DR. STEVE MARTIN'S TORAH

Steve Martin, the president of the Pelham Jewish Center, spoke to the synagogue this year on Kol Nidre. He shared a bit of his personal journey and his vision for what a synagogue can be (specifically the PJC). His talk was quite moving to our community and I have asked him to post it on this blog. Though he speaks specifically of the Pelham Jewish Center in his talk, I think his vision for connecting to the PJC can be applied to all synagogues. His talk is below. Feel free to post comments on it by clicking on "comments at the bottom of the post.

Chag Sameach, have a wonderful Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah!

Yom Kippur, 2007
By Steve Martin

It’s 1969. I’m standing on a raised Bima in the middle of a synagogue in Haifa. I’ve never been in this kind of shul, where the Bima is in the center of the seats, and there is a balcony overhead. It feels as if the only people who speak English in the shul are my parents, and my aunt and uncle who are members of the congregation. As I complete the blessings after the Haftorah, I’m thinking “thank G-d the torture is finally over”, when suddenly they start throwing things at me. It’s a 360 degree barrage, and from up above as well - small, hard projectiles hurtle at me. I am completely flabbergasted and certain that I had inadvertently cursed someone in Hebrew, until I notice the small children rapidly gathering up the candies. This was not the only time for me that Judaism has evoked in me a potent combination of fear, mixed with ignorance, turning into curiosity, and then sweetness.

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History defines each of our relationships to Judaism. Faulkner famously remarked, “The past isn’t dead, heck, the past isn’t even past.” Each of us sitting here tonight has a powerful connection to Judaism through history – a jumbled mix of our personal history, refracted through the multiple layers of political, sociologic, and cultural histories that ricochet around our understanding of what it means to be Jewish. We are here tonight because we feel connected – however tenuously or powerfully – to Judaism. But for most of us, articulating the meaning of our Judaism to ourselves is a challenging, even daunting task.
I’d like to suggest tonight that it is through the vehicle of understanding our history that we can begin to discover what Judaism means to each of us. Just as there are a broad array of historical approaches, so too, I believe that using this process will result in a diversity of ways to understand and to relate to Judaism. However, the one thing I would argue is that unless one grapples with history, of ourselves and our people, then one will inevitably miss out on the opportunity to connect to our Jewishness. And it is my belief, desire, and fervent hope that the PJC can serve as both the catalyst and vehicle for that historical exploration.

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When I was a young boy we had the Passover Seders at my house, led by my Grandfather Julius. My mother’s side of the family would gather together with us at the long dining room table extending into the living room, and the Seder would commence with my Grandfather speed reading Hebrew through the Maxwell House Hagaddah. Among we children who were struggling through Hebrew School, there was a brief sense of amazement that anyone could read Hebrew that fast, followed by the yawning realization that this incredibly boring recitation in a foreign language was going to take a REALLY, REALLY long time, followed by the inevitable fidgeting, resulting in the stern, scolding by my father to sit still, sometimes accompanied by tears and punishment, but always ending in the Festive Holiday Meal.
So why do I have such intensely sweet memories of those long ago nights. Partly it is because how they capture so much of my family’s history, and American Jewish History. My Grandfather Julius immigrated to the US early in the twentieth century, coming alone as a fifteen year old. He left his family back in Poland, and as World War II approached, he hoped to help his 9 brothers and sisters come to America. One escaped to Palestine, eight were murdered by the Nazis in the Holocaust. Julius lived first on the Lower East Side, then in Harlem, and ultimately in Brooklyn, where he raised his family. My mother went to Brooklyn College, married my father, and moved to the suburbs, where we were raised.
The story of my family is hardly unique – in fact it describes one of the most common trajectories of American Jews today. Of course, it is unique in the small details: the fact that Julius spoke broken English and that he was the quintessentially brow-beaten Jewish husband. I don’t think I ever had a complete conversation with my grandfather, but I do remember his love for his grandchildren beaming from him whenever he visited. And that during each of his visits, he reached into his pocket and gave us hard, sweet candies.
The more things change, the more they stay the same. Here it is, four decades later, and I’m still sitting around, hearing someone else read Hebrew that I find incomprehensible. And yet, I find that experience strangely rewarding. How could that be? I remember on one trip to Israel the El Al security guard asking me if I could speak Hebrew, and I said no, but that I could read it, and he looked at me like – what kind of idiot can read a language and not understand it. What purpose does that serve? And I know for many people, the fact that here at the PJC we pray in Hebrew is an obstacle.
Part of the answer struck me recently from the unlikeliest of sources – the Pope. Recently, the Pope approved the resumption of the Latin Mass. Why did some Catholics desire the return of the Latin Mass? Surely it was not because there has been a sudden expansion in the number of fluent speakers of Latin. It is, of course, because of the power of tradition.
For me, when I sit in shul and pray the words of our liturgy, there are days when I am glad I don’t know the meaning of the words. On those days, glancing over at the English translation has no benefits. Instead, the words, and especially for me the songs and chanting, form a kind of meditative space that is intensely rewarding. Many American Jews have grown fascinated with meditation and Eastern religions. I find a similar space in our prayer service.
This past year I took a class about the prayer service at the PJC, a class that will be offered again this year. The explanations of the history and purpose of the liturgy has deepened my experience of praying. To begin to intellectually understand that after the destruction of the Second Temple, and therefore the elimination of sacrifice in Jewish worship, the Rabbis had to figure out what to do to sustain Judaism, and that prayer became the solution, has reshaped my time in synagogue.
But for me perhaps the most important experience of prayer that will be especially powerful tonight, is to know that across the world at this very same moment of sundown, there are millions of fellow Jews gathered together to say these very same prayers. And not only that we are doing this together as a people tonight, but that this same prayer service has been practiced for centuries and that as often and as hard as the world has tried to destroy us, we are still here, in part, because of our gathering together, just as we are doing here tonight.

