Why God Sent the Jews to Buddhism
On Saturday night, I went to B’nai Joshua/Beth Elohim (BJBE) in nearby Glenview to attend a concert/performance of Soul on Fire. It’s a musical and narrative piece written and fronted by Danny Maseng, an inspired teacher and musician, and a cast of several others, including BJBE’s cantor, Jennifer Frost.
Danny was for years a committed practitioner of Zen, as was I. And, like me, he felt he was opened anew to Judaism by the practice of Zen. Part of Soul on Fire maps that journey.
Danny told a remarkable part of this story during the concert:
“After one of my concerts,” he said, “this wild-eyed Chasid came up to me. He had the tzitzit and the payis and all the accoutrements of a pious Jew. And he said to me: ‘Do you know why you went to Zen?’
“I just stared at him. I didn’t know what to say, didn’t know what he was going to say. And he said again, ‘Do you know why you went to Zen, why so many Jews went over to the practice of Zen?’ And I said, ‘No, I would love to know why.’
“And he said the most extraordinary thing: ‘Because,’ he said, ’after the Holocaust, the hearts of the people and their teachers were filled with so much bitterness, weighed down by such feelings of betrayal, that Hashem, in His infinite mercy, sent teachers to Zen so that they could learn once again to love God, and be inspired again to teach Judaism with the love and the sweetness and the compassion that it merits.’”
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Shalom David,
This is really an interesting phenomenon I think - the fact that an enormous percentage of Western Buddhists in the United States and Canada are Jews. Lots of people have commented on it in various places, and I think the Hasid in your story has one possible explanation. I have another one:
In a real sense, this Jewish penchant for internal, mystical experience is what has opened up Jewish mysticism to the wider Jewish world.
I think that lots of the practical aspects of mystical Judaism would have never come on to the radar of the broad Jewish community, but would have stayed isolated in various places like Tzefat, Jerusalem, and Brooklyn, if large numbers of non-Orthodox Jews hadn’t gone to Buddhism. Part of the reason our own contemplative traditions have been unearthed and are being lived by lots of Jews who are not terribly attracted to strict ritual observance must be that a hunger for such things was demonstrated by the exodus to Buddhism, prompting learned Jews with good eyes and even better hearts to throw open the gates of Jewish inner practice to the masses (Gershom Sholom, Martin Buber, and modern teachers like Rabbi David Cooper and Rabbi Jonathan Omer-Man)
There’s a midrash about Nachshon ben Amminidav. He was the "chief" of the tribe of Judah during the exodus from Egypt, and it was told that when Moshe Rabbeinu told Israel to walk in to the sea, the waters hadn’t yet split. So Nachshon jumped in, and started walking. Nobody else did. None of the priests or Levites, none of the other chiefs, not even Moshe. As he walked, the water began to rise… to his knees…. thighs… waist…. ribs…. shoulders…. chin… Meanwhile Moshe is praying, and G-d intervenes and says "Look! My friend is drowning, and so now you should pray?!?! Tell the People to GO!" The water reaches Nachshon’s nostrils, and the sea splits.
So maybe all of the "JuBus" out there are the Nachshons who took a drastic (and some might say dangerous) step, but it was one taken on behalf of K’lal Yisrael, and now we are all reaping the benefits.
Personally, I tend to go back and forth a little bit between having my morning prayers consist of more words or more meditation. Sometimes I get so concerned with minutia that I have to just back off a bit (something like the idea of killing the Buddha, right? :)…). So I have to say I am personally grateful that others have served as the impetus for opening up Jewish meditative practice to those other than 40 year old, married, ultra-orthodox men proficient in Talmud and Halakha.
Great post!
kol tuv,
Yair