Gonzo Judaism: Carping

I don't know if anyone cares but...
It must have been sometime in 1984.
I was already a bad Jew: I hadn’t been bat-mitzvahed, though I did go to Saturday morning services regularly. The new rabbi had no idea who I was. The rabbi he’d replaced knew who I was, but hadn’t liked me much (I was friendly with his daughter, and as a pair we were Trouble). I remember that I liked going to synagogue, but basically, synagogue didn’t seem to like me, and it had been that way my whole life.
And this weekend, the new rabbi, whose name I remember but will not cite, delivered a sermon which sealed the deal. I never went back to that suburban Connecticut synagogue (where that man is still rabbi), simply because – even at the age of 13 or 14 – I could not handle this idiocy.
The sermon was called “Temple Beth Sholom vs. the Temple of Doom.”
The rabbi was trying to simultaneously be hip and draw his congregation away from popular culture. I didn’t think it could be done, and I thought the rabbi was an idiot, a fool, and just… a waste of time.
Let’s just say that ever since then I’ve been particularly skeptical of clergy who try to be cool, who seem to make a point of being down with whatever you’re supposed to be down with. I love old Doonesbury cartoons with the Rev. Scot Sloane, the Fighting Young Priest who can Talk to the Young – but even more, I love it when the Young he’s talking to call his bluff.

I’ve recently become acquainted with a young rabbi who’s a peach of a guy. He’s smart and he’s funny and he’s socially aware and all kinds of good things. He’ll make someone a fine husband someday. I jokingly referred to him, in conversation with my mother, as the Fighting Young Rabbi who can Talk to the Young, but I think now that I was mistaken. The new rabbi in my neighborhood isn’t that guy, and I don’t think he wants to be. The Fighting Young Rabbi seems to be a fellow named Niles Elliot Goldstein, who’s recently published an absolutely slang and hipster-jive-ridden book entitled Gonzo Judaism. I have to be honest: no one sent me this book to review. I stumbled upon it honestly, while browsing the new releases shelves in the public library. With its acid orange cover it looked like a lot of other books being published these days (you see this color on Legs McNeil’s awesome book about the porn industry, for example) but with that title, I had to pick up the book and examine it.
The book looked kind of dumb to me. I debated putting it back and not thinking about it any further. And then I thought, “Well, somebody’s gonna ask me in six weeks if I’ve read this thing. I might as well get prepared.” So I took it home with me. Started reading it on the bus, in fact. Within six pages I was annoyed. I got home by page 15 and said to my husband, “This book is still annoying and I’m only on page 15.” “Cheer up,” my goyische beloved said, “It can only get more annoying, right?”

Yeah, well, there’s the thing. The book does get more annoying. But part of what makes it annoying is, Rabbi Goldstein’s got some good points. The language he uses is often stupid and idiotic and it has the effect of shooting himself in the foot sometimes, but his basic point, that Jewish religious observance in America has managed to turn off thousands of people it shouldn’t have, is well taken.

If it’s going to survive, the Jewish community must figure out a way to appeal to the young, the disenfranchised, and the simply ornery. Goldstein’s view is that many Jews who belong to these groups (the young, the disenfranchised, and the ornery) have flocked toward agnosticism (whatever) or New Age-y groups (for pity’s sake) but for the wrong reasons. Goldstein makes the valid point that many of the ideas, the principles, and the traditions that these “misplaced” Jews feel they find elsewhere, they can find easily in Judaism if they are simply willing to look beyond the congregations in which they grew up. Goldstein explains that the appreciation for the outdoors, love of nature, love of sensation, that many Jews feel is lost in Judaism, really is there – if you go back far enough in Jewish history that you lose the Protestant veneer that American Jewry developed in the late 19th and early to mid 20th centuries. It doesn’t have to be all heavy dark wood, stained glass, and imperious bearded old men muttering, You can hike the AT and be Jewish at the same time. (In a logical sense, I believe this, but any Jew I know who wants to hike the AT is a Jew I’m not inviting to my Shabbat dinners here. I am, as Woody Allen said, at two with nature.) Goldstein has a nice little set piece, for example, about the use of incense in religious observance. He basically says, “It’s really popular with the New Age people, who seem to feel that they came up with this all on their own. Do they not realize that the sense of smell, and its relationship to spiritual and religious life, is discussed in the Talmud?” Fine point. Certainly Christian worship has used incense for centuries; the spice box of the havdalah service should clue folks in that, yes, smelling wonderful things is part of the even older Jewish tradition too… so, yeah, Goldstein, you got a point.

Much of his crusade is, I think, against the sloppy “religion for one” trend that has come to be quite strong in the U.S. Educated Americans often seem to have a thing against organized religion, which is a little weird – almost phobic, some times. I’m sure we’ve all been at parties where one person admits to having plans to go to Yom Kippur services, or Mass, or something, and everyone else standing there gawps, “No shit? You do that?” as if you’d just confessed to being from Outer Zopp. (They thought you were just from Cleveland Heights. Nope: Outer Zopp.) Yes, yes, Christian evangelicals think it’s cool to go to church --- fine; I’m not talking about that demographic. I’m talking about people who go to nice, expensive liberal arts colleges, your more competitive state universities, and so forth. I’m talking middle and upper middle class people. People who took AP classes, people who took Kaplan classes to prep for getting MBAs and law degrees. Or people who are underemployed as the support staff for the people who got the aforementioned degrees. Whatever. You know what I mean. Desirable, smart, attractive people; people with good politics, good hair, good shoes. Right-on types. Why aren’t they going to synagogue? Why do they so often peruse the religion sections in bookstores, wind up selecting some nice book of essays by Anne Lamott or, when they have kids, The Blessing of a Skinned Knee, and sort of mean well but leave it at that?

Goldstein says – rightfully – that it doesn’t have to be this way, and it shouldn’t have to be this way, and that you can be a right-on type with good hair and still observe the Sabbath. You just have to spend some time and energy to figure out how to make Jewish rituals part of your own routine. You can figure out a way to carve time and energy out of your schedule and produce a life that is more connected to God than to some vague sense of “spirituality” that you bought in a gift shop. It’s unfortunate that Goldstein’s methods are expressed so vapidly, because his ideas aren’t vapid at all. He’s not a stupid person, he’s just not a great writer. He can come off as sanctimonious (not surprisingly), and I often found myself thinking that he must be an arrogant ass in person; but I’m sure that in conversation he can actually be very charming. I mean, Goldstein’s obviously got intelligence and a sense of humor. The potential is there. And he’s good enough to understand that the version of Judaism that turns him on might not be exactly what does it for you – but that there will be some thing, some aspect of Jewish life, that does strike a chord in you. There will be something that does make you want to rest at the end of the week and have a pleasant, contemplative meal over candle light. There will be a holiday that speaks to you, personally, and send you on your way.