Jewish pagans?

[coelacanth]

I'm Jewish by birth but lately have been feeling pulled in different spiritual directions. As a Jew, I am attached to my ancestral traditions and I feel like it would be bad for me to betray my heritage by worshiping other deities. (G-d never said he was the only deity out there, but he did instruct His people not to worship other gods.) But for many, many years - since I was a child - I have felt the call of paganism in some way or another. Nature even gave me a wand connected with one of my spirit guides, which I use to ground myself sometimes.

I also strongly suspect that I was a religious leader of a certain pagan religion in a past life, which is fueling my fascination with that pantheon now. But it is very challenging to feel my identity threatened by the call of another god or goddess. Add to that the unfortunate fact that some humans have corrupted this pantheon's teachings to promote hate against my people... yeah, it's a big issue for me. This is really difficult to explain to my family as well.

Right now I feel that pagan pantheism - worshiping G-d as how He manifests in nature - is an appropriate compromise. I don't really feel comfortable worshiping a deity who doesn't "belong" to my people, but I don't want to spurn them or what they represent either.

There are some Semitic or Canaanite pagans who try to incorporate Judaism back into the polytheistic religion that existed in the region before it (and from which Yahweh derived), but I have a lot of trouble finding resources on those religions. And they do not resonate particularly strongly with me at the moment anyway.

[Jenny Crow]

So.....what are you asking?

[coelacanth]

Originally Posted by Jenny Crow

So.....what are you asking?

I was wondering how I should proceed from here, or if anyone else has similar experience in reconciling old and new faiths.

[Fae Rei]

Well... are you going to actually worship the other Gods or just acknowledge them and their assistance to you on your spiritual journey?

[DavidMcCann]

Let's look at the Bible and the history of Judaism. In Deuteronomy 32.8, we read

When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance,
When he divided mankind,
He fixed the bounds of the peoples according to the number of Gods.

Yes, I know that's not what's in your text, which says "the number of Israelites", but the original is preserved in the Greek translation, which is 1000 years older than the Masoretic text and generally more in line with old MS like the Dead Sea Scrolls. The title "Most High" is used in Ugaritic texts to refer to Ilu (Heb. El), the "Creator of the Earth" and "Father of Mankind". Psalm 82 imagines him judging the Gods to whom he has given charge of the nations.

And it then says that the descendants of Jacob were allotted to Yahweh: he is the patron God of the Israelites. This view is confirmed by Judges 11, where Jephthah speaks of Yahweh as the God of Israel and Chemosh as the God of Moab. Similarly in Exodus 3, Yahweh tells Moses that he is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, not that he is the Supreme Being, and Moses speaks of the "God of Israel". As late as the 8th century, there were still inscriptions referring to El and Yahweh as different divinities.

It was in the 8th century that Hosea in Israel advocated exclusive worship of Yahweh, and Hezekiah enforced that practice in Judah. That view was finally enforced in the sixth century, before the Babylonian captivity. It took longer to reach the diaspora: Jews in Egypt were still worshiping Anat after the time of Ezra.

So you see that the original Israelite religion was the same as that of their neighbours: worship of El, the creator, and the ʿadat ʾel "congregation of God", of which Yahweh was their patron God. If you worship the other bene ʾelim "Children of Gods", you will be doing what Abraham, Moses, and David did!

For more information about those Gods, see
http://canaanitepath.com/index.htm

[Jenny Crow]

Originally Posted by coelacanth

I was wondering how I should proceed from here, or if anyone else has similar experience in reconciling old and new faiths.

My opinion will not sit well with some people....but i believe that you should be one or the other. I realize it's quite difficult for some people to leave the religion of their family or the religion they had previously been following, so they want to syncretize their beliefs and I guess for some it apparently works, but I don't agree with it I honestly feel that it dishonours both religions.

[Fae Rei]

Surely that should only be true if the two faiths are in competition with each other? Is there any real reason they have to be?

[coelacanth]

Originally Posted by DavidMcCann

Let's look at the Bible and the history of Judaism. In Deuteronomy 32.8, we read

When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance,
When he divided mankind,
He fixed the bounds of the peoples according to the number of Gods.

Yes, I know that's not what's in your text, which says "the number of Israelites", but the original is preserved in the Greek translation, which is 1000 years older than the Masoretic text and generally more in line with old MS like the Dead Sea Scrolls. The title "Most High" is used in Ugaritic texts to refer to Ilu (Heb. El), the "Creator of the Earth" and "Father of Mankind". Psalm 82 imagines him judging the Gods to whom he has given charge of the nations.

And it then says that the descendants of Jacob were allotted to Yahweh: he is the patron God of the Israelites. This view is confirmed by Judges 11, where Jephthah speaks of Yahweh as the God of Israel and Chemosh as the God of Moab. Similarly in Exodus 3, Yahweh tells Moses that he is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, not that he is the Supreme Being, and Moses speaks of the "God of Israel". As late as the 8th century, there were still inscriptions referring to El and Yahweh as different divinities.

It was in the 8th century that Hosea in Israel advocated exclusive worship of Yahweh, and Hezekiah enforced that practice in Judah. That view was finally enforced in the sixth century, before the Babylonian captivity. It took longer to reach the diaspora: Jews in Egypt were still worshiping Anat after the time of Ezra.

