Kabbalah on Green: Consciousness and the environment

by Yehuda Berg

I picked up this book on a whim at Borders.  I'm exploring how Judaism interacts with nature, so the title piqued my interest.  And then I saw who wrote and published it, and, knowing how controversial the Kabbalah Centre is among the Jewish community, I thought it would make for an interesting read.   It is interesting, but it's also raising a lot of questions, a number of them with Berg's logic.  This book report is different than my others.  I'm writing this one as I read the book, so it is more of a dialectical than a report or a review.

The first chapter talks about Al Gore and how his Presidential campaign losses were destiny, and if he had not lost, he would not have gone on to do the projects he did.  Berg implies that Gore would not have been as green if he had been President.  I don't know about that.  It can never be disproven, of course, but the fact is that Gore has been a proponent of environmental concerns for a long time now.  I remember reading about things he was doing back when I was a kid and really into 50 Simple Things Kids Can Do to Save the Earth.  I would argue that Al Gore's green-ness has nothing to do with what happened in 2000 or 2004.

Berg does make a good point about how people tend to think in terms of "cleaning up", rather than preventing a mess.  Especially when it comes to the environment.  It would be better if we could change our focus and prevent the types of crises we get ourselves into, but, alas.  We are who we are.  Berg loses me when he moves on to say that our negative thoughts contribute to global warming, because they somehow rearrange or change atoms into pollution and that if we gave off only positive energy, atoms would become beautiful things like roses.  As I understand it, atoms are atoms.  They are basic and can't be changed from one thing to another.  I have a really hard time with that concept.  People would need to have the power of G-d for that to work.

He uses a lot of observations of word similarities to bolster his arguments.  I don't know enough Hebrew to know if these hold any water.  Adam...atom.  Wholeness...holiness.  They're useful pneumonic devices, but pretty weak evidence.

Lest it sound like I disagree with everything Berg says, or that I read the entire book cynically, I do agree with some of what's written in chapter 3.  I agree that G-d manifests himself in nature, and that we needn't look to the Heavens to find G-d; we can look to the mountains and the trees.  Berg also talks about how everything is interconnected, which makes sense when you're talking about pollution from the United States having an effect on Southeast Asia.  I'm not as willing to believe that lies and disrespect can cause an earthquake.  I think Sharon Stone tried to say something like that recently, and it didn't go over too well.

In the end, I did not finish the book.  I got to chapter 4 and realized that it doesn't apply to what I'm interested in studying, so it's on the shelf.  I'll finish it someday, maybe.

The New Reading Hebrew

by C. Castberg, L.W. Adler, and Lillian W. Adler

Reviving book reports back from the dead...

My Rabbi suggested that I start my Hebrew studies with this book.  He said that it might seem a little childish, but I should be able to learn my aleph-bet with no problems.  And he was right.

This book is very simple to follow, due mostly to clever formatting.  

Each page has 4 sections, each a different color.  Lesson 1 is green, lesson 2 is blue, and so on.  You read the section for the lesson you're on, which is only a couple sentences.  Invariably, the last sentence is a fill-in-the-blank question.  The answer will be on the next page, along with the next couple sentences.  When you're answering so many questions in rapid succession, with instant feedback, it's very easy to breeze through the lesson.  

At first, you feel a bit like you're on Sesame Street, but that feeling wears off pretty quickly.  Once you realize that you're actually retaining the information, it's all worth it.  Plus, you're learning the alphabet, and the last time you did that, you were probably a child.  It seems natural and logical.  

I made it through the book in about 2 weeks, and I definitely feel like it was time well spent. You don't learn much vocabulary in this book, but by the end, you can phonetically read Hebrew.  I probably sound like a first-grader when I do it, but I'm reading, and it feels good.

Now, on to learning what the words mean!

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Jewish History and Culture, Part VIII

The final part.  Whoo hoo!

I have to say, this was probably the least interesting section of the book.  I think it was meant to be an overview of the Jews' influence on American culture, but....it ended up being a pretty dull list of Jews and a 2-sentence summary of why they're famous.

The notables are broken down into groups: Actors, Writers, Musicians, Athletes, Doctors Scientists, and Political Figures.

It just didn't feel relevant to me, I guess.  There wasn't enough information to do any of the people mentioned, and their accomplishments, justice.

