What I think about when I think about being Jewish, the existence of God, faith communities, prayer, and identity
Addressing one’s ‘personal theology’ is no simple matter. I’m tempted to claim that I don’t have one. I’ve generally resisted the probing and questioning that might yield some deeper understanding of who I am vis a vis faith and spirit. It’s precisely for this reason that I was drawn to our collective discussion of Jewish identity and how we might come to grips with it as individuals and members of our faith community, Kol Rinah. So here is what I think about when I think about being Jewish and how I got to be this way. It’s very much a work-in-progress— which is, after all, what being human is all about.
Given my indifference to deep ponderings, I’ve adopted no systematic mode of dealing with the big questions. My typical strategy for getting through the day, especially in light of our current political and social climate, is to revert to self-righteous indignation— or flat-out revulsion. Yet I’ve somehow managed occasionally to experience moments of spiritual clarity and perhaps even inspiration— how, when, and why are questions that I’ll try to address in what follows.
Ah yes— Jewish identity. Sure, I’ve got one of those. But I’ve been stuck with it for so long that I don’t give it much thought. Here, however, I am tasked with thinking about it. So let me think. Hmm. My identity— Jewishly and otherwise— must surely vary with mood, circumstance, and the passage of time. The notion of a fixed, unbending understanding of oneself and one’s world makes no sense to me. Yet there must be some core to one’s identity, something that remains fixed despite all that changes. This is intuitively obvious, I’d argue, but how can one come to grips with this ‘plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose’ conundrum?
Allow me to change the subject. I like to write. I especially like writing about myself— personal narratives, creative non-fiction. I’m a narcissist, simply put— albeit a nice-guy narcissist. And so I’m grateful to Ralph and Richard for the opportunity to stare into the mirror and turn my self-ish thoughts into words. My aim, to be clear, is emphatically not to instruct or enlighten— even though this is what I do in my day job in the Japanese (not Jewish) studies field. Rather, my aim is to schmooze about myself and try to impress you with the quality of my schmoozery. End of disclaimer.
Okay. Back to my ‘Jewish self.’ For one thing, it’s not centrally about belief. I prefer to think of it as a set of habits, predispositions, personas, tastes and preferences. And— perhaps most crucially— it’s about a repertoire of stories that I’ve told and retold over the years. And it includes— significantly— the residue of Hebrew prayers and sacred passages that occupy a prominent place somewhere in here— in my spirit/ my n’shama/ my kokoro, to cite the Japanese equivalent. Snippets of prayers and melodies regularly spring to mind, uninvited, and I can’t imagine not having them as part of my ‘ambient soundscape.’ They’re very much part of who I am.
I feel most organically Jewish, though, when I enter the shul and take part in the prayer service. This for me is where the spiritual rubber meets the road. The ritual requirement of the minyan— the communal lowest-common-denominator— makes perfect sense to me. Sure, one can pray alone. But communal prayer is powerful and deeply moving. Of course one may ask if prayer is efficacious, if God listens. For me, such questions are essentially unanswerable, hence irrelevant. But we ask them anyway, because— well, because we’re Jewish. Questioning is essential. Finding answers— well, that’s another story.
Not surprisingly, my Jewish identity is deeply tied to my upbringing and background. Here is a brief, bullet-pointed autobiography:
My Dad was raised in the Lithuanian shtetl. His father was a rabbi of some note— a very imposing presence, or so I’m told. I never knew him. Dad was a native Yiddish-speaker, but he had unaccented English.
Mom grew up on Burlington and Oxford, North Carolina. Like Dad, her family hailed from Lithuania. Her father ran the local dry goods store in both cities. Mom grew up speaking Yiddish with a southern accent. My grandfather— Pop— was a wonderful man— kind, generous, learned and devout. Pop took pains to instill in me a love of the faith and the habit of prayer.
