Poetry: The Soul and Its Maker p.2 Leap of Faith (Editorial) Amala Levine
p.3 Searching, Eleanor Siegel p.5 Oh God ! ..., Rabbi Maurice A. Salth p.6
The Unprovable Truth, Rabbi Michael S. Friedman p.8 The Raccoon Ate
Our Challah, Joanna Stone Herman p.9 The Sleeping Soul, Eric Levine p.10
Making Loss Matter, Rabbi David Wolpe p.12 Tranquility, Melinda Gould
Konopko p.14 Living Faith, (A Tribute to Rabbi Jack Stern) p. 16 Faith in The
Shadows, Harold Bronheim p.18 Lifelines, Jennifer Gardner Trulson p.20
Speaking of Faith, Steve Klausner p.22
Fa l l 2 0 1 1 Faith is a
deeply
personal
experience,
yet it binds
all of us
together.
My faith is
but one small
link in a chain
that reaches
back to the
dawn of time,
and forward,
to the future
of all
mankind.
Faith in The Shadow
Harold Bronheim Page 19
Ner Tamid, Central Synagogue
T H I S I S S U E : FA I T H
3
2
POETRY
EDITORIAL
Leap of Faith
The Soul
AND ITS MAKER
Bow down before God, my precious
Thinking soul, and make haste to
Worship Him with reverence. Night
And day I think only of your everlasting
World. Why should you chase after
Vanity and emptiness? As long as you
Live, you are akin to the living God: just
As He is invisible, so are you. Since
Your Creator is pure and flawless, know
That you too are pure and perfect. The
Mighty One upholds the heavens on
His arm, as you uphold the mute body.
My soul, let your songs come before
Your Rock, who does not lay your form
In the dust. My innermost heart, bless
Your Rock always, whose name is
Praised by everything that has breath.
Solomon Ibn Gabriol
Solomon Ibn Gabriol (1021- c. 1055) was born in
Malaga and lived mostly in Saragossa. He was one of
the greatest Hebrew poets of all time, composing both
liturgical and secular poems about nature and love.
But his personal poems, like the one above, are the
most original and complex, depicting the struggles of
his soul torn between society and God.
Ben Shahn, from “The Alphabet of Creation”
Correction: “Communities of Textual Studies,” HaShiur, Spring 2011,
page 18: We apologize for the erroneous attribution of the creation
of Talmud study classes at Central Synagogue. The program was
instituted by Rabbi Sheldon Zimmerman in April 1979, during his
tenure as senior rabbi.
W
hy do we hesitate to speak of faith? Presumably we join a religious institution because we
believe, and we regard our clergy, at least in
part, as purveyors of faith, who explain why and what
we should believe. These assumptions were notably
tested when we decided to explore the topic in this issue
of HaShiur that, not coincidentally, reaches the congregation in time for the High Holy Days, the most introspective, moving period in the Jewish calendar. ‘Faith’ was a
real challenge to get off the ground yet, once airborne, it
soared. The reflections, essays and memoirs assembled
here attest to the vibrancy of faith in our community
but, in their diversity, they also highlight the complexity,
uncertainty and soul searching as an inextricable part.
Rabbi Salth deftly captures the predicament with
his title: “Oh God! Why God? Thank God! Where Are
you God? God!”—indicating how much we wrestle with
faith, just like Jacob with the angel. He was renamed
Israel and we are his descendants, by birth or by choice.
We waver between doubt and affirmation because faith
is fickle and God is elusive or palpably present. How do
we know? How do we speak about something so personal, so fragile and yet so true? Isn’t it an oxymoron to call
faith an “unprovable truth,” as Rabbi Friedman does?
A truth, by definition, should have clear proof. But faith
does not; it exists or not—depending on our experience,
our mood, our needs.
Sometimes we have to give God a “time-out,”
as Jennifer Gardner Trulson did after the death of her
husband on 9/11. Yet she found comfort and strength in
the Jewish traditions and ritual in which she had been
embedded since childhood. These, she concludes, are the
tools that God has provided; if we choose to accept them,
they become our life lines. Not only do they help us heal
but they also constitute our quintessential Jewishness, as
Rabbi Friedman shows. What really matters, he argues,
is not whether the Exodus was historically true, but that
each year at Passover we ritually recommit ourselves to
the fundamental values and principles of Judaism. That
is an act of faith.
In that sense, faith is not so much a matter of
grappling with abstract definitions of God as it is the
concrete, lived expression of a cultural, religious and
genealogical identity—our bedrock. Joanna Stone Herman poignantly describes the deep joy of submerging
in the waters of the mikveh with her little twins. Judaism
fills in the dots, connecting her own spiritual and ethical
Jacob wrestling with the Angel. Petrus Bible, 1372
values to the Torah, and her family to the community at
large. Even in the shadow of Auschwitz, faith in these
inter-human links and in tikkun olam are still possible, as
Harold Bronheim concludes in the haunting recollection
of his family’s history. And Melinda Gould Konopko’s
mother, after learning she had incurable cancer, approached death with such tranquility and grace that she
set an example of faith in the continuity of life—if not
individually, then collectively as a legacy.
There are times however, when such lived demonstrations of faith are joined by the awareness of God
as near and real, when a nebulous, ephemeral concept
turns into tangible experience. Then the ‘unprovable’
becomes truth from which intuitional faith is born. Such
an encounter with God defines the turning point in our
contemporary fiction, “The Sleeping Soul,” but it is also
characteristic of prophetic visions like Ezekiel’s and the
psalms praising the unwavering Presence of God. God
simply is—an undisputable fact.
For most of us, it is not as uncomplicated and
direct. Rabbi Jack Stern, who will be much missed this
Yom Kippur, cautions that faith is a hypothesis, an unprovable postulate, and he calls us “gamblers” wagering
a bet. But, he says, if we decide to take the chance, to
commit ourselves to Adonai heart and soul, then we can’t
lose. In that spirit we continue our journey, searching
as Eleanor Siegel still does, after more than 50 years of
active engagement with Judaism, what it means to have
faith. For her and for us it is, as she writes, “a wonderful
and exciting experience.”
Amala Levine
5
4
ESSAY
Searching
Eleanor Siegel
THE SEARCH for faith is a process that begins with many questions. For
me the journey began by denying both God and Judaism. When you are
young, this is easy to do. However, when our first child was born, I felt
I had to understand why I had made those choices. What did I really believe? Could we celebrate both Christmas and Chanukah? Could we have
a Christmas tree in our home? Since I didn’t believe in Jesus Christ and
the tree was a symbol of Christ, the answer to that question was easy.
I also remembered my mother’s friend coming to our home after
World War II, and her description of the horrors she had endured during
the Holocaust, just because she was Jewish. The Nazis didn’t care whether
or not you had embraced Christianity with all your heart; they still killed
you for being Jewish. Hiding your Jewishness was useless.
T
his memory helped me acknowledge that I was Jewish
too. But did that mean I also
believed in God? What did I know
about Judaism? Did I actually care
about Judaism? And why was my
struggle so difficult if I grew up in
a Jewish home?
My mother was raised in
an Orthodox home and, while my
grandparents were alive, we went to
their shul, where men and women
sat apart. My father grew up in
a more secular Jewish home. His
grandparents had emigrated from
Russia to England at a time when
Jews behaved almost like Marranos,
adopting English culture and traditions, even celebrating Christmas.
In England, new immigrants did
not want to be different. My mother
and her family came to the United
States from Lithuania in 1929. To
her, appearing more American was
appealing and, once my parents
married, they decided to give us
Christmas gifts; they wanted to fit
in, something they had in common
with many Jewish families. But we
never had a Christmas tree.
I took them into the dining room and pointed at
the unfurnished room.
Then I asked firmly,
“Do you want to know
why it is empty?”
As I thought how my
family had influenced me, I had to
acknowledge how deep an impression my maternal grandparents had
made on me. They always celebrated Chanukah, and all grandchildren
received shalachmanos, an amount of
Edward Hopper, “Sun in An Empty Room”
money, solemnly delivered in a dish
with a white cover. When we were
13, we received a silver dollar and
we knew we had achieved a milestone. Passover was always a huge
and wonderful family event with
ten aunts, many uncles and cousins.
