Acts of Faith (15 page)

In keeping with this progressive outlook, we future rabbis were required to take courses for “distribution.” That is, something outside the realm of our majors. This could be Math, Chemistry, English Literature, or any of a vast number of disciplines. But most of us were pragmatic enough to choose classes that somehow related to our future calling, and so opted for things like Philosophy.

While H.U. offered a splendid course in the History of Ideas from Plato to Sartre, we were not obliged to limit ourselves to the four walls of our own school. Thanks to a reciprocal arrangement with nearby Columbia University, we could choose from courses taught by that world-renowned institution’s roster of academic giants. Simply leafing through the enormous Columbia catalog was like reading a vast menu for a banquet of knowledge.

But I think I knew what I would choose even before I perused the catalog.

There was a famous course on the Psychology of Religion, taught by an eminent maverick named Professor Aaron Beller, himself descended from a line of distinguished rabbis.

Beller was what we disparagingly call an
epikoros
—a learned Jew who has left the fold. The Orthodox believe that when the Messiah comes, such moral libertines will burn in Hell.

Why, then, did I deliberately elect to confront a serpent who might tempt me with the apple of apostasy?

Perhaps since I believed that throughout my life as a rabbi I would encounter ever stronger arguments against religion, and thought I might as well be armed. And what better way than hearing the devil himself—the most revolutionary, rebellious notions put forth by a brilliant rebel.

Every Tuesday and Thursday morning, I walked the eight blocks from my dorm to Columbia’s Hamilton Hall, the largest lecture room on campus, which Aaron Beller filled to overflow.

That first morning not many of my fellow seminarians were in evidence, although I did notice a small enclave of other skullcaps. Perhaps the rest were too scared, but Columbia students and dozens of faculty auditors flocked to Beller as moths to a flame—to see how close they could fly without setting fire to their own beliefs.

Scattered among the young, tweed-jacketed Columbia preppies and the scruffy graduate students were a number of middle-aged clean-shaven gentlemen with clerical collars—obviously visitors from Union Theological Seminary across the road.

There was a murmur in the classroom, and then a sudden hush as a tall, angular, silver-haired form glided through the door and up to the podium.

Professor Aaron Beller, M.D., Ph.D., eyed his potential victims with a Mephistophelian grin—especially those of us in the back row, those who by sitting as distant from him as possible had betrayed ourselves as the most afraid of his ideas.

“In order to avoid harming the more susceptible
among you,” he began, “perhaps I should explain the philosophy of the course. I think my course should carry a warning analogous to the one on a package of cigarettes. It can be dangerous to your mental health. My psychiatric training has confirmed my opinion that man created God—
not
vice versa.”

He leaned forward on the podium and gave us all a conspiratorial glance.

“Now to the unspoken secret of all religions.” He paused. “In one way or another, man reaches out to God through sexuality.”

The class started to percolate.

“Even during the reign of King David,” Beller continued, “a full five centuries after Moses received the Ten Commandments, Jews still worshiped an ‘Earth Mother,’ as well as Baal, her phallic consort. These were religions whose rites included sacred prostitution.”

At this point the members of the small Orthodox platoon rose to their feet. I recognized their leader as my stocky, full-bearded classmate Wolf Lifshitz, who began to stamp angrily out of the room.

“Hold it!” Beller commanded.

They stopped in their tracks.

He addressed them calmly. “My aim is to inform, not offend. Can you tell me what I’ve said that you find so unacceptable?”

The students exchanged looks, each hoping the other would act as spokesman. Finally, Lifshitz inflated his barrel chest and replied, “You’re blaspheming our religion.”

“Am I?” Beller asked. “Does your religion regard truth as blasphemous?”

“What you’re saying isn’t true,” Lifshitz protested.

“Can you be more specific?”

Wolfs whole face went crimson. “What you said about … sacred prostitution.”

“I’m sure your Hebrew’s far better than mine,” Beller replied. “But would you translate the word
kodesh
for the benefit of some of the others present?”

Wolf answered warily. “It means … ‘holiness,’ ‘sanctity.’ It can even refer to the holy Temple.”

