What is a 'Sovereign' in the Jewish religion
Discussion
Don't know if anyone can help answer something that's driving me nuts, I've googled but still coming up blank.
A staff member, who I happen to know is a very religious Jewish American has made a statement several times now that he is a 'Sovereign' and it's said in the context as if it means he is a man of 'great wealth and standing'.
It's not a phrase I've ever come across and am curious to find out what it actually means, (I know the instant answer is 'just ask him'), but I'd rather find out what the phrase really means opposed to this chaps version.
Thanks
A staff member, who I happen to know is a very religious Jewish American has made a statement several times now that he is a 'Sovereign' and it's said in the context as if it means he is a man of 'great wealth and standing'.
It's not a phrase I've ever come across and am curious to find out what it actually means, (I know the instant answer is 'just ask him'), but I'd rather find out what the phrase really means opposed to this chaps version.
Thanks
no idea. Found this:
The principal authority for contemporary American Jews, in the absence of compelling religious norms and communal loyalties, has become the sovereign self. Each person now performs the labor of fashioning his or her own self, pulling together elements from the various Jewish and non-Jewish repertoires available rather than stepping into an "inescapable framework" of identity -- familial, communal, traditional -- given at birth.
Decisions about ritual observance and involvement in Jewish institutions are made and made again, considered and reconsidered, year by year, and even week by week. American Jews speak of their lives, and of their Jewish beliefs and commitments, as a journey of ongoing questioning and development. They avoid the language of arrival. There are no final answers, no irrevocable commitments.
There are no longer any norms that are compelling, there are no loyalties, no fundamental givens. "The sovereign self" reigns supreme, religious involvement is a journey, and each Jew decides for her or himself what Judaism means.
http://www.jewishjournal.com/tag/sovereign%20self/
The principal authority for contemporary American Jews, in the absence of compelling religious norms and communal loyalties, has become the sovereign self. Each person now performs the labor of fashioning his or her own self, pulling together elements from the various Jewish and non-Jewish repertoires available rather than stepping into an "inescapable framework" of identity -- familial, communal, traditional -- given at birth.
Decisions about ritual observance and involvement in Jewish institutions are made and made again, considered and reconsidered, year by year, and even week by week. American Jews speak of their lives, and of their Jewish beliefs and commitments, as a journey of ongoing questioning and development. They avoid the language of arrival. There are no final answers, no irrevocable commitments.
There are no longer any norms that are compelling, there are no loyalties, no fundamental givens. "The sovereign self" reigns supreme, religious involvement is a journey, and each Jew decides for her or himself what Judaism means.
http://www.jewishjournal.com/tag/sovereign%20self/
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