FOUR AFFINITY GROUPS WHERE WOULD YOU BELONG?
The Seminary of the Wild course created four affinity groups from which we could choose about our relationship to the traditions into which we were born.
One affinity group was for people following a solo path. That’s not me and would never be because while we walk our spiritual paths with our own two feet, I’ve always craved a communal context. I always thought John Wayne was ridiculous, even in those times of my childhood when I admired Spock because he didn’t have any feelings that hurt.
A second affinity group was for people following or exploring a new path, one into which they had not been born. Done that, didn’t work. I spent a month at a Zen Center when I was in my 20’s and every time we chanted, I kept feeling like something was missing. I paid attention to that, sat with it (hey, we were sitting twice a day, there was a lot of time to sit) and realized my problem was the chanting wasn’t in Hebrew. I liked the ideology of Zen a whole lot better than my inherited Judaism—what freedom to not have to deal with the idea of God! There were plenty of Bu Jews around, but it just wasn’t me. I’m a Jew Jew
The last two groups are where it gets confusing/interesting. These were actually the first two groups introduced, I just changed the order to make the exposition clearer.
The third group was for people who are squarely in their tradition. I said, oh, that’s me. I’m a Jew from Aleph to Tav, (A to Z) from the top of my head to the bottom of my toes. Sure, I’m not exactly a conventional Jew, but Jewish I am.
Then they announced the next group—for people who are edgewalkers, who are on the edge of a specific tradition. Well, that sounds exactly like me. As I said in our small group a week later, if Jewish mainstream tradition is a well worn path through the woods that can carry a horse drawn carriage, I’m 50 yards off on some kind of parallel narrow deer path, bushwhacking through the woods.
I’d like to be on that well travelled path adding a little here and there, sharing the tradition and being a cog in its well being. There are people who temperamentally enjoy being edgy or being outsiders. Not me. But I can’t walk that royal path; it just doesn’t fit me.
I’m too much of an Animist, someone who believes deeply that the whole world is alive and we humans are part of a web of life. We’ve forgotten who we are and our spiritual task, or at least mine, is to remember and reclaim our place amidst all the other beings around us. And I can’t walk a path that isn’t focused on this question of how to reclaim our belonging,
Rabbinic Judaism just isn’t focused on our place in the web of life. It’s available within the tradition in whispers and echoes, and I am here on earth to amplify these quiet, forgotten murmurs. The still small voice.
What group would you put yourself in? How comfortable are you being in the mainstream? On the edge?
