My Journey: Hashem, Buddha, Allah, Darwin
FreiFem2011Unpious Forum commenter ThisPieceisMine asks about the religious paths and proclivities of us unpious, so I thought I’d share a little bit about mine – and I’d love to hear about yours.
When I left the Charedi community as a teenager, I still considered myself deeply spiritual and I believed in (and, somewhat masochistically given my circumstances, loved) God.
And so I began my religious journey, guided by spirit and heart as much as head.
I was in Israel then, and I was attracted to the “mizrachim”, the devoutly religious dati, whose spiritual devotion did not interfere with a sense of obligation to the world, a respect for education, and a penchant for flowing gypsy skirts and scarves. They (a dati boy with spectacular blue eyes who I was convinced was the love of my life, and a very kind and patient dati Rabbi) were my “gateway” drug – presenting me with an option that was palatable to my aidel naïveté, while beginning to address some of my frustrations and questions.
But I never really built a community in that world, I was too young and unequipped to know how, and my life circumstances deteriorated to a point where survival became more important than any other struggle. I found myself back in New York, sobbing into my siddur, dressed in long skirts and modest blouses that disguised my hungers and angers, living in a tiny apartment on the edge of Boro Park, on the outskirts of the frum community, ostracized by my family, alone.
But I was still searching for answers.
I tried (briefly) to force Rastafarianism into a solution(the circumstances surrounding that are an entirely different story), but found the philosophy shallow and the practice generally self-serving.
A few years later, having drifted further from Judaism, I sought out a Zen Buddhist temple, and then a Zen Buddhist teacher. I found that practices and philosophies incredibly powerful and incredibly wise. I learned basic tools for living life that, while simple, transformed me deeply: Focus entirely on one thing at a time. Travel the middle road. Act with your wisdom and heart in concert. Find stillness and follow your breath to reconnect. Although I eventually drifted from that world, I still treasure, and try to practice, what I learned there.
A Rosicrucian friend of mine brought me to a Sufi service, a few years after that, and there, I fell totally in love. It was a very liberal mosque, situated in lower Manhattan, lead by a Sheika –an American woman, who spoke softly, but powerfully, about beauty and love.
We sat in circles on the ground, arms around each other, and chanted in waves of sound that seemed to pull our souls flowing across our arms, so we became one giant, circular river of spirit. We danced together, late at night, turning and singing and moaning in estatic joy. We read poetry and shared dreams and kneeled to Mecca. I will admit that I didn’t probe too deeply into the intellectual riggings of the practice, but the pure joy and the positivity of the teachings, the stress on god’s love, on our love, and the other-worldly physical sensations of the services were enough for me, at least for a while. I converted, gained a new, Arabic, name, and became a “dervish”, learning the sacred whirling dance from a Turkish immigrant who gave me a stone to place between my toes as I tried to throw myself off the ground, into the swirling rhythm of Allah.
I should clarify, that my leaving Sufism a few months later, as I had left other practices I explored, didn’t mean I was picking up each tradition, playing with it, and then discarding it. Rather, I was picking up each tradition, trying on its clothing, its garb, then removing most of it, but keeping an item or two that spoke to me, that became part of me, as I continued on my search.
By then, I had seen enough of life, seen the insides and underbellies of enough religions, that my spiritual fervor had faded. I began to learn more about science and evolution, and as I did, my mind was blown in a way that no religion could match. I found clear, copious proof for what I already knew – there was no god. Instead, there was a glorious unknown, a universe of mysteries that science could give us small glimpses of. The awe I felt (and feel) for the beauty of the natural world – it was deeper than the very powerful awe I used to feel for god. The truth and grace in science answered my intellectual questions with complete, brilliant truths and engaged my heart with delight and wonder. Go check out this video for more on the latter.
Still, my search is not entirely over. As I get older, and my anger towards the religious community abates (just a small amount), I’ve gained the clarity to realize that what I call “Judaism” is actually a perversion appropriated by a male hierarchy over the past few hundred years. Who says these men have a right to define god? To edit our history? To make up our traditions? Even though I don’t believe in god, don’t I have a right to enjoy the parts of my cultural history that add meaning to my life?