I do feel somewhat inspired to do research on selected figures/pop culture icons/Jews and write up posts about their Judaism.  I might do something similar for TV shows, movies, or songs with Jewish characters or themes.  Just for fun.

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Jewish History and Culture, Part VII

This part covers Jewish history from the Holocaust to present.  There's only one part after that, and it appears to be more about prominent figures than about history.

One of the things that impressed me the most about what I read in Part 7 is the significance of numbers with respect to Holocaust victims and survivors.  I knew that Hitler killed 11 million people, and that 6 million of those people were Jewish.  I knew that Final Solution was the first genocide, but what I never knew was that Jews themselves were never counted.

Jewish law says that a person should never be reduced to a number.  Therefore, Jewish people were never counted.  When you needed to figure out if you had a minyan present, a special 10-word verse was recited, with each person saying one word.  If the verse got finished, then you had enough people to daven.  Even when it came time to take a census, the people themselves were never counted.  Each person paid half a shekel, and the money was counted in order to determine the number of Jews.

This, to me, makes the tragedy twofold; the people were killed when their names were taken from them and replaced with a number tattooed on their arms.   They were killed again when their bodies died.  This is one of the reasons why Anne Frank is such a powerful symbol of the time; she was an individual, not a cold statistic.

I'm not going to write much else about the Holocaust.  The true tragedy is the number of people who turned a blind eye and failed to act.  I'm not talking about immediately declaring war on the Third Reich.  If countries had simply opened their borders to Jewish people and allowed immigration, things would have been much different.

After WWII, Israel was founded as a place where the Jewish people could be free of persecution.  It hasn't been peaceful since, but it has grown amazingly quickly.  For a country that has only existed since 1948, much has been accomplished in the way of development.  I only wish that peace can be negotiated, and soon.

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Jewish History and Culture, Part VI

Still more history - imagine that!

Part 6 starts out with the French Revolution.  The motto of liberté, egalité, fraternité extended to the Jewish community, marking one of the first times that Jews were accepted into the mainstream of society.  This was due to the intellectualism of the time, exemplified by the works of Voltaire, Condorcet, and Rousseau.  On September 28, 1791, Jews were declared to be equal to all other citizens of France, so long as they considered themselves Frenchmen first and pledged to defend France.  Jews were also permitted to any job which suited their talents, which was another first.

In Germany, the Age of Enlightenment brought good times for Jews...kind of.  They practiced voluntary baptism, which some Jews saw as forced conversion and spiritual death.  Others saw it as a ticket to acceptance by the mainstream.  Reform Judaism appeared for the first time, although in a different form to the Reform Judaism practiced in the United States today.  Moses Mendelssohn (father of Felix Mendelssohn) worked to make the Jews more German and get them out of the ghettos, but without losing their religious identity.  It worked to some extent, but both of his sons converted to Christianity.  And the Jews invented communism.  It was an attempt to make a secular society based on Jewish values, but it failed miserably.  Still, Jewish genius flourished in Germany.

In England, Jews had a difficult time overcoming stereotypes.  Shakespeare's Shylock is a reflection of a common example of that.  The Rothschilds were a family of political leaders at the time who helped to create social reforms to allow acceptance of office.  Benjamin Disraeli did a lot to dispel the stereotypes of Jewish people, but he converted to Christianity in order to do so.

As for the United States, one of the first settlers was a Marrano Jew.  He went along for the ride with Christopher Columbus, who believed that he would encounter the Lost Tribes of Israel when he got where he was going and wanted to have a Hebrew interpreter.  Since the Jews had recently been expelled from Spain, the interpreter stayed behind in America.  Since the USA was being founded based on religious freedom, Jews found tolerance and acceptance in the new country.

These days, one can find Jewish people in almost every corner of the world.