“Very good,” Beller commented. “And do you know what the obviously related words
kadesh
and
kedeshah
mean?”

A look of worry passed over Lifshitz’s face. He murmured something to one of his companions, then turned back and answered, “Well, obviously, it’s something to do with holiness.”

“Indeed it is.” Beller smiled triumphantly. “They are the Hebrew words for sacred prostitutes—male
and
female—in the worship of Baal and Astarte.”

Rage flushed his face as Lifshitz again took the initiative. “Where do you find such words in the Bible?”

“Well,” said Beller, “they are unambiguously present in Deuteronomy 23:18. I can quote it verbatim if you’d like.”

“I think I know the passage,” Wolf rejoined. “But isn’t the Bible saying these are things you
shouldn’t do
?”

“Absolutely,” agreed Beller. “But the fact remains that however abhorrent it may be to our current sense of morality, our ancestors were attracted by this practice, which was widespread in the ancient Near East. I refer you to the
Code of Hammurabi
,” he continued, “and the word
qadištu
—obviously cognate with
kedeshah.
In other words, like it or not, early Jewish priests had to put up with these practices. They were, I can imagine, quite an incentive to visit the Temple.”

At this point the class broke into laughter.

I confess to being a bit upset myself. But I was also fascinated. Lifshitz and company stood rigidly in place as Beller expatiated.

“You see, the rabbis who wrote and codified the Laws were astute enough to recognize that the most potent driving force in man is
Yetzer Hara
—literally the ‘evil inclination,’ but nowadays commonly rendered, especially in psychoanalytic literature, as libido.”

Beller eyed the dissenters, who were still closely huddled by the exit door, then turned again to us.

“As our departing scholars will confirm, Jewish Law requires a man to pleasure his wife on the Sabbath.”

Quickly glancing at the opposition, he quoted the original Hebrew: “
Lesameach et ishto.
Am I correct, gentlemen?”

Wolf Lifshitz was not cowed. “You are talking about a
mitzvah
, Dr. Beller—a commandment from the Torah. We should all be proud of the fact that we treat marital relations with respect.”

“Quite right,” the professor acknowledged. “But do you also know what the
midrash
enjoins a man to do as he approaches orgasm?”

His adversary glowered angrily but did not answer.

Beller quoted the passage from Volume Four of the Abridged Code, chapter one-fifty: “ ‘When having intercourse, a man should think of some subject of the Torah or other sacred subject.’ ”

He then asked the rest of us, “Do we not find a contradiction here? If a pious Jew is enjoined to have sex, why is he commanded
not to think
about it when approaching his climax? Indeed, why is he specifically told that the sexual act is ‘not to satisfy his personal desire’?”

The crowd murmured for a moment, as Beller turned to them and remarked, “There’s nothing like sex to bring out the Armageddon of ambivalence in a man’s psyche.”

He waited for the laughter to subside before continuing.

“It doesn’t matter whether the doctrine is ‘Thou shalt have intercourse,’ or ‘Thou shalt
not
think about it.’ The real significance is that
either way
sex is in the forefront.”

He looked once again at his young antagonists and said without sarcasm, “I’m sorry if you find this offensive.”

Wolf spoke once again on their behalf. “Professor Beller, I find
you
offensive.”

With this, they all marched out of the room.

Beller turned back to us. “Well, now at least I know that whoever has stayed will keep an open mind.”

He then surveyed religious practices of both East and
West to demonstrate how in each one of them sex plays a central role.

“Many cults encourage pleasure without remorse. Hinduism, for example, sees the union of a man and woman as reflecting and reaffirming the coherence of the universe.

“In India today there are literally thousands of altars to the erect
linga
, the phallus, symbol of the god Shiva. In ancient Chinese Taoism, making love was a solemn action, a ‘joyful necessity,’ which brought paradise on earth. And early Christianity,” he continued, “was anything but celibate. More than one holy man reached sanctity only after a detour of compulsive sexuality—St. Anthony and St. Jerome, for example, freely admit they were sexual libertines before espousing celibacy. And we recall the youthful St. Augustine’s fervent plea to God: ‘Give me chastity and self-control—but not too soon.’ ”

As laughter again rippled across the lecture room, I could not keep from glancing at the churchmen among us. Unlike the rebellious students, they were respectfully listening to Beller, some even nodding their heads—perhaps because most of them were older and knew he was merely marshaling evidence, not concocting it.

