Rosh Hashanah Commentary
Irv Lesser          9/23/06

 To the best of my knowledge, these talks don’t have titles, but if my talk were to have one, it would be, “Why I am a Humanistic Jew.”

 Even as a small child I was well aware of the fact that I was Jewish. This was despite the fact that I had no religious upbringing at all. My father had rebelled against the orthodox training he’d had in Russia and as a result none of us in my immediate family ever attended religious services. The only time I went to a shul was when a relative or close friend got married.

 But there was no doubt that I was Jewish. I went for a few years to Arbeiter Ring school to learn Yiddish and I have been able to retain a smattering of what I picked up there. Yiddish, in fact, was my first language, since my parents spoke it at home. When I went out to play with the other kids, however, I quickly picked up English and my parents began trying to learn it better themselves. When they didn’t want me to know what they were talking about, they couldn’t use Yiddish, since I understood that, so they spoke Russian.

 When I was about 8 years old I gave a lot of thought to the concept of God. Most of what I’d picked up led me to think of God as a wise old man with a long white beard who sat on a large, fancy gold throne up in the sky. I knew about gravity, so I decided that just couldn’t be. I then told my friends, almost all Jewish, that I didn’t believe in God and the result was that I was ostracized. After two lonely weeks I told them I was just kidding, so I was then again accepted into the groups.

 Actually, though, I wasn’t just kidding. And the older I got and the more knowledge I had, the less I could believe in a supernatural being directing all that happened anywhere. But I was still Jewish, and I kept those thoughts to myself. My friends were mostly Jewish and I joined Jewish fraternities in both high school and college.

 When I met Sim I learned for the first time about the three main branches of Judaism. She had been raised in a classical Reform home and we were married in her temple in Philadelphia. We didn’t join a temple, however, until we were living in Miami, about three years later. There we joined a very large Reform temple, with 1500 members, and sent our children to religious school. We eventually became very active in that congregation. I was on the Board and Sim developed and ran the day school, which, when she left, had 625 students.

 I could participate in the activities there without feeling like a hypocrite because of the way I defined in my mind what was meant by the word “God” in the prayer book. When I came across that word, I substituted in my mind the word “brotherhood”. That actually fit pretty well with my philosophy and I could participate without feeling like a fraud.

 After a number of years, however, our rabbi retired and a new series of rabbis came in. The entire Reform movement moved much closer to the traditional framework. It got to the point that at High Holiday services we would try to seat ourselves in the middle of the aisle of seats so that we would not be forced to go through the rituals involved as the Torah was paraded around the sanctuary. Eventually, it all became too much and we dropped our membership.

 There was a nearby Reconstruction congregation, but that didn’t quite fit the bill, so we were without congregational membership for a few years. I must confess we missed the camaraderie, but we would have felt false in joining any of the congregations near us.

 About the time we decided to move to Sarasota, we first learned of the existence of Humanistic Judaism. A computer search got us to the SHJ website and we learned there was a congregation here. We came to the High Holiday services in 2001 and immediately felt at home. It fit right in with all that we believed. We joined shortly after that, even though we didn’t move here until the next year. The rest is history.

 But I’ve given thought to why we have felt so comfortable with Humanistic Judaism from the beginning of our acquaintance with it. Some of you may know that in a previous life I was a clinical psychologist. In my treatment activities, I used a cognitive rational approach, using reason and logic. I found that it was easily understandable and rapid, and therefore less expensive for those who needed it. One of my major methods in using this approach was Transactional Analysis, or TA as it was popularly known. TA was popularized by such best selling books as “I’m OK; You’re OK” and “Games People Play”. It became so popular that it became a fad, and like all fads it eventually lost its popularity. But it is still alive, as my Google search showed, and it certainly is alive in the way I approach life. I’d like to very briefly explain it to you to show why it is so useful in understanding why we do things and act the way we do and in particular to show why Humanistic Judaism is such a desirable approach.

