My Quasi-Jewish Decision to Like the Unitarians

My Quasi-Jewish Decision to Like the Unitarians
It has occurred to me that Judaism has as many faults as Christianity. The naïve belief of perfect Judaism has long since worn off, but then the question remained: Where do I go from here? The Jewish idea of a Messiah or Moshiach among other things is as ridiculous as the trinity and other Christian beliefs. Islam was probably dead on about Jesus. He was not the antichrist, as the Talmud puts forth. He was not God, as the majority of Christians put forth. He was an important person to history, and to me that puts him on the level of Mohammed or Isaiah, as a prophet. This is the view many Unitarians hold is true. That is, most Unitarians would probably believe Jesus was a great teacher, but no more than that. I don’t know that he was a great teacher though I do think the subject of Jesus is very important to study, and worthy of elevating to that of religion.
The Unitarians have essentially broken away from Christianity. This attracts me to them. Really, all I look for is a social gathering and an intellectual discussion. That alienates me from Islam, which is far too well known for its zealots. I need a religion without required doctrine that accepts converts that believe the same.
Suddenly, I can’t be a Jew because more is expected of the converts. Strangely, I probably have a more Jewish ancestry than the majority of Jews though, but my Christian heritage would be what Rabbis would notice.
I LOVE to study Orthodox Judaism, Science and History. But, as of yet this has not been a social event for me. Additionally, more and more I see things such as the Talmud and Mishneh Torah as mere great books, not canon, which Judaism affords to them. I might say: What is canon anyway? I don’t really have any canon that I believe in. The problem is Orthodox Jews would turn me away if I said I was a potential convert. Additionally, I have my reservations over the truths of the Torah and the Tanach. There are certainly problems with Judaism, and I feel Unitarians would provide me the room to be comfortable with that. Wow! I applaud myself for obtaining the level of being super liberal there!
Already I have questioned and teased apart Christianity. I know it has problems. I don’t want to be like my parents. They teased it apart, but kept going. I don’t see how I can support a religion if I don’t believe in its God. That leads me back to the Unitarians. They aren’t really Christian at all, as Christ means anointed. It refers to the idea that Jesus was king, specifically king of the Jews. That idea to me seems to be Jew hatred, and I won’t have it.
Anti-Semitic is the wrong words because my guess is that the majority of Semites accept Jesus without breaking any Noachide Laws. Consider Christianity is the most popular world religion and that a third of those people are Semites. That is for those that believe in Jesus, while Jews say it is idolatry it is actually more just a church of a nonsense god idea. Most followers of Jesus probably have not conceived of the idea of God, and consequently there is no real problem with the fact that Christianity is idolatry by definition. Differently from Christianity, my belief in God is very Jewish.
In that last paragraph there was some accuracy. So it’s not that I believe religion is inaccurate. However, there is certainly no advantage to believing in one over any other. All religions have good points. It’s good that some people keep alive the traditions of old religions for the debutantes. Usually, it is best to go with the majority, not sweat the details, and definitely not be a zealot. One of my AOL friends used to always say, “Zealots are a curse.” I am probably too liberal to ever really be a zealot.
So it’s not like I’m leaving Judaism, and especially not like I am leaving Judaism for Christianity. Judaism will always be my foundation. However, I’ve grown up. There once was a time when I thought, if it’s Jewish then it has to be good. That time is no more. There are plenty of things in Judaism that aren’t really that good. I don’t think anything is really that bad in Judaism though.
Christianity has its share of things that are downright bad. Historically, it has been misused, but I doubt Jesus can be faulted for that. There is that verse, “I did not come to bring peace, but a sword,” but if the gospels are teased apart they are really rather weak. I am pretty sure that was the Gospel of Matthew, but I doubt Jesus in his humanity could be personally faulted for the Crusades or Constantine by a couple of words in that book. The book isn’t that great, especially under scrutiny that it should have been reason to blame either Matthew or Jesus.
I doubt the Jews of the future have much to fear from Christianity. Christianity already tried to snuff out Judaism and failed. It’s unlikely that it will be tried again. However, Islam may try to snuff the Jews, and somewhere between that and assimilation, the religion of Judaism could be lost. That’s future thinking, but as of today, Judaism is a very important religion to me. It offers a lot of good information, and if nothing else it provides me with relaxation time. Studying Judaism is a great way to relax, and it is very addictive. Television and video games don’t interest me that much. I imagine someone interested in watching great volumes of either of these will miss out on some great knowledge. I am a knowledge addict. Thus, Judaism fits me well, but only if I were born into it in the sense that Rabbis would simply accept me as a Jew, and not require anything from me as they do a convert.
I have no intention of converting to Judaism. That is I don’t believe a mikvah has any sort of power to confer Jewishness. Why would I convert? I am out of range of the local synagogue. That is, I can’t even attend a synagogue without breaking the rules of Shabbat by driving there in a car! Rabbis say, “Why bother?” to potential converts! I understand that. Knowing that it is forbidden to drive on Shabbat is nice though. That is if you like knowing things simply to know them.
Orthodox Judaism has always wanted to put its religion into practice though. That makes it not a very good thing for me. I tend to see the details of putting it into practice as flawed. I recently posted on www.chabad.org how I thought that it was rather silly of Orthodox deny some Israeli Jews the right to marry another Orthodox Jew. That is the Law of Return (to Israel) recognizes both Reform and Orthodox conversions, but Orthodox recognize only Orthodox conversions. These are the sorts of things that plague me, if I would convert. Why convert to an imperfect religion? One would think that humans could at least get the doctrine right, but there are these things such as the 13 points of Maimonides that are largely accepted as being important to ones status as a Jew. I find flaws in these thirteen points though I see nothing wrong with knowing them. This means to me that Judaism is not the right religion for me. I’ll go more liberal, as more exacting became more inexact, such is my case that the Unitarians and their moral relativism are the best fit for me.