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Interview with Stanley BorensteinRetired Teacher
Ann Arbor, Michigan, July 15, 2001
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"I
have a book here," I said to Stanley Borenstein, fingering a paperback
volume in my hands, "written by a comedian who is a Scottish Jew."
Mr. Borenstein arched his eyebrows. "That's an unusual ethnic combination."
"Yes," I
agreed. "You don't hear too much about Scottish
Jews." The man's name is Arnold Brown, and there are some
humorous stories in the book, one of which I want to read to
you. Here goes:
Abraham
and Sarah decided to leave Lithuania and sail for Scotland with
Herschel. One week before the family departed, Abraham
decided it was time to have a serious talk with his son.
"Herschel, I have to tell you
one important fact. We Jews are the Chosen People."
"Chosen for what, Father?"
"To ask questions, my dear Herschel."
"Is it good to ask questions, Father?"
"Yes, Herschel, the Almighty has put us on this earth to do this."
"Father, are there answers to all these questions?"
"Ah," said
Abraham, "That's exactly the point. The Jewish
contribution to civilization is to TRY to find answers to all these
questions. Questions like…Why are we here? Where are we
going? Who is going with us? Are we coming back? And above all: Will we
be taking sandwiches?"
Herschel thought for a few
seconds. "What kind of sandwiches, Father?" he asked.
"What an important question,
Herschel," his father replied. "You're learning already."
"I like that story," Mr.
Borenstein replied. "It really hits at the philosophy of
Judaism."
"Well, that's what I'm
thinking," I said. "I don't know much about
Judaism. I've been a member of Eckankar for almost thirty
years. That's a long time. And yet there are some
ways in which I find I don't fit in very well. Let's face
it, most of the people in Eckankar in this country have come from
Christian backgrounds. They bring their backgrounds with
them. And the big difference that I find is that I'm much
more skeptical than most of the people I meet in
Eckankar. I'm always asking questions and interrogating
everything. When I taught secondary school, the kids used to
call me 'The Question Man.'
"Maybe your Jewish heritage is coming out," Mr. Borenstein suggested.
"Well, sure. It's in the genes, I guess."
"Have you ever seen Fiddler on the Roof?" he asked me.
"Never. I know
it's a musical. It's a Jewish story. It starred
Zero Mostel."
"Yes. Zero Mostel
plays a poor man who sells milk," Mr. Borenstein
explained. "All kinds of things happen to him that lead him
to question God. He's supposed to be a traditional Jew, but
he asks: "Why is this happening to me?" The musical is based
on the stories of Sholom Aleichem. And that's the way it
is. Jews DO ask questions. If you read the Bible
the way I do (of course, some people--Christians in particular--may
look at it differently) you see it's not just a history of people doing
the right thing, but wondering if it's the right
thing. There's a tradition of challenging the status
quo. If there's a dispute, for instance, the synagogues run
the rabbi; the rabbi doesn't run the synagogues. He's their
clergyman, but if he isn't doing the right thing, they can question
him."
"So you're saying that, as
religions go, Judaism is not very authoritarian or hierarchical," I
said.
"That's right," he
replied. If you read about the history of the orthodox,
conservative, and reform movements in Judaism, you'll know that the
orthodox wanted practically no change throughout the
years. At one time, there was an orthodox Jew named Joseph
Caro who had the audacity to write a book--a kind of compilation of
over 600 blessings and instructions for right living--that he called The Set Table. Orthodox
Jews were so upset that they tried to kick him out, because this was a
sacrilege. And yet now the orthodox Jews follow the precepts
of this book. It's part of their tradition. They
fought it and fought it, but somewhere along the line it snuck
in. Of course, the reform Jews don't go by that at
all. By reform standards, Caro's writings are old
stuff. But for the orthodox, it's the sacred word, the next
closest thing to the Bible in their tradition. The point is
that it's not easy to have a belief that allows for
change. For instance, you say you've been in Eckankar for
thirty years. It must be much harder for you to change than
for a person who just came in to the group very
recently."
