Entering into the myriad of Jewish historical experiences

Beyond our own life experiences are the life experiences of innumerable Jews that have accumulated into the centuries of the Jewish historical experience. If we move from Judaism as “we have to believe” to Judaism as a record of the wealth of human experience coping with life’s struggles and achievements, then a whole world of possibilities opens to us.

Behind or underneath each biblical story, each prayer in the prayer book, each ritual, and every life cycle event and period in Jewish history is a fundamental human experience or set of experiences. If we can allow ourselves to enter into that experience, no matter how apparently different or foreign it might seem from our own, we can gain perspective and enrich our own lives by expanding our experiential vocabulary.

Whatever one’s spiritual upbringing, “experimental” entering into Jewish historical and spiritual experience can teach us much about ourselves. Centuries of rich and varied experience can become creative resources we can “try on” to discover or rediscover important aspects of ourselves or the significant others in our lives.