These events created a sense
of Jewish identity, but they did not
touch the deepest parts of Judaism
such as God and Jewish values. In
that search, I was on my own. How
can you research the existence of
God? I could read many books of
what others were thinking but I
wanted to form my own opinion.
When I prayed, was God pulling the
strings only for me? Did God make
some people well and let others die?
To me, this did not make sense. Too
many things happen that are just
simply inexplicable; I could not hold
God responsible for evil or injustice.
In time, I came to believe that God
was within me. Thinking about God
in this way, I would not depend
upon Him to solve my problems, no
matter how serious they were.
The synagogue was an important part of the search for God.
While Art and I were raising our
three children and I was wrestling
with faith, we helped found the Dix
Hills Jewish Center. One afternoon,
upon returning home with the children after Hebrew School, I grew
tired of hearing their complaints
about having to attend. I took them
into the dining room and pointed
at the unfurnished room. Then I
asked firmly, “Do you want to know
why it is empty? It is because we
choose to spend our money on the
synagogue, that’s what we believe
is important.” I don’t think they
remember that particular moment
when I was teaching them that
How can you research the
existence of God?
Jewish values require action. Yet,
today, with children of their own,
synagogue and Jewish life play an
important part in their lives.
When we moved from Long
Island to Newton, Massachusetts,
we became active in the new synagogue. There I studied and stated
my commitment to Judaism by
becoming an adult bat mitzvah.
I still pray, no matter how
strongly I feel about personal responsibility and that God is within,
rather than a puppet master. I say
a prayer every time before driving
the car: “God, please keep me/us
safe and whole. Let me do no harm
or see any harm done.” I do not say
this prayer because I believe God
is watching only me but because it
makes me feel stronger and more
focused.
Today, Art and I are in the
middle of a two-year Melton course
of Jewish study, which began with
learning more about the Torah. The
course was a gift from our children
for our 50th anniversary, because
they know how strongly we feel
about learning, about Judaism and
Israel. We have taken them to Israel
twice. Art and I have gone also with
my sister and brother-in-law, as well
as with Rabbi Rubinstein during the
second intifada.
As my journey towards
faith continues, I discover more
about Judaism, more about spirituality and more about myself. It is a
wonderful and exciting experience. ■
Eleanor Siegel, a NYC writer, has been a
member of Central Synagogue for more than
15 years.
6
7
REFLECTIONS
Oh God!
Why God?
Thank God!
Where
Are You God?
God!
THE PSALMS are a
collection of 150 poetic
pieces that are part of
the Hebrew Bible.
Dating back as far as
586 BCE, these poems
contain questions, and
sometime answers, to
some of the deepest
questions humanity
has ever asked about
God.
Rabbi Maurice A. Salth
T
he Hebrew name for this
book is Tehillim, which means
praises. Many of these poems
do affirm and praise God, many
also describe faith in God, but I
find most remarkable those pieces
where faith is not a given. What
interests me most is when our
ancestors speak to God or about
God, and wonder, complain, cry for
help, or lament. These psalms reflect
the timeless experience of all of us,
living as Jews in an unsure world,
trying to understand God, how
God works in the universe or even
questioning the existence of God
altogether.
Every Rosh HaShanah and
Yom Kippur our liturgy expresses
little doubt that God exists. The
prayers recited during these holidays contain no questions about
God or faith—both are taken as
certain. Throughout High Holy
Day prayers we call God Avinu, our
Father, and Malkeinu, our King, and
we say Chatanuh, we have sinned
against You. I find power and comfort in these appellations, metaphors
and pleas to God for forgiveness;
these prayers hold deep meaning
for me. Yes, I do like the majesty
and import of the machzor, the High
Holy Day prayer book, but I also am
deeply grateful that our tradition
has holy texts, such as the Psalms,
that question God and faith in God.
Is there a God? And if so,
where are You?
Psalm 13 contains words
that are often integrated into the
Mi Shebeirach prayer for healing
at our Shabbat evening services.
Psalm 13:2-4 asks: “How long, O
God, will you ignore me forever?
How long will you hide Your face
from me? How long will I have
cares on my mind, grief in my heart
all day? How long will my enemy
have the upper hand?”
Psalm 22:2-3 cries out: “My
God, my God, why have you abandoned me; why so far from deliv-
ering me and from my anguished
roaring? My God, I cry by day –
You answer not; by night and have
no respite.”
“Why have you forgotten
me?” Psalm 42 questions. “Why
must I walk in gloom oppressed by
my enemy? Crushing my bones, my
foes revile me, taunting me always
with ‘where is your God?’” And the
author of Psalm 74:1 writes: “Why,
Oh God, do you forever reject us? “
...in times of crisis, the
Jewish people always
have looked to the words
of the Psalms.
How many of us have
asked questions such as these?
They are not intellectual inquiries,
but existential, soulful searches.
More than 2,000 years ago it was
acceptable to ask such direct, challenging questions of God, and it is
still appropriate for us to ask them
today. For me, hidden in these
words and other psalms is the
question: Is there a God? Because,
if there is a God, why am I and
others suffering so? The author of
Psalm 42 diplomatically places the
question of God’s existence into the
mouth of his enemy who is asking,
“Where is your God?” But to me it
is not the enemy alone questioning
God’s reality.
It is the author himself.
Such questioning, though
chuzpadik, audacious in Yiddish, has
been part of the Jewish experience
for millennia. Just where is this God
that is supposed to be merciful and
gracious, endlessly patient, loving,
and true? We Jews are not dense.
We know the God we speak of in
prayer sometimes seems to be missing. After all, we are Israel, the ones
who, by the definition of the word
Israel, wrestle with the question of
William Blake, “Job Confessing his Presumption
to God who Answers from the Whirlwind”
the Divine and Its mysterious ways.
Wrestling, for us, is as foundational
as the praise we lavish on God.
Sometimes our thoughts about faith
and God are steady and unwavering for long periods, while at other
times in our lives we doubt God in
the morning and praise Adonai by
sunset, or vice versa. This is our lot
as humans—we struggle with God.
Ten years ago, on September
11, 2001, I stood with my rabbinical
school fellows and our professors
on the corner of Fourth and Mercer
Street, staring in disbelief at the
thick black smoke billowing from
the tops of the World Trade Center
towers. When news came of the collapse of the buildings, our teacher,
Rabbi Norman Cohen, invited those
gathered into the chapel of the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute
of Religion. He and the other faculty did as best they could to update
us on what they knew, and advised
us how to get home safely. Rabbi
Cohen also taught us then that, in
times of crisis, the Jewish people
always have looked to the words
of the Psalms. ”We read psalms,”
Rabbi Daniel Polish teaches,
“because they help us confront the
pains and challenges that are a part
of every human life… psalms help
us overcome our problems and
bear the burdens that life places on
all of us.”
And so it was on September 11. When we, individually and
communally, were facing one of, if
not the most tragic and chaotic day
in our lives, we felt strengthened by
the honest and moving words of the
psalms. We listened to these ancient
words in the safety of our simple
chapel; we took a deep breath, and
then each of us went on our way. ■
9
8
REFLECTIONS
ESSAY
The Unprovable Truth
T
he story is told that some
Jews chanted a particularly
poignant line in Hebrew as
they were being marched to the gas
chambers. They knew the terrible
fate that awaited them. Yet they
launched what might be called a
rebellion of faith, proclaiming,
Ani ma’amin b’emunah shleimah
bevi’at haMashiach. “I believe with
full faith in the coming of the Messiah.” For them, the concept of messiah represented a world repaired,
restored and redeemed. This was
their rebellion of faith against their
tormentors. Even in a world gone
completely dark, they nonetheless believed with full faith that a
brighter day lay ahead—if not for
them, then for others who would
come after.
Faith implies that there is
something to have faith in. So it was
traumatic to some that, just before
Passover in 2001, Rabbi David Wolpe
of Sinai Temple in Los Angeles gave
a sermon in which he challenged the
historical truth of the Exodus story
as related in the Torah. He said,
“Virtually every modern archaeolo-
gist who has investigated the story
of the Exodus, with very few exceptions, agrees that the way the Bible
describes the Exodus is not the way
it happened, if it happened at all.”
Jewish rituals orient
us toward our most
important values.