"Yes, absolutely," I
stated. It presents quite a few
problems. Eckankar is a very ancient teaching, but in its
present form it's essentially a new religion, founded by Paul Twitchell
in 1965. It's typical of young religions that they are very
protean; they tend to change very rapidly. That's been very
true of Eckankar over the years. It's almost unrecognizable,
in some ways, from what I remember it to be when I first joined
it. For people who have been in Eckankar as long as I have
and remember what it was like at that time, the problem is adapting to
this change. It's actually quite the opposite situation that
one might find in an orthodox religion that is very
unchanging. In the case of Eckankar, you may find that the
religion itself is challenging you to revise your ideas, just in order
to keep up with it.
"I have found," I continued,
"that there are two strains of spirituality, a relativistic strain that
you find very much in the Eastern religions, and an absolutist strain
that you tend to find in the Western religions. Now, both
these strains of thought co-exist within Eckankar, and that's what I
like about it, but many members tend to interpret the writings in a way
that they're used to, according to their upbringing. So I
find myself constantly rubbing up against this absolutist strain of
thinking on the part of members within Eckankar, even though it is
clearly supported by the writings of Paul Twitchell to a great
extent. For instance, I was reading a book by Paul Twitchell
in which he discusses the virtue of certainty. Well,
undeniably, there is a spiritual benefit to certainty. If
you are really convinced of something, you act with a much greater
degree of authority and decisiveness. It can make life a lot
easier if you're certain about things. But this has never
been my nature."
"In the Catholic Church," Mr.
Borenstein commented, "there is a particular attitude toward abortion,
for instance. As a result, most members will see nothing
wrong with their bishop or archbishop telling them to vote for a
particular political candidate. You'll never get that from a
Reform Jew or a Unitarian. The Unitarians say you don't even
have to believe in Jesus. My kid sister became a
Unitarian. She jokingly calls it 'Jewnitarian' because it's
the closest thing to Reform Judaism. If you want to believe
in Jesus, fine. If you don't want to, that's all right, too."
"Well, my main interest is in
exploring the meaning of spirituality," I said. "Now, I have
to admit that I've never been attracted to Judaism. I've
never felt drawn to studying it, so I know nothing about
it. And I've never really felt that Judaism was very
spiritual. Whatever that word means for me, I've never seen
that in Judaism. But that may be just my taste. I
remember having a dialogue with my father. My father was an
atheist. He considered himself Jewish, but only by virtue of
his experiences during World War II, with his parents having been
killed in the Holocaust. At any rate, I had a discussion
with him years ago, and I asked him, "You're not religious, but if you
had to choose a religion, which one would you
choose?"
"That's an interesting question," Mr. Borenstein
commented. "What was his answer?"
"Well, we both answered the
question," I replied, "but we answered it differently. My
father said he would choose Judaism, and I said that I would choose
Christianity. The reason for my choice was that I felt
Christianity was a more ecumenical religion. The most
significant difference between Judaism and Christianity, to me, was the
fact that it was opened up to the Gentiles. Before that, it
was just a sect within Judaism. The salvation offered by
Christianity was available to anyone merely through faith or
belief. Judaism, with its idea that the Jews were a 'chosen
people, seemed to me very tribal, almost racist in
comparison. My father, on the other hand, said that the very
ecumenical spirit of Christianity was what made possible a long history
of genocide against other people in the name of converting people to
the faith. The dark side of making the religion available to
all people is the urge to convert them. He had a good
point. For him, the fact that Judaism is more tribal in
nature was a blessing, because they didn't feel they had to go out and
proselytize."
"There's a story about
Hillel, a rabbi who lived around the time of Jesus," Mr. Borenstein
said. "There was another rabbi during this period named
Shamai. They had two opposite viewpoints, something like
liberal and conservative. Shamai was the traditionalist,
authoritarian rabbi. He was approached by a Gentile one
day. The Gentile said that he would convert to Judaism if
Shamai could explain the Torah in the time that the Gentile was able to
stand on one leg. Shamai got angry. 'That's a
terrible thing,' he said, and took his stick and chased the Gentile
away. The Gentile then went to Rabbi Hillel, and made the
same request. Rabbi Hillel found this very
simple. He told the Gentile, 'The Torah says don't do
anything to anyone else that you wouldn't want done to
you. That's the whole law. Everything else is
commentary. You can go study it by yourself. And
many people believe that Jesus was a student of Hillel, because he
simply said in a positive way in his Sermon on the Mount what Hillel
said in a negative way: Do unto others as you would have them do unto
you. That's thought to be one of the reasons that Jews are
noted for studying a lot. Hillel's instruction was for them
to study and get the details for themselves.
