My Search for Jewish Unity

FROM Sunday evening to Monday afternoon, Jews all over the world observed Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. It is the holiest day of the Jewish year, a day when Jews ask forgiveness for transgressions they have committed over the past year, a day marked by prayer and fasting.

At six o'clock on Sunday, I joined hundreds of Jews in Sanders Theater for Kol Nidre, the ritual prayer that begins Yom Kippur services. That evening I gained new insight into my religion.

I am not a very religious person in that I do not attend Shabbat (the Jewish Sabbath) and other holiday services regularly and I have doubts about what Jenny Cavilleri of Love Story refers to as "the God-blessing bit," I often find it difficult to integrate the religious and cultural aspects of being Jewish. I grew up almost implicitly recognizing the influence that Jewish habits, mannerisms, sayings--in short, Jewish culture--had on my lifestyle.

When the rabbi at the Sunday service spoke in his sermon of the Jews in Vilna (a village in Eastern Europe) a century ago, he was speaking of my ancestors; my great-grandparents came from Vilna. His topic reflected the cultural heritage which had been passed down to me not only from them, but from their predecessors as well. Yet here I was, reciting prayers that had been written hundreds of years ago, and I was having trouble finding meaning in them.

But the rabbi referred to the prayers as a sort of "religious poetry" that has been passed down through many generations. He stated that although one might not react to a prayer the way its author intended, one could look at that prayer as a piece of literature and therefore discover what Jews of earlier times were thinking and feeling.

This way, even if one does not agree with the sentiment of a prayer, one can accept it and learn from it in a historical-religious context. I reflected on this bit of wisdom from the rabbi several times that evening, and, by doing so, felt a strong sense of unity with many generations of Jews who had read the very same prayers over hundreds of years.

LATER, during the rabbi's sermon, he read a story written by the Jewish novelist Isaac Bashevis Singer about a man and his ill-tempered father-in-law. As I listened to the tale woven by Singer, I looked around at the assembled crowd. Everywhere in the world, I thought, Jews are listening to their rabbis. They will pray some more; they will go home and return the next morning to pray; they will fast for a full day; they will break the fast with relatives and friends.

In fact, as the rabbi read his words, Singer himself was undoubtedly seated in another synagogue, listening to the words of his rabbi. At this moment, I felt a strong bond, this time with my Jewish contemporaries.

The religious-cultural dichotomy was becoming clear. Even for a somewhat unreligious person, the religious aspects of Judaism--the prayers, holidays, rituals and such--are themselves an integral part, indeed, the foundation of Jewish culture. For me, the Jewish cultural heritage consists of Eastern European Jews coming to New York City; for Jews in Tel Aviv or Warsaw or the Soviet Union, the cultural experiences that make up Jewish life may be different.

But the synthesizing factor remains the religious observation that unites both peoples and generations. Yom Kippur, the most sacred day on the calendar, symbolizes that unity.

BUT the cultural unity which Jews strive for does not always come easily. In his sermon, the rabbi reminded us that it has often been difficult for Jews to maintain their religion and culture due to destructive and often catastrophic influences that have occurred through out history. In particular, the rabbi referred to the outright war against Judaism known as the Holocaust.

I did not lose any immediate family members in the genocide of the 1930s and 1940s, but many members of my extended family who had not followed the migratory path of my great-grandparents were killed in the Nazi concentration camps. The extent of the loss is overwhelming and is something I have trouble accepting.

In essence, all of the Jews who lost their lives were my relatives; we shared a common religious and cultural heritage. Thus, even if there were no other reason for doing so, I should--no, I must--preserve my Jewish heritage in order to keep alive the memory of the 6 million who were slain.