Differing Views of Jewish Living

Defining or describing a Jewish lifestyle assumes that one understands the meaning of Jewish identity.  What constitutes Jewish living is therefore connected with the age old question of who is a Jew or what constitutes Jewishness. This fact causes Jewish living to vary substantially in contemporary Jewish society, in and outside of the land of Israel. Determining what is distinctly Jewish can be troubling endeavor because it affects the manner in which one lives his or her live in areas of morality, politics, family, and inter-group relations.

 Some have chosen to articulate Jewish living in terms of those elements that emphasize the historic connection of the Jewish people to the land of Israel above any purely religious concerns. This of course was reflected in the Zionist movements of the 19th and 20th centuries and continues to manifest itself in part in both the civil religious practices of Israeli society and the generally secularized attitudes of Israeli Jews toward Judaism. Others have chosen to define Jewish living in terms of a racial or cultural distinctive viewing Jewishness as primarily an ethnic identity since ethnic communities share a sense of common origins, claim a common and distinctive history, and possess a sense of collective uniqueness and solidarity, and a distinctive lifestyle. 

More traditionally inclined movements maintain definitions of Jewish living based upon classical approaches to Halakhah. At the opposite end, movements like Reform Judaism which emphasize individual autonomy often radically depart  from historic notions of what Jewish living has meant.  “Jewish values” have replaced traditional understandings of Jewish living and in American society such values have largely morphed into the phenomena of Jewish liberalism and social action.

 Each of these perspectives provides justification for its definition of Jewish living. Each of these positions also encompasses a number of strengths and weaknesses which fail to fully appreciate the complexity of Jewish life in light of classical Jewish sources.