Finding home in exile; in diaspora; in relational identities

Adam, from the Outside

Nota Bene: Note Well

I am extending an invitation to you in this post to following me here on WordPress. I have recently made the difficult decision to leave the original home of this blog on Substack. My decision to pack up and move was not an easy one. I’ll save you the details, but my discomfort stems from the stance of the cofounders as free speech absolutists. In effect, in a series of boneheaded moves–if you ask me–the founders have doubled down on their commitment to free speech absolutism. Their view is that even the most extreme ideas are best dealt with in the light, and so, according to that position, all ideas are welcome, without onerous “content moderation” getting in the way.

I fundamentally disagree with this presupposition. Extreme views like those spread through white nationalists and actual Nazis are not worthy of debate. The grounds of their debate are soiled with the bloodshed of war, occupation, and genocide. I could no longer tacitly give my approval to the views of the cofounders by remaining on Substack; no less, a 10% cut of the (albeit small) revenue that comes through the support of paid subscribers. (I offer all content here to all subscribers. Truly, only pay me the $6/month if you won’t miss it. It does help me pay for the books and courses that inform the content I write here.)

If you are interested in a more detailed accounting of concerns about Substack’s content moderation issues and a general critique of the owners, Jonathan Katz outlines this well, here. This is the last I’ll mention of it, but if you’ve been following me on social media or the occasional chat, our you read a couple of my posts at the old place, and now you’re ready to be more involved, I’d welcome your readership in the form of a (free or paid) subscription!

Discovering Myself; Moving Forward

I cross-posted this essay as a sort of goodbye on the old place, where I’ve been maintaining, at minimum, a weekly Sunday Post. Today’s cross-posted essay is addressed mainly at those who are transitioning from Substack, so don’t worry if some of this sounds unfamiliar. Don’t worry! You’ll be settled in, in no time!

For 11 months I’ve been writing 3,000 word essays, expanding on the assigned gospel reading from the Revised Common Lectionary, with commentary provided “through a Jewish lens,” by which I’ve meant to ground commentary in the central assumption that the first century Jesus Movement was a Jewish sectarian movement in the tradition of Jewish apocalyptic literature that shares a theological orientation with other canonical and non-canonical texts from the same period. We’ve also featured passages from the Rabbinic writings to show that at least some assumptions and interpretations present in the anonymous gospel writers were also addressed or employed by the Rabbis.

When I began researching earlier this week for today’s Sunday Post, I just couldn’t. The passage assigned today is from the fourth gospel, and I began to roll out the usual historical context. I began to sound to myself like a broken record, rehearsing the same arguments in new packaging. If I sound that way to myself, I wonder how readers hear me?

This realization comes on the heels of a terrific dinner conversation I had with a dear friend last Thursday night. I told them some about this project, and I realized my passion here is not directly engaging with the text, per se, but rather it is in shaping the contours of Jewish thought as a cultural and theological critic. Maybe the commentary on the gospel text was a way into that stance, but as I continue to find my voice, I need to shed prior versions of myself.

This is not to say that I am not still passionate about that work, and it’s not to say that I won’t continue doing some of this text criticism, but I have begun to feel constrained by that limited scope that I’ve imposed on my own engagement.

We’ve discussed the composition of the gospels at length, and if you’re a regular reader, whether introduced by me or reinforced by my writing, you are likely familiar with Markan Priority, the Synoptic Problem, and the major sectarian groups of Second Temple Period Judaism. You may have a sense of the composition of the Torah by way of the Documentary Hypothesis, and you might understand that the “Prophetic Critique” refers to the ancient prophetic tradition of criticizing political leaders who fail to care for the community, which I’ve applied as criticism of the modern nation state of Israel.

With these concepts in hand, we’ve covered a lot of what may be an undergraduate New Testament 101 course! The truth is, my whole adult life, I’ve wanted to be a teacher of some capacity, and if I’ve gone any way towards helping you solidify your understanding and evaluation of these concepts, in short or in depth, then I am nothing but proud of my contribution to those ends.

Along the way, explicitly or implicitly, my own identity characteristics and thinking about who I am, what matters to me, and importantly, what I want to say to you has evolved. Your joining me on this journey has been either by choice or by fiat, by which I mean to say that some of you showed up here to read exactly what I’ve just described, the commentary on the text, and others may be here as a friend to see what I have to say, or you wrestle with your own religious identity, and you see in me another person wrestling with the same. These, of course, are not mutually exclusive, but what you signed up for (by choice) may not always be what you received (by fiat). Maybe that’s a stupid distinction, but I like heuristics.

What you may not have a strong sense of is my own deep crisis of self. That’s heavy handed, but I’ll let it stand.

Two things strike me at this time in my life. First, that my nearly 25 year negotiation with progressive Christianity and personal connection to Judaism is coming to a head. This past year of deep discernment and writing, informed by decades of lay study, has drawn me closer to Judaism. I see this as who I am. Yet, this also presents a deep insecurity and risk. The insecurity is that I am somewhat of an outsider given the details by which I connect to that tradition; the risk is to my relationships with friends and family where the nuances of my identity may not make immediate sense.