The subsequent wail of
anguish created a shock wave that
echoed throughout the Jewish
world. There were many who could
not believe that such a prominent
rabbi in the Conservative movement
had uttered those words. Even
though most of Wolpe’s congregants
would not have claimed to believe
that the Torah is the literal word
of God, they nonetheless had faith
that its most central and dramatic
narrative was essentially historically accurate. Some therefore felt
as if the last remaining leg of their
faith was being snatched out from
under them. This was a story they
believed in.
If we were never slaves in
Egypt, and if there was no Exodus,
Rabbi Michael S. Friedman
then why observe Passover? Why
have a seder? And if we do not
have faith in the historical accuracy
of the Torah, why bother observing
it at all?
Even Maimonides was not
at all concerned with the accuracy of
the Torah. His faith lay in the simple
utilitarian value of the Torah. “The
entire Torah has only two purposes:
to help us develop to become better
human beings, and to teach us essential truths about life.” (Guide to
the Perplexed, 3:27) He lived by the
Torah because it proved to have benefit in his life and the life of others.
As Rabbi Wolpe writes, “The Torah
is not a book we turn to for historical
accuracy, but rather for truth.”
One of our Confirmation
students said recently, “Sometimes
it is good to have faith, because it
can be used as a source of strength.
It is comforting to not always have
to prove something to believe in it.”
The purpose of a seder, therefore,
is not to re-enact a historical event.
The purpose of the seder is to use
a well-known narrative to re-orient
us to the most fundamental of our
principles: that we understand the
bitterness of oppression, and that
we therefore have a responsibility
to bring freedom and redemption to
the world. The same could be said
of a great many Jewish rituals – that
they orient us toward our most
important values.
The shofar calls us to
awaken from our complacency and
become better people. The sukkah
reminds us of the fragility of life and
urges us to appreciate our blessings.
The Shabbat candles underscore our
responsibility to bring light to the
dark corners of our world. In these
unprovable truths, we have faith. ■
Marc Chagall, “Exodus”
The Raccoon Ate Our Challah
Joanna Stone Herman
F
riday, May 6, 2011 was a special
day. It was my birthday, it was
Shabbat, and my three yearold twin daughters and I had just
become Jewish the day before. That
afternoon, I was reminded of the
importance of my faith while being
robbed in Central Park by a raccoon.
Becoming a Jew has been
a decades-long process. My father
is Jewish, my mother is a lapsed
Catholic and I was brought up
“nothing,” which turned me into a
perpetual seeker of “something.”
I wanted a relationship with God,
but had no idea how to develop one.
I felt culturally Jewish, but had no
connection to the Jewish religion.
I had spirituality but I did not have
a faith.
I wanted a relationship
with God, but had no idea
how to develop one.
When I first met my husband, it was clear his Jewish identity
was very important to him. I agreed
to learn more about Judaism and
together we signed up for Derech
Torah classes at the 92nd Street Y.
Eventually, I began to work with
Rabbi Jan Uhrbach, a brilliant, inspiring rabbi from the Conservative
Synagogue of the Hamptons, who
patiently helped me sort through
my feelings about everything from
Jesus Christ to the New Age writer
Louise Hay.*
Growing up, I had been
given strong values and a vague
sense of spirituality. Judaism has
helped me fill in the missing pieces
*Central Synagogue’s conversion program
and Introduction for those exploring Judaism
began last September under the direction of
Rabbi Lisa Rubin.
and taught me what it means to
have a faith. It has connected me to
a history, thousands of years old,
filled with traditions and customs
that now serve as the foundation for
my spiritual life. Judaism also has
given me a community, a diverse
group of people who disagree more
often than they agree, but who
relish these disagreements because
they value different viewpoints
and continual learning. However,
they unanimously agree in one
area—their core values. It turns out
these are the same core values I was
taught as a child—including love,
respect, forgiveness, and peace.
My choice to become a Jew was arguably less significant than our decision to raise our daughters in the
Jewish faith. We would like Judaism to provide the foundation upon
which our daughters can build, as
they each develop their own moral
compass. We hope they will follow
halachic laws and traditions to help
keep them connected to God. We
also would like them to live in the
spirit of Jewish laws and to be role
models for tikkun olam, striving to
make the world a better place and
inspiring others to do the same.
The final step towards
conversion is the mikveh. After my
own submersion in the ritual bath,
I had to put my three-year old twin
daughters underwater, which was
not the easiest process. They cried
and coughed and gave me looks as
if to say they would never forgive
me. But by the time we were swaying back and forth to the Shehecheyanu, their smiles had returned. And
shortly after we left the mikveh, they
told us they wanted to “go back
under water and become Jewish
again!” In fact, they had actually
become Jewish again. This Conservative conversion with their mom
was their second time in the mikveh.
Shortly after their birth, they had
been part of a beautiful Reform
conversion led by Rabbi Maurice
Salth together with Rabbi Michael
Friedman.
On May 6, the day after
my conversion, my husband and I
were walking through Central Park,
pushing our enormous tandem
stroller, the largest on the market
that seems to have the same effect
as Hummer limos on city streets—
everyone gets out of our way when
they see us coming. Our girls were
continued on page 15
11
10
FICTION
The Sleeping Soul
RELIGION was never part of my upbringing.
Coming from a broken home in a working-class
district, it held no attraction. I was three when
my mother died. Abandoned by my father,
I ended up in an orphanage. Breaking out to
improve my life was all I cared about.
I
was smart and good-looking,
accomplished at sports and top
of the class in all my studies. So
success came easily. Scholarships
to Yale, then Harvard Business
School—graduating with full honors—gave me the entrée to the most
prestigious Wall Street firms. But
getting in was only the start. How
to reach the top, as a socially unconnected woman, was the challenge.
Yet I was determined to make it, no
matter what it took. I worked hard
at attracting new business, seizing
every opportunity, making my presence felt. My reputation grew, and
with it came rapid promotion and
the accompanying financial rewards.
I was on my way up the corporate
ladder. Then came the phone call.
I was busy at the time and
would normally not have taken the
call, particularly not from someone I didn’t know. Yet for some
uncanny reason I told my assistant
to put it through. The caller had a
deep, cultured voice with an attractive, slightly foreign accent. He
explained that he was involved in
tracing family genealogies and that
my name had come up as part of
a particularly interesting family
history. Could we meet? He didn’t
press for an answer, just left me his
name and office number. His name,
Bernat Ojeda, suggested a Spanish
connection.
Although in the midst of a
complex international merger, I was
too intrigued by the thought of tracing my origins to ignore the call. So
I arranged to meet him the next day
at my office.
Bernat Ojeda was a handsome man, rather aristocratic looking with a dark Mediterranean skin.
He was older than I had imagined
but had a warm sympathetic smile.
He unrolled the scroll of an extensive genealogical tree on the conference table as he began to speak.
I was on my way up
the corporate ladder.
Then came the
phone call.
“You’ll be wondering who
I am, “he said, “and why I wanted
to see you. Let me explain. I work
for an organization called Shavei
Israel. We are dedicated to finding
the remnants of Jewish families who
centuries ago were forced to convert
to Catholicism in order to escape
death but who secretly maintained
their Jewish traditions …”
“But what’s that got to do
with me?” I interrupted.
“Grant me a little patience,”
he said. “It’s a long story but I will
try and make it short. Ever since the
Eric Levine
5th century, maybe sooner, there has
been a presence of Jews on the Balearic island of Majorca. For many
centuries they prospered and were
even protected by the Spanish kings
who ruled over the island. But there
were also periods, especially during
the times of the Inquisition, when
the Jews were persecuted, robbed
of their civil rights, and forced to
convert to Christianity or face death
by burning at the stake.
“Early in the 14th century,
the position of the Jewish community began to deteriorate, first under
the rule of James II, then under his
son, Sancho I. Anti-Jewish riots
broke out after several Jews were
accused of murdering a Christian
child. Then, under the influence
of the Bishop of Majorca, Sancho
ordered the confiscation of the
majestic synagogue of Palma and
its conversion into a church. As late
as 1691, 37 Jews, men and women,
who had been forced to convert
but had continued to practice their
religion secretly, were burned alive
in Gomila Plaza in the infamous
‘bonfire of the Jews.’ Yet, against all
odds, converts to Christianity who
maintained their Jewish practices in
secret, continued to live in Majorca
to this very day. They are called chuetas. They were forced to live apart
and only marry other chuetas. This
went on until very recently.”
