Rosh HaShanah - Talk Amongst Yourselves, by Rabbi Shira Stutman

Talk Amongst Yourselves

-Rabbi Shira Stutman

It was a dreary evening in San Francisco, late December many years ago, and I was driving the hills of the city with a friend. Lots of small homes, with huge picture windows, and just about everyone shared the same “picture”—a huge Christmas tree. One house after the other had one of these trees.

I turned to my friend, surprised. “Who are all these people who have trees?” I asked. I knew there was such a thing as someone who is not Jewish, but I did not know there were so many of them.

It was one small hiccup in an otherwise wonderful childhood. We just didn’t know many people who weren’t Jewish. Our family’s life revolved around school (Jewish) and synagogue (also Jewish). Just about all of my friends were Jewish. A difficult feat in a country where Jews comprise less than 2% of the population.

College opened me up a little bit more, but not too much. Meeting my husband, better. My work at an authentically inclusive place like Sixth & I and my children’s attendance at a secular school--even more.

Now please don’t roll your eyes at me, all of you who are judging me for being surrounded by—and yes, surrounding myself with—lots of Jewish friends. It gets worse. I could just have easily begun the sermon by discussing how many people of the “other” political party I associate with. How many friends, colleagues, students, teachers voted for the other candidate in last year’s election? A quick survey of my gmail contacts: five that I know of. I scrolled through my Facebook feed for those who are, if not friends, at least “friends,” but still could only find a few.

I have to be honest. I am conflicted about this lack of diversity. Part of me doesn’t mind: from a religious perspective, of course it makes sense that anyone for whom Judaism is the primary defining factor of one’s life would hang out with a lot of Jews. As for the politics, I’m perfectly comfortable with indoctrinating my three children with certain values and opinions. I took my son to the Supreme Court last March, to stand for marriage equality as opening arguments began in the DOMA and Prop 8 cases (you’re welcome), and we saw hundreds of people protesting against marriage equality. He turned to me, surprised. “Who are all these people?” he asked.

And yet. There is something…what is the right word? Dishonest? Close-minded? Sad? about the lack of diversity of opinion. What good does it do for me or for the world to keep company only with those with whom I agree?

I’ll tell you what good it does. It keeps my blood pressure way down. The thought of wading into conversations with people with whom I disagree on certain topics that are very important—marriage equality, choice, Israel—literally makes me feel ill. And thus, we’re getting to the point where we can’t talk to each other any more; we only talk at each other. We all know how this is playing out on the political scene. Commercials are more vicious, attempts to stick to facts totally thrown by the wayside. The 24-hour news-cycle seems to permit even the most pernicious fallacies to gain their 15 minutes. I prefer to sign off altogether.

Judaism teaches, as one might expect, that to a great extent we are not permitted to sign off from discussing difficult situations. The entire Jewish mode of discourse is one of argument. But not just any kind of argument, of course: argument l’shem shamayim, for the sake of heaven. Consider the following aggadah, the following story from the Talmud:

For three years there was a dispute between the schools of Shammai and Hillel. The former claimed, “The law is in agreement with our views,” and the latter insisted, “The law is in agreement with our views.” Then a voice from heaven (bat kol) announced, “These and those are the words of the living God, but the law is in accordance with the school of Hillel.”

Since “both these and those are the words of the living God,” why was the school of Hillel entitled to have the law determined in accordance with their rulings? Because they were kindly and modest, they studied their own rulings and those of the school of Shammai, and were even so humble as to mention the teachings of the school of Shammai before their own.

Consider the following:

1.       The dispute raged for three years. Three years of forced discussion means finding time for nuance, for marinating interesting ideas, for taking a break if it gets adversarial. And then consider today’s world of Tweeting and Texting, which I would pose is the opposite of three years of argument. And consider: what are the ways that we can—without leaving the 21^st century and the 24 hour news-cycle, neither of which is going anywhere—have a “three-year” conversation in a much shorter amount of time?