And so, my newest experiment – Renewal Judaism. We belong to Romemu, a Renewal shurch (shule in a church). We got every Friday night to services. Although I disagree with some of the movement’s ideas, I cherish the enjoyment of pieces of my youth, reset in a context I can stomach. I can savor a small piece of Judaism without feeling like I’m being intellectually dishonest. From the pulpit, the Rabbi embraces those who don’t believe in god. Prayers are sung in familiar Carlbach tunes, but adjusted so Miriam is given her due as much as Moshe, and so other nations share in the blessings we ask for the Jews. And “Shalom” is sung, “Shalom, Salaam, Om Shanti”.
There is a lot more detail and nuance to this journey (obviously), enough to fill a book. But this is the quick review. What’s your story? Focusing on your personal, intellectual + emotional view instead of the philosophical arguments, where do you actually stand now and how did you get here?
23 Responses
Thank you so much for sharing your story with us! You are so lucky to have so many life experiences to learn and grow from. The joys and even the pain that you had obviously helped mold you into the special person you clearly are.
I am somewhat jealous – but in a good way.
You are so smart to take truth and lessons from all of the different experiences you’ve had. This will serve you well in the great adventure that lies ahead for you – birthing and raising your child. This will indeed be an undertaking of major responsibility, probably the biggest challenge for you yet! He or she will be lucky to have you as a parent to teach and guide. I wish you all the best in this endeavor.
And – of course – Happy Purim!
Thank you Chay N.!
Funny – I visited the derga in Tribeca once… it reminded me of Romemu. These happy smiley feel good religions are so superficial and false, I cannot help feeling repulsed – as if I had too much candy. Of course, they are preferable to patriarchal and oppressive versions, but I don’t see much good coming from their infantile fantasies.
I do see how harm can come from them. I have spoken to the settlers who are sure that their neighbors are amalek.
Interesting points you bring up.
It seems like you are having trouble recognizing that there can be a kind and loving G-d with all the suffering that takes place in the world.
People always say, “How can their be a kind, loving G-d who killed six million Jews in the holocaust”. I have always found that a rather strange question. Why do they have to bring up one of the greatest horrors of human
history to deal with the problem of suffering. Every time a child skins their knee playing ball, or anyone catches a cold or gets a paper cut we have the question of
suffering vs. G-d’s goodness. Its all suffering. Yet the only thing people bring up is the six million or in your example a troubled youth.
Of course suffering is a problem for the believer. Of course we can’t answer why certain people get certain terrible illnesses or go through other tragedies.
Nonetheless, in my humble opinion, suffering is not the main the message that the universe is sending us.
If any honest person would look at his life and count how many miracles and kindnesses that have occurred to him vs. how much
suffering, it would become clear that the message of the universe is one of love and kindness. I do not mean only big things like winning the lottery or sitting on the beach in Hawaii and eating fresh pineapple.
The fact that you can see, that your eyes can notice people whom you have not seen for years and recall their name and favorite baseball team, that your ears can hear music and all of a sudden hear three notes of song you have not heard in 25 years and know what it is, when you last heard it and whom you heard it with… Just for the human eye
to work properly it takes millions of constantly occurring miracles. If any one little thing is off kilter the whole thing falls apart. Then there is the heart, circulatory system, reproductive system,
brain, memory, deja vu, dreams, the Beatles. Endless miracles and incredible acts of love and kindness seem to be happening all the
time, non stop all around the world, every second of every day.
If you want to believe that a magnificent work of art can be formed by spilling paint a trillion times or that that the human body with its endlessly complex design came to be through random mutations over trillions of years, then I certainly would never have the chutzpah to argue with you. This is your belief system. Your religious beliefs are your personal business. Just because I can’t understand your belief system because to me it seems too irrational does not mean I can knock it. Just because I don’t have your level of faith does not necessarily mean you are wrong. You are just much more religious than I am. I can accept that. I am no great Rabbi or anything.
