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Lori Schneide is a rabbinical student at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical college. Based in Los Angeles and Philadephia, Lori has taught Torah and served congregations in California, New York, New Jersey, Florida and Vermont. She is currently consulting with synagogues and organizations nationally on alternative programming for the Jewish 20- and 30- something.
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By Lori Schneide
December 20, 2005
VH1's onto it. John Stewart is embodying it. And the New York Times is covering it. It's the Hip Jewish phenomena. And if there's ever a time to blow your Jewish horn, it's now.
You see, there's a reason for all of this Jewish shofar blowing. It's actually a mitzvah. And during this time of season we've come to know as Chrismakwanzahanukah, the Hanukah holiday is the prescribed time in the Jewish calendar year that Jews are commanded to "advertise the mitzvah." For all of you thinking that this Jewish-hipster craze was content-free, it seems that content works in great and mysterious ways.
The mitzvah of advertising the commandment, or "persomet ha-mitzva," is one of three prescribed commanded observances of Hanukah. The others are to light the Hanukiah (or holiday menorah), and give tzedakah, or charity. The recent charity event benefiting the Jewish philanthropic organization, Natan, and sponsored by the Jewish-hipster magazine, Heeb, on December 11 at Crobar in New York City, fulfilled two out of three Hanukah mitzvot. Had it actually been Hanukah, these "culturally identified Jews" would have pulled off a Hanukah observance that just might have rivaled Chabad's "mitzvah-mobile" blaring music down Fifth Avenue. Crobar was filled with the rhythms, humor, smells and irreverence of the new Jewish generation doing "Jewish." The only question I have is this: did any of the hipsters know it?
It's been a few years now since a cultural renaissance of Jewish-happenings, hip-hop, reggae and rap musicians, young comics, irreverent actors with last names turned "Black," sophisticated salons and millennial partying like it's 5999 have reinvented Judaism as "hip." And yet, this question seems to rise from the whisperings of Hillel and Shamai in the yeshiva of my mind at every new-hip-Jew-event I attend: Who will bury our dead, marry us meaningfully, bar mitzvah our children, and provide compelling content for this rebirth?
I'm not saying that we have an answer yet. My sense is we don't. It is clear that my generation is expert in how to do "Jew-ish". But how do we do God? How does our love for ritual and assembly (read: martinis and partying) play-out in our times of need, life-cycle events, holidays or expressing holiness in our lives? What is our inner life as a generation, and how will Judaism respond to it in a way that is equally compelling and confluent with our social lives? What is the spiritual practice of this internet generation, who have as of yet only come-out as "culturally Jewish?"
What will you do, Jewish-hipster, when your dad dies? Who will you call? The rabbi who bar mitzvah-ed you? Or maybe that seemingly cool rabbi who leads the service with the synthesizer?what's his name? Or that cantor who sings campy songs on her acoustic guitar? The cross-dressing Rebbezin? Adam Sandler? Madonna? Who do you turn to with the big questions?
I ask you, Jewish-hipster: How do you do Jew?
Is it through the irreverent mouth of the brilliant Sarah Silverman singing Kol Nidre that we should annul our vows on Yom Kippur? Might we ask John Stewart to give the d'var Torah for Rosh HaShanah? How about a Purim-rave with house-music pulsing out the entire Megillat Esther? My sense is that there is a whole world of performance and pop-culturally-driven ritual yet to be discovered. A world of high holiday services, Get rituals and yes, even Brit-milot to be invented. We all know Jews are famous for asking questions. What are ours? And what will our curiosity create?
What will your wedding, your daughter's birth, your first divorce, your menopausal spiritual awakening look like, Generation X-Y? Because just as much as our baby-boomer parents haven't forced us to grow up, we are growing up. And the big questions are not going to go away just because we'd rather go to a juicy party and drink martinis. We need to explore our place as inheritors of a Jewish tradition that has privileged us with identities as highly educated, manifestly creative and lustful-for-life-hipsters. There's a reason why we're this way. And we need to unearth it.
Our Hanukah party's dance floor is built atop a tell beneath our feet. We must excavate these thousands of years of Jewish ancestry upon which we stand. Our ancestors whisper to us to not only celebrate our Judaism, but to know it, too. Just think of how hip those 18th century Chassids, those 1920's Zionists, and those ancient Maccabbean Warriors thought they were. Hip-Judaism is nothing new. It is, and has always been a genesis for a Jewish Renaissance. Hip Judaism of its time created Jewish Oral Law, the State of Israel and rededicated the ancient Temple of Solomon. Our newest and coolest reinvention is just the beginning. Meanwhile, we've got some history to unearth. I daresay, our future hip-grandchildren depend on it.
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