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When I was growing up it seemed to me that Judaism was an overwhelmingly scary, serious business. At synagogue, on the infrequent occasions I went, there were guards at the doors to the sanctuary. Whenever the Torah was taken out the doors were closed, and no-one was allowed to enter the sanctuary. There were certainly no Legos on the floors of the sanctuary at the Bethpage Jewish Center. As I look back I know the intent was simply to be respectful, but the message received was clear, if unintentional. This is really serious, grown up stuff that you can’t even begin to think about. There is a right way and a wrong way to be Jewish, and if somehow you didn’t follow the prescribed path, you were wrong. And by the way, it was never very clear how you got to be instructed in how to do the right things – especially because it was considered bad form to actually approach, let alone speak to the Rabbi.
The second emphasis on Judaism I received was that you may as well embrace being a Jew, because it didn’t really matter if you claimed ownership of your Jewishness or not, the world was going to impose on you. The lesson of the Holocaust was clear – others defined who was a Jew, and acted upon those decisions - so you can’t escape anyhow. Ironically, this definition also implied you didn’t have to do much to relate to Judaism, because you were born into the faith, like it or not.
There is a kernel to this post-Holocaust ideology that is hard to deny. The broad sweep of Jewish history is not exactly a pretty picture. There is an old joke that all Jewish holidays can be defined by the boundaries of – they came to destroy us, we survived, let’s eat. But like much of Jewish humor it buries the pain of how many of us have been destroyed.
I have struggled to determine the right tact to take with my children. If we emphasize the tragedies of Jewish history, will they become a neurotic, paranoid mess? Yet as the old saying goes, it’s not paranoia if they are really out to get you. It only takes a reading of Amos Elon’s history of German Jewry from 1743-1933, The Pity of it All, to make one wonder about how comfortable Diaspora Jews should be. Even if America is the exception to Jewish history, as I hope and pray and believe that it is, the specter of anti-Semitism continues to stalk the world. Daniel Pearl’s murderers focused not on his status as an American or a journalist – they executed him as a Jew.
Ultimately however, a message that Judaism is a hard, scary, serious business that is barely accessible, unbelievably boring, and potentially deadly was not designed to have the masses embrace their Judaism. More importantly, such a vision is an awful distortion of Jewish history.
Judaism has an extraordinary vitality, breadth, depth and resilience that call out to us to celebrate and experience. For most of my personal history I didn’t give much thought to being Jewish. Sure, I was proud that both Nobel Laureates AND Sandy Koufax were Jewish – not to mention Sean Green of the Mets who will single-handedly hold off the Amalekites of Philadelphia if there is justice in this world – but for years I never participated in anything related to Judaism. And, truth be told, there were many times when things I deemed “too Jewish” made me vaguely uncomfortable.
Like most things in life, the reality is that the trivial amount of effort I placed into my Judaism was rewarded by an equally trivial return. For me, as for many of us, it was through my children that I returned. It was somehow important to me that my children be Jews. But even though I knew that was what I wanted, what did it mean?
Answering that question has been the stuttering work of two decades. One of the big obstacles for me has been God. Someone at the PJC once told me a great story about how they were at a Seder and they were getting the business from some relatives about “What’s the point, they don’t believe in God and what is it with all this praying to God?” The leader of the Seder finally got fed up and asked “So tell me all about this God you don’t believe in!”
I love that story because it underscores for me that it is not as if there is a single conception of God within Jewish thought and history. And as I have studied more Jewish history, this variety of ideas about who is God, how do we as a people relate to him, and what are the ways that I as an individual might relate to him have presented me with a marvelous confusion to grapple with.
I have learned to give up my fears that I am a fraud, that I’m not good enough, holy enough, observant enough to be a good Jew, and therefore there is no point in even trying. When I was a third year medical student, I have a very distinct memory of being with a patient and putting on the blood pressure cuff backwards. When you put the Velcro straps of a blood pressure cuff on backwards, and blow up the cuff, what happens is the cuff explodes off the patient’s arm. I was mortified. I was standing there in my shiny new white lab coat, and knew that the entire world was mocking my pretensions of being a doctor. I often tell that story to medical students I now teach, because it is important for them to all realize that you are not born a full blown doctor, and that the day you get admitted to medical school doesn’t suddenly transform you into a competent practitioner. And each of us sitting in this room knows the same sensation in their careers.
