Following up on this post about mainstream Judaism’s discomfort with the artistic impulse, I want to open up a conversation about something that’s been on my mind for a while.
As you may know by now, I’m fairly active on Jwitter (Jewish Twitter). One of the recurring arguments that always manages to rear one of its ugly, irritating, boring heads is the validity of non-Orthodox streams of Judaism. If I can list all the ways that that topic frustrates and disgusts me, I’d be here all day, and nobody has time for that. Instead, I want to open the door to a different way of conceptualizing different streams of Judaism from an artistic point of view.
Something you should know about me is that my identity is deeply entwined with the arts. As such, I’m usually perplexed by the rigidity of some people’s notions about what Judaism is and what it could be. The way I see it, the spectrum of artistic creation has always included both the traditionalist and the avant-garde. This may seem out of left-field, but I view Judaism, in part, as an art form. To me, it’s a process of collective co-creation with God (however you define that) and one another. So, when I see people claim that only variants of Orthodox Judaism are true to Torah, it’s as jarring as if I heard someone say that only Renaissance art is real art or that only the Shakespearean sonnet is real poetry. It’s just bonkers!
The irony of all this is probably not lost on anyone reading this. Artistic forms and techniques that are vintage or retro today were initially avant-garde. The same is true of Judaism. The Rabbis were avant-garde. Kabbalah was avant-garde. Chasidism was avant-garde. All these developments that we now associate with traditional, authentic Judaism were once strange new things that freaks and weirdos were into. Though we take these for granted as Real Judaism™ today, once upon a time, they pushed serious boundaries in the Jewish world.
And here is where normative Judaism’s discomfort with the artistic impulse mirrors the discomfort (or disdain) more traditional forms of Judaism have with more avant-garde forms of Judaism. What’s really going on with that?
Let’s take what seems like a detour but actually isn’t.
I love theatre. I love the magic of it. Through words and actions (sets, costumes, and props optional), the theatrical imagination conjures entire worlds from thin air and transforms everyday people into larger-than-life characters. When a show understands and taps into this, being in the audience, having this experience and sharing it with others, is like nothing else.
But—
There’s a lot of what the late Peter Brook called Deadly Theatre. In The Empty Space, he explains it like this:
The Deadly Theatre can at first sight be taken for granted, because it means bad theatre. […] A true theatre of joy is non-existent and it is not just the trivial comedy or the bad musical that fails to give us our money’s worth — the Deadly Theatre finds its deadly way into grand opera and tragedy, into the plays of Molière and the plays of Brecht. […] The Deadly Theatre takes easily to Shakespeare. We see his plays done by good actors in what seems like the proper way — they look lively and colorful, there is music and everyone is all dressed up, just as they are supposed to be in the best of classical theatres. Yet secretly we find it excruciatingly boring — and in our hearts we either blame Shakespeare, or theatre as such, or even ourselves.
Peter Brook, “The Empty Space”
Like theatre, Judaism’s true value emerges in its liveness, in being dynamic and responsive to its environment, in creatively reimagining what a space, an object, or a person can be. But Deadly Judaism, like Deadly Theatre, does all the things that Real Judaism™ is “supposed” to do yet fails to touch or awaken the soul. And there’s a lot of Deadly Judaism.
So what is there to do about it, and what does it have to do with the avant-garde?
In her Crash Talk, Benay Lappe outlines three responses to a “crash” in a master story.
- Deny the crash, return to the master story, and take refuge there. Then build a wall around that story to shore it up and make sure that no threatening information gets in.
- Accept the crash, completely reject the master story, and jump off into a new story. Most people—the vast majority—take this option after a “crash.”
- Embrace the crash, go back to the tradition, take what still works, mix the old with the new, and create a radically new tradition.
And here, I think, may be the crux of the matter. For those who have chosen option 1, taking refuge in the master story of the Torah, the avant-garde of Judaism doesn’t look like deeply engaging in option 3, taking what works and creating a radically new tradition. It looks like option 2, completely rejecting the master story of the Torah! And nothing will convince them otherwise because their identity and livelihood are wrapped up in taking refuge in the master story and building walls around it.
This is unfortunate, for I see avant-garde Judaism as big part of what can save us from Deadly Judaism. I’m sure someone’s reading this and thinking, “I don’t mind change, but it has to be done the proper way.”
I regret to inform you that does not exist. If you want to see, understand, and appreciate what the avant-garde brings to Judaism, you gotta get that linear, binary shit outta your head. It ain’t real. Asking or demanding more avant-garde expressions of Judaism to conform to more traditional modes of Judaism is asking or demanding it to not be itself.
The ideas and practices developed by avant-garde Judaism that become traditions for future generations aren’t necessarily going to come from those with the most impressive Jewish CVs. As a matter of fact, I think that it’s those of us who are pushed to the margins of traditional Judaism who will be key to Judaism’s future. Necessity will drive us to dig deep into the tradition and create what we need so that Judaism will allow us to thrive.
At least, I hope so.
Bizarro Torah 