Beller’s approach was that of the Freudian psychiatrist, dismissing blind faith as irrational, neurotic, or a sublimation of erotic impulse.

I actually read everything on the syllabus, plunging deep into the torrent of religious conflict and soon wondering if I would resurface with my faith intact.

The course had no final exam. The only requirement was a single five-thousand-word term paper. Since the class was too large for Beller to read the essays personally, four graduate assistants helped do the grading. But I was desperate to have
him
see my paper, and racked my brain to find a way to arrange it.

His lectures ended at one. Rather than sprinting back to the seminary to make lunch, I would grab a salad at the student cafeteria at John Jay Hall.

One Thursday after I had gone through the line and
was looking for a place to sit, I spied Professor Beller eating alone. He was leafing through some learned journal, and I wondered if I dared disturb him. But it was now or never.

“Excuse me, Professor Beller. Would you mind if I joined you?”

He looked up with a friendly smile. “I’d be happy to have company. Please call me Aaron.”

“Thank you. My name is Luria—uh, Danny. I’m in your class.”

“Really?” he remarked, visibly pleased, as he noted my skullcap and black attire. “I guess you’re aptly named, Daniel. You were the only
frummer
brave enough to remain in the lion’s den.”

I wanted to tell him how much his course meant to me, but he kept asking all kinds of questions about my background. I was surprised and proud when he said he knew my father. That is, he knew of the Silczer Rebbe.

“The Silczers have a splendid tradition of scholarship. Do you intend to follow in his footsteps?” he inquired.

“Yes,” I acknowledged, “although my feet aren’t as big.”

“That shows true Socratic humility,” he remarked.

“Well, I’m no Socrates.”

“And I’m no Plato,” he rejoined. “But that doesn’t keep us from pursuing all the elusive truths. Tell me—what good books have you read lately?”

I answered, cravenly seeking his approval, that I had bought a few of his—in hardback—and was intending to read them during the upcoming vacation.

“Please,” he protested. “Don’t waste your money. Buy Martin Buber or A. J. Heschel—
God in Search of Man.
They’re original minds. I’m just a synthesizer.” His eyes twinkled, and he added, “And professional troublemaker.”

“On the contrary,” I replied as bravely as I could. “You’ve lit fires in a lot of dark places. Certainly for me.”

I could tell that he was genuinely touched.

“Thank you,” he said warmly. “That’s the nicest
thing a teacher can hear. Perhaps you’ll write something some day that’ll bring me back to the fold.”

This surprised me. “Do you actually want to believe?” I asked.

“Of course,” he answered candidly. “Don’t you know that agnostics are people who are really the most desperate to find proof that God’s in Heaven? Perhaps you’ll make the case for existential Judaism, Daniel.”

Suddenly, he glanced at his watch and stood up.

“Excuse me, but I see my first patient at two. I enjoyed our little talk. Let’s do it again some time.”

I stared unblinking as he wandered off.

As I pondered our conversation, it dawned on me that the most important thing he’d said was his farewell. That he was actually going out into the real world to treat anguished souls, no doubt people for whom faith was not enough.

And I began to think, Could I, too, be one of them?

N
ow it was Rebbe Schiffman’s turn to dine at the King David, and he dressed for the occasion—fresh white shirt, black suit and tie. His wife even brushed his best black hat.

But there was an air of mystery about the luncheon. His host was referred to only as “Philadelphia.”

He had spent the morning reading a dog-eared manila file with cryptic markings, which to Deborah—who had dared to peek when he was out of the room—had looked like Japanese.

“Okay.” He sighed, closed the file, and rose to go. Half to himself and half to Leah, as she was helping him on with his black coat, he said, “When it comes to ‘Philadelphia,’ the wife makes the decisions.”

Leah squeezed her husband’s hand. “Good luck, Lazar.”

He smiled gratefully and left to catch the bus.