Well I’ve come to understand that it’s the same for Judaism. It’s perfectly OK for me to be a novice Jew. Internship was one of the most rewarding, if exhausting, experiences of my life, because I was on the steep part of the learning curve. Well, here I am again on the steep part of the learning curve – only this time a lot less sleep deprived. And I’m a lot more mature, and therefore comfortable understanding that as I progress in my Jewish knowledge there are tremendous rewards along the way.
In the past two to three years, Hildy and I have begun to celebrate Shabbat on a regular basis. During the blessings before the meal on Friday night, there is a moment when we bless our children – we say to our daughters Y’simeich Elohim k’Sarah, Rivka, Rachel, v’Leah – May God bless you as he blessed Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah. – and we say to our son – Y’simcha Elohim k’Efrayim v’chi-M’nashe – may God bless you as he blessed Ephraim and Manasseh.
I have NO IDEA who Ephraim and Menashe are, and why we invoke their names – I’ve learned and forgotten it several times. And the first few times I did it, I felt like a fraud, just as I did as a new medical student, trying to figure out which side is up on the sphygmomanometer – I love that word. But I have gotten beyond my insecurities and now it’s become a part of our week.
And after we say those blessings on our sons and daughters, we place our hands on our children’s heads and we say the priestly blessings – “May the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord cause his Spirit to shine upon you and be gracious unto you. May the Lord turn his spirit onto you and grant you peace.” And at that moment, even though I don’t even know what I believe, I believe in God and desperately hope that he bestows these blessings on my children. And I know that my children, even though all three are now adults, can feel the love that Hildy and I feel for them. And I am glad that Judaism has this kind of ritual that allows me to express my love to my children every week –whether or not I’m Shomer Mitzvot.
When I counsel medical students about the process of becoming a doctor, I often remind them that the hardest thing about becoming a doctor is getting into med school. I remind them of the old joke – what do you call someone who graduates last in his med school class – “Doctor” – and more seriously ask them to look around at their peers. Even if they don’t feel like they are the best student in their class, most realize they are at least not the worst.
Well, I think we can apply the same logic to our Jewishness. I may not be the best Jew to ever walk the face of the earth, but I’m not the worst either. Heck if a thief of his brother’s birthright can become one of our patriarchs, Jacob, and if every Yom Kippur we read the story of Jonah, the prophet who when personally contacted by God decides, you know what, I’m going to run and hide, then I think we’re all in decent shape. An important thread after all, of these High Holidays is just this – that we are all imperfect and we are all worthy of redemption.
To me, once we get over the absurd obstacle that I’m not a good enough Jew, I can begin the process of T’shuva - of returning. T’shuva is the great theme of Yom Kippur – recognition that we have gone astray and need to return to ourselves, to our inner core. We are all here today because we seek to return to our Jewish selves – and I believe that it is through wrestling with our history we can make that journey.
The Pelham Jewish Center has a rich array of resources to help you along our path. We have an extraordinary Rabbi who is a gifted teacher, a sensitive and open listener, who can help guide you in this process. Rabbi Shuck has signed a five year contract with us, and so you have the time to create a history with him that I, and many others in our community, have found invaluable to our growth as Jews. There are a broad array of activities that we are offering this year: from meeting with members of the Israeli Defense Forces, to baking Challah, to visiting the sick and feeding the poor, to studying Midrash. Like most things in life, the more you put into connecting to your Judaism, the more you will get out of it. It has been a been a personal journey for me that has been quite surprising – I never thought I would be as involved in Judaism as I have become – and it has been deeply, deeply rewarding.
I hope that everyone here tonight has some opportunity to return to their Jewish identity, and that the PJC provides a welcoming, enriching, and empowering vehicle for that process. Judaism conceptualizes the revelation as an ongoing process – every time we return to our Judaism it is renewed and different. The PJC is not the place that is was ten years ago, or five years ago, or even one year ago. And just as in history study or torah study – the same thing when reencountered on a different day, becomes an entirely new experience, so too for our little synagogue. If you never felt comfortable here – please try us again – we’ll try to make it feel more comfortable. We are imperfect, and in the spirit of Yom Kippur I ask your forgiveness for all the ways, large and small, that we have not provided all that we should for our community. But our heart is in the right place, and we desperately want to be a community that nourishes your Jewish identity – whatever that might be.

Gemar Hatima Tovah – may you be inscribed in the Book of Life,

--Dr. Steve Martin is the president of the Pelham Jewish Center