Life After Life

Having entered my seventh decade, I think about what it all means.  While the human brain is amazingly agile, it has problems with mortality.  I know intellectually that getting older and eventually dying is part of life.  But my brain is not at home with that reality.  Maybe I fear the process of deterioration, the thought of saying good-bye, and let’s be honest, disappearing is a strange phenomenon.  Intellectually I understand it but emotionally I fear it.


There is an old word used by theologians called prolepsis.  A future event holds us in its grip for good or for bad though it has not yet occurred.  Christians tell us of their hope that when we die, we shall be raised to live with God eternally.  Jews talk about the “olam haba”, the world to come, where we shall live with God and study texts in that realm.  And Muslims also trust in a life after life where the way we have lived our lives will be examined.  So, why are these words not comforting?
  

Because I am not sure I believe it.  Is there really something else going on?  I hope so but I am not sure.  Some of you have more certainty or stronger trust than I do.


But, here’s the deal. Every night I lay down, let go, and disappear for about eight hours and the world seems to get along quite well without me.  When I go on sabbatical from the university, they keep right on teaching Religion without me.  And if or when I become seriously ill, how would that be different from what happens to everybody else? The fact is, we are engaged in “perpetual loss” and we are compelled to figure out how to keep going day after day.


This fear of getting sick and dying is sobering and real.  We all feel it.   But I do not intend to let it control me.  We are here to live our lives as well as possible.  I say to you and myself, be honest, express your fears and doubts but don’t let them run your life.  Live your life as well and full as you can and, life after life will take care of itself.

Speaking in Chapel

This past week, I spoke in chapel.  As usual, it was a nerve-wracking experience.  Why?  First, I am a Jew and a former Christian speaking in a Christian Lutheran chapel under the shadow of the cross.  I have about 8-10 minutes to say something worthwhile.  And, I feel like the insider/outsider stranger speaking. 


I spoke about faith being a problematic and unsure endeavor.  Faith means trusting in an invisible mysterious unpredictable being with an inconsistent record.  It means trusting without knowing for sure, with the distinct possibility of being wrong.  As much as I believe there is something going on, that there is meaning and a God behind all that is happening, I could just as easily be deluded. 


After the Holocaust, how God is present in the world is problematic and we ought to be honest about it.  Acting like nothing has happened and we can just turn the page and go on doing what was always done is problematic, a betrayal of the victims, and terribly unjust.
  

So, chapel is a troubled and anxious space for me.  But I appreciate the honor of being asked, and the willingness of students and faculty to listen. 


As always, I bolted out the side door right after the service, because I feel like an intruder into somebody else’s faith tradition and need to exit quickly.


So, why do it? Why speak in chapel if it produces so much anxiety?  Because after all that has happened between Jews and Christians, between me and the Christian Church, after the Holocaust, it is important to have one Jew, maybe the only one ever in this place, to speak up with all due respect, and say again the ever important Jewish no and yes.

Why Antisemitism?

Why does it go on from day to day, month to month, year to year, and generation to generation?  Jews are assaulted or killed, a synagogue or temple is attacked by a gunman, all sadly unsurprising.   Why?


The answer is not so hard; the remedy is more problematic. The answer is fear through ignorance, undergirded by obsessive hatred and conspiratorial thinking, exploding with violence by readily available weapons.


The remedy is not so easy to come by.  We have tried and are trying education, cultural pressure, emphasis on love being more powerful than hate, religious interfaith dialogues, Holocaust studies, and a myriad of other attempts to stop the killing.  While there has been some success, the hatred and murder go on.  Again, Why???


Because in our brains, fear and hate are more powerful than all the attempts to stop it.  Whether you or I like it or not, some people continue to believe there are a group of Jews sitting somewhere, meeting and plotting to control the world.  It’s a belief, a faith, a trust they think is true despite anything else being reported.  And in an era of “fake news”, some are skeptical of anything reported or taught. 


Antisemitism is indeed “the longest hatred.”  Despite the fact the killings go on, we must do all we can to teach, to preach, and to educate.  There may not be much hope of completely stopping the fear and hatred.  We may feel helpless.   But that is precisely why we must do whatever we can.
  

I will keep teaching, you do what you can where you are; speak out, refuse to keep silent.  The potential for evil in our hearts and brains may not be eradicable, but we must struggle to keep it at bay. Human beings have the capacity for evil, but they also have the capacity for good.  Do what you can where you live.

Remembering Duane Addison

Duane Addison died this week at the age of 88.  In the 1970’s and 80’s, he was a member of the Religion department at Augustana.  He taught the introductory Religion course, a course on the Prophets and World Religions.  When I first came to Augustana he was a kind, helpful and welcoming presence.


Duane was a passionate supporter of social justice issues.  He cared and felt deeply about those who had been oppressed.  In his classes social justice always played a prominent role.  He was known for being moved to tears in class whenever he felt touched by what he was teaching. Some students were uncomfortable with Duane’s prominent display of emotion.  But he was who he was, a “tender soul” who cared deeply about those who were in pain.


For some years my family lived next door to him in Sioux Falls.  We had some fine conversations, would periodically help each other clean the gutters in our respective houses and shoveled each other’s driveways when it snowed.  I officiated at his marriage to his bride Eva.  The talk was entitled “Back to the tent,” and dealt with the biblical Isaac meeting Rebecca for the first time.


