Once, a colleague found out that I was Jewish and she asked, “Are you observant?” I had to think for a minute. What exactly does that mean?
One of 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.”
Albert Einstein was a supporter of Ethical Culture. Einstein observed, “Without ‘ethical culture’ there is no salvation for humanity.”**
Eleanor Roosevelt was a regular attendee at the New York Society for Ethical Culture.
I remember being ”released’ into an auditorium-like space at the end of a weekend morning, where grown-ups were socializing. It was crowded and smelled like coffee. A baby-grand piano. The low hum 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 Sunday school teacher. When the rabbi and his elegant Greek wife, Elini, came for the obligatory new-member coffee, I thought I would impress them with my piano playing. I went to my father’s 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, (The rabbi had a white, hairy chest, omg) but I can still laugh now at my faux pas. Yikes.
and Ew.
My family would often go to Friday night services. When my father became president of the congregation, he sat on the bimah during services. During services, I loved the time to contemplate, I loved the rabbi’s cultured voice, and I loved the music and choir, hidden behind a screen behind the stained-glass covered ark. However, I tuned-out the rabbi’s political sermons. For me, service was a time to meditate, not to hear a civics lecture.
Decades later, my daughter chose to study for Bat Mitzvah. We joined a local conservative synagogue. I hoped to find a religious home. Entering the sanctuary for the first time, I started to cry. It was like going back 200 years.
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 Elini retired to Los Angeles and when I moved there as an adult, I regularly visited them. Elini became ill with toxic environmental allergy and my last visit to her was talking through her front door. I think her death was suicide. I mourned her.
Am I observant? I wear my mezuzah. I wholly endorse my religion. I am proud of my religion. I light my yahrzeit candles and my Chanukah candles and my Sabbath candles. I often pray silently. I attend synagogue virtually.
Am I observant?
*The Ethical Society Statement of Principles:
- Morality is independent of theology;
- The new moral problems in modern industrial society have not been adequately dealt with by the world’s religions.
- Philanthropy is the advancement of morality;
- Self-reform should go in lock-step with social reform;
- Educating the young is the most important aim.
** Ericson, Edward L (1988). The Humanist Way: An Introduction to Ethical Humanist Religion. The American Ethical Union. Retrieved 23 July 2008.
