Some interesting reactions to an OpEd by Douglas Rushkoff in Thursday's NYTimes in which he complains that Judaism is focusing too much on its racial-political identity and losing its sense of being religious:

As a Jew who cares deeply about his religion, I have come to the conclusion that our great mistake has been to forget that we are the descendants of a loose amalgamation of peoples united around a new idea, and to replace this history with the view, advanced by our enemies, that we are a race. Zionism, perhaps unintentionally, gave this race a nation to defend; Israel's hostile neighbors kept alive real and pressing questions of survival.

He ends with, "Judaism was built around the contention that human beings can make the world a better, more just place." True it may be, but I think it misses and important element of what makes a religion. For me the issue is not just being "just" or living right, but also knowing what right is. The major monotheistic religions are all founded on revelation from God to mankind, but they all reject the concept of revelation in our own time. To some extent, denying revelation is a redefinition of who God is, and it comes not from scripture, but from the intellectual intermediaries, the scribes, rabbis, mullahs, theologians, etc. In other words, men have assumed the authority to define the religions, without consulting with the originator.I am fully aware of how superstitious I sound, but that fact itself proves my point that we have lost the true religion. Many of the things that unbelievers are always holding up to believers as the shortcomings of religion are themselves evidence of apostasy. For anyone to kill or persecute others for their unorthodoxy is proof that he has failed to learn the basic tenets of Christ, Moses or Mohammed.

I am certainly not immune from the human tendency toward criticism and anger, but I also recognize that these are my sins and are not what Jesus taught me to be.

My point is that religion is not just about doing what we think is right, so much as finding out what is right from the Source of rightness and following His will, not our own or that of the worldly intellects of the day. The calling of a prophet has never been about university degrees or grounding in philosophy. Probably, such "qualifications" are more likely to prevent true revelation or inspiration.