Ideal Student

I found this in The Book of Jewish Practice, whose author says that it's from Ethics of the Fathers.  It's a list of the 48 qualities which make an ideal student:

• mouthing the words of the text
• pronouncing these distinctly
• understanding the text and using discernment
• studying in a spirit of awe, reverence, humility and good cheer
• ministering to the wise
• having good fellow students
• arguing with students
• serenity of mind
• having a knowledge of Scripture and Mishnah
• engaging in moderation in business, in worldly matters, in pleasures, in sleep, in conversation, in laughter
• having patience
• being good-natured
• having confidence in the wise
• tolerating one's suffering
• recognizing one's place
• rejoicing in one's lot
• caution in speech
• claiming no credit for achievement
• being a lovable person
• loving God and all His creatures
• loving righteousness
• straight dealing and rebuke
• keeping aloof from fame
• having no pride in one's learning
• having no personal pleasure in rendering decisions
• bearing the yoke with one's companions and judging them favorably and helping them in their pursuit of truth and peace
• being composed in study
• asking questions and attempting to provide solutions
• listening and then adding to the information imparted
• studying in order to teach and to practice
• making one's teacher wise
• attending carefully to what he says
• repeating a teaching in the name of its author, giving the author the credit that is due

I think that a lot of these are very valuable, and most are qualities that I hope to possess.

Gates of Mitzvah: A Guide to the Jewish Lifecycle

Edited by Simeon J. Maslin

My introduction to Mitzvot.  They don't talk about mitzvot in Christianity.  You have commandments, but they aren't analogous.  Mitzvot are commandments, in that they are guidelines for life that come from a commander, but there's something more than that.  They're associated with blessings, and are meant to be a joy to perform.  Some are rituals tied to major life events, but others are about ethical living.

Events that have mitzvot are: birth of a child, education, marriage, and death/mourning.

The Bar (or Bat) Mitzvah is considered part of a child's religious education.  Keeping kosher is a mitzvah, but it's kind of a gray area.  It's not a lifecycle mitzvah, but it's not really an ethical one, either.

In Reform Judaism, it is more important to observe the ethical mitzvot than the ritualistic mitzvot.  This is in accordance with the idea that God is more concerned with how we live in practice than in how we live in show.  The intention is where the value lies.

There are a couple of essays on how to make mitzvah relevant in modern life.  The Reform movement believes that there is some freedom to choose which mitzvot to observe, because according to Isaiah and Micah, God is not satisfied by mechanical, empty-minded worship.  He wants his people to exercise their free will and choose to worship.  When viewed through this lens, some traditional mitzvot lose their power.

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Jewish History and Culture, Part V

Still more history...

We left off at about 70 CE, as the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and the Second Temple.

The Jews found themselves living among the Arab people.  This was at a time when Islam was developing.  For those who may not be aware, Islam also claims Abraham as a patriarch.  In the Quaran, Abraham is depicted as an Arab, not as a Hebrew.  Abraham was the father if Isaac and Ishmael.  Isaac is claimed by the Jews as their ancestor, while the Muslims claim Ishmael.  When you come down to it, the two religions are brothers.

As such, the Jews were accepted by the Arabs at that time.  They shared a key value, which was scholarship, particularly in science and philosophy.  The Arabs divided people into two groups: the intellectual and the ignorant.  Jews, as people of the book, were accepted, while other groups, including the Christians, were thought to be incapable of grasping higher truths.  While most cultures languished in the dark ages, Jewish and Arab scholarship flourished.

Under the rule of Mohammed, both Jews and Arabs experienced a Golden Age.  Maimonides (aka Rambam, aka Moses ben Maimon) wrote during this time, including the seminal work 13 Principles of Faith.

Then came the Christians and the Crusades.  Christians couldn't understand why Jews didn't believe what they believed, and began persecuting Jews in the name of saving their souls.    This included burning them at the stake and other tortures.  Judaism was outlawed.  There were, of course, people who refused to convert.  They were usually killed.  There were others who reluctantly converted.  Judaism managed to survive by people practicing the religion in secret.  In Spain, they were called "marranos"...pigs...an unclean animal.  But they still managed to preserve the religion and the culture.  In 1492, Spain exiled the Jews, which was the same year that they sent Christopher Columbus to the New World.  Jews helped to bankroll exploration and settlement there.

The Middle Ages became a period of expulsions.  After leaving Spain, many Jews moved to Russia, where the Khazars hosted the Jews.  Everything was happy until Russia and the Russian Orthodox Church exiled the Jews again.  Poland became the new host, and everything was happy again.  The Jews were permitted to self-govern, and Yiddish became a common language.  Then came the Chimelnicki massacre, and the Jews weren't so happy in Poland anymore.