While on the one hand, I’ve never felt more Jewish–whatever the hell that means–and on the other, I’ve never felt more shame, sadness, and frustration with the state of Israel and the hawks among us. Note, Israel is not Judaism, but attitudes about Israel are deeply complicated for Jews, which I wish more non-Jews understood with greater complexity and, frankly, empathy. Genocide is more palatable on the lips of gentiles. That is not to say that it is not the apt description for what Israel is perpetrating, only that many non-Jews misunderstand, or at least fail to acknowledge, what is at stake when Jews criticize Israel. For example, non-Jews will happily say that “most Jews are from Europe anyway” to critique Zionism while paying no attention to the fact that most European Jews end up in other countries as a result of pogroms–organized acts of violence, often state sanctioned. I wish, for example, that the (correct) condemnation that, “Israel is a settler colonial state,” were accompanied by an (also correct) acknowledgment that the Jewish people have been historically racialized and subjected to terrible acts of violence and genocide and are compelled to seek and defend collective safety. We must find a way to both condemn state actions while creating and upholding safety for Jewish people.

This is both somewhat off topic and exceedingly relevant. I’ve felt limited by shoehorning critiques of Israel into the general framework of jPK, whereas what I’d like to be writing about are straightforward cultural, theological, and historical critiques like what I’ve just outlined.

It’s like my own affirmation of what speaks to me from the depths of my identity are being forged in what I take to be the deep perversion of our values. It’s like this. My critique of injustice is shaped by discovering who I really am. I find that this is a pattern in my life. I was diagnosed with a really tough cancer in 2016, and that diagnosis distilled core components of my identity. It’s like I had to get punched in the nose to work through what I stand for. Here, too, it is in relief to what I stand against to distill what I stand for. While it is not solely by who I am not that I discover who I am, I am reminded of a comment made by a rabbi some years ago in a class at the Reform Temple remarking on the distinction of those who are born Jewish and those who are Jews by choice, or converts, “Born Jewish or a convert, everyone is a Jew by choice when it’s often easier not to identify as Jewish.” Criticism of Israel is not antisemitic, but there’s no doubt that antisemitism is on the rise, owing in part to the exclusion of un-learning antisemitism from many antiracism and decolonizing efforts that have shaped the modern political left. And more, progressives and leftists, again, those with whom I share considerable ideological alignment, are comfortable denying a vote to Biden to make a point about his administration’s funding of Israeli genocide of Palestinians, without also noting that these calls would likely hadn a victory to Trump who described fine people on both sides when one side chanted, “Jews will not replace us” or who told the Proud Boys to standby, a group whose founder has said “Hiter was right.” While I hear the critique that to alleviate this fear, we must place pressure on the DNC, I just think many non-Jews seem reticent to openly discuss the disproportionate emotional toll for Jews to confront the generational trauma that stands behind Zionist propaganda. But regardless, these are the sorts of conversations I want to be having, and I find myself on jPK writing too cautiously. With the platform in the shape its in and my evolving sense of self and identity, I think the move to WordPress is the right thing to do.

On the Outside

It’s 19 degrees outside, and three squirrels are chasing each other on the naked branches. Our home is on a circle drive on the far side of the neighborhood. A single tree line runs along our property on the other side of a concrete easement that empties into a large, concrete sewer pipe near the road. The tree line is by no means anything resembling a woods, but it does separate our home, thus, the neighborhood, from the homes, and neighborhood, on the other side. During most of the year, the mature trees and bushes provide a screen of privacy between our home and the neighbors’ backyards. I enjoy sitting at our small kitchen table, or reading outdoors on our standard, suburban wicker patio furniture, in the privacy of our covered back patio and the thick trees and foliage twenty or thirty feet away–not when it’s 19 degrees, of course! This time of year the screen falls to the ground with crunchy leaves and broken limbs. For a few months we see neighbors that we otherwise never do, and the bunny boroughs, opossum tracks, and skinny squirrels with their bushy tails scavenge for food.

That these squirrels chase each other speaks to something of a relational identity. Whatever they seem into, they seem into it together.

I guess in the end, my sense is that all of us are vulnerable creatures exposed by the seasons, in search of a relational identity. In search of whatever we’re into, we’re into it together. When discussing my views with Christians, I’m often defending the Jewish nature of Jesus; when sharing about my writing with Jews, I defend views of a lower Christology. In these ways, I’ve been defining myself so often by what I am not. That is not an authentic identity. Authenticity is what we stand for. Sometimes we arrive there by adversity or taking a stand against something, but this is only truly helpful when it shows us what we stand for. jPK has been a beautiful, sustained exercise in answering some difficult questions. In significant ways, my engagement with the text has done exactly what it’s supposed to do: Guide a process of discernment and response to my situatedness in the world. By no means do I abandon this project, but I will take a step outside of it, onto the naked branches of the outdoors. Want to jump from branch to branch with me?

Is there a topic in the orbit of Jewish History, current events, the history of Second Temple Period Judaism, or the historical context of the first century Jewish Jesus movement that you’d like to see me write about? Drop your suggestions in the comments! Or just say hello!