My AKSE presence usually too often puts me at the intersection of Hebrew School and Rabbinical Junior College. There are the trivial perfunctories: yasher koach, Shabbat shalom, nice tie. We go through the motions. Sermons at or above threshold, rarely erudite, and challenges to what the Rabbi said make me wonder about the validity of our appointed teachers nurturing challenges. Our legacy and folk practice does not seem to be that at all, starting with Hebrew school where obedience creates the pathway to the Class Honor Roll a lot more reliably than intellect does, at least for my class and my kids' experience. Challenge to our Executive Committee seems the most reliable way to get placed on our inbred Nominating Committee's Do Not Call List. What we say we value too often doesn't measure up to an assessment of the actual experience. And at least for me, it generates a measure of resentment.
But sometimes the .200 hitter gets a hanging curveball for a moment in the limelight. Our Education Committee hit that home run this week. They sponsored a movie for us to watch, Why the Jews?, a documentary by John Curtin that explores why Jews have been disproportionately prominent in advancing science and culture in the past 150 years, particularly in America. We were asked to view the movie in advance, then discuss its ideas and implications.
Basically, this is an hour-long film that one would show at a USY or Ramah to tell the kids how wonderful they all are and why they should appreciate their origins. One more ego boost to the Children of Entitlement. To play the same film for an audience already part of the dominant culture, highly successful with advanced degrees though a notch or two short of the elite that the movie profiled, the reaction in more circumspect. While the Rabbis want to rally their USY troops to have ethnic pride and appreciation for what their sponsored agencies are doing for them, the reality when teased out is much different. Those of us on Zoom could easily identify that difference. Those who succeeded had to schect part of those institutions to go to their preferred direction. Obedience may get you on the Honor Roll in Hebrew School or a seat on the synagogue Board where dissenters are often scorned, but Disruptive Innovation, that mixture of insight, chutzpah, and independence moves the world ahead. Once done, Jews who did very little to move the world ahead, maybe even impeded it, still get some of the halo glow from those who did. Irrespective of the conclusions, the level of thought on Zoom that evening far exceeded any wisdom imparted from the Rabbi's podium. For that hour, my mind sparkled. I sparkled.
It was not my only successful mind immersion. I had been to an awards banquet where experts spoke and the audience responded, including me. As a senior, the analytical and inquisitive parts of my mind are still quite agile. I derive satisfaction when the CNS does some exploration. I'm a sucker for expertise, the real thing, not the title driven. Later I attended an interview with Van Jones of CNN by the President's sister Valerie, who turned out to be an ace interviewer. My mind again recognized new ideas, some really implemented with success, that I would have rejected on my own, had I thought of them at all.
Covid isolation, echo chambers, triviality of conversations that never progress beyond opening greetings, even deflection by our clergy and others when I try to expand an inquiry. All batter me. The exchanges without enmity or agenda to fulfill have become the CPR for my CNS. For that hour or two at each event I was immersed. If I could be participatory, I was. If I required and agent, like the Van Jones interview, the agent represented me well, as did the moderator at the AKSE discussion. I really don't have to settle for mediocrity. We are done a great disservice when our agencies, Jewish, governmental, and secular aim too low, as has become the expectation nowadays. But we admire, sometimes envy, those with the talent and independence to put themselves ahead of just getting by and offering a share of what they accomplished to those like me who are less accomplished, though fully appreciative.
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