Why We Remain Jews: The Path to Faith - Softcover

Tsesis, Vladimir

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0897337174 ISBN 13: 9780897337175

Publisher: Chicago Review Press, 2013

Synopsis

Dr. Tsesis describes the path he traversed from religious ignorance to strong belief in the Jewish religion. Tsesis assigns a special place to the proof of his conclusion that religion and science—especially in light of recent discoveries—are not antagonists, and are, in fact, in complete harmony, supplementing and not excluding each other. In the spirit of ecumenism Tsesis speaks about coexistence of different religions, which share the common objective of assurance of perpetual survival of the human race. The unifying theme of this book, however, is the beauty of the Jewish religion and a possible answer to the question of why we remain Jews.

About this title

About the Author

Vladimir Tsesis grew up in the former Soviet union and practiced general pediatrics there for 10 years before immigration with his wife and son to the USA in 1974.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Why We Remain Jews

The Path to Faith

By Vladimir Tsesis

Chicago Review Press Incorporated

Copyright © 2013 Vladimir Tsesis
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-89733-717-5

CHAPTER 1

DENYING GOD

Many highly enlightened acquaintances of mine often wonder why I — "an educated person" — believe so strongly in God. Before giving an answer to such a question I ask my companions to kindly explain what prevents them from believing in God. Their responses vary widely. Some of them flatly reject religion; others keep a mysterious silence or shrug their shoulders.

I am not at all surprised by the reactions of atheists, who reject God's existence out of hand and completely. Indeed, we live in a free country where everyone has a right to hold his own views. Much more amazing to me are the responses of those who might be called skeptics. These are the people who wonder why others believe in God, but at the same time never miss an opportunity to hold religious ceremonies: to celebrate the B'nei Mitzvah of their children, weddings, and the births of babies in their families. Moreover, they show even more respect for religious traditions when they go through trying times. During religious ceremonies, such people always demonstrate their sincere respect for worship and the sermons delivered by rabbis.

It seems to me that these people — on the one hand ignoring religion, and on the other hand professing it — are so busy and involved in the maelstrom of life that, in the daily bustle of reality, they have no time to stop for a minute and realize that "man shall not live by bread alone." (Deuteronomy 8: 2–3).

There is a religious school affiliated with the synagogue where I have been attending services for many years. Children come to this school two or three times a week. As a rule, they are brought there by their parents.

On Sundays, the school time coincides with the morning worship — Shaharit. This service is not long. Since the children are attending religious school, surely, it could be assumed that their parents want them in the future to be religiously educated Jews. Naturally, one is led to think that such parents would be glad to attend the religious service themselves.

However, the parents are very seldom willing to use this ideal opportunity to set a good example for their children. Instead of joining the service, they demonstrate their lack of interest in religion. While the children are getting religious lessons, some of the parents go home or run errands; others stay in the synagogue whiling away the time in different ways — talking with one another, making phone calls, reading books and newspapers.

I have often wanted to ask them one question: why do they bring their children to a religious school if they themselves are obviously not interested in practicing their religion? And, really, are they so naïve that they fail to understand that their children are not stupid, that they see and are influenced by the inconsistent behavior of their beloved parents?

But there is always room for optimism. Some people will always find their way to God, especially if they are exposed to religious values in their childhood.

* * *

My parents were born before the Great October Revolution in Russia and grew up in families where Jewish traditions were observed; they were about ten years old when Lenin's party came to power. Like most people of that time, having suffered the bloody turbulence of revolutionary turmoil, my parents, especially my mother, desperately wanted to adapt to the new lifestyle in order to survive under the new political system.

During the post-revolutionary years, the Soviet government persecuted religious adherents and stifled and suppressed religion by any means available, doing its utmost to connect the idea of God with negative associations.

In order to avoid the risk of disappearing as a result of regular purges, as happened to many people at that time, my parents had no choice but to thoroughly conceal their religious views.

Gradually, a strange phenomenon that was very typical in that period happened: the more they distanced themselves from religion, the more positively they accepted the views imposed on them by the Soviet antireligious propaganda. Eventually, they began to identify themselves with those who continually brainwashed them into believing that the religion of their fathers and mothers was nothing more than a reprehensible and ignorant superstition.

My paternal grandfather was a melamed — a religious teacher of Judaism — and my maternal grandfather was a cantor and a shohet — a ritual slaughterer. Both were killed by German fascists and their local accomplices during the war, so I never had a chance to meet them.

When I asked my father — a communist by necessity — why he refused even to consider the possibility of the existence of God, he told me that it was a result of his life experience. He said that his family was very poor, so to help his parents to make ends meet he had had to work from an early age. One of his jobs was at a coaching inn, where he was an errand boy. There he repeatedly observed priests who came into town from surrounding villages and who were among the most active customers of the local prostitutes. For the rest of his life my father believed that behind the outward holiness of the clergy lurked hypocrisy and deceit.