2.      We all know that the typical depiction of God, especially from the ancient’s perspective, is very male one. But the voice from heavens, the one that settles the dispute, is a “bat kol”, a female voice. I’m not going to unpack that one. Just saying.

3.      They do not come to agreement. This is not a story when, with enough time, both sides realize that they actually can find a way to agree and isn’t that swell! Someone wins, someone loses. That’s the way the real world works sometimes.

4.      The school of Hillel does not win on the facts. It wins because it’s “kindly and modest”, because it studies its own rulings and that of Shammai’s. This is an interesting turn of events and perhaps not comfortable to those of us who live and die by facts. Yet interesting to consider in a world in which some facts are more fungible than others.

The Judaism that we practice is not Biblical Judaism, with its dictatorial God of decrees. It is rabbinic Judaism, with its arguments and disagreements for the sake of heaven. It is a religion where people can disagree with each other across the table and across the centuries, yet a people we remain. In fact, one could argue that one of the reasons that Judaism has remained is not because of its monolithic sense of practice—there was always a range—but instead because of the opposite, the encouragement of arguments l’shem shamayim, for the sake of heaven. It is not that we permit arguments because we must but instead that arguing is the Jew’s most sacred form of interaction. We learn in Pirke Avot (6:6) that

Torah is greater than the priesthood or kingship, for kingship is acquired with thirty virtues, the priesthood with twenty-four, and Torah is acquired with forty-eight qualities. These are [I am going to read only a sampling]: study, listening, verbalizing, comprehension of the heart, companionship with one's contemporaries, debating with one's students, slowness to anger, good heartedness, qualifying one's words, likableness, love of G-d, love of humanity, love of charity, love of justice, love of rebuke, lack of arrogance in learning, reluctance to hand down rulings, participating in the burden of one's fellow, judging him to the side of merit, correcting him, bringing him to a peaceful resolution [of his disputes], deliberation in study, asking and answering, listening and illuminating, learning in order to teach, learning in order to observe, wising one's teacher, exactness in conveying a teaching, and saying something in the name of its speaker.

Such an amazing, empowering, humbling list of qualities. What I want to write here is—let’s send it on to the media.

But what I should write here is: let’s take it in ourselves.

I tried. Earlier, I mentioned that I could name five people who vote for the other political party. I ran into him a few weeks ago. Since it was July and thus already peak sermon-writing time, I did something that I haven’t done in all the thirty-two years I’ve known him, including lots of those years when we were adults: I asked him about his political opinions. Know that it was only because of you all that I chose to do this. Usually, our conversations veer more toward kids or mutual acquaintances, not politics.

Because I judge him. When I talk to this person I care deeply about, I don’t want to think about his political opinions because it makes me angry. So I don’t address it at all.

But that day—because of you—I did. We didn’t have three years, to be sure, but we did have about 10 minutes, which is basically a life-time. I talked about my guy; he talked about his. He talked about where his guy fell short—and instead of just agreeing that his guy does indeed fall short, which I wanted to do with every ounce of my body, I talked about where my guy fell short. And it turns out, of course, that the Venn diagram of the things that we agree on overlaps more than we ever would have guessed. We drew each other in closely and looked carefully at our words. We realized hold many of the same values, but in the end just privilege different ones. He didn’t change my vote, nor I his—but just the moment of hearing his struggle made a difference for me. Together we could change the world.

And then he brought up Israel. And then the conversation got so painful so quickly, in the way that only conversations between family members, with their coded words that seem innocent to outsiders but that we know are not. Human rights (leftie). Security (hawk). Democracy (leftie). Jewish State (right). JStreet. AIPAC. Palestine—or Palestinian? So we said our—goodbye! Oh I have to find my kids! And whatever else excuse came up and gave a quick kiss and walked away. Don’t go there.

It is hard enough to talk about diversity of opinion when you’re talking about subjects that you care deeply about: poverty or international affairs. It feels impossible to talk about diversity of opinion when you’re talking about subjects that are you: racism, marriage equality, “anti-Zionism” that reads more like anti-Semitism.