So just continue hanging out in your schurch wallowing in self pity, complaining about your troubled childhood. It sounds awful, all those years breathing, eating, walking talking and jumping around in Boro Park. Oy the terrible mistreatment. G-d was not kind enough to you. Must be its time to write a FreiFem blog. I understand what your are going through and you are always welcome at my seder.
Love and kindness Mitch? From the god who would have us kill, rape, enslave and mutilate?
Mitch, only a small tiny part of natural selection is random. Read about it and then come back here and talk about it with an informed view.
The fact is, in 1953 Watson and Crick deciphered DNA.
That was crunch time. It was a chance in history to disprove evolution once and for all. If DNA had shown heredity between species, then evolution is true, if not, as predicted by the creationist view, the creationist view was to be right.
Needless to say not only did DNA resolutely show heredity, it even showed ancestral retroviruses that an ancestor of ours and of the great apes had.
Seriously though Mitch please take the time to study evolution properly. It is a simple and beautiful theory proven beyond any shadow of a doubt.
Not only does the design and complexity of all created things in the universe testify to a Creator, but on top of all that the Creator created everything only for one creature in the universe–Mankind. The whole world with all of its infinite complexity was created for Man.
There are millions of examples of this. Everything is built in such a way that it is of the utmost benefit in every possible way (physical, psychological, spiritual) to the crown of creation, Man.
This shows that not only is their design in nature but there is a purpose to all of this and that is the maintenance and education of mankind. I can start to list many examples of this but we can do that on a later post.
This is the basis on which the Torah makes its claim about reward and punishment, mitzva observance etc…It is all based on the premise that the whole world was made for man. I agree that if there is just this cosmic ingenious design in every blade of grass or every cell in the human body but yet it served no other purpose than to show off the power of the Creator, then your questioning of the Torah is on firm ground.
If though, it can be proven that the universe and all of its endlessly complex design was made solely for the purpose Man, then one has to then figure out what on earth he or she is doing here and how we best connect to all of this.
If we through some slight variance in mutation could have wound up just as amoebas in a swamp than who cares how we live our life and we might as well have no morals, laws or any sense of right and wrong.
Mitch, which morals do you refer to? Murder (e.g. amalek), rape (eved ivri who may sleep with another shifcha kenaanit every night and Parshat ki setseh), enslavement and mutilation (mishpatim) as mandated by the God of the bible?
>Not only does the design and complexity of all created things in the universe testify to a Creator,
Well no, actually it does not, for we have explanations for most of the complexities and they do not involve a creator. Besides, the creator theory solves nothing since the creator too was created ex nihilo. If the creator can always have existed then perhaps energy always existed.
You made a claim that evolution is to your mind implausible, I pointed to some very strong evidence for evolution and why it is not only plausible but proven beyond a shadow of doubt.
Whilst I have given you evidence, you have merely restated the non-substantive and meaningless waffle we were raised with.
My guess is you were born a Jew, had you have been born in Islamabad you would be just as convinced that Gabriel spoke to the prophet PBUH. Think out of the box, trust your intellect and you will find the truth based upon scientific and historical evidence.
Mr. O Neil,
I like your Irish Jewish name.
Anyway. Close your eyes for 20 seconds and think about your brain. If you believe that thing made itself through random mutation, not are you far more religious than me but I would even say you can be called fanatical.
Please don’t bore me with some pseudo intellectual scientific response. Just take a deep breath, sit back, close your eyes and think about your brain for 20 seconds…
I realize that if you admit the G-d thing and you are a truthful person you may have to make some lifestyle changes. But that is for later. Now we have to just work on basic sanity–basic goyishekeit. Yiddishkeit is much much later.
Frei Fem wrote: And so, my newest experiment – Renewal Judaism. We belong to Romemu, a Renewal shurch (shule in a church).
