Jacob Lumbroso is a world traveler and an enthusiast for foreign languages, history, and foreign cultures. He also is a music fanatic and has a website where he provides information on Musical Instrument Accessories and Fender Musical Instruments.
Of all the things that separate Jews from Christians, one of the most significant is the question of autonomy and personal choice. Evangelical Christians are often accustomed to the idea that the individual reading and interpreting of the Scripture can derive the will of God for his or her life. More importantly the individual can resolve any question life might present by simply finding an appropriate biblical passage. Behavior is dictated by prescriptions presented in the Biblical text and nothing more is needed. In the end, the personal conviction of the individual and that alone is all that suffices.
The religious Jew however understands that the Torah was not given to an individual, but to a community and that the challenge and responsibility of being faithful to the covenant that God established with the children of Israel at Sinai can only be done in the context of a community.
There are of course Torah commandments that are given to the individual, but the religious Jew understands that the Torah itself delineates between the responsibilities of a Cohen (priest), a Levite, a regular Jew, women and men, stranger and native born.
The 613 commandments of the Torah cannot be kept by any one individual because the Torah prescribes different responsibilities to different people. The religious Jew then understands that the keeping of the Torah is not a subjective experience but rather a process that is undertaken in light of the Torah’s own commandments, in conjunction with the manner in which the community of Israel has preserved and observed these commandments. A Jew that breaks with the generally accepted observance of a commandment is creating a scenario fraught with potential discord.
I say this in general with the intent to apply to large scale scenarios. A Jew preferring to pray privately rather than a synagogue or with a minyan is depriving himself of the responsibility to observe all the prayers and the ability of others to do the same.
The individual must be willing to sacrifice his or her personal autonomy for the sake of the community. This is not extinguishing the realm of personal choice but to work and understand the creativity and range and boundaries of it.
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