When I learned a lot from something

The two-part essence of Judaism

Last Week, Part I: Perspective

This Week, Part II: Values

I wrote last week about one side of the essence of Judaism — “perspective” — based on the story of a father of wild young boys, a father at peace after 17 years of childlessness. I called it “When you learn something from nothing” because when I met him, nothing happened. But his gratitude spoke volumes.

Here is the other side of the essence of Judaism: values. Here, too, I illustrate with a story, this time with people who indeed speak, until one of them is left speecheless.

There was a time in American history when a salient number of college students became fascinated with religions of the East. I do not know whether anyone researched the actual percentage of youth who joined or converted to Hinduism, Buddhism and various cults, but it was, as I say, a salient segment of the youth culture.

In the 1960s, when I was a student at Berkeley and later in New York City, the everyday vocabulary was punctuauted by references to “ashrams,” “Hari Krishna,” “guru,” “transcendental meditation” and, often, an associated use of heroine, LSD and other drugs. Shaved heads, long togas and all manner of very unsuburban behavior added color to the streets. In some locations they were the street.

It was to these types that Shlomo Carlebach addressed himself when he opened the House of Love and Prayer in San Francisco in 1967.

It was one of these types, a Jewish student, who ended up in India, about whom I write.

This student became totally devoted to his guru. He abandoned his previous life. He had nothing to do with his Jewish parents and relatives and, for that matter, nothing to do with United States of America and its culture.

He “tuned in, turned on, and dropped out,” in obedience to Timothy Leary’s slogan that, at the time, exercised influence.

This former student’s guru became his guide in life. In place of college studies he now attached himself to spiritual practices and disciplines of an adept in the East. He found the depth he did not find in America. In the East he was living a different life. It was the realization of an aspiration to escape what he (and many others) saw as the spiritually empty and pointless pursuit of materialism in post-WW II American suburbs.

He had been with his guru for some two years when one fine day the formerly Jewish student was walking along with his guru, who spotted a wallet on the ground.

The guru scooped it up and rifled through it.

He discovered a few hundred dollars!

He was ecstatic.

His disciple looked on, puzzled. He asked his guru: “Aren’t you going to see whether the wallet has any identification, and try to return the money?”

Of course not, the guru’s expression said. He exclaimed, “This is a gift from the gods!”

The student: “Wait a minute. You’re not going to return this money?”

“A gift from the gods! Ah!”

The disciple was speechless.

Stumped.

Offended.

Something in him snapped.

Right there, on the spot, he decided to abandon his guru and abandon his life of Eastern spirituality. Just like that, he went home.

You’re not going to try to return the money?

A Jewish value, thou shalt not steal, had been so deeply ingrained in him that its violation was something he instinctively could not abide. More deeply than he ever realized, more deeply than his immersion in the ways of the East, he was steeped in a fundamental Jewish value.

At that unexpected, surprising and decisive moment, a fundamental Jewish value animated his essence: what is mine is mine, what is yours is not mine. Thou shalt not steal.

The second side of the essence of Judaism: values.

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