But I Respectfully Disagree

I understand the Christian faith, but I respectfully disagree.  For many years I have struggled with my decision, as a young man, to convert to Christianity.  My decision produced deep guilt, shame and many sleepless nights.  Eventually I returned to my community.


While conversions are a reality and some people need to convert, for me that was not true. I could not run away from myself.  The longer I hung around with Lutherans, the more Jewish I felt.  Over many years I became aware of the visceral toxic anti-Judaism inherent inside Christian scripture and tradition.  During those days, I told my closest friends, “To be a faithful Christian, it felt like I had to shoot at myself.”  


But there were other reasons as well.  The Christian faith which proclaims Jesus to be divine and the Messiah was no longer viable for me.  Jewish expectations concerning the Messiah are:  1) The temple will be rebuilt in Jerusalem, 2) There will be peace all over the world, 3) The Jewish people will all live in peace in the land of Israel and 4) Non-Jews will flock to Israel to study Torah with Jews.   These expectations have not been met in Jesus and Christian attempts to redefine those expectations have not been convincing.


All these reasons were intensified by my study of the Holocaust in which many of my relatives were killed. My own parents had survived by accident.  In this event which occurred in Germany, a country half Roman Catholic and half Lutheran demonstrated how hatred and murder of Jews could be supported by a majority within a Christian land.  Only a small extraordinary minority resisted and helped some Jews escape.  During the 1990’s, I visited the concentration camps in which many Jews had been murdered.  During the winter of 1999, I was in Boston, met with Elie Wiesel and sat in his classroom.  I decided I must return to my community, which I did in the year 2000.


I felt deep guilt and shame for having left my community.  I have worked through the guilt and shame, but it can still rear its head.  Today I wear a skullcap every day to remind myself never to forget that I am Jewish.  I am a healthier saner person these days and I am sleeping well.

To be clear, the Christian faith has its place, but I respectfully disagree.

I Remember Four Rabbis

When I was a boy, I attended a modern orthodox Yeshiva, a Jewish parochial school.  I remember well the Rabbis I had in that place.  The bus picked us up for school at 7 in the morning.  We started school at 8 a.m. and studied Hebrew subjects until noon when we ate lunch and went up on the roof for some recess.  In the afternoon, we had English subjects, until 5 p.m. I loved the mornings and tolerated the afternoons.

In the first grade my Rabbi was a man named Steinberg.  He was a gentle but strict teacher.  He was an older man with white hair who cared deeply about his students and who loved the Hebrew language.  He taught us the aleph bet, or ABC’s.  More importantly he taught us to recognize the power of the Hebrew letters.  He told us the letters themselves were holy and to write them with pride.  We had these blue flimsy lined notebooks in which we practiced and practiced and practiced the script of each letter.  He told us the letters had the power to hide us when we were scared and the power to give us courage when we were frightened.  Years later, Rabbi Steinberg would teach me what I needed to know for my Bar-Mitzvah.

Second grade brought a very serious and demanding teacher, Rabbi Frost.  Rabbi Frost was a younger red faced man who walked around the room carrying a ruler.  Anyone misbehaving or not paying attention was told to hold out his hand which then received a swift hard swat from an angry teacher. Rabbi Frost never joked or smiled, as I remember.  He was engaged in serious business.  We studied the Book of Genesis and Rabbi Frost told us to pay attention to the white spaces between the letters because that is where the truth was hidden.  I do not remember ever feeling his wrathful ruler, but I do remember his deep concern for the scripture and the holiness of the letters.

Rabbi Lipshutz was my third-grade instructor and I loved him.  He was a kind, caring man with a good sense of humor.  He was tall with a full black beard.  I sat right next to his desk as the class explored the book of Exodus.  He taught us to love the questions the scripture raised and to never let the answers destroy the questions.  He trained us to ask good questions and to feel free to dispute even the most honored sages.  He was convinced the scripture intentionally left gaps for Jewish boys to explore akin to investigating a cave.  To me it was like a great adventure!

