It has been discussed a lot in this forum and in our hebrew mother forum about the direction to be taken so that Judaism can retain its eternal values and get rid of whatever stands in their way. Let's say that we find an already existing and established religion which has only the values of religion in general and of Judaism specifically without the holified traditional baggages which impede the maximal human progress, shouldn't it be considered as an alternative to engaging in struggles within the religions which seem a lost cause from the outset?
Let's have a look at what happened to the Atzkach forums which have been placed by "virtual force" under the umbrella of "bechadrei charedim". This happened just because most debaters, founders and managers come from the orthhodox-charedi world, and agreed to be only partly linked to that world for obvious reasons. This proves that evolution from within doesn't achieve significant results and just sucks the limited human energies available for swimming against the tide.
Let's even assume that for practical and even legitimate reasons it would not be justified to switch adherence to the eventual alternative, but wouldn't it be reccomended as firstly an honest advice for those who want to convert to Judaism because of its values and also as a side affiliation to the already Jewish who want to improve their spiritual lot?
If so let me present that alternative which I happened to come upon while surfing on the net; I am talking about "Unitarian Universalism" (UU).
Since information about this movement is available on their website as well as in wikipedia and more, it is unnecessary to describe its essence here in detail, but I would just point out to some most important factors for the present argument.
* UU doesn't need to hold to any creed of "faith" that is not rationally identified (Being) and therefore has no problem accepting anybody who recognizes their principles of base and the necessity of their practical application.
* UU doesn't need to resort to turning "holy lies" for the sake of education into axiomatic truths.
* UU has the potence of community togetherness to enforce its values but within proportions that doesn't turn it into a social tyranny.
When I mentioned my discovery to some friends, they argued that while UU seems to be 100% positive, it may not be enough as an educational system since most people need detailed practical guidance in their daily lives for which the seven declared principles of UU are insufficient just like saying "be a good person" is too abstract. Therefore even if we succeed to clarify its ideological justification and to demonstrate that it contains the inner meanings of all religions, it would not accomplish the educational purpose of religion.
I do find this argument to be a point to ponder at least for outsiders to UU like us. However, I would reccomend that we first spend some time with UUs to find out if this is actually the case which I doubt, since education is in the hands of adults (see 5th commandment "honour thy father and mother") who know how to apply the UU principles of righteousness (which are seven times more than just: "be a good person") in the daily walks of life. Even if we do find out that these are insufficient, such a frame is probably better than religions with hundreds of confusing, partly misleading and sometimes even psychologically damaging commandments. Although group education starts by catering to the lowest common denominator, dosage is absolutely necessary for those who are and/or progress to higher levels. Furthermore there should exist within the UU some extended writings that do go into details and examples for daily concrete activities. In the absence of such, it would be a positive challenge to work on definitions with examples which are compatible with the UU principles and provide a golden path for educational, social, political and economical approaches. This would be an area in which wise people who are ideological experts can contribute from the richness of their heritages.
תוקן על ידי שכליאל ב- 10/05/2012 09:11:42
