121 — Planting My Flag (Aug 30, 2023)

    In 1953 my parents (not divorced until two years later), enrolled me in kindergarten based in a nearby synagogue.  One of our activities was to draw pictures of national flags.  Of course, we all came home with our rendering of the Stars and Stripes!  Of all national flags, its field of 5-pointed stars and 13 stripes led to wildly impressionistic renderings.  Mine was not worth writing home about—or taking home to display on the refrigerator door!  So, I looked for another flag to draw.  The modern nation of Israel had been established in 1948, the year before I had been born.  Its white flag had a single blue 6-pointed star that was easy to draw and adding two horizontal stripes was something that I could draw—and it looked pretty good!  That one I took home and it was displayed on the refrigerator.

It was so well received in my home that I decided to create a full-scale replica and fly it from the flagpole (a tree branch) of my fortress (a hole in the dirt) that I dug in the field behind our house. With the assistance of Anna May (our housekeeper who loved God and Israel [see chap. 39, 113], it was proudly waving when my mom returned from a shopping trip.  

I was puzzled that my mom didn’t seem thrilled.  She explained, “Sure we are Jewish, but we don’t like to draw the attention of our neighbors to that.  This could offend them and they might treat us badly.  Why don’t we get you an American flag to fly from the flagpole?  Everyone appreciates that!”  So, it was okay to be Jewish, but just don’t let it show??? I took the Israeli flag down and before I could replace it with an American flag, it rained and my fortress became a pool of mud.  I set aside my fort-building plans and my excitement about being a Jew with our own special country . . . for a while. I still wondered—why would others respond negatively to being Jewish?  What was that all about?  And why was my mother so sensitive to this? What about being Jewish made her anxious?  What about that Israeli flag stirred her so much?  And what was the tingling I felt as a 5 year old?

During my elementary school years, my being Jewish didn’t seem to be a concern for my teachers or friends.  There was the pretty girl who lived up the street, but my mom cautioned me that they were very serious Christians who believed that we Jews had assassinated their God! In addition, her dad was a member of the antisemitic John Birch Society. It would be best if I didn’t hang out with her and definitely never go inside their house!  I was now aware of the Holocaust, so no further explanation needed!

When I got to high school I began to notice occasional strange attitudes from some of my schoolmates. For example, when I joined the freshman basketball team, my teammate Ricky playfully (?) nicknamed me “DJ” for “dirty Jew”—apparently picking that up from his parents.  It didn’t really bother me—it was cool to have a nickname!  Ricky and I were friends and “Ricky” was his nickname!  Are you out there Roscoe?    

That was the extent of reaction to my Jewish identity until my early twenties.  I was just an average American who happened to be Jewish—no one seemed to be concerned one way or the other.  Fast-forward to 1975 as the Vietnam War that had challenged my patriotism in the late 60s had ended.  My renewed enthusiasm for American liberty blossomed with patriotic fervor.  I was conscious of a personal imperative to take an active role in defending that liberty.  I had tried to reenlist in the Army after my crash and burn in Navy basic training in 1969. [See chap. 13-16, 22] The 1976 stunningly successful Entebbe raid to free Jewish airline hostages contrasted strongly with the previous year’s humiliating abandonment of Saigon. Frustrated by rejection of my attempts to reenlist in the US military, I had heard somewhere that, as a Jew, I could obtain dual citizenship and serve in the Israeli Defense Forces. I flirted with that idea, but it was just too much of a stretch and when the opportunity came up to join the fight against Communist-terrorism in Rhodesia, I put thoughts of Israel on-hold.   

In Rhodesia I found myself posing for a photo-op with other foreign soldiers standing in front of their respective national flags of the USA, UK, Australia, Canada, France, Belgium, and South Africa. This was a quasi-political/marketing promotion for Robin Moore’s book on the Rhodesian bush war, The Crippled Eagles focused on the Americans serving in the Rhodesian Army.  I was asked to stand in front of the Israeli flag even though I had never been to Israel!  But, in Robin’s thinking, I was connected to Israel.  [See “The Interview” chap. 33 - 34]  Again, when I became the base chaplain in Bulawayo and met the local rabbi [See chap. 56], I heard a faint whisper that reminded me of something that was stirring in my heart once again.  That night I heard a direct invitation to “come to Israel” from an Israeli rabbi.  

As Pegi and I returned to Houston and we reintegrated into American life, I felt I needed to learn to read the Bible in the original Hebrew and enrolled in biblical Hebrew correspondence courses. My Hebrew studies progressed quickly and I was soon reading the first few chapters of Genesis on my own!  