The Middle Ages also saw the development of Kabbalah, Messianism, and Hasidism.  The Kabbalists sought to find escape from the ickiness of the real world by thinking about the next one and seeking divine truths.  Messianism found solace in believing deliverance was near, and that gave them enough hope to survive, although there were many disappointments as false messiahs arose.  Hasidism believed in the holiness of the common man and found joy in the worship of God, although it was seen as a threat to traditional Judaism because it de-emphasized the roles of Law and Study in the culture.  Generally, rabbis of the Middle Ages were both religious and secular scholars.

Coming next: the Industrial Revolution, Emancipation, and Enlightenment.

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Jewish History and Culture, Part IV

Still more history...this part will bring us up through the destruction of the Second Temple, so we'll be into the Common Era (also known as AD).  This, of course, means that Jesus comes along during this section.  He's going to get his own post, because it's a special topic.

When we left off, the Jews didn't have a king, and they were just entering the age of the Prophets.  The Prophets' basic message was to stop sinning, because God was going to rain down some punishment.

In 586 BCE, he did, in the form of a Babylonian invasion.  The Temple was destroyed, and the Jews were exiled.  See, the Babylonians were smart people, and they knew that if they divided the people, they would be more easily assimilated.  The best and the brightest Jews were recruited to join the best and the brightest of the Babylonians, giving them freedom if they'd only renounce their religion.  Some of them refused, and a fierce nationalism was born.

Without a Temple, the Jews could no longer make sacrifices, and they didn't have a special place of worship.  Being insightful people, they remembered that if God's light fills the whole world, a special building wasn't completely necessary.  Thus, the first synagogues were created as the Jews congregated.  

As a result of the Temple's destruction, the religion became more democratic.   Since Cohens (priests) weren't needed to perform sacrifices, Rabbis became the more prominent leaders.  You see, priesthood was determined by lineage, while becoming a Rabbi was strictly through study and teaching.  

While all of this is evolving, the Prophet Ezekiel comes along.  He has a vision of the dry bones coming to life, and this vision has sustained the Jewish people through many difficult times.  Having the hope of coming back from the dead to revitalize is a powerful image.  It applied to the Jews during this exile, and after the Roman conquest, and after the Holocaust.  It's an image for all time, an ongoing prophesy, if you will.  

After 70 years of exile, the Jews were permitted to return to Judah and rebuild Jerusalem, by order of Cyrus the Great, of Persia.

Of course, things couldn't stay happy.  Along came the Greeks.  They didn't attack the Jews, not in a physical sense.  What they did do was bring in their seductive culture which worshiped the holiness of beauty.  Judaism respected the beauty of holiness, and things started to get difficult.  The Bible was translated for the first time, into Greek, and many Rabbis saw this as an affront, because Jews didn't even know their own language.  There were two factions of Jews, the Hellenists (who were Greek-living Jews) and the Hasidim (who weren't todays Hasidic Jews, but were traditional) Eventually, things started to get forceful, and the Maccabee rebellion was born.  The Hasidim took up arms against the Greeks.

The Second Temple was built, and it was during this time that Hanukkah was first celebrated.  During the dedication of the Second Temple in 164 BCE, they ran low on oil for the menorah, with only 1 day's supply left.  It would take 8 days to make a new batch.  Miraculously, the oil lasted all 8 days, and that's why we celebrate.  It's meant to be a recognition of the victory of monotheism over paganism, and its celebration predates that of Christmas by over 100 years.

With the Greeks defeated, there could only be so long before the next battle.  Enter the Romans.  They were nothing like the Greeks.  Instead of being seductive, they were Sadistic.  Many Jews turned to their religion for hope.  Some started a new sect, the Essenes.  They believed that the Messiah was coming very soon, and that their Kingdom was not of this world.  Since there wasn't long to wait, there was no need to have children to continue the people, and they were celibate, so as to not be distracted from their faith by lust.  This was, you'll note, very different for the Jewish people, who believe that marital relations are a mitzvah.  It's also...very similar to how Jesus Christ lived, and how priests live now.  On an archeological note, he Essenes left us the Dead Sea Scrolls.

And then comes Jesus.  At this time, the Essenes believed that the Messiah was soon to come, because God said that he would send his messenger at a time when all hope was lost.  It seemed like just about that time to the Essenes in the face of the Roman persecution.  I'll go more into why they thought he was the Messiah, and why this book says Judaism believes that he wasn't later.  He was crucified by the Romans in 33 CE.

