Letter from Lhasa, number 168. (Donin 1972): To be a Jew
by Roberto Abraham Scaruffi
Donin, H. H., To Be a Jew. A Guide to Jewish Observance in Contemporary Life, Basic Books Inc. Publishers, New York City, N.Y., U.S.A., 1972.
(Donin 1972).
Rabbi Hayim Halevy Donin
This book is an ample compilation of what indicated in its subtitle, Jewish observance.
There are also, marginally, other aspects.
For instance:
“However central an institution the synagogue has always been in Jewish life, it has never been synonymous with Judaism. While there are synagogues, one cannot speak of The Synagogue as the authoritative institution of the faith. Judaism is not embodied in any institution but in the Torah, Written and Oral. At one time, the Sanhedrin, a Supreme Religious Court, exercised a centralised authority. But for the past eighteen centuries, that authority was diffused among the rabbinical heads of their respective communities.”
(Donin 1972, p. 185)
In the reported paragraph, the author, a rabbi, seems to solve, by some confused soviet-style sophism, that rabbis have been taken over by a U.S. puppet pseudo-Zionist State (founded on the destruction, with British and U.S. at least complicity, of European Judaism, while [official] “Zionists” were at least collaborationists of the British and U.S. armies etc.), and that they act, at the same time, as para-State officers of the States were they operates. State/government controlled “religion” is an also contemporary reality, also in whatever contemporary “western” State, not only a past custom.
Judaism is monotheist. The God-State/government is a violation of monotheism, so of Judaism, or at least of its official claims. Anyway, this is finally irrelevant relatively to the purpose of the book, which is extremely useful for what concerns the forms of Judaic life.
“Knowledge requires understanding, and the greatest understanding derives from personal involvement and not merely from textbook learning.”
(Donin 1972, p. 315)
Donin, H. H., To Be a Jew. A Guide to Jewish Observance in Contemporary Life, Basic Books Inc. Publishers, New York City, N.Y., U.S.A., 1972.