My guess is that this is a room full of the biggest nerds in NYC. I get nervous in a room full of nerds. Please lets not get silly here. Either the Torah is true or it is not. No need to hang with Jews if it is not true.
Emes Rocker on April 22, 2011 at 4:38 pm
Highly suggest all people in this discussion watch the film “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed” -a 2008 documentary film, directed by Nathan Frankowski and hosted by Ben Stein. The film contends that the mainstream science establishment suppresses academics who believe they see evidence of intelligent design in nature and who criticize evidence supporting Darwinian evolution and the modern evolutionary synthesis as a mainstream conspiracy to keep God out of science laboratories and classrooms. The scientific theory of evolution is portrayed by the film as contributing to fascism, the Nazi Holocaust, communism, atheism, and eugenics
They can all get you interesting places. All require a certain amount of time, dedication and tedious work. I’m reminded of people who say “I’ve got twenty years in the martial arts.” Look at their attributes and skills and you say “No. You have six months of ten different systems and have done the first five years of another one three times.”
Emes, with all due respect “Expelled” is a tendentious, dishonest, intellectually bankrupt, self-contradictory piece of crap. And I’m being needlessly generous in my assessment. There’s a reason actual biologists like P.Z. Myers were summarily tossed out of the Q&A screenings. The lying bastards responsible for that piece of propaganda can’t tolerate anything but softball questions pitched slowly by ignorant shills.
And further, Emes, you don’t understand anything about evolutionary biology or how it works. Seriously. If you’re using the phrase “collection of random mutations” you really don’t. I’d suggest you try something on the subject written by someone with actual credentials. Not young Earth creationists or the bald-faced liars at the Aishe Discovery indoctrination.
Shalom Aleichem Todd,
Nice to hear from you!
If Evolutionary Biology points us in the direction of recognizing G-ds hand in the creation and continued existence of life, then I am fine with it. If it tries to hide the obvious truth of a Creator then I believe that it has about as much intellectual credibility as Al Sharpton.
Nothing “b’mikra happens b’ribui”(Maharal). The accidental formation of the human eye to happen one time would be utterly astounding as millions of nerve fibers have to work in unison. The fact that it happens trillions of times can only be the work of a Divine Creator.
As I have said many times, I do not have enough faith to be a believer that complex designs can form accidentally. I am not that religious.
As for your thoughts on the film Expelled-No Intelligence Required… While I do realize there were some flaws in the film, nonetheless I thought that it was a good primer on the fundamentalism of the scientific establishment.
The reason why the movie received bad reviews from the mainstream press is simple–if you praise the movie you will lose your job. There an ultra orthodoxy at work on certain subjects in the mainstream “secular” world and their boundaries cannot be crossed without serious repercussions on ones career.
“The accidental formation of the human eye to happen one time would be utterly astounding as millions of nerve fibers have to work in unison”
the odds of someone winning the multi-state powerball lottery is 1 in 643,000,000,000. YET SOMEONE WON! how could that be?!?!? LOL
“If Evolutionary Biology points us in the direction of recognizing G-ds hand in the creation ….”
oh, your starting point contains no bias, does it? hahahah. do you understand the scientific method?
Ksil my friend- your name is quite descriptive of your comment. Thank you for proving my point. It is true that the odds of someone winning the multi state lottery is 1 in 643,000,000,000. Now lets see the same person win it twice in a row or 5 times in a row or 5 trillion times in a row. Yet we see this everywhere we look in the natural world from a mosquito, to a snowflake, to the optic fibers in the eye.
Now lets see random mutation to take a tipa shrucha and form it into a creature who can write poetry, build a microchip, play Beethoven, learn 70 languages, know Shas baal peh….
Ksil–throw on your yarmulke and start davening. Vayehi Erev Vayehi Boker…Yom Hashishi…Yummm, I can taste the challah already! You can serve G-d and be on very strong grounds intellectually. Now you just have to figure out how to have fun doing it. Give me a call and we can shmooze. You know deep down atheism is a form of mental illness. I am amazed they allow atheists voting rights and drivers licenses. I wonder why they are not considered legally blind.
