traditional Jewish approach to learning and ritual—doubt all you want, but do! My brother and I

4.2.12 WC: 191694 traditional Jewish approach to learning and ritual—doubt all you want, but do! My brother and I started that way, but ultimately our doubts carried over into action--or more precisely inaction. We stopped observing in our mid 20s. My mother couldn't understand or accept that. "I don't care what you believe or don't believe," she would insist, "as long as you go to Shul, keep kosher and don't work (broadly defined to include driving, watching television or going to a ballgame) on Shabbas." That's all she asked of us. "Is that so much to ask!" When we started to break the rules, my mother began to doubt her doubting. Doubting was good as long as it didn't lead to breaking with the rituals--as it didn't in her case. Or so she believed, until she saw, with her own eyes, the wages of doubt, in her own children. This led her to doubt doubt and to embrace certainty. She would never completely abandon her doubting nature, but she no longer believed that doubt was cost-free. It had cost her to lose her own children to "excessive doubt" and the real sin of acting on one's doubt. I certainly don't mean to suggest that our mother "lost" us in any sense other than the observance of ritual, but that was critically important to her. Although my brother and I maintained an extremely close relationship until her death at age 95--we spoke to her almost every day--it was never quite the same once we left the "club" and followed our own rules as it pertained to Jewish practices. My mother even questioned her decision to “let me go to Brooklyn College.” She insisted that I would have “turned out better” if I had gone to Yeshiva University, but I didn’t have that option, because Yeshiva turned me down. (More on that later). My mother may not have been happy with the way I used the doubt she instilled in me, but I have been ecstatic. It has become the most important quality in my life--and the most significant ingredient in whatever success I may have achieved. It certainly played an important role in my decision to become a lawyer defending freedom of speech, accused criminals, and other unpopular causes. (More on that later.) So thank you Mom! And even thank you Yeshiva Etz Chaim and Yeshiva University High School for provoking me to be a skeptic, a doubter and an agnostic about life. (And thank you Yeshiva University for turning me down!) My mother influenced me in many ways with her skepticism, not the least of which was when she repeatedly had to defend me for my conduct at school. I remember one incident in particular. I was playing “Ring A Levio” in the schoolyard on any icy winter day and chasing a classmate named Victor Botnick. He slipped and his leg got stuck under the gate and he broke it while trying to stand up. I was accused of deliberately breaking his leg and called into the principal’s office. My mother immediately came to school and spoke to me privately. I told her the story and assured her that I would never break my friend Victor’s leg purposely. My mother went to the principal’s office with me and served as my defense attorney, making charts and diagrams that proved that I could not have possibly broken his leg deliberately and that he caused it to break while trying to stand up with his foot still stuck under the gate. I was acquitted, though the Principal still had his suspicions. This was my first experience with the adversarial process and with a defense attorney. My mother, of course, was not a lawyer, having attended college for only part of one semester. But she was my Perry Mason, and an important inspiration for why I decided to become a defense lawyer. For me the presumption of innocence was not a theory. I knew I was innocent, yet the principal presumed me guilty. Only my mother’s effective advocacy kept me from being suspended—at least this time. 26 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_017113