In 70 CE, the Romans took Jerusalem, and destroyed the Second Temple on the 9th day of Av (Tisha b'Av).  This day is significant as a day of Jewish tragedy many times over, so many times that Jews believe that it is not a coincidence.

Due to a deal cut with the General who was attacking Jerusalem, the Jews were permitted to set up and maintain a small school, even while the Romans killed as many Jews as they could find.  This is a big part of the reason Judaism survived the Romans.  

At this time, most of the teachings were part of an oral tradition.  In the face of so much persecution and death, Rabbi Yehuda HaNassi decided to defy tradition and write the laws down in order to preserve them, in the second century CE.  Tradition says that he prayed for forgiveness as he put ink to paper, but thank God he did.  His writings became the Mishnah, and they covered nearly every aspect of Jewish life.

Over the next 300 years, Jewish scholars studied the Mishnah in yeshivas.  Yeshivas were essentially universities, Jewish-style.  Eventually their discussions of the Mishnah were recorded, and the combination of these writing and the Mishnah became the Talmud.

Zipporah, Wife of Moses

By Marek Halter

This is not a book assigned by my Rabbi, but it is a book about a Jewish theme. It's a work of historical fiction; an attempt to flesh out a marginalized character. As such, I do not know how very accurate it is, other than that I could find no obvious inconsistency with the Biblical accounts.

That said, I really liked this Zipporah.. She was wise, passionate and firey, just as I would expect the wife of a great, though insecure, man to be. The author emphasized that Moses was not raised Jewish by having Zipporah act as his teacher. She served to boost his confidence in the face of the difficult task God put in front of him. This, I liked and felt might well have been authentic.

The author contended that Moses had only one wife, and that the reference to the Cushite wife of Moses was literal. Since we know from the Bible that Jethro was Zipporah's father, and that he was a Hebrew, the author wrote that Zipporah was rescued and adopted by Jethro. This makes Zipporah a convert, and I kind of like that (being a convert myself).

There were also some things that I didn't believe.. The author solved the problem of Moses not choosing one of his sons to be the next leader by killing them off in the chaos that followed Moses' discovery of the Golden Calf. I just felt like that would have been included in the Biblical account of that story. I had the same issue with the murder of Zipporah. It seemed too sensational and contrived, and also like something that would have been recorded.

As I continue my studies, I may form a different opinion, but for now, I liked it.

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Jewish History and Culture, Part III

Still more history of the Jews.

We start this section with the Judges, who were temporary limited-capacity leaders.  After the amazing leadership of Moses and Joshua, and the reverence paid to them, the Hebrews decided that God was their King, and the only leader they would need for their day-to-day lives.

But when disaster (or an enemy) struck, they looked to charismatic people who could unite them, despite their differing opinions on how God wants people to live.

Amazingly, the Judges who were chosen demonstrated different weaknesses, and those weaknesses were overcome through the power of God.  

The first Judge was Deborah, obviously a woman, who demonstrated that military leaders needed wisdom and daring, not just muscle and masculinity.

The next we have in the Biblical record is Gideon, who led the Hebrews to a stunning victory after selecting an army of only 300 from 32,000 volunteers.  By choosing his soldiers for their wisdom and religious devotion, Gideon proved, again, that muscle is less important than faith.

The lesson that strength is nothing without wisdom was brought home by Samson, who was certainly strong, but allowed himself to be out-witted and his physical power was taken from him.  After re-affirming his faith, he was allowed to become strong only once more.

The last Judge was Samuel, who cautioned the Hebrews against putting ultimate power in the hands of one person, but ultimately, gave in to the popular demand and selected Saul to be king.

Sure enough, power corrupted Saul, and he was followed by the beloved King David.

David was a warrior, a conquerer, a poet, and very human.  While he did amazing things and his Psalms are some of the best written examples of the human spirit, he still committed sins.  His greatest accomplishment was building Judah, and in creating a plan for the Temple.

David, however, was not allowed to build the Temple.  God did not want a man who had so much blood on his hands building a place which should be peaceful.  The task of building the Temple was left to David's son, the very wise Solomon.  He was also an amazing writer, giving us the books of Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes, and Proverbs.