"How can somebody be religious," he told me, "if the so-called 'holy men' behave worse than the ungodly? What is a religion when there's nothing holy in its holy orders?"

While he was trying to avoid giving me a direct answer, my father could see by the expression on my face that the trivial generalization gathered from his own life experience failed to convince me. After a pause, he continued much more gravely:

"Look, Vovka. I went through the war from the first to the last day, I fought with Germans, many of my friends and fellows were wounded or killed before my eyes. There were times when I met death daily. When you grow up, you will realize that, after going through all that, it was difficult for me to even think about God, to say nothing of talking about Him. Do you understand me? My God is my family, the future of my children, that's all. And let's not discuss the rest, OK?"

CHAPTER 2

THERE ARE NO ATHEISTS IN FOXHOLES

When I think about the ambivalent position of many people toward religion, I always remember Sheldon and Gretchen Weisberg, whom I knew for many years.

Sheldon Weisberg was fifteen years older than I was. For many years he was my neighbor in the locker room of the fitness club that we and our wives attended. Prior to retirement, Sheldon had spent many years working as a high-level administrator in the Chicago school system. Because Sheldon was, among other things, an inveterate Jewish liberal, the number of topics we could discuss was not very large. Initially, we talked about — and quickly exhausted — neutral subjects like geography, climate, and the food and customs of Ukraine, where Sheldon's ancestors came from.

Our limited regular dialogue had reached a deadlock when Sheldon, in a solemn manner, revealed to me how incredibly fond he was of communist-era Russia.

He had grown up in a family of American Jewish Communists and imbibed a strong faith in communism with his mother's milk. One summer, when he was already a young man, during his regular visit to a communist camp in Wisconsin Sheldon met his future wife Gretchen, a daughter of non-Jewish German communists.

After they were married, their burning passion for the dictatorship of the victorious proletariat inspired Sheldon and Gretchen to pay three "goodwill visits" to Russia during the "blessed" Stalinist time.

In the Mercedes they acquired in post-war West Germany (not in the communist East Germany), the Weisberg couple drove around Moscow, Leningrad, Minsk, and Kiev.

Communist paradise made an indelible, vivid impression on them.

As a result, all my attempts to tell them the true story about the Soviet Union as an eyewitness, were, at best, met with a patronizing smile, and, at worst, with the unconcealed irritation of idealists whose Utopian ideas should be off limits to discussion. Sheldon countered my arguments with an undisguised sense of moral superiority, reproaching me that, during my more than thirty years in the Soviet Union, I could not realize what a wonderful country I lived in, something he and Gretchen had easily grasped during their short visits. The couple was in love with communism while happily enjoying all the benefits of capitalism.

Later, Sheldon became irritated with my attitude toward the political situation in the Middle East, my opinion on the right to self-defense, my views on the rights of parents to send their children to the schools of their choice, and my thoughts on many other subjects. His anger reached the highest level when I told him that I believe in "comrade" Darwin's Theory of Evolution much less than I believe in God, the Author of the Universe. Hearing this kind of "rebellious thought," Sheldon did not conceal his righteous indignation; for some reason, atheists feel as if the ground is slipping from under their feet when they are told that they, as well as the rest of the human race, are not descended from monkeys but were created according to God's will.

Sheldon remained a pure altruist as long as people accepted his "expert" opinion.

Since Sheldon could not forgive me the political incorrectness I had demonstrated on so many occasions, our relations gradually became limited to the formal exchange of greetings. But we still lived in the same neighborhood and would run into each other in different places.

Once, my wife, Marina, and I met Sheldon and Gretchen in a local restaurant. We greeted one other, and then Sheldon and Gretchen invited us to their table. This invitation was hard to refuse, so we joined them. Being aware of the pro-Soviet sentiments of our neighbors, Marina and I did our best to avoid subjects associated with Russia. However, soon Gretchen and Sheldon started singing the praises of the socialist system — which by this time had been firmly buried in history — clearly letting us know the position that we "reactionaries" held was hopelessly immoral because it rejected the essence of communist virtues.

I wanted to stay silent, but I could not help reminding the enthusiastic couple that the socialist system they adored so much had cost Russia millions of innocent lives.

Sheldon and Gretchen, though, were not impressed in the least with the staggering number of victims of Soviet communism — for them, the eventual achievement of communism's great ends justified all means.

Trying to avoid conflict, I decided not to express what I thought about the Weisbergs' offensive attitudes towards the Soviet experiment. Somehow I changed the subject, shifting to neutral topics. Then it was time to say goodbye.