"I look at the Bible as a history book," Mr. Borenstein
continued. "Hillel lived in the latter period of Jewish
history, when the Jewish books of the Bible had already been
written. There were no more high priests, and only the
rabbis remained to carry on the tradition. Now, when I was
in the Boy Scouts, back in the '30s, if you looked in the back of the
handbook, there was a vaguely described moral code that told us to
avoid masturbation. It didn't even use that
word. It said to avoid self-abuse, because the Bible said
so. And why did the Bible say so? There was the
story of a man who refused to obey one of Moses'
rules. There was a set of rules, in addition to the Ten
Commandments. And one of the rules stated that if a man
died, his brother had to marry the widow. The man, instead
of having sex with his brother's widow, masturbated, spilling his
'seed' on the floor. As punishment, he was hit by lightning,
and killed. The Christians interpret this to be an absolute
prohibition against masturbation. But according to Jewish
interpretation, the man was simply not living up to his responsibility
to his husband's widow. The reason for specifying that the
man have sex with his brother's widow was so that the widow would be
financially provided for, because in those days all the property was in
the man's name."
"Yes," I agreed. "The Christian interpretation is a
misunderstanding of the story from the Jewish point of
view. The Old Testament is not only history, but it's also
an expression of a kind of contract. The Laws of Moses were
part of a covenant or contract between the people and their God that
was meant to ensure the well being of the tribe as a
whole. But if I asked you what is the essence of
spirituality, from a Jewish perspective, what would you say?"
"I would say the essence of
Judaism is simply doing good, helping others, and helping yourself."
"But in that case, what does that have to do with questioning?" I asked.
"Well, how do you do good?"
Mr. Borenstein replied. "How do you arrive at an idea of
justice, without questioning? Justice is one of the main
ideas in the Bible. For example, Moses supposedly said 'An
eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.' But that's not
so. He actually said 'No MORE than an eye for an eye, and a
tooth for a tooth.' In primitive times, if you hit me in one
eye, I could come back and hit you in two eyes. Or if a
member of your tribe killed one of my people, I could come back and
kill three of yours. So all this is a matter of
interpretation. As I see it, and as the more liberal element
in Judaism sees it, you don't enact justice that involves MORE than an
eye for an eye, or a tooth for a tooth. That doesn't mean
that you are either for or against capital punishment. Some
later Jewish writings tended to view any Jewish court that had
condemned even a single man to death as a bloody court, even if this
might have occurred fifty years before. So the tradition is
that it's not a good idea to kill in retribution. But it
doesn't say you can't. It says, before you do, you have to
make sure that the man is guilty, and that the punishment fits the
crime. You get an idea of why there are so many Jewish
lawyers."
"Well, there are a lot of
Jewish lawyers, but there are also a lot of Jewish comedians," I
commented.
"Well, we laugh at
ourselves," Mr. Borenstein agreed. "Isn't it better than
suffering? For example, there's a joke that goes back to
Hitler's time. A German Jew was walking down the street, and
a bunch of SS--Hitler's storm troopers--grabbed him. They
said, 'Hey, dirty Jew. Who started this war?' Of
course, the man was supposed to say 'The Jews,' but instead he said
'The Jews and the bicycle riders.' This puzzled the storm
troopers, and they said, 'Well, we can understand the Jews, but why the
bicycle riders?' And the Jewish man replied, 'Why the
Jews?' I mean, it's a sad story, if you stop to think of it."
"But it's also very
profound," I offered. "Why the Jews,
indeed. Humor comes from the perspective of
suffering. The storm troopers were utterly
humorless. Their certainty left them utterly without any
perspective on themselves. When I read a spiritual text that
speaks about the spiritual value of certainty, I can certainly
appreciate that perspective. But I also believe that there's
a time for certainty and there's a time for doubt. You can't
have certainty without going through doubt and
questioning. These are two sides of the same
coin. I think there's a great danger in certainty, and I'm
sure most Jews would agree with me, because this implies
authoritarianism. It implies all the things that have hurt
the Jews in the past. Let's face it. The history
of the Jewish people is very much the history of a minority people, and
the sufferings of a minority people. You don't go through
the experience of being a member of a minority and come away with an
absolutist philosophy. Absolutist philosophies suit people
who haven't experienced a lot of pain or hardship in their life."