What to do then? I am reminded of the amazing quote from the Maharal Be’er HaGolah, which I learned from colleagues of mine who work on intercultural dialogue programs:

For the love of inquiry and knowledge, it is advisable that one not reject what contradicts ones view. This holds especially true for [an interlocutor] who does not intend to provoke but to honestly declare his beliefs. Even if these are counter to our beliefs and our religion, it is not proper to say to him, 'Speak not, say nothing,' for by doing so there will result no clarification of beliefs. On the contrary, one should say, “speak up as much as you wish!” Such is the proper manner in which to establish the truth: to hear their arguments, which they hold in truth, and not merely to provoke. Therefore it is not right to dismiss the words of one's opponent, but to draw him close and look carefully into his words. 

We can tease out a few good points from the rebbe here. First and foremost, we need an interlocutor who does not intend to provoke. We can only go deep with those who are willing to go deep with us. And second, to “draw him in close”. Consider the March, 2013 study released by the Pew Research Center for People and the Press concerning changes in support for marriage equality.

More than a quarter of same-sex marriage proponents (28%) say their views have changed. This represents 14% of the American public overall. When those who say they have shifted to supporting same-sex marriage are asked why their views changed, people offer a range of answers. Roughly a third (32%) say it is because they know someone – a friend, family member or other acquaintance – who is homosexual. 

As painful as it is for all of us who feel personally about any topic, and as time-consuming as it is, we can’t get around it: the best way to get people to expand their knowledge or change their mind is through personal interactions. What was one reason that Obama “evolved” on marriage equality? His kids are in school with other kids whose parents are in same-sex relationships. All families deserve the same rights.

The path is long and rocky. And the hardest part is that a lot of the rocks are hidden. I spoke about marriage equality four times in this sermon because that moral arc of justice is bending more and more each year; we will, in my children’s lifetime, have full marriage equality. I did not speak in depth about racism, though. That conversation can be so much more treacherous because it requires us—all of us, but especially white people—to surface prejudices we don’t even consciously know we have and acknowledge privileges we don’t want to give up.

But continue with the conversations we must. You’re issue isn’t going to be not knowing anyone who has a Christmas tree; that was mine, and I’m working through it. I have others. And you have yours. Consider looking up the work of the Public Conversations Project, which hosts dialogue groups, publishes, and generally works to help Americans have conversations about very difficult issues.  Or consider the work of the Jewish Dialogue Group, which uses the PCP methods to get Jews talking to Jews about Israel. Or just consider going out to lunch with someone in your office who you know holds different opinions than you do. And bring the list of the 48 qualities with you as a talisman.

My friend Aaron Dorfman reminded me of a beautiful story told by David Foster Wallace before he passed away.

There are these two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, “Morning, boys, how’s the water?” And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, “What the hell is water?”

It’s okay to have our own beliefs, our own bodies of water in which we swim and in which we raise our children to swim. What is not okay is not to recognize that in the larger world, there are others—not everyone but enough—who swim in their own waters with deep integrity, and just don’t know enough about yours to understand you, nor you them. May the year to come provide us with the opportunity to learn from each other, deeply and with authenticity, and may that learning bring our world just a little closer to the healed and holy place that it can be.

Shanah tova.

Spiritual Grandeur, Spiritual Pettiness

בס''ד

Parshat Ki Tavo
17 Elul, 5773
August 23rd, 2013

This column may trigger you. I sincerely hope it does. I need sufficiently annoyed partners to help me solve a particularly tricky problem for which I really need a solution.

One Shabbat, when I was an intern, a friend of mine set his siddur on the floor.

So this is a thing in Judaism - putting holy books on the floor, or, to be precise, not doing so. We privilege reverence over convenience. A simple way of showing that is care about how we treat holy books.

Anyways, after some internal debate, I reached down, grabbed his prayer book, and placed it on a chair near him.

He was furious with me. Absolutely furious. Livid.

Of that unpleasant experience, I remember one line in particular, "this isn't Mea She'arim," he said, mentioning the historic Ultra-Orthodox neighborhood of Jerusalem "I've studied there, and this isn't it." Just to be clear, my not-so-much-of-a-friend-anymore was complimenting Mea She'arim. He was saying that, in that, more observant context, picking up the siddur would have been appropriate. Here, in liberal Judaism, it was just rude.