“So what’s this got to do
with me?” I again asked impatiently.
“That’s what I’m coming
to,” he replied with an engaging
smile, turning his attention to the
genealogical tree and pointing
towards its head. “Here you will
see the name of Hasdai Crescas,
who together with Maestre Eleazar
Ibn Ardut, was part of the retinue of
King Pedro IV when he conquered
the Baleriac Isles in 1343. Hasdai
Crescas was the grandfather of R.
Hasdai Crescas, one of our greatest
Jewish rabbis of the late 15th century, author of the famous philosophical treatise, Or Adonai, Light of the
Lord. And that,” he said, pausing
for emphasis, “is where you
come in.”
“Although Rabbi Crescas’
son died as a martyr in the antiJewish riots in Barcelona, you will
see from where I’m pointing that the
line from his grandfather continues unbroken, always through the
matrilineal line, down to this very
day. And here you will see, “pointing again to the family tree, “your
maternal grandmother, who, according to the records we have managed
to access, lived in Palma as part of
the chuetas community until her
death just a few years ago. This, my
dear Angela, is your family tree!”
I was completely taken
aback. Having lost my mother when
I was small, then abandoned by my
father, I had no idea about my family background. All this was certainly possible though difficult for me to
take in. “Are you sure about this?” I
asked awkwardly.
“I wouldn’t be here if I
weren’t,”
“Does this mean I’m Jewish?” I asked.
“You have Jewish blood and
have inherited a most distinguished
Jewish pedigree. Whether you want
to be Jewish is up to you. And that’s
why I’m here—to help you make the
choice. ”
He went on to tell me more
about his work and the satisfaction
it gave him. He said he was taking a
small group to Majorca, with similar
chuetas connections to mine, to
reunite them with their Jewish past
and invited me to join them. Sensing
my diffidence, he got up to go. His
departure opened up a suppressed
longing for family connection
and the deeply buried pain of my
orphaned childhood. It made for a
quick decision to join the trip.
A few weeks later I found
myself in Palma, Majorca as part of
a small congenial group from different countries led by Bernat Orjeda.
The morning after our arrival, we
heard a lecture on the Island history of the Jewish communities,
given by a young Israeli rabbi with
a Bronx accent. Around noon, we
walked to Gomila Plaza and stood
in the burning heat on the very spot
of the ‘bonfire of the Jews’. As the
rabbi intoned a special 15th century
Kaddish, a strange tingling sensation
overcame me. The unfamiliar words
of the prayer kept resonating in my
Continued on page 13
12
13
NON FICTION
Making Loss Matter
Rabbi David Wolpe
WHEN I WAS a child, I used to watch “Star Trek.” Many of the plots were
repetitive. They land on a planet where there is no pain, but also no
growth, the crew has to decide—should they stay there and be in a state
of innocent bliss forever, or leave and brave the turbulence of life? Of
course, they always brave the turbulence—otherwise there is no episode
for next week. But the underlying message is more serious.
I
t is the same message one gets
from Utopian novels where
drugs or strict social control offer
the same blissful emptiness. The
hero is the one who will not settle
for the pleasure that blocks out the
drama and struggle and pain of life.
Without pain there is no music, art,
literature. Similarly, almost no science or technology would exist because needs and pains are so closely
related that to be without pain is to
virtually be without need. You miss
someone you love, you seek shelter
from the elements, medicine for an
ailment, relief from boredom in a
novel or a movie, an expression of
the angst in your soul that only music can give, a need to express what
is bottled up inside you, a religious
rite to bind up the wounds of your
loss, a pillow for your tired head,
and food for your empty stomach.
Dealing with pain and expressing joy together create civilization.
Perhaps God ought to have created
a painless world, but it could not be
with human beings.
Our souls are our unique
endowment. Struggle is the leavening element of life. Through it we
rise.
We yearn for God in a
world spun out of control, and yet
we doubt the reality of God. In the
seed of our doubting there can be
the platform on which we build a
deeper, sturdier faith.
But every time I speak
about finding one’s way back to
God, I hear that same voice of the
child in the orphanage saying, “My
mommy told me never to let go of
his hand,” the voice of the one who
says, “What about me? What about
the world that I was born into only
to suffer?” and I know that it’s not
allowed to be easy. There are people
who have told that they never
doubted their faith in God no matter
what they faced. I envy that certainty. It is not mine. For me it is a
struggle, and in some ways I cannot
keep faith with that child if I don’t
struggle, if I don’t wonder, if I don’t
doubt, if I don’t pray, not only to ask
of God but to find God.
Wielded as a spiritual
sword, a blade of grass
is a lever sturdy enough
to pry open the gate
of holiness.
found faith. But the faith we find
there is different from faith as we
usually conceive of it. We think of
the doubter as lost, but equally the
believer can be lost—lost in impregnable pieties of one kind or another.
Faith is not a fortress.
We are not locked into it. I do not
believe as I did ten years ago, and I
hope I do not believe today as I will
ten years from now. My faith has become more honest as I have grown.
But it is not easy.
Losing faith is a universal
experience. Things we loved are not
as we believed them to be. Bitter
from losing, we can become skeptical.
If we can admit our disillusion and believe it is not the end of
the search, we can move forward.
My advice to people who have lost
faith is not to lose faith in faith.
Don’t believe that because faith is
sometimes hard it has fled forever.
Have faith in the searching. Loss is
In an editorial that Elie
Wiesel wrote in the New York Times
about his encounter with God
some fifty years after the end of
the Holocaust, he wrote, “‘What
about my faith in You, master of the
universe?’ I now realize that I never
lost it, not even over there during
the darkest hours of my life.” Wiesel
closed his beautiful meditation as
follows: “As we Jews now enter
the High Holidays again preparing
ourselves to pray for a year of peace
and happiness for our people and
all people, let us make up, master of
the universe, in spite of everything
that has happened, yes in spite, let
us make up for the child in me, it is
unbearable to be divorced from You
for so long.”
I did not become a rabbi because I believe. I became a rabbi because I committed my life to never
giving up searching and yearning
for God. I am a rabbi because there
is in me, as there is in you, a child,
a child that knows that somewhere
we are not alone; that this world
is bathed in miracles; and that for
every pain there is beauty, for every
loss there is love, and for every
waste there is wonder.
I continue to seek God because I know this is the human task
I seek, because in that search there
is life, and light, and meaning, and
even joy.
There is indeed joy in faith,
and joy in the quest for faith. The
world often cooperates if we see in
it the beauty that awaits. Sanctity
dwells in everything that exists.
Wielded as a spiritual sword, a
blade of grass is a lever sturdy
enough to pry open the gate of holiness.
Faith is not only an earnest search, it is a dance. One who
believes in the ultimate goodness
of the universe will not necessarily be happy, but joy is deeper than
happiness. Joy does not obviate
loss. When we lose faith, we have a
chance to pull ourselves higher, and
often the rung that we can grasp is
the rung of joy.
■
The Sleeping Soul continued from p. 11
ears, infusing me, no longer alien.
As the Kaddish ended, I
wandered off to clear my head. In a
matter of moments I found myself
standing in front of the magnificent
entrance to the church that once
had been the Great Synagogue. I
knew I had been there before. On an
impulse I pushed the heavy, wooden door open and entered. Only
a distant altar light broke the vast
darkness of the space. The words
of the Kaddish kept reverberating
inside me. Suddenly the space was
filled by an intense burst of brilliant light and a profound silence. I
sensed an overpowering Presence.
I fell to my knees, then prostrated
myself on the cold stone floor. I was
weeping, but they were tears of joy.
From deep within, words came tumbling forth, words I had never heard
before, words I did not know, yet
words that were part of me, Hebrew
words, the words of the Sh’mah.
That trip changed my life in
so many ways. I had encountered
God; I had retrieved my ancient
faith; I had discovered my roots.
After a year of study I formally converted to Judaism and
am now enrolled in Theological Seminary, training to become
a rabbi. I am supported in these
endeavors by my beloved husband,
Bernat Ojeda.