Rabbi Eisenblaat’s fourth grade class was memorable.  The Rabbi was a short portly black bearded man who taught us to chant the text in Yiddish and Hebrew.  As with Rabbi Lipshutz, questions were vital, and he forcefully compelled us to find the questions in the stories.  One day we were studying a text in Genesis.  He asked me what the great commentator, Rashi said about a problem in the story.  I told him but then he pursued me and asked, “Was Rashi right?”  I was in fourth grade and he forced me to consider the question if Rashi was right.  Because of his persistence, I finally had to admit Rashi could be wrong.  Whereupon Rabbi Eisenblaat smiled.

These Rabbis taught me the beauty of being Jewish and the wonderful questions within the Bible.  It gives me great pleasure to remember them today and to give them honor for the power of their teaching.

The Problem With Mr. Trump

It has been two years and we have had a good chance to see this man and what he is about as a human being.  We have given him a chance.  What can we say?

He seems to lie at will.  He prides himself on his unpredictability to a fault.  He takes offense easily and attacks others without much thought or civility.  He disturbs us with his obnoxious crudity.  He does not like to read, he does not think very well but he thinks he knows; whatever he thinks he knows, he knows emphatically.   He seems to skirt the law when he can, occasionally getting caught.  To say it most accurately, he’s not a nice person.  And when he tweets and speaks, many of us are embarrassed. Such is the public persona he has cultivated.

Whatever his policies, some worthwhile, some not, certainly arguable, I think what most upsets thinking people about Mr. Trump is the character of the man.  We want our Presidents to honor us by their presence or at least act like it.  The problem with Mr. Trump is he has not shown himself to be an honorable man. 

Our upset with his behavior is not merely political, it’s religious.  Our religions teach us what it means to be a human being.  We care about the civility and morality of our leaders.  Over the years, we have had a variety of characters in the White House, some better than others.  But we took one thing for granted.  Republican or Democrat, we naively assumed or wanted to assume most of our politicians were decent caring public servants.  And so, we expect our President to be an honorable person.  Mr. Trump has disappointed us. 

Churchill was correct:  Democracy is the worst form of government but better than all the others.

Mr. Trump is here and one day will disappear.  What must we learn from this experience?  It’s not only important to vote, it’s important to vote with wisdom.   And we need to move away from being impressed by celebrities, by the most entertaining, the best orator, or most good-looking candidate.  Enough of us need to care about the soul of our national leaders.  We ought not vote merely out of self-interest or national interest but an abiding interest in wisdom, integrity, character and above all honor.  Mr. Trump is a warning to us all.  Be careful.

We will survive Mr. Trump and I hope our better angels will learn the lessons well.

Friends and Friendship

The Biblical text declares, “It is not good for Man to be alone.”  What’s the problem with being alone?  I know introverts who love to be alone, who tell me they do not need to be around other people to survive and thrive.  Alone can be peaceful.  Alone means no one is aggravating or exasperating you.  Alone declares, I am self-sufficient.  Alone is solitude without loneliness.  Alone has its place.  I respect alone.

So, why do the scriptures warn us against being alone?  Because when you are alone, you can deceive yourself.  You can worry about things when worrying will not help.  You can have all sorts of unnecessary anxiety.  You can convince yourself of almost anything.  You can make bad decisions.  You can think you are right when you are wrong. You can drive yourself crazy.

I work hard, sometimes too hard, to maintain my friendships.  My close friends are what keep me sane.  My friends listen to my ramblings, my “serious” concerns, my ridiculous worries, and are honest enough to tell me where I’m full of it, where I'm wrong, where I am sounding crazy.  Left to myself and only myself, I find it too easy to go to a bad spiral place in my mind. 

Having friends takes me away and off myself.  Asking how things are with them, listening to their struggles, sharing their pain and their good fortune rescues me from the introspective sickness of, “I, me mine.” 

The human brain is agile but also fragile.  When we are not getting enough sleep; when we are not eating well, when we are overstressed, we are not thinking well.  I wish for you a friend who will walk through your craziness with you, someone who will cry and laugh with you, someone who knows you better than you know yourself.

Harold Kushner says it well: “Human beings are God’s language.” 

A variant of the old poster saying is also true,

“Friends are people who know everything about you and still stay with you.”  

"It is not good for Man to be alone."