Mom and Dad both moved with their respective families to Baltimore, where they met, married, and raised a family— four boys. Dad was a pharmacist, and his corner drugstore on West Pratt Street was one of the last of its kind. I was dragooned early on as soda jerk and prescription deliverer.
I was raised in a big old house on Forest Park Avenue, six blocks from Beth Tfiloh, our shul, and in the midst of an almost exclusively Jewish neighborhood. We lived upstairs, my Mom’s parents lived downstairs; extended family and friends lived in close proximity and regularly came by the house. We were surrounded by familiar faces and an entirely benign and supportive environment. The nostalgic longing for that idyllic realm is deeply rooted and readily evoked.
My brothers and I went to the Beth Tfiloh day school, where I spent nine years of tandem Hebrew and English studies, from kindergarten through eighth grade. In fact I’ve just returned from a reunion of my Beth Tfiloh classmates— after a hiatus of some sixty-five years!
Our rabbi, Samuel Rosenblatt, was the son of the legendary cantor, Yossele Rosenblatt. Our cantor at Beth Tfiloh was Max Kotlowitz— an ‘old school’ hazzan, who trained us how to daven and recruited us for the youth choir. We were well trained!
As a teen, I spent four memorable summers at a Hebrew-speaking summer camp— Massad, in the Poconos. This was a Histadrut-run, proudly Zionist camp, and I loved it. My campmates were chiefly from Brooklyn— Flatbush, to be specific— and this became my home-away-from-home.
We were raised Orthodox and were generally observant, although the family did take certain liberties. For one thing, Dad worked seven days a week at the pharmacy; no Shabbat for Doc Marcus. And I was to discover that he had a particular fondness for crab cakes, an indulgence that he failed to admit to his sons.
Gradually, my Jewish heritage started to feel burdensome and annoying. As a high-schooler, I knew that I needed to get out from under the yoke. The world called, and so I abandoned ‘parochial Judaism’ and went off to college to take a break from the faith and see what the world was all about. This is reminiscent of what the Amish call Rumspringa— leave the nest, go out and taste the world, then opt to return— or not.
I did my share of world-tasting, graduated college (by the skin of my teeth), managed to be spared a wartime stint in Vietnam, and began a period of existential wandering, ‘ba-midbar,’ struggling to find myself— not as a Jew per se, but as a confused and conflicted guy.
And so I started travelling— first, car trips back and forth across the U.S., then overseas travel. The experience was transformative and addictive. I made a number of summer trips to Europe and North Africa. Then I took a leave from my teaching job and set out on a nine-month trip to India— four months of which I spent in Israel. This would be my one and only stay thus far. I arrived shortly after the Yom Kippur War of 1973 and worked as a volunteer on a moshav (Maslul) and a kibbutz (Urim), both in the northern Negev. Incidentally, I’m now engaged in transcribing my journal notes of this experience on The New Jewish Thinker website.
In Israel, I considered Aliyah but found myself powerfully drawn to Asia. And so I left Israel and set out on a backpacking trip across central Asia to India, resolving to go farther afield when I had the opportunity.
And so it was that I spent the summer of 1975 in Kyoto, Japan— the old imperial capital. It was there that I met a nice Jersey girl named Ginger Trunfio— serious Italian Catholic roots, having been raised by the nuns in Paramus. We were married in 1976, following Ginger’s year-long orthodox conversion. This served as my own point of re-entry to the Jewish faith. And we both started studying Japanese, in a series of summer-intensive language boot camps. We were literally and figuratively transported to East Asia, where our Jewish identity would occasionally be probed by Japanese who had a fascination with Jews and Judaism.
In the mid-1980s, following our graduate education in Japanese studies, we moved to St Louis, with a year-old son in tow.
Thanks to the catalyst of a young child whose identity we wished to help forge, we connected with local Jewish community via the Reconstructionist havurah. Here we met Margaret and Marty Israel, Paula Lemerman and Stewart Shilcrat, Henry and Mary Berger, among others.
