Book Review: The Jew in the Lotus

The Jew in the Lotus

Book By Roger Kamenetz
Book review by Lawrence Weisman

Lawrence Weisman is a long-time member
of the Heartland Sangha.

Reprinted from the Heartland Sangha Notes Newsletter

Several years ago Rev. Yukei Ashikaga, head minister of the Buddhist Temple of Chicago, and my first Buddhist teacher, commented to me: (paraphrased) “Larry, I have noticed that among our Caucasian members, the majority seem to be Jewish; since you are Jewish I thought that you might have some understanding of this.” My explanation for this phenomenon, which I had also observed, was that wherein many Christian denominations taught that first one must find faith then understanding would follow, we Jews believe that we will find faith through study and understanding. Thus the Buddhist idea of seeking your own personal truth is very comfortable or heimisch (homelike) for us as we seek our faith. The book makes reference in several places to data or observations that 30% of Caucasian Buddhist leadership is Jewish.

Roger Kamenetz, the author of The Jew in the Lotus was invited to document a historic trip made by a group of Judaic scholars and teachers to Dharamsala in India, the home in exile for the XIVth Dalai Lama of Tibet and the center for his sect of Buddhism. They were invited by His Holiness, who was interested in learning the“twenty centuries of exile and dispersion” (p.2). In the yin and yang of life, the factors that have held us together have also been in play to keep us wandering since we have regained our homeland. So we find that this book addresses both the question of His Holiness, and that of Sensei Ashikaga.

I have always felt that persecution was the strongest factor in maintaining Jewish identity. This idea was reinforced for me by a passage by James Michener, which was supposed to be YHWH speaking through the voice of a Jewish woman, sending the Jews into slavery: “These things I do not in hatred but in love. Other nations shall vanish but Israel shall survive. For in captivity shall you cling together and each shall be loyal to the other, and all shall remember Jerusalem.”

I learned in this book that in older practices of Judaism, things that I had never experienced, there were ideas that had great attraction. This had been brought out in discussions that were held regarding why so many Jews were losing interest in Judaism and why some were being attracted to other religions.

The complexity of the question begins with the idea that if the Tibetans could find a path to their survival as a people and a religion from the history of the Jews in exile, then there would have to be common sociological and theological grounds. Confounding this question is the reality that major differences in theology and culture exist within the world of Jewish experiences. To keep the Dalai Lama's perspective in balance, the group was comprised of a “quilt of the Jewish Diaspora, a microcosm of the wanderings of the Jewish people . . . Zalman Schacter, (Orthodox - renewal) born in Poland, Jonathan Omer-Man, an Englishman living in Los Angeles, Paul Mendez-Flohr, born in Detroit, Yitz and Blu Greenberg, (ultra Orthodox) and Rabbi Joy Levitt (Reform) representing New York, Professor Nathan Katz, Florida” ( Narrated by member Moshe Waldoks, Jewish scholar and humorist, p.23).

It happens that I am concurrently rereading The Source by James Michener and I have been struck by how the early Hebrews spoke of their god of not being of substance or of place, as being everywhere and in everything. Their early leaders go off into the wilderness, or up to a mountain top and “meditate” and commune with a powerful presence. Then I read in this book of similar practices of Kabbalistic Jews in relatively modern days and of ultra orthodox Jews of today and I find that my connection to these things has been through Buddhism; that the intellectual approach of Conservative Judaism has left me “out of the loop”. The Dalai Lama commented that “Buddhism does not accept . . . God as an almighty or as a creator. . . .But at the same time, if God means truth or ultimate reality, then there is a point of similarity to shunyata, or emptiness.“ Shunyata is also called by the Tibetans "dependent arisings," the interrelatedness and interdependence of all living things and beings . . . nothing stands independently permanently or absolutely.” (p. 85)

By comparison the author comments, “. . . many devout Jews do carry such an image of God, after all in the liturgy, God is described as a father, a king of kings, an almighty. But within the four worlds cosmology, the highest contemplations avoid such imagery. As Zalman had mentioned, the realm of nearness (aztiluth) is both full of God and completely empty - because at that level there is no (thing) for God to be.” (p. 85).

Reading this book has been a very personal experience. When I first started I felt that Kamenetz spent too much time sharing his own experiences and interjecting his view of what was said. I had expected a more journalistic style, an account of events, a report of discussions and findings. Now I find myself doing the same thing. For me, and apparently Kamenetz, too many personal chords are touched to remain aloof. I have come to realize that there are three books or reports: the dialogue among the Jews, the dialogue between the Jews and the monks and Lamas of Tibet, and third, the interaction between the author's consciousness and the two primary dialogues. It is an intensely mindful experience.

The most important chord that was touched was the loss of spirituality in modern Jewish life and practice. Modern American Jews may have suffered slights, but rarely persecution, that prison that binds us, but spirituality is like a magnetism, or better yet, love, that draws us from within. Somehow as a youngster I seemed to be learning Judaism from an intellectual or mechanical perspective: how to read Hebrew, how to say the prayers, different ritual practices and Jewish history so far as it was tied to holidays. Perhaps I lacked maturity to make the connections. Perhaps we (my community ) were too busy getting things, getting better to be sincerely mindful of that pillar of Judaism, acts of loving kindness, to really act in an ethical way, with generosity of spirit, respect and appreciation. The following quotes (in reverse order) illustrate: (p. 112)

“So I understood Rav Kook very well - the contemptuous attitudes I had towards Gentile spirituality had blocked me from ever looking for spirituality in Judaism. They were the mountains I had to climb over to reach God.”

“Because in denying spiritual power to other religions, particularly Christianity, but also Buddhism, Hinduism, and Islam, my own Judaism - as a religion - had also become a very dry and unexamined affair.”

How do I summarize? We Jews have had six thousand years of persecution to bind us. Without that, all we have left is spirituality and loving kindness; so we must rekindle that in ourselves so we don't seek it elsewhere. To the Dalai Lama I say, “Keep the message clear, don't let it become clouded in such temporal things as rituals and relics.”

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