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 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 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!”
