ode to smaux

10/27/11

Dear Fellow Student,

In the third chapter of Number our Days a very interesting passage caught my attention that I think you will find fascinating. The dialogue is between Dr. Myerhoff and Shmuel. They discuss a mixed ritual for youngsters that has merged Americana and Judaism, dubbed "Graduation Siyum" (p. 102.) Shmuel criticizes the American self-proclaimed "Jews" for their mixture of culture and religion. He feels as if they have mitigated the meaning of Siyum and interwoven it with American culture.

Speaking of the parents of the boys involved in the ritual Sinum said "For most of the graduates, since their emigration, being a Jew had come to mean that old-fashioned and un-American" (p. 97). It is interesting to note that being a Jew is no longer associated with the beliefs and traditions of Judaism, rather it is considered "old-fashioned" or "un-American". In my eyes, this is a great lapse in Judaism in America.

For most of the boys graduating, they did not understand the true purpouse of the ritual that they were taking part in, rather they did it out of dogma, or simply because they were told that they culturally Jewish, not theologically Jewish. The true purpouse of a Sinum is to acknowledge that your studies of the Torah will never end—because there is no beginning, end, start or finish to them. It is a right of passage, not a party or feast where one reads a few lines of scripture then washes one's hands of the same! The latter is what appalled Shmuel.

Myerhoff's response to Shmuel's distaste for the graduate's lip service to Judaism was "I don't see what is the matter with them giving themselves what they never had before.. why is that dishonest?" (p. 102).

My answer to her conjecture is that the young boys (whether they know it or not) want the culture without the religion. In doing so they make an absolute mockery of Judaism and the very ritual that they claim to take part in. They do not understand why they do it, rather they dogmatically follow the weak understandings of their fathers.

Shmuel put it best when he said "When [the Jewish Immigrants] came to America, they couldn't wait to get away from religion." That is the truth. Now they are left with a cultural religion with moral relativisim and a great lack of understanding of the truths that were passed down for centuries!

My dear reader- may we never succumb to this fallacy!

Signed

Alexander Hatch Spencer