 I even have a visual aid. This sign represents the makeup of every person’s personality. The top circle is called the Parent, the middle circle is called the Adult, and the bottom circle is called the Child. They are called ego states. In a way they are similar to the psychoanalytic terms id, ego and superego, but they’re different in that they are readily seen in action by the use of a person’s words, tones, gestures, posture and facial expressions. In brief, the Parent is the part of us that includes our moral values and our conscience, our ideas of right and wrong. The Adult is the part of us that thinks, that makes logical decisions. The Child is the part that includes our feelings. If, for example, I speak in a high pitched, whining voice: “I don’t wanna go to the park!” one would know I was coming from my Child. If I say, “I should go to the park,” one would know I was coming from my Parent. If I say, “I’m going to the park,” with no whining and no imperatives, I’m likely coming from my Adult. It’s just dealing with a fact.

 At all times one of these ego states is in charge, is in the executive position. When the Adult is in the EP, there is less likely to be difficulty. When the Child or Parent takes the EP trouble is more likely. One can be in one’s Child, having fun, but with the Adult maintaining EP. Or one can be in one’s Parent, maintaining order, but with the Adult in the EP. But if the Child or Parent takes over the EP, there will likely be trouble.

 Let me give you a couple of examples. Let’s say a couple of kids are playing in the living room, having fun, while their mothers might be chatting in the kitchen. The play is OK, but then it escalates, they start chasing each other around the room and soon start knocking things over. What happened was that their Child took over the EP and their Adult no longer was able to control the activity. Or say a fundamentalist preacher learns that his beloved teenage daughter has gone dancing with a boy. He yells and yells at her, and then punishes her very severely. His Parent, probably always in charge, really took over and let him do to his daughter what any rational observer would readily recognize as inappropriate and excessive punishment. We can easily use this sort of analysis to examine what is happening between groups and nations, but I won’t go into politics here. My example of someone who is all Adult, without Child or Parent, is Star Trek’s character, Spock, played by Leonard Nimoy, a nice Jewish boy. He would often say, “It’s just not logical.”

 But back to Humanistic Judaism. I’ve explained to you about my early logical rejection of the childish concept of God. And my further maturing merely strengthened that rejection of the idea of a supernatural force controlling all that happens. It’s just not logical. It doesn’t fit in with what my Adult insists on. On the other hand, given my scientific training, I can’t say with absolute certainty that there is no God. I can only say that I’ve seen no proof that there is a God. I therefore classify myself as an agnostic, not an atheist. My Adult tells me that an atheist is professing a belief, a belief for which he or she can not give absolute proof.

 Humanistic Judaism does fit in with what my Adult tells me. It does not use the idea of a supernatural force, but it does retain the many aspects of Judaism that my Child enjoyed and my Parent tells me are appropriate. I can enjoy the music and maintain the appropriate behavioral rules, while rejecting those many rules and customs that are not appropriate. I’ve also learned that my thinking in this regard was not original. It meshes nicely with the teachings of our own Rabbi Sherwin Wine and even pretty well to the teachings of Baruch Spinoza, who, at age 23, 350 years ago this past July, was excommunicated by the Portuguese Jewish community of Amsterdam.

 But I’d like to say a few words about CHJ in particular. The members try to maintain the precepts of Humanistic Judaism, but in addition to that they are friendly and bright. It has been a real pleasure for Sim and me to be members. A few weeks ago I was talking with a friend who mentioned that he has no family here. I immediately thought, “Well, I’ve got a large family, the entire membership of CHJ.” It has indeed become family to us. As in a real family, one can’t honestly say he likes every one of his relatives, but he usually does his best to get along with all. I certainly can’t be friends with every one of more than 300 of you, but I’m doing my best to get to know who you are. Unfortunately, my memory for names was never very good, and with aging it’s been getting worse. Fortunately, Sim is very good at that, so I can often depend on her for a name when I need it.

 I haven’t given a talk for many years, but I do remember the one word that sounded so good to both the speaker and the audience: Finally. Finally, I want to wish all of you and your families a very good year, filled with good health and happiness. L’Shonah Tovah!

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