Pick One

The more preferable of two goods.  In an electoral world of objectionable choices, this one seemed welcome.  Two invitations arrived by email, one directly with ample notice, the other in a more backhanded way on much shorter notice.  Neither anticipated.

First, a program on addressing anti-Semitism to be held at the Museum of American Jewish History on a Wednesday evening.  The topic interests me, though as an American, my Jewish identity has been mostly secure.  A few snide comments by fellow university classmates along the way, but no personal threats, or even limitations.  Yet, the past several years have added to my exposure.  The physician gunned down at the Tree of Life massacre I knew well in college.  On a trip to Pittsburgh to visit family, I reserved a Saturday morning to worship at the repackaged Tree of Life Congregation.  Four years later, it was no longer the multiplex of several simultaneous services in a single building.  The survivors assembled as a single worshiping community in a rather opulent space, part of a more cathedral-formatted Reform synagogue.  The President introduced himself to me as a visitor.  No one else did.  They still spoke of that fateful day, after four years, during their Dvar Torah discussion.  

The Monsey Hanukkah attack enabled me to generate an essay for our local Jewish magazine.  I knew the geography well.  I kept up with its transition from secular Jewish of my childhood to the Haredi dominance today.  Animosities are understandable.  They seem more generated by the experience of proximity and negative consequences for a secular minority than to scripted anti-Semitism.

I've had minor interactions with Islamic anti-Zionism repackaged as a form of negative transference reaction to American Jews like me committed to a vibrant, secure Israeli nation-state.  There seems little role for education where people are pre-scripted, yet that has remained the focus of our own legacy advocacy agencies.  Protective, enforceable laws and an unequivocal national policy with minimal wiggle room seem a better option for keeping everyone safe.  Some, however, rationalize the compromise of physical safety in the guise of free expression.

While this forum took some planning, and I am grateful for the invitation I received, I never received a formal agenda.  The session had been assembled by an educational institution of Jewish auspices, but I did not know whose presentations I would hear.

On much shorter notice, a brief mention in the weekly OLLI newsletter that arrives by email every Monday morning disclosed that Robert Putnam would be speaking at the University's main campus at a time that largely coincided with the Jewish event.  Like many others, I have held this Harvard professor in high esteem for a long time.  In addition to becoming thoroughly engaged as I read through his landmark book Bowling Alone, I've had occasion to hear him speak.  He came to my town about five years ago.  I paid $30 for seats in the auditorium, along with a minor parking imposition.  He did not speak about Bowling Alone, which I had read maybe three years earlier, but about his latest work focusing on childhood poverty and economic inequality's harmful effects that pass down through generations.  As compelling as his presentation was, the benefit to me came afterward.  The Delaware Community Foundation, which sponsored Prof Putnam's appearance, set up tables in the foyer outside the auditorium.  They had representatives recruit those in attendance for the many ongoing projects that the Foundation oversees.  I expressed interest in reviewing scholarship applications.  Once signed on, I remain active with this project.  Each spring for five years, I review some twenty-five applications.  Some come from high school students seeking assistance with college.  Others originate with people already attending medical and law school, needing some relief from tuition and loans.  Along the way, I've made a couple of friends and offered suggestions that get implemented for subsequent years.

This time Bob, which is what the Professor likes to be called, has a new book and a Netflix movie called Join or Die.  I got to this in a very indirect way.  After supper, I often retreat to My Space, where I watch YouTube videos.  I particularly learn from Rev. Dr. Russell Moore, who produces a new podcast on modern evangelical Christianity each week.  His podcast usually interviews authors of new books with a social message.  While the host is an Evangelical, though one who has kept his distance from the political alliances of the Christian Right, the people he interviews originate in many backgrounds, including Jewish.  He recently interviewed Bob Putnam, a show I had to watch.  When Bob told Russell his brief bio, he noted that as an undergrad he took a liking to a sweet Jewish girl of the opposite political party who sat behind him.  They went on an outing to the Kennedy Inauguration.  After graduation, they married, he converted to Judaism, and more than sixty years together brought them an expanded three generational family and shared professional accomplishments.

After the interview, I watched the Netflix movie, taking three sessions to match my limited attention span.  Only after seeing the movie, did I notice the OLLI announcement of his visit.  I contacted the University sponsor, which offered seats in the rather limited auditorium for my wife and me.

Which to attend?  From a content perspective, I think my prior fondness for Bob Putnam's insight and my appreciation to the Delaware Community Foundation for welcoming me as a participant gave them an advantage.  So did my wife's interest in accompanying me to that event.  Logistics cannot be discounted either.  I've been to both the National Museum of American Jewish History and the University's Trabant Center in the past.  The University placed its parking garage adjacent to this student union where Bob would speak.  Some traffic anticipated, minor annoyance registering my car and paying the fee at the garage kiosks, but just a minor stroll from my car to the event.

Philadelphia requires more planning.  I have an unlimited transit pass and the event planners made provisions for use of a garage a block or two from the museum.  To get there and back by public transit, I would have to take light rail from a station near my home, sit on the local train for multiple stops comprising a little under an hour, then transfer to either the city subway or bus to the Museum.  The driving option would require me to deal with some city traffic and with a significant diversion from the interstate to city streets before accessing the garage, then walking as darkness approaches going and fully established on the return.  The light rail schedule would leave me with either slack time with an earlier train or a rush with a later one, then return well into the evening.

