r/JewsOfConscience • u/ContentChecker Jewish Anti-Zionist • Oct 27 '24

Discussion Cultural exchange with /r/Arabs!

Hi everyone,

Today we will be having a cultural exchange with r/Arabs - beginning at 8AM EST, but extending for about 2 days so feel free to post your questions/comments over the course of that time-frame.

The exchange will work similarly to an AMA, except users from their sub will be asking us questions in this thread for anyone to answer, and users from our sub can go to a thread there to ask questions and get answers from their users!

To participate in the exchange, see the following thread in /r/Arabs:

https://old.reddit.com/r/arabs/comments/1gd9eb3/cultural_exchange_rjewsofconscience/

Big thanks to the mods over at /r/Arabs for reaching out to us with this awesome idea! Thanks to MoC for posting the original post.

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u/Strange_Philospher Oct 27 '24

How do Jewish people who are both religious and leftists recioncile between religion and leftism? The common narrative in the Arab world established some sort of dichotomy between religion and leftism ( mostly due to political fights between Islamists and leftists ), so I was quite interested to gain more insights from people here. For example, how do u reconcile between the spiritual nature of religious practice and fighting against the material oppressive systems ? Doesn't the focus on one lead to ignoring the other ?

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u/ComradeTortoise Jewish Communist Oct 27 '24 edited Oct 27 '24

So, there's a few things. First of all I should say that while I have Jewish ancestry, my family was shattered in Russian pogroms converted to Christianity by adoption of orphans a hundred years ago. I am in thus converting to Judaism, but that's on pause, because I don't have a local congregation due to my anti-zionism. Still studying on my own though.

The first is that because Judaism is focused on community practice and not theological uniformity or belief as such, we have a lot of different ideas about what Hashem is, whether Hashem exists, and whether or not that's even important. But no matter what, how we exist in the world is important.

Personally I think that Hashem is a kind of personification of the majesty and strangeness of the universe that Jews have a Jewish relationship with (other religions have their own relationships with it, or conceptualize it as multiple things in the case of polytheists). Whether or not there is actually some kind of conscious entity there I'm not sure, but I think there is.

For me at least, the core of Judaism is Hashem basically having this conversation (Not literally, but distilling everything down into a slightly amusing dialogue for illustrative purposes)

Hashem: hey, you! Be not afraid!

Jews: I that ship has sailed, I am very afraid.

Hashem: Whatever. I have a job for you.

Jews: what kind of job?

Hashem: You are to live a life of spiritual discipline, learn how to live in a just society, and serve as an example for all these other humans to do the same. You are going to help me, and the rest of them, build a just society where there is no war, or exploitation, or Injustice.

Jews: That sounds pretty good, what's the catch?

Hashem: the instruction manual I'm giving you (or inspiring you to write, depending on exact beliefs) is for the world you live in right now. The world will change, and it is up to you how you work with the instruction manual and reinterpret it to fit the world as it changes. Also, People are not going to like you very much, so I'm going to make sure they don't kill all of you.

Jews: I feel like "all" is doing a lot of heavy lifting....

Hashem: Yes.

Jews: ...

After that, the rest is (sacred) folk history/myth and commentary (sacred commentary, but commentary), and a dialectical relationship with Hashem mediated through the Torah. But that world of peace, justice, and non-exploitation Hashem wants us to create? It sounds like communism, at least to me.

Karl Marx said that religion is the opiate of the masses. But when he said that, he didn't mean that religion is inherently bad or incompatible with leftist ideas. What he meant was that religion gets used by the ruling class to salve the wounds in the human soul that capitalism creates. But religion does not have to do that. Religion belongs to us, the people. And we can - must - use our religion to do other things. To build the world that Hashem wants us to build.

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u/Saul_the_Raccoon Conservadox & Marxist Oct 27 '24

I believe he also said that "religion is the heart of a heartless world".