■
The historical references in this story are
factually accurate; the rest is fiction.
From Making Loss Matter by Rabbi David
Wolpe, copyright © 1999. Used by permission
of Riverhead Books, an imprint of Penguin
Group (USA) Inc.
Eric Levine is a transnational corporate
lawyer and a founding principle of
Millennia Capital Partners, an investment
advisory firm.
15
14
ESSAY
Tranquility
Melinda Gould Konopko
O
n Friday night, September 18,
2009, I sat in the sanctuary of
Central Synagogue. It was
the beginning of Rosh HaShanah and
also the day I learned my mother,
Karolyn Gould, had lung cancer. My
family would have to wait until Monday to learn the stage of her illness. I
was overwhelmed by the contrast of
the beauty of the sanctuary and the
heaviness in my heart. I could barely
breathe as I faced the magnitude of
the question—who shall live and
who shall die. I was keenly aware of
its timeliness.
As I sat there, I prayed. I
prayed for the cancer to be treatable.
I prayed my mother would not
have to endure extreme suffering.
I prayed my father could function
while the love of his life was ill. It is
an understatement to say my mother did not like to discuss anything
unpleasant. She was a “glass 9/10th
full” sort of woman. I prayed she
would allow her family to face her
illness together.
The good news is that
people can surprise us.
When, on Monday, my
mother was given her diagnosis, she
declared she was not afraid of death.
She announced to all her loved ones
that she wanted to make it perfectly
clear she had had a great life. After
all, she had been married to a man
who absolutely adored her for more
than 50 years. She had four healthy,
married children. She had nine
grandchildren and friendships that
spanned her whole life. She also
had a pioneering career in the nonprofit sector, giving her the comforting knowledge she would leave the
world a little better off. It was her
job now to show those she loved
how not to be afraid of death, how
She was a “glass 9/10th
full” sort of woman.
My mother taught faith
by example, not by standing on a soapbox.
to face the end of life with grace.
My mother declared her illness and approaching death should
not be viewed as a tragedy. While
she was profoundly sad she would
not see her grandchildren grow into
adulthood or be there to celebrate
their weddings, she still knew she
was lucky. She quoted Erik Erik-
son, explaining she had reached
what Erikson called “integrity”—
a state of wholeness.
At the time, my mother’s
attitude seemed a profound departure from the woman who did not
like to discuss negative issues. Over
time though, I came to realize that
her faith in the process of life was
exactly why she was able to be so
magnificently positive in the face
of death. During the 18 months of
her illness, no topic was off limits.
Never defensive, all questions could
be asked and would be honestly
answered.
She wanted treatment only
as long as it allowed her to live her
life well. When told it would no
longer help, she wanted it stopped.
Although my mother sometimes
cried, didn’t want to have cancer,
didn’t want to limit her activities,
she never felt sorry for herself. She
continued to plan and have visits
until just a few weeks before her
death. She had more than 150 visitors after her diagnosis. She continued attending her beloved book
club of four decades, until a month
before she died; two weeks later, the
current book selection was on her
bedside table. She was the definition of an optimist.
In January 2011, my mother
wanted to see her oncologist whom
she treasured and trusted, one last
time. She wanted to know exactly
how much time he thought she had
left because she had to plan. He
didn’t want to answer. Ultimately,
he said a month, maybe two or even
three. She was determined to attend
her 80th birthday celebration on
February 20th. Her doctor gently
shook his head, he wasn’t so sure.
But, just three weeks before her
death, my mother did celebrate her
birthday gloriously with her family
and a few of her closest friends.
As we waited at the oncologist’s office for her appointment, my
mother and I had a great conversation, despite her profound physical
weakness. I asked her again why she
wasn’t afraid of dying. She reiterated
that her life was full; she was over-
joyed the key relationships in her life
had been so enriched during her illness. She was sure the end would be
gentle, and certain she would watch
over all of us after her death.
In the cab on the way home,
she decided we should discuss her
funeral, from funeral home options
to what my kids might wear. Later,
10 days before her death, we discussed the shiva—what tablecloth to
use, the menu, and she asked me to
serve lemonade and mojitos because
they would be refreshing—reminding me that no topic was off limits.
As we approached my parents’ apartment building that day
in January, she turned to me and
said, “So, we have no unresolved
issues, we’re good?” “Yes, Mom, no
unresolved issues. We are good.”
She was pleased.
My mother taught faith by
example, not by standing on a soapbox. She taught us to believe in the
inherent goodness of people. She
taught faith in the process of life, by
taking problems one step at a time,
to be open to life’s possibilities and
to act with good intentions, then
good would come of it, even though
it may not be apparent at first. Her
favorite quote, “No speculation
with insufficient information,” so
personified her that I printed it in on
the napkins for the shiva.
My mother’s faith was
grounded in positive thinking and
her belief that one can adapt to
anything. During her illness and in
death, she demonstrated this faith
in all its glory. By her example she
taught us how to live and die with
grace and contentment.
■
Melinda Gould Konopko is a founder of
PlumParty.com, an entertainment and
celebrations company.
THE RACOON ATE OUR CHALLAH
continued from p. 9
walking next to the stroller and our
challah had been carefully placed
underneath the stroller, to be uncovered later as part of our weekly
Shabbat celebration—our first as a
formally Jewish family.
A raccoon ambled onto our
path, an unusual sight for a sunny
day in the park. The girls were fascinated; he seemed to look right at us.
The raccoon knew exactly what he
wanted and walked straight towards
us. Worried he would get too close
to our girls, we pulled them away
from the stroller. The determined
animal then put his whole head
into the stroller and began eating
our challah. A large crowd soon
gathered, pointing and snapping
pictures. “The raccoon is eating our
challah,” the girls shouted with delight. “Last week I saw him eating
a bagel,” said an older woman.
At which point my husband asked,
“Do you think the raccoon is
Jewish?”
We chatted with others in
the crowd about this ‘only in New
York City’ moment, the clearly
Jewish tastes of the raccoon and
our need to hurry back to Fairway
for another challah. By the time
the park ranger chased the raccoon
away, I was reminded how special
it is to be Jewish, to be part of a
culture that has shared traditions for
thousands of years, and to be part of
a community where so many share
the same faith—maybe even a
■
raccoon.
Joanna Stone Herman is a media executive
who has written for many publications,
including Newsweek, The Washington
Post and The Wall Street Journal.
She has recently completed her first novel.
17
16
IN MEMORIAM
Living Faith
A Tribute to Rabbi Jack Stern*
HOW SHOULD we mourn a rabbi whose wise words have guided our reflec-
tions on Jewish faith for a decade of Yom Kippur afternoons? Rabbi Stern
himself points the way. “First,” he writes, “we may weep [but] only if we
do not weep too long,… only if we don’t indulge ourselves in the luxury
of grief until it deprives us of courage and even the wish for recovery.
The second way to mourn is to be silent: to behold the mystery of love, to
recall a shared moment, to remember a word or a glance… [and] the third
way is to sing: to sing a hymn to life…to sing the song our beloved no
longer has a chance to sing: we aspire to their qualities of spirit, we take
up their tasks as they would have shouldered them.”1
B
orn in Cincinnatti in 1926,
Rabbi Jack Stern witnessed
first-hand the living nature
of faith as Reform Judaism has
changed over the decades; in turn,
his life became the expression of an
unwavering faith and commitment
to Judaism. His own words best
describe that evolutionary journey.
Rabbi Jack Stern did not become a
bar mitzvah, which today would
strike us as odd, but at the time, “to
stake their claim in America, the Reform pioneers divested themselves
of any tradition that might separate
them from the mainstream of their
now-expanded world, discarding
whatever smacked of the old life in
the ghetto…They embraced their
new identity with passion precisely
because they saw themselves as Jewish bearers of a grand message to the
world…that there is one God who
represents what is ethically good
and right and who requires human
beings to live their lives accordingly.
It was a message of personal morality, person to person: do not cheat, do
not exploit, do not lie, do not abuse.