So you see that the original Israelite religion was the same as that of their neighbours: worship of El, the creator, and the ʿadat ʾel "congregation of God", of which Yahweh was their patron God. If you worship the other bene ʾelim "Children of Gods", you will be doing what Abraham, Moses, and David did!

For more information about those Gods, see
http://canaanitepath.com/index.htm

But if you read that site, it also points out that the Jews sought to distance their own religion from those of their Canaanite neighbors as much as possible, hence why Judaism is strictly monotheistic.

(Thank you for the links though!)

[coelacanth]

Originally Posted by Fae Rei

Surely that should only be true if the two faiths are in competition with each other? Is there any real reason they have to be?

Scriptures indicate that ancient Jews acknowledged the existence of multiple deities, but Judaism has always been strictly monotheistic. Even if the teachings of G-d and another deity are similar, it would still be "idolatry" under Jewish law for me to worship the other one. Hence why I wondered about pantheism and worshiping nature as a manifestation of the G-d force. It's technically not idolatry, since I am not worshiping a deity in that sense, and am still loyal to G-d.

[Spiritworldnamehere]

I also grew up Jewish and still feel very close to those traditions, culture, etc, but my spirituality has expanded a lot and I have felt zero conflict about it. Of course these things are pretty personal, but I'm happy to share how I look at this issue.

To me a big part of this is how literally one takes the teachings, stories, historical events as passed down through the generations, etc of any religion. If one takes all the words of the Torah, Talmud, Mishna, etc etc very literally, then it would be very difficult to reconcile one's Judaism with any other beliefs or interests.

As you've probably guessed, I've never really taken that stuff literally. I have always viewed those texts, their stories, the rules and regulations that were derived from them, all of it as a sort of system of metaphoric guidance.

From this perspective, I used to have a tough time reconciling "my" Judaism with the rigidity and authoritarianism of the way many people interpret its teachings! For example, this issue of "monotheism," the one-God principle that is so central in Judiasm...I used to think to myself, we are a people who have been repeatedly persecuted and oppressed...we also believe and teach that peace, love, and constant learning are the highest values in life, and yet also claim that its all based on the "fact" that there is only one single true God and that everything else is wrong? HUH? This never made sense to me.

Then I started learning about a much wider, expansive, and more ancient view of spirituality. The idea that we are all one, the idea that there is "spirit," that same oneness, in everything in our world including animals and inanimate objects. The clarity that if this is true, then of course peace and love are the only "goals" or purposes that make any sense, and that we as humans equipped with our particular form of consciousness can and should apply ourselves to making our world/universe more peaceful and love-filled. Think about "Tikkun Olam" in this context - for me, these things made full sense for the first time only when I started to see how perfectly aligned they are with these bigger ideas.

One time as I was thinking about all this, I looked up the word "idol." Turns out the origin of this word is the latin word idolum which literally meant "image" or "form."

So...we have a set of two ideas/phrases/sentences that form the basis of this whole belief system we call Judaism:
1. There is one God only.
2. To worship idols over/instead of the One God is the gravest error a person of consciousness can make.

These could seem kind of cut and dry I guess, except for the fact that these are words written/spoken/translated by other humans.

But if one were to relax these statements just a bit, couldn't the "one God" concept just as well apply to the idea that there is a ONE-ness that is present everywhere in everything and is the creative source of all, and this is the force/being/energy that we are meant to honor?

And then couldn't the idea that the most serious of all errors is to worship idols be understood more deeply to mean that our biggest mistake is when we honor/worship/prioritize images and forms (i.e. material things, celebrity) over the truth of what we really are, which is that One-ness?

Another interesting tidbit you might want to consider is the origin of the word "pagan." This word, as its used to describe some belief systems, comes from the time when early Christians connected military force and the Church with concepts like "soldier for Christ." In this context, they used the word "pagan" (which came from older classic Latin meaning "villager" or "non-combatant") to mean "civilian" or even "incompetent soldier." Seems to be some interesting ideas floating around in there as well regarding peace vs. combat to "power" a religion...I'd personally choose the non-combatant association any day of the week!

I suppose one could view my way of thinking as a form of "cheating," like I'm just reaching to justify wanting to reconcile things that aren't supposed to be reconciled. To me, that idea could only have merit if one set of beliefs were right and another wrong. I have never, ever believed that for a second. As I said, my main difficulty with identifying myself with Judaism and the Jewish people, culture, history, has been about that very idea of there being just one right (the one we happen to hold), leaving everything else wrong.

I do want to say, I am no Torah scholar. However, what I do know is that once I made the shift I describe here, I don't think I've come across a single story, teaching, or tenant that is central to Judaism or any other religion for that matter that I can't make sense of in this same way, further bolstering the truth of ONE-NESS! Pretty beautiful if you ask me.

I use lot words!

Boiling it all down, I would invite you to look at your dilemma a little differently. Ask yourself, "what is it about those "pagan" belief systems that resonate with me?" And "what aspects of the Jewish belief system resonate with me?" And maybe even, "what aspects of other belief systems resonate with me too?"

My guess is that you won't find them to be as contradictory as you might have thought.

If you're anything like me, looking at things this way may help you make sense of things you've felt, believed, and known all your life. Instead of feeling torn, maybe you'll feel that you're seeing things clearly for the first time and you'll breath a huge sigh of relief!

If you want to discuss this further, feel free to message me!

Good luck on your path!