Being Jewish, there is a lot about Christian religious life that I do not know.
For instance, I am rereading a social history that I was first assigned in college, “Power in the Blood.” This book examines several episodes that took place in the duchy of WÜrttemberg in southwest Germany between 1580 and 1800. Religion (Lutheranism) was central to each of these episodes.
I never realized before that a social purpose of the ritual of communion was to ensure social cohesion, tapping down on feuds, envy and hate within the society.
Here’s the logic as presented in the book: Communion can only be engaged in if one has released all envy and hate. If you bear a grudge and still take communion, then it is considered false, and you will burn in hell.
On the other hand, there is enormous social pressure to take communion. As a result, there is an ongoing process of social and societal reconciliation, because nobody can so much as admit to bearing a grudge that dates from before the last time they took communion.
The book then tells of citizens who, being unable to forgive a perceived wrong and yet unwilling to engage in falsehood, repeatedly declined to take communion. It is an interesting quandary.
I am enjoying learning about this, not only because it tells us so much about life in German villages in the era (and, by the by, explains why Germany was so stodgy compared to other European countries). I also find it interesting because it describes a society that, while surely not odd for its day, is so very different from both the modern world and even parts of the ancient world as well!
For starters, as shown here, the concept of religious liberty paralleled the liberal economic developments of the 17th through 20th centuries. The Scottish Enlightenment revolutionized society by insisting that people should be OK with their neighbors worshipping a different deity. Indeed, a core purpose of the United States government became the protection of those who made different religious choices!
I think that very few people today truly understand how different our world is than the world of a German village in the early modern age. Tolerating those who believe and practice differently than we do is in fact a major and critical modern development.
But I was also reminded of the differences between 16th century Germany and societies in the ancient world.
In the communion ceremony, one broke bread with others, and it led to the suppression (if not erasure) of differences between people. Even now, breaking bread with someone is a bonding exercise that brings people together.
In the Torah, the Torah commands the people to eat together – but instead of bread, we are to eat meat. Found in Deuteronomy 12:15, 12:22, and 15:22, the verses tell us that we do not exclude people who are ritually unable to elevate (conventionally translated as “impure” or “unclean.”) Instead, both eat the meat together.
But the difference is that the text goes further than speaking of our ability to ritually elevate. It gives specific animals: the tzvi (a deer or gazelle or equivalent) and the ayil (a ram).
These animals actually represent two kinds of kosher animals. The ayil, the ram, is the quintessential sacrificial animal, used after the Binding of Isaac. It represents the Jews who consciously and actively seek to spiritually elevate, to connect with G-d in G-d’s way.
But the Tzvi, the gazelle, is wild and does not domesticate. It lives in the forests and wildlands. Nevertheless, it is still kosher! Which means that the tzvi is the opposite kind of Jew from Avraham and Isaac: instead of being tamed and purpose-driven, the wild tzvi lives in the moment, as an animal within nature.
The Torah mentions this contrast three times – representing the three characters who were not included by the forefathers: Lot, Ishmael, and Esau. All were more physical, wild, and drawn to nature than were Avraham, Isaac and Jacob.
The Torah seems to be telling us that, notwithstanding their exclusion in Genesis, Jews are meant to find a way to coexist with Jews who are quite different from ourselves, without seeking to change their very nature. It is, in its way, a breathtakingly egalitarian approach to social cohesion!
There is a difference between what happens to social cohesion in a 16th century communion, and when Jews come together to eat meat; the latter example does not require or compel a change in the participants. Instead, it seems to command us to explicitly accept our differences, and not to allow those differences to keep us apart.
There are good reasons to choose a more tolerant approach to the choices that others make: if we accept that part of the role of religion is to drive people toward growth and positive change, then it makes sense that a more intellectually-diverse populace can help individuals find and pursue their own paths – within one faith, or across others. In order for this to work, however, we cannot erect walls that eliminate contact with those who think differently than we do.
Torah Jews are commanded to eat with the people we might otherwise ostracize, and we do so despite our differences, instead – as in the case of Lutheran villages, in order to erase our differences.