We joined BSKI, at the point when Rabbi Miller took over from Rabbi Skoff, and I discovered a welcome outlet for my Beth Tfiloh training, as a lay davener (shaliakh tsibur). I’ve been occupied in this role ever since, and it’s deeply gratifying.
Enough bullet points.
Back to the Jewish identity question. For me, it’s centered in the faith community— and in showing up. And at its core is the shared performance of sacred ritual and liturgy.
What, then, of God, obeying mitzvot and adhering to halakha ? Frankly, I do not feel ‘commanded’ to do anything. Yes, I understand the ‘mitzvah mandate’ and fully appreciate its meaning and significance, but I have not internalized it. I don’t put into practice the sacred words that I intone. This makes me— what?
I’ve got a ‘God problem’— which I suspect I share with some (all?) of you. I can’t quite accept the notion of a vengeful and malevolent God, a God referred to as ‘ish milhamah’— a warrior— who orders death and destruction willy-nilly. I’m puzzled and troubled by the ‘divine bipolar disorder’— God as alternatively peevish, impatient, vindictive— then merciful and benevolent.
Anthropologically speaking, we may require such an omnipotent tribal overlord, which in turn impels us to create the sort of deity best able to ensure the continuity of the tribe and its unique status among neighboring (and rival) tribes. This all makes perfect sense to me, but— again— it hasn’t instilled in me the need to ‘follow orders.’ That said, I do find myself very much moved by Jewish texts and teachings. For instance, the Psalms (T’hilim)— one of Judaism’s textual treasures. The Ethics of the Fathers (Pirkei Avot), too, with its ethical profundities and wise observations on the complexity of human nature. I’m painfully aware of my failings and cravings, and the oft-cited injunction to spurn one’s evil inclinations (al teifen la yeitzer) truly resonates with me, although my success rate is nothing to brag about.
I’m interested in the concept of holiness (and am reminded of parshat K’doshim, and Rabbi Arnow’s recent d’var on this subject). Specifically, I’m powerfully drawn to the virtue and value of reciprocity— the ‘Golden Rule’ injunction to treat others as we’d want to be treated, to respect and honor both friend and stranger— those in one’s tribe and those outside. (Parashat K’doshim: v’ahavta l’reiakha kamokha; New Testament: Matthew 7:12)
In short, I embrace the notion of holiness as the injunction to create a loving and harmonious world— and thereby to approach that which is holy. This is not something fully attainable by us mortals; it’s only ‘strive-able.’ And strive we must. We seek holiness not principally to glorify God, not because we’re commanded to do so, but out of a need to contribute to tikkun olam, to making the world a better place— even if only infinitesimally so. Taking on projects of ethical and moral ‘home repair’ is central to the teachings of Martin Buber, among others, and it’s a key religious precept beyond the Judaeo-Christian domain.
Speaking of which, as a scholar of East Asia, I’ve come to understand the affinities between Buddhism and Confucianism and my own Jewish values. For instance, I’ve had no problem comprehending the Buddhist precept of ego-decentering (muga). As for Confucianism, it’s predicated on an ethical system that privileges familial order, benevolent patriarchal authority, reciprocity, group cohesion, and a commitment to duty and perseverance. These are values embedded in Jewish civilization.
So let’s cut to the chase. Who, am I? Okay. Here’s my answer. I’m an ethical humanist who happens to be a Jew. And I’m a Jew who happens to be an ethical humanist. I’m a lot of other things, too. But that’s another story. No, that’s a lot of other stories!
In conclusion, allow me to summarize the ethical code that I’ve come to internalize— empathy, justice, fairness, inclusivity, equality, humility, and basic human decency and civility. These values I fully and unconditionally embrace— not simply because I’m a Jew (even though this is surely part of the picture), but because it’s clear to me that they are utterly essential to the proper functioning of society— and to my own place and purpose in society and the world at large.
This is my story. Not a lot of heavy-handing theology, which is a good thing. And the story continues. Which is another good thing!