A-Z OF JEWISH VALUES -

L FOR LIBERALISM

(Or, LAID-BACK JUDAISM)

Lessons from London post- 7.7

In the wake of the terrible tragedies of London 7.7, the first suicide bombings in Britain, the distance between us and the Middle East has suddenly shrunk.

I can tell you also that the faith communities are coming closer together as a result. The Home Office is maintaining regular contact with the Reform Movement monitoring the building up of contact networks between us the churches and the Muslim communities.

We are all concerned with what lies behind these dreadful events: is it a religious conflict, secularism versus faith, is it a conflict of values- tolerance versus fundamentalism, is it a rejection of modernity by people who regard globalisation as threatening their culture and beliefs? Or is it a combination of all of these?

First of all, as is being made very clear in all parts of the country, the vast majority of Muslims in Britain are utterly opposed to terrorism. For this very reason any attack on reasonable law-abiding Muslims would be serving the aims of al-Qaeda. Racial conflict is the quagmire from which they breed. It wants more recruits, not inter-community peace and understanding.

As the search proceeds apace for the man and the movement behind the bombers, our minds search desperately for explanations. The simplest answer is to dismiss it all as madness. They are not to be seen as irrational. But rather as evil people with calculated aims and methods. It’s in our own best interests to regard them as a cunning enemy, not lunacy.

The history of suicide bombing from when it began in Russia when Czar Alexander II was assassinated in this way in St Petersburg in 1881 to the Kamikazis of Japan, shows that the perpetrators, far from being irrational are cool and calculating, often very well educated, and their aims are ideological.

The enemy is the ideology. And our aim should be know your enemy. But in order to achieve this another even greater maxim comes into play: Socrates’ saying Know thyself.

How can you oppose an ideology if you do not first know your own standpoint?

The other, and perhaps more important, point about knowing yourself in this context is the fact that extremism, the desire for dominance and if necessary to kill and die for it, is unfortunately not the prerogative of any one religion or culture; it is found in all.

The word that is most commonly used to describe the root of the problem is Fundamentalism. Opposed to Fundamentalism is Liberalism.

Our form of Judaism comes under the broad category of liberalism (not liberal Judaism but Jewish liberalism). Liberalism in the true sense of the meaning of the word liberal: (with a small ‘l’) free, free-thinking. ‘Laid-back’ if you like. Untrammelled by dogmatism.

Fundamentalism originally referred to Christians in America who opposed Darwin’s theory of evolution in favour of Creationism And still do…

So one thing about Liberalism is that it is open to scientific ways of thinking.

Science applied to the sacred scriptures too- archeology, literary and linguistic analysis. Such skills are the bread and butter of Reform Judaism. This implies an openness to the advances of the modern world, and an openness to influences from outside Judaism. In itself this view is nothing new. For example, Maimonides taught: ‘accept the truth from whichever direction it comes.’

Liberalism involves an openness to differences.

Liberalism does not compromise human dignity by treating minorities as second-class citizens. It opposes elitism, whether it’s power held by a superior class or by the more observant, or by one sex over the other.

Liberalism is open to democracy – informed by all these values I’ve so far mentioned, as against autocracy, the rule of the few over the many.

Liberalism is progressive – it moves with the times, does not remain hide-bound by what has gone before simply because it is sanctioned by the passage of years. What is well-seasoned by time, and traditional, has also to be recognized for its intrinsic value, and and above all not to harm anyone.

This is not to say that we – you and I - can change hearts and minds anywhere beyond our own chevreh.

It is to say that we have a responsibility to teach liberal values within our own chevreh – as has every other community in our society.

But then – you may already be sensing the paradox: – is it not self-contradictory for liberals to require everyone to be liberal. Would that not be tantamount to a dogma of dogma-lessness?

No – because all one is asking is that people be allowed to be free. And freedom is an absolute human value.

So, serving the cause of liberalism is the contribution which we as Reform Jews can make to the current world crisis.

By promoting it we are opposing fundamentalism and anti-liberalism in our own midst and in our society as a whole, helping to alter the climate away from one in which the ideology of evil seeks to feed on discord in order to recruit and grow.

It may seem surprising, it may not be what we expected, nor the among the reasons for why we joined the Shul, attend services and meetings, send our children to cheder, but seen against this background, what we are doing here is supporting some of the most necessary activity that our society requires for its own peace and well being.