Ah, life’s rich pageant!
Good Shabbos!
ER
you crack me up
i thought you were a smart intellectual scintific mind? you did not know the watchmaker argument is bunk? hmmm….weird
anyhoo, you are an atheist too! do you believe in jesus? mohamaed? zeus? santa? no, you say? well look at that! you are the same as the atheist you claim to be mentally ill….interesting! (although, i have to say that it seems the frum are mentally ill, but thats just me…cults, you know how they are)
as for my name, you are correct. I KNOW i do not have all the answers – you arrogantly think you do have them all (and 99.9% of the globe is mentally ill) what do you think that tells you?? LOL
gut shabbos
According to polls 98% of Americans believe in G-d. Not exactly cultish behavior.
The argument that I put forward cannot be knocked off without serious religious faith that I don’t possess. Atheism is far too boring a lifestyle for me. I like to party and have a good ol’ time. Atheism to me is like being stuck in a never ending calculus class with a professor with bad breath and pants up to his ankles. It is really about being a philosophical nerd and at the end of the day life ain’t too fun when you realize that one digit this way or another and you could have wound up as a piece of mold on an old rug. Ouch! who just stepped on me!!
Anyhow I wish you a great Shabbos. Nothing to be angry about.
Let’s just party!!! That is my intellectualism for you!
Have some Slivovitz and some kichel and fish and call me when you chill out.
PEACE YA’LL!
EMES ROCKER
“My guess is that this is a room full of the biggest nerds in NYC”
Nope, that would be the Fu School of Engineering at Columbia University. And what’s wrong with nerds? I’m proud to be one! My husband attended a STEM high school New York. He’s one too!
Given that my daughter just graduated from the premier nerd high school in America, I should inform you “nerd” just doesn’t apply here. Not every quest is about rejecting religion.
“Have some Slivovitz and some kichel and fish”
Given that my trip to spend Shabbos in Williamsburg was abruptly canceled late last night, I might just take you up on your offer, ER! Many would argue here, why would you want to go there in the first place? Good point! I’ll stop sulking and get over it.
I have some deep Torah on the word nerd which I could explain if you would like. It really has more to do with poorly developed middos rather than appearance but it was just my sense of humor popping up.
Always appreciate humor, Emes Rocker. I know I got off tangent but nerd is very much part of my orbit. Or rather my child’s. In the world of teens, in the secular world that is, you’ve got the world of pop and celeb culture and over-sexualization of young girls. And then you’ve got the nerds. I’m just so relieved my now graduated high schooler is in the latter camp. As an aside, just so you know, ER, I did had my daughter in a Jewish day school for several years. I always thought she’d graduate from a Jewish school, that was actually our fervent wishes. In the end, she attended a selective magnet STEM high school.
The nerd versus the average kid touches on another theme Frei Fem and the latest post have been dissecting. How to raise morally conscious confident smart scholarly and yes, Jewishly learned girls in a world that is shallow, media saturated and sex obsessed.
I have come to know more about the young Off the Derech scene, a window offered up by a relative. I am frankly dismayed to see the pendulum swinging in the opposite extreme. And I understand that without a compass, without guidance, when a young person leaves the insular world of Chassidim, they have to craft a whole new set of rules. Without parental guidance, this can be very murky.
As a parent, it’s not Either Or for me. My mother always saw this in black and white. Chassidim were fine and pure, everyone else was pretty much dirt. If you sent your kids to public school, you were consigning to a life of drugs, sex, and debauchery. The fact that I’ve left the Chassidic world (well, I visit a lot so I’m there, a fly on the wall) doesn’t mean I don’t care about drugs, underage sex, smoking and the like.