I've thought a lot about that comment in the years since, and as to why the two contexts were so different from one another. And while I think there's plenty to say about Ultra-Orthodoxy, I'm more preoccupied with my own world and its challenges.

And what I've come to is that, in the Western, privileged world, our spiritual spaces are infantilizing.

I don't quite know how we got here, but modern day synagogue and churches are not Houses of God. They are places to be offended, for slights real and imagined: who sits where, whose name is where, who insulted whom. We don't promote character, we prevent it. Mostly, people come to shul and find a nothing but an excuse for high dudgeon.

It's not the fault of individuals. My used-to-be-friend is a truly decent guy, and I'm not even sure that I did the right thing. But I do know for sure that we deserve better spiritual spaces that those we've provided for ourselves - houses of spiritual grandeur, not grand houses of pettiness.

May God take us from our own narrowness into the breadth of which we're capable.

Religion is Weakness

 בס''ד

Parshat Ki Teizei

16 Elul, 5773

August 16th, 2013

At my ten-year high school reunion, I stepped up to the bar, and ran into a really decent guy with whom I'd taken Junior year chemistry. We chatted, and when I explained what I was doing for a living, he was taken aback - angry, even. "Man, religion is weakness," he said.

I've been thinking about that line ever since.

I finally have a decent response for him – which I will now attempt to stuff into a few hundred words. I guess if it can't be said simply, it shouldn't be said at all.

The philosopher Charles Taylor wrote one of the great books of our time, A Secular Age. Most of what I'm about to write are his ideas, directly applied.

People who think that religion is weakness believe that science has come along to the myths that people used to tell themselves in order to explain the - at the time - inexplicable. But since we now know better, those who still cling to religion are wrapping themselves in a comforting cloak of lies. They don't want to feel alone in a cold and lonely universe.

The more mature among humanity have come to see religion for the delusion that it is, even as they understand its utility to an anxious mind confronting mortality. They are strong enough to realize that what some people call God is just a bad description of poorly understood scientific processes. There is no reason to think that God exists, and God's existence does not helpfully explain any facet of our world.

I disagree.

Science has expanded both our knowledge and our area of concern. But it hasn't answered ultimate cosmic questions in any discernible way. People are interestingly blind about such questions as “where did that superdense collection of every atom in the universe that exploded (the Big Bang) come from, exactly? Though we understand physical processes much, much better than our ancestors, we’ve still got nothing on the ultimate question: "how the hell did all that get there?" And, to be blunt, it makes much more sense (though it isn’t conclusive) to think that God (or the Divine Something) is behind the universe, rather than it just, you know, kind of somehow appearing by itself.

What science has done is show is that we were wrong about pretty much every factual belief we've held previous to now: the world wasn't created in 7 days, etc. And therefore most of what we knew about God, God’s personality (as it where) and the created universe, was just wrong.

However, considering that knocking holes in skulls to let the demons out used to be cutting-edge neurosurgery, one must grant religion the same room for progress that we've granted to science itself. In fact, all of 70 years ago, we thought that the shape of a person’s skull (and their race, I might add) scientifically demonstrated their criminal tendencies. People make the same mistake about religion as the do about science – though in the opposite direction – both are developing. Science is certainly not perfect (that’d be unscientific by definition)*. Religion isn’t now as it was in the 14^th century. Both are growing.

So it seems to me that just because Ibn Ezra was wrong about the influence of astrology upon Torah in the 12^th century, it is farfetched to say that science has disproved God. Science has changed religion. It’s not the same thing. Not even a little.

The great religious debate of our time is not whether God exists, but what the source of moral authority is in our lives. In religion, that authority comes from above, and human beings are subject. But in an Enlightenment frame (in which science and reason are the highest source of knowledge), one's source of moral authority is one's one moral intuition. And that is the rub: we're arguing over the perception of being told what to do by God, or whether we ourselves are the ones doing the telling.