Both content and logistics favored Prof. Putnam.  That's where I went.  He gave a suitable presentation.  At the end, I got to ask him a question.  I also got to greet the CEO of the Delaware Community Foundation to remind him that Bob's previous presentation connected me to his agency.  Some light snacks at the end with small talk with a contemporary who I had not met previously.  Then uneventful drive home.

I made the right choice.

Rev Moore Book

For an unclear reason, I've taken a liking to recent Russell Moore podcasts.  He interviews a variety of people whose work I read, often in The Atlantic, where his articles also appear.  On a recent Atlantic Festival, he was the one being interviewed.  While I thought he did better as the interviewer, he discussed his latest book, Losing our Religion.  It was something I wanted to read, in part because I could relate not only to its title but its subject as he discussed it, and the insight of the writer.  After the Atlantic Festival, I searched my local library holdings, found it at another branch and our library system, and put a hold on it.  To my surprise, even as a new book by a popular author with some recent publicity, the library retrieved it for me in three days.  It took about a week to read.

Rev. Moore has an interesting background with occasional parallels to my own, which may be why I find his media presence so compelling.  He was raised on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi, Southern Baptist imprinting which remains.  His life and childhood began long after American Civil Rights laws integrated workplaces, schools, and public accommodations, though with a previous generation that preferred that previous time, maintaining some of it in his religion's ideology and even current practices.  As a teen, he was very much part of their equivalent of the USY Clique, engaged in the activities that the Church provided.  He committed himself to studying for the ministry, though he never really fit the model of a Church Centered person that Stephen Covey described in so demeaning a way in his 7 Habits bestseller.  Russell, which is what I will now call him, attended one of his state's universities, then one of his religion's seminaries for both ordination and PhD.  He bridged several roles, preacher, scholar, advocate.  But he also seemed committed to his own independence of mind and speaking what he believed to be truth even when leadership would not receive the message in the generous way the messages were intended.  Very much the opposite of Covey's description of Church Centered individuals who salute and do what their pastors tell them to do and believe what their pastors tell them to believe.

After time on the pulpit and as seminary faculty, he accepted a role with the Southern Baptist Convention as their interface, though not exactly scripted spokesman, to the general public.  And there our parallels, and also diversions, with my own Jewish tradition begin.  The central umbrella group does not always reflect the sentiments of the constituency, which can never be unanimous.  The parent organizations, whether the Southern Baptist Convention or the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, the umbrella of Conservative Jewish Synagogues and its constituents, has an interest in not only setting policy for its religion but exerting a certain discipline through a blend of authority and entitlement.  And when their public resists, the recourse of the individual members is to vote with their feet.  There are other places to go, or sometimes just disaffiliating without an alternative destination is what the disgruntled former members choose.  The religion parent has its metrics.  They can count people.  They can count congregations.  They can count money.  They can count trends in their seminary enrollments.  As in my medical world, you can only improve what you can measure.

And like the United Synagogue or its Rabbinical Assembly division, the Southern Baptists found a gap between their desire to have membership defer to the demands of the clergy and the willingness of the people to accept those orders.  In Conservative Judaism, that focal point was intermarriage, addressed in the 1960s as various forms of shunning.  For the Baptists, that focal point was expansion of rights, even fundamental respect for, groups that had previously accepted their subordinate places but no longer do.  While Russell grew up in an age when civil rights law was generally obeyed and women could become respected members of their medical, legal, scientific, and religious communities, the leadership of his religion was scripted in a much different tradition.  They did not have to be respectful of racial minorities, minority political parties in their communities, or even the talents of their own women.  And they have the organizational authority to mold it as they wish, even if it becomes smaller.

My Conservative Jews responded to their attrition differently than Russell's Southern Baptists.  Yet they have the same dilemma, where to cede to popular sentiment and where to stand by principles, or sometimes opportunities, even if negative organizational consequences.  For the Baptists, along comes a political savior, a wretched individual, but one who when given power will protect the racism and misogyny of established tradition.  And those who defy the political protector, even if protecting the wrong things, will be shunned, even excommunicated.  And so Russell, a devoted member of their tribe, a man trained in the fundamental theology of Christ and the social needs of the organization, found himself defending not only his own beliefs, but the doctrines of the Church which the leadership had assaulted through misconduct.  You can't fight City Hall usually means acceding to more powerful forces for most, but relocating for some.  Russell held his ground.  His talent allowed him to express himself in his podcasts, articles, and now a book.

And what the book instills, or at least my read and generalization, is that organizations whose people of authority debase it never really lose the merit that underlies their creation.  Evangelical Christianity still seeks to bring out the good in people even when their top brass act in their most hypocritical way.  Conservative Judaism protects our traditions and reconciles with our participation in the secular world even when the Rabbis' litmus tests prove destructive. True, even as I personally shifted in the direction of Orthodox.  The Catholic Church, for all its detestable activities through history to this day, still sponsors educational institutions, art, premier medical centers, including places where I am proud to have studied and worked.  The contemporary Republican Party with its allegiance to a blight of an individual still advocates for its share of laudable initiatives like patriotism, individual initiative, and centrality of our family units. But I still vote Democratic, which has better appeal amid its liabilities. He advocates expressing disapproval of the ethically wrong elements like racism but protection of the redeeming elements like the messages of Scripture.  And sometimes advocating for the good requires some blend of keeping your distance but keeping forums of expression available.  That's what Russell seems to have done.  That's why his work connects, even though our theology differs considerably.