Christianity is not so much a ‘child’ of Judaism, as the sibling of Rabbinic Judaism, which only became real after the fall of the second temple. Both of these are children of temple-cult Judaism, and both differ from that one in several key ways. We can reject the doctrine of superseccionism (sp) which says that xians are the new Jews, without denying a much closer link than is usually taught.
By the same token, look at how the Christian practice of Spiritual Direction has infiltrated Reconstructionism, Renewal and other parts of the Jewish world, how the largely ‘tribal’ values of older generations are being replaced with largely ‘universal’ values of younger cohorts, and the de-emphasis on Jews as blood in favor of softer boundaries that include Chinese babies, converts, non-converted family members, and patrimonial descent.
I for one welcome the slow dissolve of old school Jewish identity into the American multi-culti soup. It provides endless opportunities for Jack Black style hipster sneering at the lameness of the outer circles of wannabes who lack that trufan status. That is our Ray of Light….
Victor? Justin? This is your cue!

Heh, here comes the anti-flame post.
While I don’t agree with you about the role/definition of “spirituality,” I certainly won’t flame you for such a difference in opinion.
In fact, I respect and admire your willingness to express a discomfort with people mixing/matching spiritual practices as though they are items on a buffet table. It does smack of consumerism to a degree.
Personally, I believe that spiritual practices can both “make you feel good” and enhance/deepen one’s spiritual sensibilities. And such practices can come from outside one’s inherited cultural/religious background and be used both seriously and effectively.

@Victor,
While overall, I’ll take your critique, I don’t think I said that the purpose of Judaism is to develop spiritually -if I did, I didn’t mean to – my goal was to remain agnostic as to what Judaism “is for,” in terms of this post, anyway.
I don’t think I like the computer analogy, just because I believe that there is something primal about having a relationship with God, and there is nothing essential whatsoever about using a computer, despite the discomfort it causes many of us (including me) to do without one for even ten minutes (although I have to admit, I don’t so much notice it on Shabbat; I’m too busy to bother with the stuff I can’t do).
As far as “getting” anything… well, that’s human nature, partly, but I don’t think that we have to be too specific. It could be that Judaism “is for” us to develop a relationship with God, to fulfuill a mission in this world, to develop us spiritually ) which can sometimes mean living through boredom or pain or discomfort) – I don’t know that any of those are the same as “getting” something.
After all, people fall in love all the time, and there are good ways to be in relationship and bad ways, and it often makes us feel good, but there are also things we have to learn to compromise on, rules to follow (i.e. don’t commit adultery), and sometimes it’s boring and you’ve got to get through it (for that matter any relationship can be described this way if you live the other person – my kid is sometimes very obsessive about his lego when I’d really rather just read a book, but I still get down on the floor and play with him, because that’s what has to be done). But does that mean a relationship is “for” something?