And that’s why people think that religionists are weak – Someone Else is telling them how to live. For Westerners, who prize individual authenticity over everything, there’s no greater insult.

And to those people, I have to say: I don’t buy it. I don’t buy that patterning our behavior off of our best guess as to the Divine nature of the universe is a bad idea. I don’t buy that the ultimate truth lies in ourselves. I don’t think human beings are that good as individuals – there are so many egregious examples to the contrary. I don't agree that our instinct as to the numinous (the feeling that we are part of something greater) is somehow less valid than our instinct to fall in love. What I see is that our capacity for greatness comes from grasping and holding to that which is outside ourselves. And while I do value personal authenticity, I know – know, empirically – that one’s own moral intuition is the beginning of the moral and spiritual journey, not its end.

Science has shown us that humanity is a much smaller part of the universe than we ever imagined. But the strange result of the scientific age is that we seem to be obsessed with ourselves and our own welfare as the measure of all things.

Taylor makes the point that we live in an inconclusive age. And I have no problem understanding why people come down on either side of belief, and either side of the question of moral authority. But to say that moral aspiration to God’s vision is silly? 

That’s weak.

* The scientific method is predicated not upon theories being proven, but rather upon disproving those ideas that are in fact incorrect. It relies upon the idea of “wrong” in order to progress.

First World Problems

בס''ד

Parshat Re’eh

26 Menachem Av, 5773

August 8^th, 2013

Like a lot of guys I know, I occasionally put myself into mildly dangerous situations on purpose: surfing, diving,  martial arts, and, on one memorably terrifying occasion, hangliding. I seek this kind of stuff out,  and don’t feel quite satisfied without the presence of a small chance of grievous bodily injury. The women in my life greet these moments with heavy eye rolling.

Most people assume that these kinds of activities are just a way to prove I’m a tough guy. I am not. I am a cityfied, weekend warrior. But I have contempt for the decadence that my life of unbelievable privilege brings. And in those moments when a wave pushes me under, I think a lot less about whether or not that merlot goes well with the lamb, and a lot more about when I’ll have the chance to breathe next. It’s the simplicity I want. I lack simplicity in my life.

Rashi, the most important commentator on the Torah, gets this. He says about this week’s parsha’s discussion of whether we should be eating meat at all, “The Torah is teaching the way of things – that a person doesn’t really desire to eat meat until he gets prosperity and wealth.”  First comes wealth, then foodies try to put bacon into donuts.* Privilege brings glut, and the surest path to discomfort is to stuff ourselves with too much good stuff.

 As we attempt solve our First World problems of overabundance, I worry that we’re too attached to First World solutions. I love SCUBA diving; renting the gear costs $300 a shot. I love to surf one of my $600 boards. That simple, healthy food costs $40 an entree.

I don’t think that our opulence will ever lead us to the simplicity we seek.

*Please stop doing that.

Freethinking Religion

בס''ד

Parshat Ekev

19 Menahem Av, 5773

July 26th, 2014

If you've read my column lately you know that I'm a little obsessed with Vonnegut in the past month or so. I do wish my writing was not so derivative, but if one has to steal, I suppose one should steal from the best.

He was a freethinker, but what he has to say about religion strikes at my core. In particular, I cannot shake his belief that we now know too much for the convictions of old time religion to become the core of our beliefs. Homosexuality isn't a crime against nature; demons do not exist – schizophrenia does; genocide against unbelievers seems rather ill-considered. Vonnegut says, "I think we all know that religion of that sort is about as nourishing to the human spirit as potassium cyanide."

Our Torah tells us that we were once in a Garden, and that in Eden we were ignorant of just about everything we now consider to be fundamental information. It's a shame that, while ignorant, we were a damn sight happier than we are now. Our forbears chose knowledge over happiness, and chose irrevocably. "We are," he says, "stuck with our knowledge, which has seeped into all of our tissues."