The more I engaged directly with the text of the Hebrew Bible, the more my heart was stirred.  Up until this time, I had engaged with its message through others:  parents, teachers, theologians and philosophers.  I had listened carefully to what they said was the godly direction/meaning/purpose of life, but there was something stirring in me that was somehow different and uniquely Jewish—and connected to the land of Israel.  [See 60 -- ♪♪ On Wisconsin, on Wisconsin ♪♪ Again! (1979)]

The voice that drew my attention to Israel stirred again with our trip in 1986. [See chap. 101]By 1999 as I finished my dissertation on the diversion of Christianity from the root of Judaism, we seriously considered moving to Israel.  When Abi started high school we again considered moving from Chicago to Israel.  But what would we do there for a living?  What could we contribute?  What practical role could we fill?  

In 2010, I was teaching college students about religious experiences.  The more I taught, the more that Jewish draw to Israel intensified.  And now in the fall of 2022, with Pegi’s retirement  and Abi’s move to Georgia, I was hearing that urging insistently.  Our response was to initiate the process of making Aliyah [to go up/ascend] to Israel. We would go as retirees to Israel. 

In January of 2023 we began the Aliyah process.  It was an exciting but grueling process that I won’t detail here.  But by the end of August, 2023 we whittled our possessions down to six suitcases and a crate for our Bernedoodle Mini, Scout.  Although we were now senior citizens we were still filled up with life and ready to go on one final adventure. [I am reminded of Caleb full of vigor and spirit at age 85.  Josh 14:6-14]  

Scout, Pegi and I climbed into our rented SUV and drove to Newark to board an El Al flight to Ben Gurion airport outside Tel Aviv.  We were officially Israeli citizens as we landed!  After gathering our luggage and rescuing a relieved Scout from his crate, the three of us once again climbed into an SUV for the hour taxi ride to our new home—Jerusalem. 

It is impossible for me to explain how this felt.  I just don’t have the words, but a wordless voice vibrated through our very beings.  We made it!  It is wonderful!  This was it—we were here!  This was the dream of seven decades.  This was the fulfillment of what I had been hearing.  This was “The Place”—the Place where God’s voice resonated even from the broken stones of 3000 years.  We raised our flag in our eternal Home!  

120 — Jewish-ish, Jewish-er — Just Jewish (1999-2022)

שְׁמַע יִשְׂרָאֵל יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵינוּ יְהוָה אֶחָד׃

[Sh’ma Yisra'el Adonai Eloheinu Adonai echad.]

Hear, O Yisra’el:  The Lord is our God; the Lord is one. 

 Deut 6:4 - The Koren Jerusalem Bible

This central assertion of Deuteronomy 6:4 has been calling out to me from my childhood.  “Hearing” God was “the reality” that captured my attention and quickened my inner being with consistency and intensity.  It increasingly became the center of my soul’s attention.  I remember awakening to its call in my early teens in both my mother’s Reform Jewish and my father’s Orthodox Jewish synagogues.  It was the only part of Jewish life that enlivened me.  In my father’s Orthodox synagogue, it was the only part of the exclusively Hebrew-language worship that I understood.  In the mostly English worship of my mom’s Reform synagogue, it was the only thing that I could relate to at all!  The Shema became the part of Jewish religious tradition that stuck with me through everything.  

I had spent my conscious life trying to tune-in to hear what God was saying to me in the midst of the cacophony of modern life.  I found myself returning to the Shema over and over again as it called to me, but there were so many other voices to sort through!  There were the internal voices of what I felt, what I desired, what I saw, what I studied, and the external voice of others that shouted at me with enticements or demands.  Yet through it all, on occasion I would hear something quietly speaking to me in my heart.  [See Elijah’s experience of God’s “still small voice” in I Kg 19:11-12].  

My quest had been about discovering and experiencing meaning and purpose in life.  What was the meaning of life? Is there any purpose in living?  Is there a God?  If so, did God know or care about me?  How could I connect with God?  If so, then what did that mean for me practically?  How was I to live out that reality?  These questions bridged “what” and “why.” I had been working on this all by myself in the early 1970s—then I met Pegi!  

וַיֹּ֙אמֶר֙ יְהֹוָ֣ה אֱלֹהִ֔ים לֹא־ט֛וֹב הֱי֥וֹת הָֽאָדָ֖ם לְבַדּ֑וֹ אֶֽעֱשֶׂה־לּ֥וֹ עֵ֖זֶר כְּנֶגְדּֽוֹ׃

And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a help to match him.

