What Might Have Been

When I was young I went to Hebrew School, like all good Jewish boys. After my Bar Mitzvah the rabbi called my mother into his office and told her that he thought I should go into the rabbinate. She was appalled. She was the daughter of a rabbi on the lower east side of Manhattan early in the early twentieth century and she, and many of her sibs, felt they were in a “fish bowl,” always under the eye of members of the community and unable to develop in their own way and at their own pace. She was happy to get out. And she didn't want her grandchildren under the same pressure.

I'm glad about her decision, however for entirely different reasons (some of which I hope to clarify in a future essay). Most notably because although I was raised in the Conservative movement, my practice now is Orthodox. I've moved a little to the right, and Conservatism has gone far to the left. The rabbinate toward which I would have been directed then would have been in the Conservative movement. I would have been a misfit, and I would have been very unhappy. That's not to say that I don't think I would have been good at it. I suspect I would have. But as time went by I would have lacked conviction. I would have been playing a part rather than practicing a profession. I would have had trouble following the call of my vocation.

Part of the problem is that I don't know what I believe. Having been reared in a secular setting and having attended public schools, I was steeped in rationality, and never oriented to believe in a transcendent deity. I wasn't taught that it was untrue, but it was never an issue of great concern. What has resulted is uncertainty about the existence of G-d.

I know that this doesn't correspond to my claim of orthodox observance. But observance doesn't necessarily reflect belief. The “rules” I observe were recorded by men, although they may have been dictated or inspired by G-d. They seem to be self-serving, elevating the status of the Rabbis – past and present. And the absence of a “proof” of G-d's existence in a world that bases everything on rational proof makes belief difficult.

But the same rationality that questions a deity also teaches that effects have causes. Notwithstanding Stephen Hawking, you can't get something from nothing. There's no “free lunch.” Even Hawking relies on laws of physics to account for existence, but he doesn't explain their origin. We're here, and there is a Universe. Where did we come from? And where did the Universe come from? Perhaps these are simply philosophical questions, but even the most educated and the most rational among us would have difficulty answering them.

If there is no rational explanation, then, I'm left with the conclusion that there must be an irrational one – or, better, a supra-rational one. And while I have no explanation for G-d, I can only conclude that some supra-rational force exists – whatever people choose to call it. I'll call it G-d, but I readily admit that I don't know what I'm talking about. As the saying goes, there are more questions than answers. Questions related to theodicy are, perhaps, the most difficult to answer, but long ago I accepted the idea that applying rational standards to a supra-rational process was irrational. The Book of Job makes it clear that we cannot understand G-d's ways. And I can accept that ignorance. I'm not G-d. I try to follow all the law and pray three times a day even when no one (human) is watching me, because I feel I've done wrong when I cut corners.  I guess that means I'm a believer. There are proofs of divinity all around us, but none that an atheist would accept. That's his loss.

But that doesn't deal with the question of the rules I follow. Are they G-d's, or are they the “creations” of men? Is it divine Law I try to follow, or is it “tradition?” Were humans authorized to speak in G-d's name? Should I believe that everything written by our sages has a divine origin? That's what we've been taught.

I don't know and I don't care. There's enough that I can't answer that is so much more profound than this that I don't have to focus on it. If it's only tradition that I follow, I can live with that. My heritage and my people have much to offer humanity – if only humanity would recognize it, rather than resent it and us.

Perhaps I'm a misfit similar to what I would have been had I entered the rabbinate. Pascal based his wager on the odds. After all he was a mathematician, and a scientist like him tried to be rational. But in a way I'm more rational, basing my acceptance of G-d on the logical belief in cause and effect. Still the rationalists of modern times cannot accept anything they cannot prove. So, from their perspective, I've been misled. And I'm following precepts that have no basis. Many of them – and I'm most aware of some of the scientific and medical precepts in Jewish religious teaching – are either not well thought out or are flat out wrong. Which, despite the apologetics, suggests to me that they were the ideas of humans rather than being divine precepts. Maybe they have value in the understanding of the eras in which they were written. But as we have been admonished to follow the teachings of the rabbis of our times – and their exposition of the words of their predecessors may differ from what was taught in the past – so, too, we are well advised to follow the explanations of modern medicine and science.

I'm a physician, not a rabbi. I might have been a rabbi – indeed, I have a son who is one – but things didn't work out that way for me. So be it. In a way I'm glad. I can accept my ignorance about religion without having to defend it and explain it to others. And without having to abandon it because I can't always understand it. I'm not a misfit. But I might have been one.