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.