It was a message of social morality: transform God’s shabby world
* Tribute compiled by the Editor.
into God’s moral world, a world in
which the weak and the poor are
protected and unoppressed…The
most effective way to carry out their
mission was for the Jewish people to
begin with itself…by providing the
model of personal and social morality and thus becoming ‘a light onto
the nations.’”2
In the 1970s and 80s Rabbi
Stern witnessed a new generation
of Jews, born after the Holocaust,
that “ushered us into a New Age
of Reform Judaism, an age marked
by a banner with three insignia:
spirituality, community and tradition…This New Age offers powerful
reason for our celebration. By making Reform Judaism more personal,
joyful and jewishly authentic, New
Age Judaism has opened the door
to new possibilities, and infused
new vigor into the expected. Yes, it’s
time to rejoice—but it’s also a time
for caution…With all the promise
of the personal, Judaism should
not become totally personal, totally
consumed with ‘me.’
“When it comes
to spirituality, however personally
the spiritual self may connect to the
Divine presence, if that connection
does not prod the question, ‘and
now what does that God call upon
me to do outside my inner self as
a moral member of a moral Jewish
people,’ then, by Jewish definition,
it is bogus spirituality. So too, if a
seeker of community does not reach
out to some other isolated person, to
the larger Jewish community and
“Judaism has always
been receptive to different ideas of God…God is,
says Judaism, but no one
knows what He is like.”
to the human community at large,
then, by Jewish definition, it is less
than authentic community. And
with tradition, with all its possibilities of warmth and beauty: if the
only outcome is a warm and fuzzy
feeling, without the moral urgency
of our traditional covenant between
God and Israel, without the Jewish
moral passion of the early Reformers, then we have forfeited outright
to celebrate the New Age of Reform
Judaism.”
Rabbi Stern never ceased
to grapple with the fundamental
question of faith, especially since he
acknowledged that “Judaism has
always been receptive to different
ideas of God…God is, says Judaism,
but no one knows what He is like.”
How then, he asked, can we have
faith in what is essentially a mystery? He answered without equivocation and great courage: “Faith is
a hypothesis that all of the jumbled
pieces of life, all of the sunlight and
all of the storm clouds, the living
and the dying…all are of a piece,
joined together by a thread of meaning, by a Presence that calls us to live
our lives with meaning, with justice,
with mercy, and with feeling.
“It cannot be absolutely
proven…But this must also be said
for the record: that the atheist is no
less a gambler than the believer, except that the atheist is betting on the
other side, [but] they are both taking
a chance. If a human being should
decide to take the chance and say
’Adonai! Lord,’ the only authentic decision can be with his whole
being, because only a total human
being can listen to the drumbeat
of history, of life and death. Only a
total human being can perceive himself to be standing in the presence
of God…Let him stand in awe and
wonder before the Mystery, and let
the Mystery and the Presence speak
to him of his life, his tomorrow, his
task in the world.”3
When he was five years
old, Rabbi Jack Stern contracted a
life-threatening infection in his right
hip that led to three surgeries and
a long, slow recovery. Through this
adversity, “I learned early on to
make the best of what starts out as
not so good. It’s not just the power
of positive thinking, but the power
of positive acting.”4 In that he set
an example at Westchester Reform
Temple, where he served as religious leader for 36 years and for us
at Central Synagogue during all the
Yom Kippur afternoons when he reminded us that all our actions, good
and bad, are inscribed in the Book
of Life. “There we see emblazoned
on each page a name, a date of birth
and the story of a life… Some pages
are ripely full—a harvest gleaned of
years of love… Whether the angel
of death comes sooner or later, it is
always too soon. There is always a
task still unfinished—one more song
to be sung. “5
Now it is up to us to continue Rabbi Stern’s song of faith and
right action, taking up the tasks of
life as he would have shouldered
them. He once recalled the highest
compliment he ever received as a
rabbi: ‘You make us think we are
better than we are, and that makes
us try to be better.”6 Let us rise to
the challenge.
■
1 Stern, Rabbi Jack, “How to Mourn,” in
For Those Bereaved, Austin. H. Kutscher, ed.
2 Stern, Rabbi Jack, this and the following
quotation are taken from “Observations of a
Rabbi who never became a bar mitzvah.” (1997)
www.synagogue3000.org
3 Stern, Rabbi Jack, The Right Not To Remain Silent.
Living Morally in a Complex World. iUniverse, 2006
4 Stern, Rabbi Jack, “Still Trying to Be a Mensch.”
Reform Judaism Magazine, 2006
5 Stern, Rabbi Jack, “How to Mourn.”
6 Stern, “Still Trying to Be a Mensch.”
Donatello, “Singers”
18
19
ESSAY
Faith in The Shadows
THERE HAS never been a time that I have not
known of the Holocaust. Both my parents are
survivors. At 17, my father was taken from
his family in Poland, where they lived in the
village of Frysztak, about 60 miles east of Krakow. For three terrifying years my father made
a “grand tour” of Germany and Poland as a
slave, from the fall of 1942 until his liberation,
after a 14-day Death March, by the retreating
Nazis in the spring of 1945.
M
y father’s older brother—
my namesake—was regularly beaten and ultimately
killed by drunken Kapos because of
his height and superior intelligence.
My mother is a tattooed Auschwitz
survivor, who escaped Eichmann’s
death sentence by slipping out
of the left line leading to the gas
chamber. There would be many
more such terrifying selections, until
her liberation six months later. Her
parents—my grandparents—arrived
on the same train, but they were
marched and harassed right up to
the doors of the gas chamber. They
soon went up in the smoke and ash
that rained down continuously on
those awaiting their fate.
Growing up, I had no family beyond my immediate household. When I think of faith, I think
of my obligation to my ancestors
whom I have never known. Like
most survivors, because of the pain
and guilt of memory, my parents
seldom spoke with me about their
lost families. Not until my midfifties did I learn that my father had
a set of twin sisters. I so firmly hold
Harold Bronheim
onto my identity as a Jew to keep
faith with a family I have never
seen. My only close relatives, aside
from my own family, are all Israelis
and the children of the few siblings
that also survived.
I was raised in traditional
Eastern European fashion and attended yeshiva until age 18. Having
so few male role models at home, I
looked for righteousness in my rabbis. Unfortunately, and I say so with
deep regret, I too often encountered
ignorance and hypocrisy. Although
there is no one to blame, in my
school, I did not find a Judaism
worth living for—let alone dying
for. The experience of death and
loss has always cast a shadow over
my life, as it would in any child
from whom a loved one was taken.
Despite my doubts about religious
forms, my identity as a Jew is unshakeable, as was my intent to raise
only a Jewish family. Nevertheless,
I fell in love with a wonderful Irish
Catholic woman who had gone to
parochial school. (It’s a common
story and not an especially surprising one.)
When I think of faith,
I think of my obligation
to my ancestors
whom I have never
known.
I was unfamiliar with
Reform observance but my wife
sought counsel and found comfort
in the clergy at Central Synagogue.
That was 28 years ago. We have
been members of Central Synagogue
ever since. Both my daughters
were named
and educated
here, became
bat mitzvah
here, and soon
my younger
daughter is to
be confirmed
here. God willing, they will
all marry here.
A father can
surely hope!
Although
my grandparents, rooted in the world of
the shetl, could
never imagine me now, I know they
would recognize the Sh’ma recited
at services. They would be honored
to be called up for an aliyah. They
might be perplexed by the Reform
liturgy and the music, but they certainly would recognize the ancient
call of the shofar. If I could meet
them, I would reassure them of the
everlasting endurance of the Jewish people and their transmission
of moral law through the millennia. I have faith in tikkun olam and
the ethical humanism of the Jewish
people; after all, we have grown up
together with our neighbors—the
rest of mankind. But I would reassure my uncertain grandparents that
we can guarantee only one generation at a time.
When I attended the interfaith Yom HaShoah Remembrance
service at Saint Peter’s Church, I
was deeply moved by the sincerity
of our Christian neighbors. The service was so loving, and the congregants were so kind. I was touched
that they felt a responsibility for the
crimes committed by other Chris-
tians so long ago. They are not the
ones who need feel responsible for,
or carry that ancient wound—my
wound—in their hearts. But, it is
the kindness and caring of “others”
like the members of St. Peter’s that
support my faith, just as the love of
my own family does. Martin Luther
King Jr. once said: “The arc of history is long and it bends slowly to
justice.” I sincerely believe it does.
Faith is a deeply personal experience, yet it binds all of us together.
