Orthodox Heresy

Daniel Landes' review of Arthur Green's Radical Judaism: Rethinking God and Tradition reminds me of my own tension with Orthodoxy:
Green admits, "(partly in sadness!) that it no longer suffices for me to limit my sense of spiritual fellowship to those who fall within the ethnic boundaries that history has given us." He is, indeed, prepared to say:

"I have more in common with seekers and strugglers of other faiths than I do with either the narrowly and triumphally religious as the secular and materialistic elements within my own community."

Thus Green calls for a broader "Israel," imagining "an extended faith-community of Israel, a large outer courtyard of our spiritual Temple."

Although Green himself is a person who is clearly attached to the Jewish people, the logic of his position is disturbing. It leads him to privilege people possessing the proper spiritual consciousness, "my Israel," over the actual people of Israel.

So Green and I are "disturbing" because we feel more affinity with Rumi and Kierkegaard than with Bernie Madoff and Baruch Goldstein? Who is the heretic here?

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