"Well, such people just haven't thought things through."
"Exactly. The
kindest thing you could say about the storm troopers in that joke is
that they just hadn't thought things through. If they had
been able to do that, they would have realized that there was no more
reason to blame the Jews for the war than there was to blame bicycle
riders. And this is why, to me, questioning is something
very spiritual. What bothers me is when people simply accept
ideas wholesale.
"When I was a lecturer at the University of Michigan a couple of years
ago," I continued, "I actually had to assist with a class on the
Bible. I wasn't the professor. I was just leading
a discussion group. But I did miserably at it. It
was one of the worst teaching experiences I ever had. I
couldn't get through the Bible, to begin with. It started to
turn me off after a while. And the class bothered me because
the professor who taught the course conducted it on an intellectual
level that was designed minimize conflict between believers and
non-believers among the students. The class never got down
to the really essential questions, such as 'Do we really believe this
stuff? Who does and who doesn't?' and really allow the ones
who did believe in it to get up in the faces of those who didn't, or
vice versa. I wanted to see a real knockdown, drag-out
brawl, but of course that didn't happen."
"That would be the best part of a class like that," Mr. Borenstein enthused.
"It would have been great, if it was possible. But it wasn't
possible, because the professor leaned over backwards to avoid
conflict. He was an Episcopalian, I'm pretty sure, but he
was so bent on placating any orthodox Jews that might be in the class
that he used a completely made-up name for God. He never
even used the word 'God' in class, even though it's used throughout in
English translations of the Bible."
"This might be a good time to
tell you a story," Mr. Borenstein interjected. "A good man
was dying in the hospital. He was known for his learning,
righteousness, sense of justice, and studiousness. The
rabbis, the priests, the ministers, and the Islamic clerics all came to
his bedside because he was such a great man, who was surely destined to
go to Heaven--such a good man, such a knowledgeable one. So
the man dies, and the clerics are all huddled around the bedside,
saying 'He's surely in Heaven. He's there with
God.' And after commiserating for fifteen or twenty minutes,
in comes a young medical student and says, 'You know, we've just been
studying new methods of revival.' So he gets on the man's
chest, bangs on it, and the man comes back to life. The
clerics were all excited. 'You were dead for almost a half
hour,' they said. 'You must have been up in
Heaven. 'Were you in Heaven?'
"'Yes.'
"'What an opportunity for
us,' they said. 'We were just discussing what God is
like. Did you see God?'
"'Yes.'
"'Well, tell us. What is He like? Yes, what is He like?'
"'Well, the man replied. 'In the first place, She's black…'"
"That's an old story," I
replied, "and a good one. I think it shows how people simply
project their own ideas onto spirituality."
"I've worked in the Black
community," Mr. Borenstein said, "and I've seen pictures in which God
and Jesus are represented as being black. The funeral
directors in the Black community used to send out calendars with
pictures like that."
"Years ago I had a dream in which I saw Jesus," I volunteered.
"Was he white or black?" Mr. Borenstein asked.
"He wasn't black, but he
wasn't anything like the way he's usually pictured--tall, lean,
Nordic-looking, with long, straight blond hair, a moustache, and a
little beard. He was very Mediterranean in
appearance. He could have been taken for a Jew, an Italian,
or a Greek. He was very stocky--short, muscular, swarthy,
clean-shaven, with short, curly black hair--just the opposite of the
way Christians tend to picture him."
"Well, one of my favorite
jokes is an old one," Mr. Borentstein said, "about the Jewish man who
was shipwrecked on a desert island. He was there for about
twenty years, all by himself. Finally, a ship came and
rescued him. They got him on board, and the captain said to
him 'I can see those buildings that you've built on this
island. What are they for?' The man replied,
'They're synagogues. The first is in case I feel like being
an orthodox Jew, the second is in case I want to be a conservative Jew,
and the third is if I want to be a reform Jew.' Then the
captain said, 'Well, what about that fourth building, way on the other
side of the island?' And the Jewish man replied, 'Oh, that's
one synagogue I'd never be caught dead in!'"
