The Zen sudden-enlightenment doctrine seem a newer teaching/dharma/interpretation than enlightenment by stages, distinct from it, and no less valid by any objective measure I can think of. I think Jainism and Hinduism also have some notions of enlightenment or concepts close or related to it, like moksha. The sudden enlightenment view seems closer to the root of western "new age" conception, so it seems rather uncharitable to pick an older and more restricted definition for dramatic effect on the claim of cultural misappropriation.

But the word "enlightenment" seems too overloaded from different conceptions/traditions, so it hardly seems worth splitting hairs over--using the word itself seems like a barrier to clear communication at this point unless you have a clearly defined context, like the enlightenment of the Buddhist Pali canon, or whatever. I just find your view narrow and uncharitable, and we should focus on what we know the author means rather than quibbling over the definitions of words. Language isn't that precise, evolves, and is meant to communicate, and is adequate if it gets the idea across. Personally, I think we more or less know what the author means here without going back to Buddhist canon, so we should probably just leave Buddhist canon out of it.

I don’t know what the author means, that’s kind of my point. I wanted to state that the Buddhists do have a well-defined rather specific concept of enlightenment, because many people don’t know that. Many people in the West think it’s some mysterious vague state of spiritual awareness, as does the author of this blog post. I don’t think it’s uncharitable to point out that the word largely entered popular culture through people importing Buddhist, Hindu, and Vedic ideas, such as Alan Watts, Robert Thurman, Chogyam Trungpa, Richard Alpert, hippies returning from India and East Asia, and Tibetan refugees. Ideas from these people all got loosely meshed together to form what many call “new age” spirituality. I do think there was a lot of misappropriation in the sense that these ideas were taken out of context. A perfect example of that being Timothy Leary reinterpreting the Tibetan Book of the Dead to describe an acid trip.

And here we are, a Rabbi talking about enlightenment as something that can be born into, which contradicts the Buddhist and Hindu concept. I’m sure he means well, but it seems to me he’s talking about this “new age” notion of enlightenment, which is arguably a misappropriation of Buddhist and Hindu ideas.

This detail addresses none of the questions raised in the post. Either escaping these ten fetters confers a detachment from the world such that one no longer needs to change it, or one wants to share this state with the world and then has to grapple with those challenges identified in the post.

You’re right, I should have mentioned that the Buddha and the Tripitaka do talk about “what does someone do after being enlightened.” To sum it up, once someone is fully enlightened (arahant) they would either live as a monk (otherwise they’d still be attached to household fetters) or choose to die.

In the Tripitaka there are not many examples of lay people who reach arahant stage. In the Milindapanha Buddha is supposedly asked directly whether layman can attain arahant stage, and he says "If a layman attains arahant-ship, only two destinations await him; either he must enter the Order that very day or else he must attain parinibbàna (nibanna upon death).

It’s clear from Tripitaka that anyone could obtain arahant stage but obviously if you were free of ten fetters it would be seemingly impossible to live another lifestyle except one described as monastic.

Unorthodox Buddhists (Mahayana, Tibetan, Zen, etc.) reject some or most of the orthodox concept of enlightenment. But IMO it’s telling that their alternative conception of enlightenment is both indescribable and lacking a systematic path to attain, which very much contradicts Buddha’s message (I’ve found the way and therefor I can tell you the way, and if you follow you will reach the destination as I have).

Journey and destination are nondual.

It has been my experience that at the point I no longer crave something, I have the most power and freedom to obtain it. This has included significant others, influence, jobs, money, love, etc.

I think you can generalize this phenomenon to Buddhist enlightenment.

(PS. I believe the original teachings of Buddhism are essential and valid, and the Zen model of enlightenment should not be interpreted as contradicting them.)