KRG, I understand your intention: to urge a deeper, holistic understanding of yiddishkeit and divine service. Everything you said is fine, as far as it goes, and I did not mean my comments to be a critique, but a kick in your butt, because you can do better.
The relationship aspect you brought up in your comment is a personal fascination of mine, and is a completely different way of looking at Judaism and its rituals than I think you presented in the article. Chassidus teaches us how to categorize and think about relationships – those which are based on a “something”, and those which are based on nothing.
In the normal way of things, when you meet a person, first you find out things to like about them – their body, their character, their intellect. Then you develop systems of personal payoff – money, status, satisfaction, companionship, personal pleasure, etc. This is the “get” the “something”, the conditions which make your affection for this individual possible. You’re not relating to who they are, but what they can do for you, and they are doing the same. Your relationship is dependent on conditions, and when those conditions end, the relationship ends.
In contrast, there’s something that psychology calls a “primary relationship”, as between a parent and a child. The commitment to the relationship was made unconditionally, before anything to base it on. In essence, the relationship was not based on a “something”, but on nothing. Almost counter-intuitively, the more a relationship is based on nothing, the more likely it is to endure, because it was never premised on a set of conditions which are liable to change.
You know how whenever someone is convicted of some terrible crime – cold blooded murder, let’s say – the media interviews the parents? What do the parents always tell us, without fail? “He’s such a good boy. He never meant to hurt anyone.” But your son is a murderer who certainly disappointed whatever expectations for his life you had, and will spend of the rest of his useless days in jail. How can you still love him? This is a primary relationship. It’s unconditional.
Now let’s think about our relationship with G-d. Really, when we approach having a relationship with G-d, we can do so in two ways. First, we can “begin” a relationship. We can say, “I want to have a relationship with G-d.” And how do we have a relationship with G-d? The Torah teaches us – we learn this and do that and think about so and so. Ok, that’s one way to do it.
Another way to think about it, is that we already have a relationship with G-d. Like your son, KRG, who may not understand those tradeoffs you make by playing with him, by loving him. In the same way, this entire time, our entire lives, we’ve been too busy playing to understand that G-d is having a relationship with us, an unconditional and loving relationship involving tradeoffs that we will never know.
We “start” a relationship with G-d because we want something from Him – health, prosperity, but even without being so coarse, so grub, even in the most enlightened case, “spirituality”, self-actualization. These are tangible things He can give us – that “something”, that “get”, those conditions again. We’re not loving G-d, we’re loving what He can do for us.
There’s a Chassidic saying that goes something like, there are two ways to “use” the Torah. The first is for self-help, self-improvement. The second, for self-transcendence, to let the Torah use you.
G-d loves us unconditionally, as you loved your son before you even saw his face. He always has loved us and always will, no matter our actions. Yes, as with a father, we can disappoint Him or make Him proud, but He won’t love us more if we study Torah and learn mitzvot, or less if we don’t. He doesn’t need us the way we need Him – there’s no co-dependency in this relationship. There is nothing we can complete in Him, nothing for us to fix in Him or bribe Him with in exchange for favor.
I could just keep writing for a while, digging deeper until I’m incomprehensible, which is how many such discussions end, so let me just back up and bring this home. Yiddishkeit is not about starting a relationship with G-d, but recognizing the relationship which was always there, and engaging in it, in the relationship, without preconditions.
You engage in a relationship with your wife through action – from taking out the garbage to cleaning your son’s diapers. The relationship isn’t premised on you doing these things. If you stopped doing these things, your wife might be upset, disappointed, angry, but she won’t stop loving you. Doing these things comes from your desire to bring expression to the relationship, to manifest your affection in physical action.
To a Jew, this is what Torah and mitzvot are – an expression of our relationship with G-d, a manifestation of our unconditional affection in physical action. This is why we say that “the reward of a mitzvah is the mitzvah”. The reward is our own expression of affection for G-d, our connection with Him.

If you stopped doing these things, your wife might be upset, disappointed, angry, but she won’t stop loving you.
To the contrary, every relationship has a deal ,and if you violate the deal, depending on how and how often, your partner will stop loving you. Adultery, or axe-murdering small children are obvious huge deal breakers, but even not taking out the trash will do it, if that’s part of the deal, you keep not doing it, and you don’t offer an awfully compelling explanation.
I’m willing to go with the argument “God is different,” but there are different traditions on this, even in Judaism. Although I do have to say,that God does put up with an awful lot. I guess he just cain’t quit us.

So, Victor, what I guess I would ask is, for most people – let’s exclude the saintly for purposes of argument- how many people would pursue a relationship with God in which there was no response, no return whatsoever, ever, at all?
I think this is an important question, because, I think indeed, many people do feel that way. Thus the shrinking numbers of deeply engaged people – even among the engaged, many are engaged not for love of God, but for other reasons – community, seeking a better world, and so on. For many people, the hope that there is a response from God through the medium of spiritual exercises are really the only reason they can stay engaged with a broader religious project- they want the feeling of awe, wonder and connection – they yearn for it. How rare is the person who loves according the code of chivalry -and to be frank, I’m not sure that such a love is either very Jewish, or even that it’s a good thing.
I’m not convinced that love with no condition really has anything to do with the beloved – I think it has more to do with the lover – and in that sense, is really only a different kind of conditional love. I’m glad of those people who can love everyone with no expectation, but me, I think expectations are a good thing. If I became convinced that God was evil, nothing could induce me to keep worshiping anyway – and if I did, that would make me evil too. power isn’t enough, and I think that humans should have expectations of God – we might have to argue for a while about what a valid expectation might be, but I do thik we should have them.