After this, the Jews became involved in a civil war, and 10 of the 12 tribes seceded from Judah and created the Kingdom of Israel.  These 10 tribes eventually disappeared, becoming the 10 lost tribes.

Judah was then ministered to by Prophets, three of the first being Elijah, Isaiah, and Jeremiah.

Elijah's message was that straying from God and living unethically would have dire consequences.

Isaiah taught that ethical living, justice, and righteousness were the best ways to serve God, and that we should be a light to the world.

Jeremiah had the unfortunate task of telling everybody that their efforts weren't good enough, and their lifestyles were not righteous, and God's punishment was coming.  It came, and Jeremiah's message became more hopeful, teaching that living according to the Law would bring rewards and a return to the Promised Land.

Part IV coming soon.

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Jewish History and Culture, Part II

Book report, continued.  So far, it's more history.  

We learn a little more about the Creation of Earth, and how the choices that God made while he did that tell us about how we should live.

Some favored tidbits from this section:

"Why was one man created first, rather than many?  So that no person in the course of history would be able to say to anyone else, 'my ancestry is greater than yours'."

The book also points out that God tends to improve on his prior acts...so we can infer that when God made man, it was good, but when he made woman, that was a little better.

Next comes some more about Abraham, the man who discovered monotheism.  The book recounts some stories from Jewish tradition about how Abraham came to the conclusion that idols were, well, idle, and that a multitude of gods just created supernatural conflict, but that there had to be something greater, because nothing comes from nothingness.  He determined that there had to be one God.

Our next Jewish hero is Moses.  He was born in Egypt, at a time when pharoh wanted all firstborn Hebrew boys to be killed.  His mom put him into an ark, and with a prayer, set him afloat on the Nile.  Pharoh's daughter found him, and adopted him as her own.  He was, therefore, not raised with the Hebrew traditions.  Eventually, he finds out his real background, kills an Egyptian, and flees Egypt.  He then learns the traditions, and is chosen by God to free the Hebrews from Egypt.  He does, and they wander the desert for 40 years.  This was a punishment, because it really only took about 2 weeks to get from Egypt to the Promised Land.  Moses wasn't allowed to enter the Promised Land, due to some sin he committed.  Instead, he was allowed to see it from a nearby mountain peak, and then God himself took Moses' soul and buried his body in an undisclosed location (so as to avoid pilgrimages and shrines).

After Moses came Joshua.  He fought the battle of Jericho.  Moses chose Joshua as his successor, which is interesting, since Joshua was not related to him in any way, and Moses had 2 sons who would have made more traditional choices.

Next comes the period of the Judges, to be continued in Part III.

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Jewish History and Culture, Part I

by Rabbi Benjamin Blech

Here's the first of my book reports; the Rabbi hasn't given us our booklists yet, but he did say that this would be on it.  Since this is a fairly long book divided into parts, I think I'll just do each part separately.  It should make things easier for me, for my notes.

Part I: Who are the Jews?

This section is, obviously, about Jewish identity.  It talks about the various Jewish stereotypes (like Jews being good businessmen, doctors, comedians and whatnot), but also about who the Jews really are as a people (including why the stereotypes may have originated).

As anybody who's opened a Bible can tell you, the Jewish people are descendants of Abraham, as are the Muslims.  The Muslim people are descendants of his son Ishmael, while the Jews are from Isaac's lineage.  Isaac had two sons, Jacob and Esau.  Esau rejected the religion, while Jacob embraced it.  Jacob had 12 sons, who became the fathers of the 12 Jewish tribes.  10 of those tribes are lost, and the two that remain are Judah and Levi.  From the name Judah, we get the word Jew.

Of course, it's a little more complicated than that.  The Jews were originally a tribe, but are now a religious group.  They are not, technically a "nation" or an "ethnicity", or a "race".  They're a group of people.  You can be Jewish by virtue of your lineage, or by conversion.  There are a whole bunch of laws governing who is Jewish and who is not.  This only seems to matter when one is considering moving to Israel, as every Jew has the right to become an Israeli citizen (although not all Israelis are Jews).

What I found interesting is that, even though Jews have a patriarchal society, you are considered legally Jewish if your mother was a Jew.  If your father was a Jew, but your mother was not, you must convert to become Jewish.  Being Jewish this way doesn't mean you must follow Judaism.  

Then again, I'm converting and choosing to be among the chosen people.