Genesis 2:18 - The Koren Jerusalem Bible

When I met Pegi everything was different.  There was something that connected us beyond the obvious — that she was stunningly beautiful!  Although our lives had been polar opposites, there was an undeniable convergence of our souls.  In 1999, we were starting our third decade hearing that familiar quiet voice calling to us to explore our Jewishness, but what is Jewishness?  The modern term “Jewish” denotes descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (renamed Yisra’el - wrestled with God and man- Gen 32:28).  In the 18th century BCE,  Jacob (Yisrael) has 12 sons, one of whom he named Judah (יהודה Yehudah-praised).  By the 10th century BCE the descendants of those 12 sons were firmly established in the biblical “Land of Israel” (ארץ ישראל Eretz Israel) centered in Jerusalem under King David from the tribe of Judah.  By the 1st century BCE, this became the Roman province of Judea—thus Judaism-Jews-Jewish. Yep! We were part of that stream and it was time to start swimming in those waters.  After all, what else would you expect from a Wasserman — a “water man”—but to swim!

1999-2009 would be a time of increasing Jewish connection for us.  We celebrated life together on holidays and Shabbat services.  We connected Torah teaching to living in a modern context.    Our hearts were filled and lifted up in worship with ancient tunes and modern Israeli-style music.  Abi dove right into her Jewish identity with other teens, learning Hebrew at New Trier High School and tutoring younger children in the congregation.  She attended summer camp in Israel getting an up-close look at Jewish teen life before going off to university.  

In 2007, we rejoiced when our family grew as Abi returned from university and gave birth to Aiden.   By this time, I rediscovered my love of guitar and the classic rock of my teens.  What started as a basement jam session became the Rage Against Age band as we played weekend gigs in the Chicago area.  In 2009 I began writing this story as a blog and found employment as an adjunct professor of World Religions at community colleges in the Chicago area.  Until my retirement in 2023, my students and I would survey the broad history of human religious experience.  I was finally doing what I really wanted to do — to acquaint my students to the religious experience of others.  If they could see how others understand and relate to the universe around them, then they could find understanding and connection for themselves.  I hoped this could help them hear the voice of God for themselves.

During this period, we continued to swim in the Jewish stream of experience, finding ourselves more and more fulfilled in Jewish life.  We had started as Jewish-ish and became Jewish-er as we joined our Torah-living with others of the seed of Abraham, descendants of Issac and Jacob—members of the Jewish religious faith.  

Which currents of modern Jewish experience did we swim in:  Orthodox, Modern Orthodox, Open Orthodox, Conservative, or Reform?  And what Jewish cultural waters did we swim in:  Ashkenazi (north and eastern Europe), Sephardi (southern Europe and Mediterranean), Mizrachi (north African and Arabian) or Persian?  Am I religious or secular, traditional or contemporary?  

I have a simple answer for all of these questions—“YES to all of it”!  I find fulfillment swimming in all  Jewish streams that bring me closer to God.  I resist the pull in any one direction to the exclusion of the other.  It is all about balancing the tensions.  I am connected to it all and it is all connected to me.  I am just a Jew, a son of Israel, the seed of Abraham the Hebrew—the “friend of God.”

But you, Israel, My servant, Jacob, whom I have chosen, Seed of Abraham My friend—

Isa 41:8 - JPS (1985)

In the fall of 2022 Pegi retired from a 45 year career in nursing.  Abi and family were making plans for moving to the Atlanta area in order to manage their growing property management business.  I had always quipped that as long as I had listeners, I would keep teaching “until all my teeth fell out!”  However, even before Covid, I had noticed an enrollment drop off in philosophy and religion courses.  The shift to online teaching was . . . well, not a very satisfying experience for students or teachers.  Once we emerged from the pandemic’s isolation, we were all sick and tired of sitting around thinking about life—it was time to get out and do some living!  I still had 5 class sessions each semester, but the average class size decreased by 65%.  I was trying to connect with my students with everything I had, but it seemed that there were fewer who drew anything out of me.  I still had my teeth (!!!), but it seemed to me that it might be time to move on from the classroom.  With Pegi’s retirement and Abi’s move, there didn’t seem to be much meaning and purpose for our life in Chicago any longer.  

What now? What was the next destination on this life-ling journey?  

No sooner than I asked the question, I heard a familiar faint whisper, “Now you can finally go where you have always wanted to go to live—Israel!” 

119 — One Small Step for a Man—A Giant Leap for this Wasser-man (Fall 1999)

As a child I didn’t encounter that many other Jews.  On my mother’s side of the family, I met only adults who were fully Americanized originally from 19th century Germany, whose connection to Judaism had only faint connections to Jewish life.  I am sure that there were children from my mother’s side of the family, but I just don’t remember any interactions with them.  My maternal grandfather had died in the early 1930s when my mom was only five years old.  His family had settled in Cincinnati, 100 miles to the northeast of my home in Louisville.  I recall one visit to Cincinnati when I was 5 or 6 and hearing about a male relative who had lived to age 95.  I claimed that age as my goal in life since it seemed like an eternity at the time!  Of course, I will turn 76 next month with 95 two decades off.  Hopefully, I will be finished writing my story by then!  If not, then I will switch my goal to match the goal of many Jews—the 120 years that Moses lived!  