My faith is but one small link in a
chain that reaches back to the dawn
of time, and forward, to the future
of all mankind.
On the day my father and
the other young men of his village
were selected and driven away
from their homes, the remaining
Jews of the village, all 800 souls,
were marched 10 kilometers down
the road to a distant wood, where
they were shot. I imagine that, like
my maternal grandfather in the gas
chamber, my paternal grandfather
in the forest, in the final moment,
wrapped his arms around his wife
and daughters in an instinctual last
grasp to save them from the hail of
bullets, trying to protect them with
his own body. I keep faith with the
■
shadow of that thought, too.
Dr. Harold Bronheim is a clinical professor
of medicine & psychiatry and member of the
Medical Board at Mt Sinai Hospital.
He is a psychotherapist with a specialty of
the medically ill. He and his family live in
NYC. His parents are retired and live in
Brooklyn.
21
20
MEMOIR
Lifelines
Jennifer Gardner Trulson
WHEN MY HUSBAND, Doug Gardner, died in the
attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, I was a thirty-five year old mother of
two small children, Michael and Julia. Doug’s
sudden death terrified me; I lurched from overwhelming anxiety to despair, to helplessness.
T
here were times I thought I
would remain comatose for
the rest of my life. But my
children needed a competent parent,
not the terrified shell of a mother
I was becoming. That drove me to
find ways to cope. To be honest,
pursuing a relationship with God
was not one of them.
I didn’t want to blame God
for Doug’s loss or rail against the
universe, but I also wasn’t ready to
let Him off the hook entirely. I didn’t
have the answers, and until I did, I
decided to do what most mothers
do when confronted with an unruly
child. I put God on a “time-out,”
until we could both cool off.
I have always been deeply
Jewish, but not necessarily observant. I grew up in a closely knit
Jewish community in Massachusetts, where my grandfather helped
establish the local JCC, and my
father was president of our synagogue. I went to Hebrew school,
became a bat mitzvah and was
confirmed. Once Doug and I were
married and had a family, Judaism became increasingly essential
in our busy New York lives. We
became involved with the JCC on
the Upper West Side and our kids
went to a synagogue nursery school,
where Doug and I would alternate
as “Shabbat parents” and attend
Chanukah and Purim parties. We
hosted Passover, always attended
High Holy Days services and hung
a mezuzah on our door. Though
we weren’t going to keep a kosher
household or go to synagogue every
week, we were committed to bringing Judaism into our home. It was
important to create ritual and tradition for the kids and bring them up
in the Jewish faith, to know their
history and their community, and
to find their place in it.
For me, if God is
anywhere,
He is in the healing.
The Jewish tenets of tzedakah and tikkun olam strongly inform
the way I try to live. I subscribe to
the idea that, if God gave us this
world and declared it good, we are
entrusted to take care of it and of
each other. Though I didn’t always
adhere to the prescribed words we
were expected to say in synagogue
when in prayer, what moved me
about the act of praying was welcoming the moment of meditation,
when one could stop, become quiet
and recognize that which connects
us to each other. For me, faith was
connected to being a part of something larger—whether it’s the community, the world or one’s perception of God’s love.
After 9/11, I pushed God
away and lost the ability to pray.
What comfort was I going to get
there? Silence and introspection
were my enemies; no good came
from being alone with my thoughts.
I must have gone to dozens of funerals, wakes, shivas and memorial
services in the weeks and months
following the attacks. The sheer
numbers broke me and stepping
into a synagogue became an excruIlan Wolff, World Trade Towers, 1990
ciating reminder of loss. Almost
every service, even today, feels like a
funeral. What made matters worse
was that Doug was killed a week before the High Holy Days. It is why
I seethe every time someone says,
“Everything happens for a reason.”
What reason would God have to
rip Doug away from his children in
such a heinous manner? How could
my ethical, philanthropic, deeply
loving husband not be inscribed in
the Book of Life? I forced myself
not to ask the question, “Why him?”
because I’d also have to ask, “Why
not him?” I had to believe Doug’s
death wasn’t predestined. If God
existed at all, I reasoned, He gave us
free will, and my husband was simply in the deadly path of the terrorists exercising theirs. Accordingly,
I turned away from religion and
focused on just making it through
an hour at a time.
Being Jewish, however, is
in the DNA. In times of crisis, we
inexorably return to familiar aspects
of our upbringing, even if we think
we’re rejecting everything we once
believed. Ritual provides comfort.
Since we held Doug’s memorial
service five days after the attacks,
shiva occurred first. Friends and
family gently commandeered our
apartment and sustained us for the
interminable days following the
attacks. They pulled me out of the
house for walks where I’d run into
people on the sidewalk who’d stop
to sympathize and remind me that
I was still part of the community. I
mumbled the mourner’s Kaddish
every day like a mantra I didn’t
understand, but felt compelled to
recite. Jewish traditions governing
death helped me cope even though
I wasn’t consciously aware I was
adhering to them.
Though I was still rejecting God and vowing that I’d never
again attend a synagogue service, I
still had to face the question of how
I was going to raise my children.
They were tiny then, but as they
grew older I knew I couldn’t impose
my issues with faith onto them.
Again, that Jewish DNA kicked in.
It was my responsibility as a Jewish
parent that my kids attend Hebrew
school and explore their heritage. I found a way to embrace
Judaism as an elegant construct to
teach morality, ethics and the Golden Rule. I wanted to pass onto my
kids what I’d always enjoyed about
the intellectual aspect of Judaism
– that our religion encouraged questions and debate. We are supposed
to delve into text, abstract from it
and grapple to find meaning. I felt
this was a safe way for me to impart
Judaism to Michael and Julia.
As Michael was preparing
for his bar mitzvah in 2009 (Julia
becomes a bat mitzvah at Central Synagogue in December), he
showed me his Torah portion and
the prayers he’d have to recite. I
helped him learn the words of the
aliyot, and gradually the synapses
in my brain started to fire again.
Memories of my own Hebrew
school days returned, and I found
them surprisingly soothing. They
had occurred long before I knew
Doug and the tragedy that followed.
I was able to remember a relationship with Judaism that had nothing to do with 9/11. It was during
Michael’s bar mitzvah preparations
that I started to find my way back.
I didn’t just want to go through the
motions; I wanted to be present and
Continued on page 24
22
23
BOOK REVIEW
Speaking of Faith
O
n April 8, 1966, the cover of
TIME famously posed this
question in lurid red type on
a black background: “Is God Dead?
In the following decades, religion
has become not a lesser, but larger
influence on daily life. In Speaking
of Faith. Why Religion Matters—and
How to Talk About It, Krista Tipett
explores the ways the growing
rifts between fundamentalism and
secular humanism, liberalism and
orthodoxy, militant Islam and the
moderate Judeo-Christian West have
replaced the East-West Cold War
conflicts of the 20th century.
Rising above the din, the
quiet sensitivity of Krista Tippett,
herself an unapologetic believer and
the granddaughter of a Southern
Baptist minister, brings a welcome
measure of understanding and
enlightenment to those who seek to
quantify and understand the elusive
phenomenon we call faith.
Based on her public radio
program of the same name, Speaking
of Faith is a compilation of insights
and ideas gleaned from the author’s
first-person encounters with such
leading thinkers as Nobel Laureate
Elie Wiesel, religious historian Karen
Armstrong and Buddhist monk
Thich Nhat Hanh. She recounts the
conversations that opened up her
imagination, and illustrates ways of
speaking about faith that “defuse
the usual minefields.”
A teacher who never resorts
to preaching, Tippett manages to
compress a huge and perplexing
subject into 275 refreshing and readable pages. At its heart, her book
attempts to provide some thoughtful
answers to what the author believes
are the key spiritual issues prevalent
today: When did this international
Steve Klausner
conversation about
religion begin? Why
does spirituality
suddenly seem to
be everywhere?
How can faith be
both so fervent and
so dangerous?
“I’m drawn
to the contours and
depths of what I call
‘the vast middle’—
left, right, and
center, between the
poles of competing certainties that
have hijacked our
national discourse,”
she writes. “In the
vast middle, faith
is as much about
questions as it is
about answers. It is
possible to be a believer and a listener
at the same time, to
be both fervent and
searching, to honor
the truth of one’s
Original 1966 Time magazine cover
own convictions
and the mystery of the convictions
darkness as well as the light of huof others.”
man experience.”
