The Questions:

"But is it Jewish?" "We have that practice in our tradition??!?" "My religious background is Judaism, but my spiritual practice is based on …….. can I still be Jewish?"

An Answer:

An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life.

"A fight is going on inside me," he said to the boy. "It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves.

One is evil – he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.

The other is good – he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith.

This same fight is going on inside you, and inside every other person, too."

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, "Which wolf will win?"

The old Cherokee simply replied, "The one you feed."

A colleague sent this story and I've pondered it, periodically, for many months now.

While it seems at first to be a clear-cut teaching about making choices, and acting righteously, it indirectly raises many theological questions. Yet the questions form part of an answer to the questions above.

Let's say, for example, you've been a basically joyous, peaceful, loving generous person – exhibiting the characteristics of the 2nd wolf – for most of your life, to a certain date. Then, suddenly, circumstances beyond your control lead you to confront feelings in yourself that you had previously kept at bay. Your health, or employment status, leaves you frustrated and weak, so envy, or self-doubt, or anger bubbles to the surface. Or, you get carried away with success or achievement that has come your way, and you let ego and pride top the kudos coming your way.

Isn't this human nature? Or, as a model from another cultural tradition, does is not apply to us? Is there some sort of placid, and perhaps unattainable, ideal being set up in the parable, that is just, well, not – Jewish?

A lot of what I do as a rabbi, a Jew and as a person, is try to strike a balance between the principles and cycles of my heritage with the core of me that has no particularity to it. I may express my commitment to "right living," as one tradition might call, as doing acts of gemilut hesed/loving kindness and caring or tikkun olam/repair of the world, but the work at hand bears no distinction.
Similarly, the internal struggles we may be engaged in, what a Hasidic master called, in Yiddish, arbeten oyh zikh/working on oneself, can be understood in the context of our faith tradition, but equally as an aspect of living that can touch anyone.

No one religion, spiritual practice, faith statement or psycho-spiritual approach can erase the only davar/thing that can be offered as an eternal truth: that we are all composed of like matter, which our tradition frames, in Genesis 1:26-27, as the creation of human beings in the image of the Divine. That phrase, b'tzelem elohim, is one of my own core beliefs and underlies all of how I act in the world – as a Jew and as a human being.

So, as I consider this month's celebration of Shavuot, the festival linked with the receiving of Torah at Sinai, it resonates far beyond the particular boundaries of my Jewish life, and penetrates – I hope and pray! – all of the ways I act in the world. Thus, I can receive the wisdom of a Cherokee master, and many others I encounter, and fully consider it, and engage with it, as a teaching for me and for the ages.
May the Torah/teachings you receive inspire you to celebrate them, and your heritage, throughout the cycles of the year and of your life.