My father’s parents came to America from traditional Orthodox Jewish life in Ukraine in the first decade of the 20th century. They had also become Americanized, but had stronger connections to traditional Jewish life.  I never met my paternal grandfather.  He died in his mid-fifties when my father was only 10.  [Neither of my parents had a father present in their formative years.  Maybe that explains why they couldn’t make their marriage work.  They had no model for the male parental role to emulate.] My Uncle Herman Wasserman was 17 at the time and he stepped in to help my grandmother Sarah in raising my dad, Marvin.  

Uncle Herman was an important influence in my life, more so than my father who began to  find his way to shalom late in life.  Herman was the most loving, caring, generous and gentle person I have ever met—he radiated shalom.  Friday Shabbat meals in his home with Aunt Blanche and their children, Neil and Janie, along with grandma Sarah, constituted the most powerful Jewish influence in my life.  It wasn’t the outward Jewishness that they exposed me to.  Rather it was something appealing in the way they lived.  To this day, the life I experienced with them is my most treasured Jewish memory and one of the standards by which I evaluate my own life. 

Left to right:  Jeff - Grandma Sarah - Marvin (Dad)

                            1967

Uncle Herman - Jeff - Marvin (Dad)

My high school circle of acquaintances included a half-dozen Jewish kids who were mostly from assimilated and strongly secularized Jewish families—culturally and intellectually disconnected to traditional Orthodox Judaism.  At that time, Orthodoxy represented only about 10% of American Jewish life.  Other Jewish kids that I encountered were forced to attend events and classes at the Reform congregation where my mother and step-father were members.  That didn’t work or even appeal at all to me, my Jewish acquaintances or even to my step-brother or sisters.  

I don’t remember ever attending a Bar Mitzvah (Bat Mitzvahs for girls were not a “thing” for my social circle in the 1960s).  I did attend some Bar Mitzvah parties—dances at Standard Country Club, a Jewish country club where my mother, step-father and my father had membership.  I had a few acquaintances I met there around the swimming pool and tennis courts during the summer months. Those dances featured leading local rock ’n roll bands on the Louisville scene.  The two I remember the most distinctly were The Epics and The Monarchs, both of whom had recordings in the pre-Beatles 60s on national Top 40 radio.  This was in the days when musicians had slicked-back oily hairstyles.  In spite of the “greaser” personas, I was drawn to the simplicity and rawness of the music.  

When I was in 7th grade (1961), my mother, who played piano by ear, suggested that I could quit my struggles with piano lessons.  She suggested that I could take guitar lessons instead.  That energized me and I started lessons on a $5 rental guitar.  For my birthday that year, my father bought me my first electric guitar and a tiny amplifier.  I remember the day when we went into Durlauf’s Music Shop and came out with a Gibson 330 in cherry red.  This guitar was an expensive top-of-the line model that the pros played!  I could barely play two of the six strings, but I treasured that guitar.  

Durlauf’s Guitar Shop

My guitar and me

By 1962, I was playing in a neighborhood rock bands and in 1965, we were the band playing at the country club Bar Mitzvahs, as well as school dances, parties and even at “band battles” at the Kentucky Fair and Exposition Center twice.  Three years later, we took first place and were rewarded with a big trophy and an appearance on a local TV music show.  At the peak of our success, we graduated high school and left for different universities.

(Left to right) Simon - Jeff  - Ron 

1962 neighborhood jam-session

(Left to right)  Jeff - Buzzy - Ray (drums) - Randy - Ben 

                   Battle of the Bands -1965

Jeff    Buzzy    Ben 

     Ray

Buzzy     Jeff   Ray                 

At Westport High School - 1967

With Jon (bass) and Bruce (vocals)

At Westport High School - 1967

My closest friendships were with my fellow band members and my high school basketball team.  None of them were Jewish.

So, why tell you all of this?  Well, at age 50 in 1999, I was finally in a circle of Jews.  Instead of being tossed into the pool of Jewish life as my father had tossed me into that pool in Miami [111 — Teaching Myself to Swim (Fall 1987)], I was wading into Jewish life and would learn to swim in a Jewish “circle” (Hakafa) by my own choosing and at my own pace.  After all, a journey is best undertaken one step at a time.