The book, in only six
Drawing on her personal
chapters, starts by looking back at
experiences, Tippett recalls, “When
the Book of Genesis. From a purely
I came back to read the biblical text
Jewish perspective, Chapters 1 and
after many years away, I began
3, which delve into the life of the
to love the Hebrew Bible fiercely
patriarch Jacob, shed a good deal of
for the fact that it tells life like it
light on what the writers may have
is. It has no fairy-tale heroes, only
had in mind.
flawed, flamboyant human beings
As an article of faith, Tippett
as prone to confusion as to righbelieves that, “The Bible...is not a
teousness.”
catalogue of absolutes, as its cham
In Chapter 4, she turns to
pions sometimes imply. Nor is it a
an exploration of the spiritual heart
document of fantasy, as its critics
and theology of Islam, and grapples
charge. It is an ancient record of an
with the question asked more and
ongoing encounter with God in the
more frequently: Where
do the moderate, non-violent voices
of the faithful fit in? Tippett answers
by quoting the Egyptian-American
scholar Leila Ahmed and her attempt to move beyond the folds of
the traditional Islamic garments the
hijab and the burqa: “When people
think about Muslim women, they
think of the image of Saudi Arabia
and Afghanistan. Why is it that
90% of the Muslim world does not
wear any of this stuff? Why is it that
I have never yet been asked by a
journalist, ‘Why is it that Islam has
produced seven women prime ministers or heads of state and Europe
only two or three?’”
Of all the voices, living
and dead, that spring from the
pages, the words of Albert Einstein
impressed me the most. He once
famously observed that, “Science
without religion is lame. Religion
without science is blind.” The man
whose most famous discoveries
dwell on things no human being
can see provides an interesting
context for believers and nonbelievers alike. He writes, “It was
the experience of mystery that
engendered religion. A knowledge
of the existence of something we
cannot penetrate, of the manifestations of the profoundest reason and
the most radiant beauty—it is this
knowledge and this emotion that
constitute the truly religious attitude. In this sense, and in this alone,
I am a deeply religious man.”
■
merly Speaking of Faith), distributed
and produced by American Public
Media. The program is currently
broadcast on more than 200 public
radio stations in the United States
and globally via NPR Worldwide,
its website and its podcast.
The granddaughter of a
Southern Baptist Minister, Tippett
studied history at Brown University, graduating in 1983. In 1984,
she went to then-divided Berlin as a
stringer for the New York Times, also
working as a freelance foreign correspondent for Newsweek, the BBC
and Die Zeit.
Tippett received a Master’s
of Divinity from Yale in 1994. While
conducting a global oral-history
project, she developed the “first person” approach that characterizes her
radio program. It became a monthly
series in 2001 and a weekly national
program in 2003.
Her book, Speaking of Faith.
Why Religion—Matters and How to
Talk about It, was published by
Viking, 2007.
Critical Acclaim for
Speaking of Faith
“In a day where religion—or rather
arguments over religion—divide
us into ever more entrenched and
frustrated camps, Krista Tippett is
exactly the measured, balanced
commentator we need.”
-Elizabeth Gilbert, author of
Eat, Pray, Love
“An authentic and original place in
the great debate of our time.”
-Yossi Klein Halevi, author of
At the Entrance to the Garden of Eden
“At a time when professional contrarians like Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens take the meaning
and mystery out of religion, Krista
Tippett is a welcome voice of
literate faith.”
-The Dallas Morning News
“It’s one thinking person’s open
door to faith in the 21st century.”
-St. Louis Post Dispatch
“As Tippett takes on issues from
the science-and-religion debates to
the future of progressive Islam, she
shows herself to possess the same
‘imaginative intellectual approach’
that she admires in some of her
subjects.”
-Publishers Weekly
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Krista Tippett is a broadcaster,
journalist, and author. She is best
known for creating and hosting the
public radio program Being (for-
Steve Klausner is an advertising copy writer,
an award-winning screenwriter and long-time
member of Central Synagogue.
123 EAST 55TH STREE T, NE W YORK , NY 10022-3502
NON-PROFIT
ORGANIZATION
U.S. POSTAGE PAID
New York, N.Y.
Permit No. 8456
Lifelines continued from page 21
fully participate in his simchah.
By the time of Michael’s bar
mitzvah service, I had been remarried for four years. My husband,
Derek Trulson, isn’t Jewish, but he
and his side of the family completely immersed themselves in the
moment. It was everything that
day should be; a moving and joyous family milestone. What really
struck me was that synagogue once
again felt safe. I was afraid that Michael’s service would crush me; that
Doug’s loss would be too palpable
to endure. Of course, I acutely felt
Doug’s absence, but I also knew
that we were exactly where we
needed to be. And nothing about
this day felt like a funeral—it was
an unmitigated celebration.
For me, if God is anywhere, He is in the healing. I think
a significant lesson I learned from
9/11 is that God provides the tools
to navigate through the maelstrom,
but it’s up to us to find them. The
answers aren’t going to come as
thunderbolts; they require our
choosing to accept a lifeline, in
whatever form, when it appears.
God and I might still be working
through our “time-out,” but at least
we’ve found a comfortable space in
which to coexist.
■
Jennifer Gardner Trulson is the author of
Where You Left Me. (Gallery, 2011)
LEADERSHIP
President
Kenneth H. Heitner
Vice-Presidents
Samuel Lindenbaum
Carol Ostrow
Frederic Poses
Stephanie Stiefel
Treasurer
Seth Berger
Secretary
Peter Jakes
Board of Trustees
Alan M. Ades
Ellen Cogut
David B. Edelson
Edith Fassberg
Janet H. Felleman
Jeremy Fielding
John A. Golieb
Michael Gould
Marni Gutkin
Jay Mandelbaum
Juiana May
Claudia Morse
Valerie Peltier
Abigail Pogrebin
Laura J. Rothschild
Phillip M. Satow
Mindy Schneider
Wendy Siegel
Emily Steinman
Kent Swig
Marc Weingarten
Jeffrey Wilks
Jonathan Youngwood
HASHIUR A Journal of Ideas
Honorary Trustees
Lester Breidenbach
Dr. J. Lester Gabrilove
Honorary Presidents
Martin I. Klein
Howard F. Sharfstein
Michael J. Weinberger
Alfred D. Youngwood
Clergy
Rabbi Peter J. Rubinstein
Cantor Angela Warnick
Buchdahl
Rabbi Michael S. Friedman
Rabbi Maurice A. Salth
Cantor Elizabeth K. Sacks
Senior Staff
Senior Director
Livia D. Thompson, FTA
Director of Development
Daniel A. Nadelmann
Director of
Learning & Engagement
Dr. Brigitte Sion
is published twice a year by Central Synagogue
123 East 55th Street, New York, NY 10022-3502
Editorial Committee:
Rabbi Maurice A. Salth, Amala and Eric Levine,
Steve Klausner, Danielle Freni, Rudi Wolff
Editor: Amala Levine
Designer and Picture Editor: Rudi Wolff
Production Editor: Danielle Freni
PICTURE CREDITS
Cover: Photograph, Richard Lobell
p 2 Drawing, Ben Shahn, The Alphabet of Creation 1954,
p 3 Illumination, 1372, Petrus Comestor Historia, France,
p 4 Edward Hopper, 1936. Courtesy, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
p 6-7 William Blake, colored etching, Courtesy, National
Gallery of Scotland
p 8 Marc Chagall, etching. Bible Series
p 9 Raccoon collage, R. Wolff
p 11 Church on Majorca, source unknown
p 12 Macrophoto, grass, photographer unknown
p 14 Glass, photograph R. Wolff
p 17 Rabbi Jack Stern, Courtesy, Westchester Reform Temple
Singers, Donatello, Rome, photograph R. Wolff
p 18 Shadows, photograph A. Katana
p 19 Freight car, photographer unknown
p 20 From ‘Tower Series’ pinhole photograph, Ilan Wolff
p 23 Microphone, source unknown
Letters to the Editor please email
[email protected]
No material may be used without prior written
permission from Central Synagogue.