In conversation with a colleague, it came up that I was Jewish. She asked, “Are you observant?” I had to think for a minute. What exactly does that mean?
My earliest memory is staying home from kindergarten on a High Holy day, sitting in my folks’ bed with my sibs while my father read from a book that made no sense. I remember him saying that if we were home for this holiday we needed to participate. But even at my young age, I picked up on his ambivalence.
My parents were atheists and members of The Ethical Society. Originally, The Ethical Society was formed to promote ethical living without reference to a higher power, founded in the late 19th century by German-born scholar and social reformer Felix Adler (1851–1933), a German American professor of political and social ethics. Well known as a lecturer and writer, throughout his life he always looked beyond the immediate concerns of family, labor, and race to the long-term challenge of reconstructing institutions to promote greater justice. Adler preached cooperation rather than competition as the higher social value, “deed, not creed.” (In other words, “walk the talk.”)
I remember being allowed into an auditorium-like space at the end of weekend mornings, where grown-ups were socializing. It was crowded and smelled like coffee. There was a baby grand piano and the comforting, low buzz of conversation.
I was in seven when we joined a very reformed temple. My father, an up-and-coming legal scholar, thought it would be good for his law firm business. I liked the interesting stories and the kind teacher. When the rabbi and his elegant wife came for the obligatory new-member tea, I thought I would impress them with my piano playing. I went to our baby grand, arranged my music, and proceeded to play and sing Silent Night.” My folks were mortified but I didn’t know why. They became very close friends, we even traveled together, but I can still laugh now at my faux pas. Yikes.
During services, I loved the time to contemplate, I loved the rabbi’s cultured voice, I loved the music and choir, hidden behind a screen behind the stained-glass covered ark. However, I never liked the rabbi’s political sermons. I felt that service was a time to meditate, not to hear a civics lecture.
My family would often go to Friday night services. When my father became president of the congregation, he sat on the bimah during services. Decades later, my daughter chose to study for Bat Mitzvah. We joined a local conservative synagogue. I hoped to find a home. Entering the sanctuary for the first time, I started to cry. After her Bat Mitzvah service, I asked my father if it had brought forward any inclination to return to the fold. “Hell no,” he replied.
In college I played with Christianity, often stopping at the Catholic church to pray on my way home from the laundromat. I was searching. To no avail.
The rabbi and his wife retired to Los Angeles and when I moved there as an adult, I regularly visited them. After rabbi’s passing, “Mrs. Rabbi” became ill with toxic environmental allergy and my last visit to her was talking through her front door. I think her death was suicide.
Am I observant? I wear my mezuzah, I love my religion. I am proud of my religion. I light my yahrzeit candles, my Chanukah candles. I often pray silently. I attend synagogue virtually. I root for Israel, (though I don’t understand the inability for peace). Am I observant?
You tell me.
