In his book: Studying the Jewish Future, Calvin Goldscheider tells the story of Shmuel Braw, a Holocaust survivor who returned to his hometown of Tarnow in Poland to find that “Dos Yiddishkeit, Judaism,” no longer existed. What was Shmuel Braw referring to? He was not referring to the religious or cultural aspect. The Jewish religion and culture were still alive despite everything that had happened. So what was he referring to? He was referring to his community and its institutions. Being part of it was what being Jewish meant to him. The rest was incidental.

It is hard to understand. How is it that the essence of Judaism is its people and its institutions, in other words “One Kehila”? Isn’t Judaism the Torah, the Bible, the Talmud, the Halacha, Jewish philosophy, history, literature, art, language, gastronomy and everything else that makes us identify ourselves as Jews? We can imagine arguing with Shmuel and he would surely let us speak and say again: “You may be right, but here in my town, Judaism, “dos yiddishkait” disappeared.”

The lesson that Goldscheider wants to convey to us is that what is important in the end is the social. We can disguise it with the religious, or with the cultural, or with customs, but in essence, all our actions have a social background. And it doesn’t matter if we are orthodox or completely liberal, atheists or believers and unless we are hermits, if we live integrated into a social group, our behavior ultimately tells us: “I follow the rules or the customs of my group, because I want to be part of it.” And religious Jews act according to the rules of their group and traditionalists theirs. And Zionists and liberals follow their own.

The events that mark the cycles of Jewish life are at heart a social event perhaps more than a religious one. When we celebrate a Brit Mila, a Bar Mitzvah, a wedding and even when we unfortunately sit at Shive, the message we give is that we want to share with our group the fact that something good (or bad) has happened to us. And this sharing is done in the way accepted by the group. It seems that we do it to say to them: “Here I am, my family and I are part of you.”

All this is not new. Belonging and participating in community life is immersed in the Jewish spirit. Judaism is made to be practiced in a group. All our holidays are celebrated in community and the need for a minyan to pray is the best example. As Baruch Spinoza, the great philosopher of the 17th century, said, man (and especially the Jew) is definitely a social animal.

By Marcos Gojman

Bibliography: Understanding The Jewish Future by Prof. Calvin Goldscheider