KRG, I don’t think most people think sufficiently about spirituality to even have a frame of reference for nurturing a relationship with G-d. Take the notion you just presented in which G-d does not “respond” or “return” anything to you. Look at the very inadequate terminology you’re using, which is unfortunately in wide circulation:
If I became convinced that God was evil, nothing could induce me to keep worshiping anyway – and if I did, that would make me evil too. power isn’t enough
Let’s think about what this means. G-d is the source of your life, the One bringing your existence into being each instant. Nothing exists outside of Him. Stop and meditate on that for an instant. Really, close your eyes and consider it. We should really study Shaar Ha’Yichud V’Emunah together.
If G-d were to cease bringing your essence into being, you would revert to nothingness, without a trace, as if you never were, because nothingness is the natural state, and it is only G-d who can make nothing into something. No memory of you would be left. No body which to bury. No idea of you which to mourn. You wrote earlier of a “disembodied” G-d, but we need to spend some time really thinking about this concept, and G-d’s role in our existence. Your conceptualization of a “self”, an existence independent of G-d is, in chassidic terminology, folly.
There is no such existence apart from G-d. You are less than G-d’s shadow, a reflection of fragment of light emanating from Him, infinitely muted and contracted. Your every thought, your every action, your every experience – it is not yours, it was brought about in order that you, a something created from nothing, which is really still nothing except by the constant force of G-d’s will, should think of yourself as an independent being having a thought, taking part in an action, participating in an experience – with the purpose that G-d assigned for you.
So, in this context, what possible sense does it make to say that G-d is evil?
In a general sense, in our faith, evil and good are not concepts left up to the arbitrary judgment of human beings. Whatever is close to the source of your life, to the source nourishing our existence, EVERYONE’S and EVERYTHING’S existence, to the G-dhead, to use an archaic term, is good. Whatever is distant from Him, which denies His unity and Oneness, which sees itself as independent from Him, is evil.
Some seem to conceptualize G-d the way they conceptualize a human ruler – as someone who can exercise power. But this is nonsensical. There is no “power” outside of G-d – time, space, energy, matter, love, hatred… every concept you cherish and abhor is a creation, a permutation of G-dliness in the physical world, which only has meaning because He brings it into being.
Look, these are lofty concepts that aren’t for everyone. Most people who are interested in learning them are those who can’t but feel something missing in their lives, a type of pain, a sensitivity, a distance from truth and essence. I haven’t met a person who hasn’t felt it yet, but we do a great job hiding it, masking it, learning to become numb with twitter and iphones and red kaballah bracelets. And this knowledge doesn’t help, but only structures the loss, organizes it, makes you more sensitive, provides a way to find meaning which isn’t based on emptiness.
So, yes, there is a system of reward and punishment within the blueprint of existence, the Torah. The misnagdim are really into it, the earning of schar, heavenly reward, G-d’s brownie points. Chassidim do not emphasize this approach.
Action is the main thing. If people want to receive a reward for their good deeds – whether that reward is physical or spiritual – well, that’s fine. There is a level, however, at which this reward system is disengaged from spirituality, retasked with self-gratification (even self-glorification) and chained to the boundaries of human intellect. This disengagement is not a modern invention, and it is not conducive to spirituality, but in conflict with it.
The only way I have found to approach truth is by approaching truth. Other traditions have their way to do this, and our tradition has ours, and it is more rich, textured, nuanced and esoteric than anything else I have ever learned. Sometimes I read modern philosophy – deep thinkers struggling with impossible, existential conflicts, an inside I am burning up, wanting to shake them.
Have you ever read two hundred pages trying to describe the purpose and function of the animal soul, without calling it “the animal soul”? It’s like watching someone grope and stumble around in the dark. I WANT TO TEAR MY HAIR OUT, THEY”RE SO CLOSE! And why? Why need they do this when the knowledge is right there, “near to you that you may do it”, that even I, some country bumpkin, with a few years of learning can run rings around lifelong thinkers.
But there is no way around it, at least that I’ve found. He who desires truth, essence, spirituality, come learn chassidus.

Let’s bring this down some more. What are some of the reasons why Jews disengage from Jewish observance? I would list what I think are the reasons, but since I’m not such a Jew, I don’t want to be a presumptuous ass.

This Passover, let’s take seriously the idea of “service”–not necessarily in terms of worship or ritual, but in terms of acting with humility, of playing by the rules and treating others with respect, and of acknowledging the limits of our humanity in the face of God’s .Let’s practice our religion as we want to , walk in the streets wearing freely our knitted kippotand not being afraid of any anti-Semitic activists.I don’t feel that we have to apologize for anything. I am a proud Israeli who happens also to be a jew!