How should Jews view faiths like Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism?

How should Jews view faiths like Buddhism, Hinduism, and Taoism? To answer, we must understand what adherents of these faiths have traditionally believed. We certainly can’t rely on the poorly researched, pop religion books written by white Westerners that have often sold so well. Many of those books misrepresent the actual beliefs and practices of those adherents.

From a Western perspective in general, and a Jewish one in particular, it is often assumed that many adherents of these faiths are pagans – polytheists. Yet many writers of pop religious books often say that most of these people are monotheists – or, other authors argue just as confidently, atheist!

Clearly, when people say “They are pagans, er, maybe monotheists, but wait, no, they are atheists” it means something unhelpful has been going on.

Many early books by western authors meant well, but each researcher on their own barely was able to translate a fraction of the religious texts from these faiths. And each could only speak to people in a few cities and villages. From the 1700s even up until the 1940s, there were very few reliable and comprehensive books available on adherents of Buddhism, Hinduism, and Taoism.

Jews often only knew about the peoples of these faiths from these less than ideal sources, and so based their conclusions on them: Many Jews held that most people from these faiths were polytheists – pagans – and were advocating עבודה זרה‎ avodah zarah, idolatry. Which for Jewish people is a cardinal sin.

But today things are different: People who live in Israel and the west know so much more about the history and diversity of beliefs by peoples in these communities. As such, we must first understand what people actually believe, and then see what the Jewish responses to these beliefs should be:

Jordan Friedman writes –

While all human religion is socially constructed and subject to ordinary historical development, the God posited by the Abrahamic monotheistic traditions is the One True God – the Master of the Universe, of all that is empirically observable, of all that we have not yet developed the means to observe, and of anything that we might never be able to observe or understand or taxonomize on this mortal plane. God is ontologically one and indivisible in number and essence.

However, God is experienced in many ways by the peoples of the Earth. Humans tend to develop spiritual or religious beliefs when they witness with awe the power and majesty of nature and seek to explain the mysterious. Different cultures or civilizations may develop richly diverse means of explaining the world around them and the uncanny interconnectedness of living beings and natural processes.

God can reach out and provide real experiences of belief-confirming holiness through avenues to which a particular group is already receptive, even where these avenues do not involve conscious acceptance of the formal logic of monotheism. Thus, one might question whether religious Jews are free to continue to take an intensely adversarial view of the practice of non-Abrahamic religious traditions, or to deny that they may contain much truth and divine holiness and are thus worthy of significant respect.

Over time, God may influence or inspire visionaries in various cultures to refine and reform the deposit of wisdom inherited from their ancestors. The gradual development of monotheism through stages of polytheism, henotheism, and monolatry in the Ancient Near East may be interpreted in this light.

God is the Ultimate Intelligence – the Source of all being, awareness, and knowledge. Therefore, reality has objective ontological existence. The truth of things exists to be known objectively, independently of any thinking being’s opinion. However, exhaustive knowledge about the true nature of things belongs to God alone. Humans have made great strides in matters of the spirit and knowledge of the physical universe, but we must be cautious and humble. We must behave as if all but the most time-tested assumptions are potentially subject to emendation at a moment’s notice. While standing up unabashedly for truth as we discern it with God’s help, we must treat with respect and seek to learn from those who, owing to different experience or environment, see things differently.

The Chicago Platform: A Proposal for the Intellectual and Spiritual Renewal of Reform Judaism and its Equivalents Throughout the World, Jordan Friedman, Medium, 12/8/2021

Why it is legitimate for Judaism to have limits

Jack Wertheimer writes

The sheer number of Jews participating in the various forms of religious experimentation today is striking. According to Kamenetz, Jews constitute a vastly disproportionate percentage of non-Asian Buddhists in the U.S. Many others joining Eastern religions and Native American groups are eagerly welcomed by individuals of Jewish origin who are often in charge. Jewish women are among the leaders of witches’ covens. And it goes without saying that the rabbinical student experimenting with sweat lodges was initiated by a man of Jewish birth who had “undergone rigorous training with the Oglala Sioux.” There seems to be no shortage of such people eager to draw their co-religionists into the mysteries of other religions. Jews for Buddha, yes. Only when Jews for Jesus do it is it decried as missionizing.

Judaism Without Limits, Jack Wertheimer

Jewish perspectives on Buddhism

Many Jew-Bus don’t study in-depth either Jewish or Buddhist texts. Most weren’t literate in rabbinical literature to begin with, so it is not clear that they are rejecting Judaism.

More problematically for those who consider themselves enlightened, most non-Buddhists only read New-Age, touchy-feely, pop books, with only the smallest amount of actual Buddhist texts translated.

Too many of these books somewhat deceptively censor the beliefs of millions of Buddhist in southeast Asia who are polytheists, falsely turning Buddhism into a belief-free or atheist faith, which it usually is not. It often genuinely is polytheistic:

In Mahayana Buddhism, a variety of celestial Buddhas and bodhisattvas came to be revered and looked to for assistance on the path to enlightenment. Especially devotional is Pure Land Buddhism, a subdivision of Mahayana that began in China. Pure Land Buddhists revere and call on the name of the Amitabha Buddha, who will grant them entrance to the paradisiacal “Pure Land” after death.

As Buddhism spread into cultures with existing religious beliefs, it incorporated local deities and religious practices into the Buddhist system. For instance, in China, a popular Boddhisatva became the female deity Kuan-yin, the giver of children.

Tibetan Buddhist cosmology features a “vast number of divine beings… which are considered symbolic representations of the psychic life by the religiously sophisticated and accepted as realities by the common people.”

There are six realms of existence in the Tibetan cosmology, one of which is the realm of the gods. The gods enjoy the fruits of good karma in a paradise until their karma runs out and they are reborn in a lower realm. In fact, gods must be reborn as humans to attain enlightenment.

Is Buddhism Atheistic?

Very few people learn actual Buddhist texts, e.g. the Pāli Canon (the Tipiṭaka,) such as the Vinaya Piṭaka , Sutta Piṭaka, and Abhidharma Piṭaka. They just read pop books which strip most Buddhist theology and observance away, leaving behind only some teachings. (And ironically, some of these remaining teachings that Jew-Bus admire were a part of Jewish spirituality, mussar, and Chassidus all along!)

To make it short, Buddhism is constantly subjected to a shallow form of cultural appropriation. Just as I wouldn’t want gentiles purchasing Tefillin and reciting out-of-context mini-quotes from rabbinical literature, I don’t think that it is appropriate for Jewish people to do so the same for Buddhism.

There are several cases of Jewish people who approached the Dalai Lama and asked about converting to Buddhism. He often replies by asking their religion. Many say that they were born Jewish but were non-practicing. The Dalai Lama has suggested learning about Jewish spirituality, and suggests that if they couldn’t find enlightenment in Judaism then they wouldn’t find it elsewhere.

Practicing Judaism and Buddhism, CCAR Reform Responsa

Jewish perspectives on Hinduism

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Jewish perspectives on Taoism

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