"Whatever your response may be, Vladimir, I just have to share my opinion with you," Gretchen said at parting. An insidious smile on her face promised that the next moment I would hear something quite unpleasant. Then, all-knowingly, with an air of moral superiority, she continued loudly, so that everyone sitting in the dining room could hear.

"You can say whatever you want, but if it wasn't for your beloved America, Soviet Russia would still flourish and prosper to the joy of progressive mankind! The magnificent experiment of communist Russia was ruined by no one else but your beloved American government. That's it!"

"Having such a disposition," I retorted, "why didn't you both apply for political asylum in your beloved Russia a long time ago, so you would be able to participate in building the society of your dreams? In Russia, they would be more than happy to provide you with a communal apartment, where you would share your kitchen and toilet with five or six other proletarian families and where you would never have hot water, and rarely even cold water, coming out of your communal faucet. They would give you a job and you would get a salary, which would prevent you from starving and pay for most urgent needs, but would not be enough for anything else."

That should have been the end of our relationship, but we still had mutual acquaintances: childhood friends of the Weisbergs and members of our synagogue, Leah and Arnold Levenson. Leah became ill with a serious kidney disease, and, after several years of dialysis, passed away at the age of seventy. Leah's yahrzeit — the Jewish religious memorial service — held at the Levenson's residence, was attended by almost the entire congregation, including the rabbi and the cantor. Naturally, best friends of the Levensons — Sheldon and Gretchen — were there as well. When the rabbi started the worship service, Gretchen excused herself and went to help in the kitchen, while Sheldon remained in the room.

During the reading of the Mourners' Kaddish, following the ancient tradition, everyone who came to pay their last respects to Leah was standing facing East, holding the booklets specially printed for the occasion and saying the prayers that Jews have said from time immemorial. Only Sheldon did not pray. Sheldon was eloquently demonstrating that he just happened to be present at this ceremony but that it was totally alien to him. A person standing next to Sheldon tried to be helpful by offering him his own booklet, but Sheldon proudly rejected it with an abrupt negative shake of his head.

Well, I thought, Sheldon has every right to pray or not to pray. What looked quite annoying was not so much his demonstrative refusal to participate in the communal service as his ironic arrogant glances at everyone who did not share his atheism. I hoped that Sheldon — at least for the sake of appearances — would join in saying the word "Amen" in memory of the person who had been quite close to him, but he did not do even that.

After Leah's yahrzeit, our greetings were reduced to a slight nod for some time, until one day I again met Sheldon in the locker room. On his face, instead of his characteristic expression of complacency, was a look of anxiety and worry. At that time he apparently needed to share his current problem with anybody, because he said hello to me in a much friendlier way than usual. Thus, for the lack of anyone more suitable, I became his confidant.

"What's new?" I couldn't help but ask Sheldon, responding to his invitation to converse.

"You see, Vladimir," he said without any preliminaries, "I developed cataracts in both eyes, for which I recently had surgery. The cataracts were removed, but — can you imagine? — during the operation the ophthalmologist touched something in my right eye, and, apparently because of this, now I have a strange small spot in my field of vision.

"This disturbs me a lot, but I cannot get rid of it. The doctor examined me twice; he told me that it should pass, but he's not a hundred percent sure. And you, as a physician, what do you think about this?"

"You know, Sheldon, that I'm a pediatrician, not an eye doctor," I answered, "but I think that your eye doctor has no reason to lie to you. Your problem, indeed, should pass by itself."

Sheldon liked my answer. Immediately regaining his natural dignity, he asked me with a smile:

"Do you really think so?"

"I am sure, Sheldon," I replied. "No doubt. With God's help, everything should be OK."

"Yes. With God's help, I hope. I already feel better," Sheldon automatically continued with enthusiasm, then suddenly stopped short, blushing heavily. No wonder: he had given himself away completely. It turned out that atheist Sheldon "could not care less" for God, until it came to his personal health.

Two years later, on a Sunday morning, I sat at a table in the local coffee house which was frequented by the Weisbergs, who lived nearby.

I had hardly begun eating my breakfast, when suddenly, right in front of me, I noticed Sheldon. He was out alone; his shoulders were hunched. His face expressed bitterness and pain. We exchanged greetings, and I asked him why he had come without Gretchen.

"Oh, Gretchen is in the hospital," Sheldon responded mournfully.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from Why We Remain Jews by Vladimir Tsesis. Copyright © 2013 Vladimir Tsesis. Excerpted by permission of Chicago Review Press Incorporated.
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Edition details

• Publisher: Chicago Review Press
• Publication date: 2013
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0897337174
• ISBN 13: 9780897337175
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 254