I had abandoned my university studies in 1969. Two decades later, I was a student again—this time working towards my doctorate. Maybe I took the advice about not being “in a hurry to be an old man” too literally—Ya think?
Actually, my quest for understanding never went away. I just slowed my pace in recognition that there was no shortcut to wisdom and rushing ahead meant tumbling back down mountain peaks that you weren’t ready to climb—usually landing on your backside! If you have tried to climb to the peak of a mountain, you know that there are many intermediate peaks and valleys that you can not see from your start at ground level. It is not a straightforward climb to the top.
By the 1990s, I was ready to conquer the last peak of my academic studies. I accelerated my effort—finishing my B.A., M.Div. and Ph.D. During my Ph.D. studies I served as an Adjunct Professor, teaching Masters level courses in World Religions and Biblical Hebrew. By 1997 I had developed proficiency in the languages, theologies, methodologies and historical/cultural contexts of human religious experience. More importantly, I now had the basic tools to more objectively examine my own subjective religious experience. I was an “older” man!
Along the way, I had sorted through all the baggage I had acquired, discarding the misconceptions and false gods that had weighed me down or impeded my progress. This meant abandoning efforts to find common cause with evangelical Christians who insisted that it was their way or the highway! We had experienced meaningful connections with many of the Christians we had encountered, but our paths diverged. They insisted on asserting that Jesus was the way to get to God and the full manifestation of God in human form. After two decades, I could no longer tolerate that assertion. For me, Jesus was just a human being whose story evidenced a desire to live for God, but Jesus was not God. In addition, he did not meet the biblical qualifications nor fulfill the expectations of a messiah (משיח “anointed one” - used for significant leaders).
As I was finishing my dissertation, I was offered a lectureship in World Religions and Hebrew language and biblical studies at a Christian graduate program in Singapore. I hoped that this position might afford me space to continue my journey. Anyway, I needed to earn a living for my family and this sure beat selling insurance! So, Pegi, Abi and I packed up our life in Louisville and headed to southeast Asia.
Singapore was a fascinating experience, but I quickly became frustrated with content demands made on me as a teacher and the administrative interference in how we lived as a family. I enjoyed teaching and interacting with the students, but after 18 months of Christian religious bureaucracy, we parted ways for a fresh start as a Jewish family without any Christian connections.
As we left Singapore, I stood at my academic peak, surveying the path that lay ahead. Just as my ancestors had trekked from Egypt through the wilderness for decades and faced their future in the land across the Jordan River that God had promised, I too, was looking ahead to experience His promise for me. Looking back at my own life now that I am an old man, I see the parallels. My years of wandering in the wilderness were over. It was time to move forward to live in the “land” that God had promised.
We decided not to return to Louisville this time—we needed a fresh start. Pegi had been offered a surgical nursing position in Highland Park Hospital, a northern suburb of Chicago. I hoped to find a teaching position in one of the many nearby colleges. We found a nice apartment just a block away from the hospital and enrolled 13 year old Abi in a nearby middle school. She made a Jewish friend on the first day of class whose mother introduced us to a nearby Jewish congregation. We met the rabbi and rapidly found ourselves in a wonderful circle of Jewish families at Congregation Hakafa (“the circle”).
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