It’s easier for me. I was fortunate to get out before I got married off as a teenager and had children. I don’t have to negotiate with my husband. He was raised Reform. My heart breaks for people on this site who have to give up their children in order to leave. I tell my husband what I read here. He has a perspective too as he visits Chassic enclaves along with me. I said to him, if we’d ever divorced while our daughter was still young, there would be no question that both of us would be fully involved with our only child. It would have gone without saying that both of us would have had full access to her.
I consider myself very lucky I got out early. On the downside, I didn’t have a Footsteps or this on line journal to guide me. To this day, I have never met a person of my age who did what I did, when I did it. I am sure they exist. Where are they? Boy, would I love to talk and compare notes. Do you go back? How do you do it? Does you family shun you? If not, isn’t it always like walking on eggshells?
This is way off tangent now. Off the Derech, if you will. But at least I managed to comment on two different entries in one fell swoop!
Resubmitting. Correcting some minor typos and adding text:
Always appreciate humor, Emes Rocker. I know I got off tangent but nerd is very much part of my orbit. Or rather my child’s. In the world of teens, in the secular world that is, you’ve got the world of pop and celeb culture and over-sexualization of young girls. And then you’ve got the nerds. I’m just so relieved my now graduated high schooler is in the latter camp. As an aside, just so you know, ER, I did have my daughter in a Jewish day school for several years. I always thought she’d graduate from a Jewish school, that was actually our fervent wishes. In the end, she attended a selective magnet STEM high school.
The nerd versus the average kid touches on another theme FreiFem and the latest post have been dissecting. How to raise morally conscious confident smart scholarly and yes, Jewishly learned girls in a world that is shallow, media saturated and sex obsessed.
I have come to know more about the young Off the Derech scene, a window offered up by a relative. I am frankly dismayed to see the pendulum swinging in the opposite extreme. And I understand that without a compass, without guidance, when a young person leaves the insular world of Chassidim, they have to craft a whole new set of rules. Without parental guidance, this can be very murky. It’s not parents telling you how to navigate step by step. It’s that when our 18 year olds go off into the world, hopefully confident and assured, it’s because we have readied them for it from the moment they were born. It’s what we did yesterday that matters today. It’s the conversations we had about drugs and cyber security and what to post on Facebook and what not to post.
As a parent, it’s not Either Or for me. My mother always saw this in black and white. Chassidim were fine and pure, everyone else was pretty much dirt. If you sent your kids to public school (and I’m actually a big advocate of Jewish day schools and would always recommend trying that first. I’m not even wild about the Modern Orthodox ones but there are fabulous community, conservative and reform ones to peruse), you were consigning them to a life of drugs, sex, and debauchery. The fact that I’ve left the Chassidic world (well, I visit a lot so I’m there, a fly on the wall) doesn’t mean I don’t care about drugs, underage sex, smoking and media saturation.
It’s easier for me. I was fortunate to get out before I got married off as a teenager and had children. I don’t have to negotiate with my husband. He was raised Reform. I feel deep empathy for parents on this site who have to give up their children in order to leave. What a “Judgement of Solomon” that is. I tell my husband what I read here. He has a perspective too as he visits Chassidic enclaves along with me. I said to him, if we’d ever divorced while our daughter was still young, there would be no question that both of us would be fully involved with our only child. It would have gone without saying that both of us would have had full access to her.
I consider myself very lucky I got out early. On the downside, I didn’t have a Footsteps or this on line journal to guide me. To this day, I have never met a person of my age who did what I did, when I did it. I am sure they exist. Where are they? Boy, would I love to talk and compare notes. Do you go back? How do you do it? Does you family shun you? If not, isn’t it always like walking on eggshells? It’s one thing to wear that shmate on your head in Williamsburg. What do you do when you’re in the emergency room with your elderly mother, in Manhattan, and you look like something out of Fiddler on the Roof. Take it off and you royally piss off your elderly mother who is hissing at you anyway. You shake the doctor’s hand and he gives you this confused look. The shmate and handshake don’t compute. What do you do?
This is way off tangent now. Off the Derech, if you will. But at least I managed to comment on several different entries in one fell swoop!