judaism is the cool new religion of the minute, because celebrities like Adam Sandler and Ben Stiller no longer hang Jewish their heads in shame.
And if that doesn’t convince you to convert immediately, wait for this: Did you know all three stoggees were Jewish?!!!! And the band Kiss too?!! I think the point is no we didn’t know, because nobody told us, because Kiss didn’t really want to be known as Jewtastic! As one critic puts it, ‘it’s not like they were wearing yamakas along with the spandex and lipstick’.
The message of the program seems to be: ‘hey kids, unbelievable but true, these people are cool DESPITE their Jewishness!’ Ultimately it is not about whether or not Judaism is cooler than Scientology, but the journey of the religion, how it has been changed and shaped by history, how history has changed and shaped it, and who Jews believe is to blame for all the changing and shaping: God or themselves?
The following of the Ten Commandments that Moses received on MT Sinai is what defines Judaism. And there seems to be an almost karmic element to the covenant between God and Jews of ‘serve me well and I will provide for you’, however it departs from the basic you scratch my back and ill scratch yours in that whilst god gives ten easy steps in how to scratch his back perfectly, when it comes his turn to scratch ours, his fulfilment of his part of the bargain my seem more like a stab, a slap or a tickle.
So to logically sum up the belief of Jews, as well as other followers of the Hebrew bible, religious practise is like eating your broccoli because your mother tells you to. And if you don’t, maybe you’ll get sent to your room or maybe the world will flood for forty days and forty nights. In the Bible it seems that crime and punishment are clearly linked, disobeyers of god are shown the results of their disobedience. Does this mean Jews would interpret the holocaust as punishment for their own actions?
I don’t know the answer to this question and neither does Google. Holocaust theology is also interesting in raising issues of how god sees and categorises his people. Was the holocaust a punishment for the Jews specifically, or punishment for collective human sin? Perhaps it was a delayed manifestation of eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil that the world was forced to comprehend its racist, cruel, and torturous potential.
Most interesting to me is how beliefs and practises link with psychological human needs. Woody Allen says ‘between air conditioning and the pope, I choose air conditioning.’ As a Jew his point was probably one entirely different to mine, but he illustrates religion as, like air conditioning, serving a purpose to make life more comfortable.
The concept of a messiah is one that has developed to be key to Judaism. In the readings, Segal tells us ‘the messiah would exemplify God’s sovereign control of events and reward the piety of the faithful who had trusted in God’. There are important implications to messianism. Is God not enough? Isn’t heaven where the faithful are rewarded and hell where the wicked are punished?
Maybe the constant hope for a worldly messiah is a product of the need of the human psyche to avoid depression, to have things make sense, and an indication of our concern for our grandchildren and the future world, but I can’t see how the idea of a messiah is compatible with God’s omnipotence and omni benevolence, as it seems to show Jews as dissatisfied with their position and contradicting the idea that God has things how they are meant to be. You can even vote in an online poll: Do you think redemption is soon to come. 62% say yes, 38% say no. I wonder what KISS says?
And if that doesn’t convince you to convert immediately, wait for this: Did you know all three stoggees were Jewish?!!!! And the band Kiss too?!! I think the point is no we didn’t know, because nobody told us, because Kiss didn’t really want to be known as Jewtastic! As one critic puts it, ‘it’s not like they were wearing yamakas along with the spandex and lipstick’.
The message of the program seems to be: ‘hey kids, unbelievable but true, these people are cool DESPITE their Jewishness!’ Ultimately it is not about whether or not Judaism is cooler than Scientology, but the journey of the religion, how it has been changed and shaped by history, how history has changed and shaped it, and who Jews believe is to blame for all the changing and shaping: God or themselves?
The following of the Ten Commandments that Moses received on MT Sinai is what defines Judaism. And there seems to be an almost karmic element to the covenant between God and Jews of ‘serve me well and I will provide for you’, however it departs from the basic you scratch my back and ill scratch yours in that whilst god gives ten easy steps in how to scratch his back perfectly, when it comes his turn to scratch ours, his fulfilment of his part of the bargain my seem more like a stab, a slap or a tickle.
So to logically sum up the belief of Jews, as well as other followers of the Hebrew bible, religious practise is like eating your broccoli because your mother tells you to. And if you don’t, maybe you’ll get sent to your room or maybe the world will flood for forty days and forty nights. In the Bible it seems that crime and punishment are clearly linked, disobeyers of god are shown the results of their disobedience. Does this mean Jews would interpret the holocaust as punishment for their own actions?
I don’t know the answer to this question and neither does Google. Holocaust theology is also interesting in raising issues of how god sees and categorises his people. Was the holocaust a punishment for the Jews specifically, or punishment for collective human sin? Perhaps it was a delayed manifestation of eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil that the world was forced to comprehend its racist, cruel, and torturous potential.
Most interesting to me is how beliefs and practises link with psychological human needs. Woody Allen says ‘between air conditioning and the pope, I choose air conditioning.’ As a Jew his point was probably one entirely different to mine, but he illustrates religion as, like air conditioning, serving a purpose to make life more comfortable.
The concept of a messiah is one that has developed to be key to Judaism. In the readings, Segal tells us ‘the messiah would exemplify God’s sovereign control of events and reward the piety of the faithful who had trusted in God’. There are important implications to messianism. Is God not enough? Isn’t heaven where the faithful are rewarded and hell where the wicked are punished?
Maybe the constant hope for a worldly messiah is a product of the need of the human psyche to avoid depression, to have things make sense, and an indication of our concern for our grandchildren and the future world, but I can’t see how the idea of a messiah is compatible with God’s omnipotence and omni benevolence, as it seems to show Jews as dissatisfied with their position and contradicting the idea that God has things how they are meant to be. You can even vote in an online poll: Do you think redemption is soon to come. 62% say yes, 38% say no. I wonder what KISS says?
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