Proselytizing Jews in WSP

Ahhhh, the flowers are back in Washington Square Park, the sun is shining, the tanners are tanning...and you know what that means: Jews are on the prowl.

The park is perfect proselytizing territory for the Chabad on the corner of WSN and MacDougal, and today a young fellow named Yeshaiyahu was at work in what I like to call the tanning corner (where I was splayed) in the southwest quadrant of the park, going from person to person. One girl he approached was meditating serenely under a tree and when asked if she was Jewish she said she knew all about the Kabbalah and that she thought it was beautiful (oy vey). She then extended her hand to shake Yeshaiyahu's and he recoiled. Ha.

This Yeshaiyahu was a pretty charismatic and affable guy, though, and the next person he approached -- an obvious Jew (trust me, you'd have known) -- Y. actually convinced to go with him to the Chabad to fulfill the mitzvah of wrapping tefillin.

Now, I felt a little strange about this. Because, apart from proselytizing being evil and horrible and downright embarrassing, what's the point of putting on tefillin if you're just going through the motions? Not that I think that going through the motions is bad per se, but it is when not accompanied by anything else, whether it's full belief or even just a spiritual feeling.

I think the reverse is also true: religion devoid of ritual isn't religion at all either. I felt this strongly at the Passover seders I went to this year, both of which were really nice, but neither of which followed the ritualistic traditions of the holiday. At both, in fact, even though there were younger children than me I asked the four questions 'cause I was the only person that knew them in Hebrew. And we didn't do the hand washing at either. I hate to judge -- and I know that I could be judged just as easily for not keeping the tradition of being kosher, or lighting the candles on Shabbat, or whatever, by people who do do those things -- but I just felt sad about it, almost from an anthropological perspective. Meaning that when religion isn't practiced, it's just religion in theory, and the Jewish religion is dying out. A great This American Life touched on the issue of religion in today's world in a segment about a focus group for creating a modern religion (the 4/14/06 episode).

But what Yeshaiyahu was doing was no good either. That's just religion in practice, and I don't really think that's the point. Or at least I like to believe it isn't. I don't what the answer is, but I do hope ze Jewishes stay true to their ancestry and history as the years go by.