"That's a great joke, but
what's your interpretation of it. What does it mean to you?"
"To me, it means that there's
such a diversity of viewpoints," he replied. "And we
ourselves can change. Here's one guy who could be an
orthodox one day, a conservative another, a reform the next, and just
in case, he's even built a place that he wouldn't be caught dead in!"
"That's a good
interpretation," I commented. "My interpretation was a
little bit different. I guess there's more than one
interpretation."
"There are many interpretations. So what's yours?" he asked.
"To me, it has something to
do with the idea of having set opinions or attitudes," I explained,
"like those storm troopers we were talking about. A person
who has a strong opinion in a particular area has a dark side to
them--a whole part of themselves that they haven't explored, which can
be associated with the opposite opinion. Years ago, I was
very abstemious in my habits. I didn't smoke, drink, or even
cut loose very much. One day, a friend of mine came up to me
and said that he had dreamt about me. In the dream I was
apparently a drunk, and spent all my time carousing in
bars. I realized that my friend's dream was telling me
something about myself. By being so modest and puritanical
in my habits, I was actually nurturing this dark side of myself.
"In your story," I continued, "the man built these three synagogues,
and each one was like a kind of refuge. Temples, churches,
and synagogues are places where people can go and feel at
ease. They make spirituality easy and comprehensible for
us. But the building that we would never be caught dead in
represents the dark zone. That's the aspect of spirituality
that people don't want to face. And I think that the fact
that the man in the story built such a place represents something very
brave, though paradoxical, in Judaism. It shows that in
Judaism there is the willingness to recognize the existence of this
dark zone, but at the same time there is the urge to contain it, to
render it comprehensible, by building that fourth synagogue."
"That's a great interpretation, Mr. Borenstein said. "I
wouldn't have thought of that."
"This, to me, is what I have always interpreted as the difference
between religion and spirituality," I added. "That doesn't
mean it's truly the difference, but this is the difference in my own
mind, due in part to the way I was brought up, because my parents
weren't religious. I was brought up with the idea that
religion is basically just a crutch, a feel-good mechanism, a way for
people to bring God down to their level of understanding, so they can
feel comfortable about themselves and go about their daily business of
living. When I first joined Eckankar, it was advertised as a
spiritual path, not a religion. What attracted me about it
was the idea that it was something that would challenge me on a daily
basis, not simply make me feel good. Now Eckankar calls
itself a religion, yet it in those thirty years it has never ceased to
challenge me."
"Well maybe it should do both--challenge you AND make you feel good,"
Mr. Borenstein suggested.
"Well, there you are,
exactly. Maybe it should do both. Other people
have suggested to me that perhaps this is not such a great
contradiction, but simply a paradox."
"There's the saying that
water can either be a danger or a help to you. You can drown
in water, or you can relieve your thirst."
"Exactly," I
replied. "I visited a Sufi cleric last year, and posed this
same question to him about religion and spirituality. And he
said that you could compare the two to a nut, with spirituality being
the kernel and religion the shell. The shell is there to
protect the kernel. The structure of religion is a
protection for the spiritual essence."
"You just have to watch out
that it's not too solid. If it's too rigid, it can be torn
down," Mr. Borenstein pointed out. "The more supple the
tree, the greater it's ability to weather a storm."
"Right," I
agreed. "The true protection is not a completely impermeable
shell, but rather something that can bend, or can breathe, or can let
in the light. If it's too protective, whatever is inside
will just dry up and die. And this gets us back to
questioning. Questioning renders that membrane
permeable. It allows light and air to get in.
"I have tried to write about the Eckankar principles as they are
reflected outside the structure of the religious group itself," I
concluded. "The purpose has been to make that protective
shell a little more permeable, at least for me. Because if
you go back to Paul Twitchell's original writings, he was saying that
Eckankar is in all things."
"Well, they say there's
nothing new under the sun," Mr. Borenstein commented. "What
you may find applies to Judaism may apply to Eckankar, or to
Catholicism, but may not apply to the Baptists, or the Methodists, or
some other religious or spiritual group. It's like stepping
into a river. You never step in the same river twice." |
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Date Submitted:
7/18/01 |
Copyright Information:
Copyright © The Spiritual Traveler, 2001 |
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