Americans are justly proud of our heritage of religious freedom, whereby a person is not judged by denominational affiliation, but solely on qualities of merit, citizenship, and integrity. Even when our nation does not live up to that ideal, it still affirms the ideal as a standard worthy of emulation and of continued effort.
A central way that this toleration and pluralism is expressed in our time is to speak of the three religious traditions of America: Protestant, Catholic, and Jew. Indeed, that American "trinity" still dominates public discourse. Politicians speak of a "Judeo-Christian heritage," and religious shows regularly feature a rabbi, a priest, and a minister. Yet that category--religion--is not fully applicable when it comes to Judaism. If Judaism were just a religion, then someone who stopped believing in Judaism would no longer be Jewish. Yet every Jew can tell you that a non-religious Jew is precisely that--a Jew!
Judaism certainly contains many of the elements of a religion. At its core, Jewish civilization has always been passionate about God, holiness, and morality. We celebrate religious holidays, and have holy books, religious leaders, and religious symbols. But Judaism is a lot more than just a religion, more than just a matter of belief. Being a Jew involves identifying with a specific people, with their history, culture, and identity.
Particularly in the modern age, Jewish religion and Jewish identity have often found themselves in opposing positions on specific issues. The Talmud tells of a giant who owned a bed. When a guest was too tall for the bed, he would cut off the guest's arms and legs to make the fit exact. Defining Judaism solely as a religion is that same kind of amputation. We do it so we can fit a gentile category of thought, but we know that the definition excludes a great deal of what Jewish identity is all about.
One of the most famous passages in the entire Torah addresses the nature of the Torah, the fountainhead of Jewish identity throughout the ages. In speaking about the Torah itself, God says, "It is not in the heavens, that you should say, 'Who among us can go up to the heavens and get it for us and impart it to us, that we may observe it."
The Torah is not in the heavens. Angels, maybe; demons, possibly. But the Torah, our primary link between the Jewish People and God--that is a very earthly book. Its concerns, its logic, and its language are very much the stuff of human life and human need.
The Midrash Devarim Rabbah explains that this verse means, "The Torah is not to be found among astrologers, whose work is to gaze at the heavens." Gazing at the heavens--the self-defined business of many religious movements--is not the primary focus of Torah or of Judaism. We don't read Torah to learn how God passes time in heaven. We read the Torah to learn how we should spend our time on Earth.
Take a look at the issues that demand the attention of the Torah: how to live in harmony with the Land, how to establish standards of justice for the stranger and the citizen alike, how to establish seasons and festivals of holiness, how to live in the presence of God, how to educate ourselves and our children to the responsibilities and the grandeur of being a Jew.
Much of the Torah tells us how to build the Tabernacle, an earthly dwelling for God! Not only is the Torah not in heaven, but we even bring God from the loftiest heights of the universe to become an intimate partner in human life and society.
The focus on the world is not because Judaism doesn't believe in a paradise, not because we think religion is trivial. No, we insist that the Torah is not in heaven because we recognize that an excessive preoccupation with heaven is really an escape from life on the earth. We know that our task as children of God is not to flee creation but to redeem it, to use the considerable resources of prayer, contemplation, study, and piety in order to establish God's sovereignty here and now.
A Torah in heaven would be helpful in heaven. But our lives, our destiny, and our challenge is right here on planet Earth. By building communities of justice and compassion, by giving families the tools they need to raise good and honest Jews, we make our Torah a living force.
In the next best thing to heaven; right here on earth.
Shabbat shalom.