Self help and personalised Judaism

One of the many cultural developments that society has witnessed over the past few decades has been the extraordinary proliferation of self-help books now available on the market. The exponential growth of this genre illustrates several things about the direction in which we as humans are headed in life, some of them positive and others less so. But one thing that’s clear is that more and more people want to do things their way. They no longer want to accept the status quo in any area of life, be it relationships, education, work, religion and spirituality.

Within the context of Judaism this development has had mixed outcomes. On the one hand we are witnessing more and more Jews wanting to find their own path of Judaism – a path that is meaningful to them.

This is wonderful in the sense that we as Jews are instructed by the Torah to make Judaism personal to us. We are cautioned by the prophet Isaiah (29:13) not to fall into the trap of performing Jewish rituals perfunctorily. We are commanded to view the mitzvot every single day as something new, fresh and exciting (Midrash on Devarim 6:6). When we as Jews actively seek a path in our Judaism which is meaningful and relevant to us, we fulfil this goal by ensuring our Jewish belief and practice is indeed exciting to us and to our children. And if Jewish self-help books assist us in this journey then this can only be a good thing. Indeed, American socialist and cultural critic Micki McGee famously said that perhaps the first and most significant of self-help books was the Bible itself!

At the same time, it should be acknowledged that searching for a form of Judaism that resonates with us personally carries the risk of falling prey to beliefs and ideologies that may contradict Judaism as it has been practised and preserved for four millennia.

Belief in, and practice of, the oral tradition (the Mesorah) is indispensable to Judaism. In an era where there exists so much misinformation on the internet relating to any number of issues in society from climate change and COVID-19 vaccines to religion and Jewish ritual, we must be mindful of the parameters beyond which our spiritual journey ought not take us. Making Judaism personal is an excellent achievement but personalising Judaism based on the expectations of an ever-changing society is fraught with problems.

Fortunately, we are not the first generation to deal with this issue. Our forefather Avraham Avinu was also tasked with travelling along a spiritual journey in this week’s Parasha of Lech Lecha, well before the advent of the self-help era. He was commanded by God to travel away from his home and his birthplace to an unknown destination. His journey was not just a geographical one but a spiritual one.

Our Kabbalists teach us the words “Lech Lecha”, ordinarily translated as “go for yourself”, may also be translated literally – “go to yourself”. God was instructing Avraham to journey deep within himself and connect to his spiritual core. It is our spiritual core where we connect most deeply with God. It is this core in which we can each find our connection to the Torah and mitzvot.

Avraham travelled to his spiritual centre and in doing so made Judaism relevant and meaningful to him (indeed, we are told that he observed all the mitzvot of the Torah even though God had not yet commanded them!) Each of us have been empowered by God to do the very same thing.

Rabbi Yaakov Glasman is senior minister of St Kilda Hebrew Congregation.