As a result, I have become gently suspicious of those spiritual sentiments that sound just lovely. I have heard atheists and agnostics who believe firmly in reincarnation (what, pray tell, is doing the reincarnating?). I have heard believers tell me that, as long as I check my mezuzahs regularly, no harm can befall me.

And I realize that the people who say such things are sophisticated, intelligent, spiritually centered individuals. It just that they cannot escape our common fate: we are spiritually stuck. Our new knowledge prevents us from finding that in which we should believe. We just haven't had enough time with it.

So when we assert religious belief these days, most of us speak metaphorically and not literally. The things we say speak to the soul, not to the mind. And sometimes things we say, so welcome to the soul, look a little flimsy under the microscope.

The Talmud teaches that before moshiach comes, Elijah the prophet will show up and yetaretz kushiyot u’ba’ayot – resolve all our disagreements and problems, which, in matters of belief, would be absolutely wonderful. But until then, we need to hear two messages. The first is for the believers: when we assert belief, let us assert lightly; let us hold faith lightly, and not be greedy or paranoid about our most precious possession. If it is true Torah, it will show itself to be so. We are not yet in a place in which our knowledge and our faith know each other to be true.

The second message is for those who do not believe: it is worth listening to many of the believers; for though they may not grasp the truth firmly, they often point in its direction, and that is more valuable still.

Tisha b'Av

 בס’‘ד

8 Av 5773

July 15th, 2013

Everyone knows George Santayana’s most famous line, “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

I suppose that, in an attempt not to repeat the past, I’ve been religiously miserable for the last 9 days.

Tonight starts Tisha b’Av - the Ninth of the Hebrew month of Av. It commemorates the destruction of two Temples in Jerusalem, along with a slew of other Jewish tragedies. It is the saddest day of the Jewish year.

The observances of the day are stark: no eating, no showering, no sex, no music or enjoyment, no fancy clothes; in the evening and the morning, people sit on the floor rather than use the comfort of a chair. Eicha (Lament - a book of the bible memorializing the invasion of Israel and the destruction of the first Temple) is read.

Tisha b’Av builds up: the three weeks before the memorial begin the mourning. By nine days ahead of time, there’s no meat eating or wine drinking, no laundry, no live music, no swimming. It’s intense.

I could rhapsodize about how spiritually invigorating it is to abstain from all these practices, but I won’t - that would trivialize what Tisha b’Av is. The truth is, these nine days are hot, miserable, and unpleasant. I will be glad when they are over.

It is the way of spiritual discourse these days to portray religious observance as a kind of boot camp for the soul - that one passes through [insert observance here]’s strictures and requirements and comes out Army strong. Often, this description has the virtue of actually being true, as opposed to just rhetorically convenient.

But that is not the case with Tisha b’Av. The only point is to feel bad, and, by feeling bad, to gain the maturity that comes with memory.

Unlike other Jewish observances (Yom Kippur, for example), Tisha b’Av does not aim to make me a better person. I am not spiritually improved by the fast. Mourning is not redemptive.

Rather we mourn simply because these tragedies, full of suffering beyond comprehension or description (yet somehow not execution) happened, and they could happen again. It would have been better for the Jewish people and the world had we not been slaughtered by the hundreds of thousands and millions. There is no advantage to such suffering. But they did happen. So we remember.

Some argue that Tisha b’Av is wallowing, and that one should gather ye rosebuds and so forth. And I have to admit, the impulse to live in the moment and discard the overwhelming past is very seductive. But that is not who we are. It is not a virtue to pretend innocence once it has been lost, nor for the traumatized to deny trauma. If Tisha b’Av is anything, it is honest; memory is for the mature.

It would have been far better that Tisha b'Av never had happened. But because it has, our obligation is to remember so that it does not and cannot happen again. We cannot pretend to a rosier history.

What Santayana really wrote was this:

Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

Religion's Sins

בס''ד

Parshat Devarim
5 Menachem Av 5773
July 12th, 2013

In our time, religion needs to do penance for past and current sins. For the sin of sexual abuse and the sin of hiding abusers in a veil of sanctimony, for the sin of not understanding human biology and the sin of degrading those whose innate sexuality and gender are different, for the sin of coercion and the sin of forcing women into misogyny – external and internalized – for these sins, religion must do teshuvah.