Duane Addison was not without the usual human flaws, but he was a good man, a mensch.  His was a life lived in the service of social justice and I am remembering him.

The Fool Says in his Heart, There is no God

A refrain throughout the Psalms and Proverbs in the Bible calls out “the fool” who says there is no God.  I have been puzzled by the inclusion of these verses in the Bible.  At first, I suspected there actually were people over two thousand years ago who thought there was no God, ancient atheists being called out.  But I was wrong.
  

When you look at the Psalms (particularly 14 and 53), you will notice the criticism of these so-called fools or better “scoundrels” (Robert Alter’s word) was not that they intellectually had concluded there was no God but that their actions, which were corrupt, displayed their lack of faith.  The “fools” were not atheists in our sense of the term; they were people who lived their lives as if no one was watching.  They were individuals doing what they wanted, when they wanted, however they wanted, assuming there was no community, only their own self-interest.  The scoundrels were pure ego obsessed humans.  Nothing else mattered.
  

Today’s scoundrels park their cars in the designated disabled areas, feel free to ignore speed limits and red lights, respond to emails and texts late or never at all, are consumed and obsessed with their phones regardless of the effect, lie at will, live as if there is no God watching and they and only they are the center of the universe. The list could go on and on.


James L. Kugel, in his thoughtful book, In the Valley of the Shadow, talks about the amazing smallness of the human being and the “looming outside” of God.
  

Passover and Easter are two holy days which declare, “God is God and you are not.”  In the confluence of these two moments, we hear again about the power of God, the mortality and smallness of the human being.
    

May this Passover and Easter be a time when we will resolve not to be the scoundrel or act in a foolish way.  After all, what we do reflects who or what we trust.

Spring Blizzards and Air Force Memories

As we endure yet another Spring blizzard, I recall my arrival in this part of the world many years ago.  I remember the day well.  It was May 17, 1968.   I flew into Minot North Dakota wearing shorts and a short sleeve shirt to discover it was snowing.  I wondered what planet I had landed on, and what I had gotten myself into.  I was nineteen years old, in the Air Force, young, naïve, and lost.  I even wrote Senator Javits in New York to get me out of this place.  My letter did not work.


I came to be in Minot because the Air Force had promised to show me the world.  They did not.  I was first sent to San Antonio, Texas, Lackland Air Force Base for basic training.  I was barely 18, Jewish and in Texas.   Basic training was a kind of reparenting.  I was the youngest in my unit and frightened.  We were told again and again, “There’s a right way, a wrong way and our way.  And our way is the right way.”  No questions were allowed.  It took me quite awhile to adjust.  They shaved our heads, gave us a uniform, and began shouting orders.  I was young and scared.  What was I doing here?  Then I remembered.  I had joined the Air force to run away from home and I had succeeded.  But where had I landed?


I was transferred next to Biloxi Mississippi, another hub of Jewish activity, for radar training.  From there I was sent to a remote isolated radar base in Iceland.  After spending a year there, my final assignment for the next two and a half years was Minot.


Stationed at a radar base south of Minot, I did my job as a radar operator but was in truth a New York Jew in North Dakota, a fish out of water with few other fish and not much water around.  And I say again, I was young and lost, trying to figure out who I was and what to do with my life.


For all the craziness of the Air Force years, I tip my hat to them.  They forced me to grow up. They taught me to make a bed, to shave, to drive a car, most important to be disciplined and to not always think I was right.  This was also a time when I acquired many questions about life, faith, war and God. 
      

It’s been quite a trip for this Jewish boy from the Bronx.  I ran away from my home, my religion and my community only to return years later and know the place and tradition for the first time.  T. S. Eliot was right, “We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.”


By the way, while I did not settle down in Minot, I came to love this part of the world, the open skies and beautiful plains, and of course the four uncertain inconsistent indistinct seasons that make up our lovely weather. 

A Tribute to Bert Tiesen

I first met Bert Tiesen at Hy-Vee on Minnesota Avenue in Sioux Falls.  He was distributing tastes of apples and pears.  He had a gentle spirit about him; he took time to walk over with me and recommend the best of each fruit.  As we talked, he told me how he had been a chiropractor with his father for many years near Freeman. He retired at the age of 70.  But, now in his 70’s he felt he should be doing something in the community.  Besides he liked meeting and talking to people.  So, he took a job at Hy-Vee.


He asked what classes I was teaching at Augustana and seemed quite interested.  I told him to come and sit in on one of my courses.  For many years after that day, every Fall, Interim and Spring, Bert sat in my classes, purchased all the books, participated in class discussions, took the exams, wrote the essays, and was a fine intelligent student.  In his mid-80’s he still drove himself to Augie, took classes, was excited to learn, continued to read all the books, wrestled with their content and engaged the questions raised in the class.  He was a true student.


Bert died this past week at the age of 92.  To the very end, in pain, he read books in hospice care about World War Two, discussed their content, eager and loving to learn something new even then and even there.


Bert was my friend, his gentle spirit, his thoughtful insights, our lunches at the Golden Bowl, his comments in class appreciated by students, his advice to me, over twenty years his junior, about what he had learned as he’d gotten older.  It was my honor and privilege to be his friend.  In Jewish tradition, we call Bert Tiesen, a mensch.  I’ll miss you Bert.