 In our time, religion itself is the most religiously guilty. May God forgive us, and it, for such heinous sins.

It is difficult, as a rabbi, to live in the period of religion’s tokheha – rebuke. To the extent that my personal limitations allow, I teach that God is love and Torah is gentle. I believe that the Torah’s message is essential, necessary. But I am increasing aware that, as I preach, those to whom I speak lack the single precondition that would bring Torah into relevance: trust. Most people I know do not trust religion to guide them well, or at all.

This lack of trust was rammed home for me by Shlum Deen – an ex-haredi who wrote this article for Zeek. Here are the sentences that matter:
“What many ex-Haredim are saying, then, to religious leaders and religious communities and religious lifestyles of all kinds: We have lost the trust necessary to embrace your religious views, however moderate they might be. We have lost faith in your ability to convey truths, just as we have lost faith in the Haredi worldview with which we were raised. “

The obvious question (put to me many times, loudly) is why shouldn’t we then abandon the project of religion? And my answer, however distasteful it may be to some, is that we keep religion because we desperately need it. 

In the early 1970’s there was a groundbreaking television series called, “An American Family.” Though it was intended to chronicle the daily life of the Louds, a prosperous family in Santa Barbara, it became a public witness to a private mess – the parents’ separation and subsequent divorce, the coming out of a gay son. The show generated huge controversy.

Kurt Vonnegut, no big proponent of religion himself, spoke about the Louds in a commencement speech to William and Mary College:
“Most viewers, and the Louds themselves, claimed to be mystified by the tinhorn tragedies and unfunny comedies thus immortalized. I suggest to you that the Louds were healthy earthlings who had everything but a religion in which they could believe. There was nothing to tell them what they should want, what they should shun, what they should do next. Socrates told us that the unexamined life wasn’t worth living. The Louds demonstrated that the morally unstructured life is a clunker, too. 

“Christianity could not nourish the Louds. Neither could Buddhism or the profit motive or participation in the arts, or any other nostrum on America’s spiritual smorgasbord. So the Louds were dying before our eyes.”

Between the overabundance of bad religion and a scarcity of the good, we, in the Western, Liberal, educationally and financially privileged world, are starving.

I have to be honest: I do not know how to end the famine. I cannot not see, not clearly enough, the new-time religion that Vonnegut calls for (he doesn't do such a good job himself). And I don’t know any more about regaining the trust that has been lost than any other person. 

But I do know one thing: the answer is not, with casualness aforethought, to deny that we can live well without the combination of moral and spiritual truth – that is, religious truth. If it was, we would not be as we are, drowning in privilege, yet feeling so completely adrift. We do not live by bread alone. We were created to embody great virtues, and not only our sovereign individuality. To deny the needs of the soul leaves us not radically free, but unbearably lonely.

We speak of religion as irrelevant, as pathology, or as so personal and intimate that one person cannot speak of it to another without violating propriety. Which is to say that, in our time, only crazy people speak about religion in public, and everyone else sentences themselves to solitary confinement: our feelings of transcendence live and die in silence. On the few occasions that they are allowed into the light, they reveal themselves as pale and shaky creatures, and insubstantial.

We do not need religious dogma – in fact, a break from bombast would be quite refreshing – but we have lost any semblance of religious conversation. There are so many people smothering the airwaves with religious and anti-religious words, but I can’t shake the conviction that, with a few notable exceptions, I can’t seem to hear a damned thing. Our collective life wisdom, except on which 401k works best or how to get into Yale, has atrophied through neglect.

We are stuck. Whether sinner or sinned against through religion, we are stuck. But Torah teaches us that transgression and trauma are not the end of the spiritual path. Rather, both are ameliorated through teshuvah - repentance, which points transgressor and victim to a new way into old ideas, and into original holiness through new ideas. There is a world of essential meaning beyond the mess we're in today. May God bless us with that kind of new-time religion soon.