Spirituality Studies 10-2 Fall 2024 83 Elaine Leeder It was a family with many troubles, poverty, survivor guilt, traditional old-world values and lifestyles, mental illness, and angry outbursts. As I grew older my anger grew and grew, especially about all the constraints placed upon me. Fortunately, I was a sociable child, making friends at school and becoming the class actress and public speaker. I had a teacher who saw my skill at speaking; thus, I was mentored by others who saw my potential as a leader. I had many friends whose families showed me that there were other ways to live in 1950s America. I often spent time at their homes, eating foods that were unlike what we had, seeing other lifestyles that seemed to suit me more. 2 My Belief System I became an atheist at an early age. I could not embrace the man sitting on the throne and I saw no relevance to all the rituals held in my home that were done in Hebrew, a language I did not want to learn. We often sat for hours listening to the Hebrew, never understanding what was being said and hoping it would all end soon so we could eat. The Jewish that I was became secular – I was a cultural Jew but an atheist in belief. Early in college I read the existentialists, especially Sartre and Camus. I also fell in love with Kierkegaard, even visiting his grave in Denmark; I found it perfect that in a large family plot Soren’s actual spot was a small marker at the foot of the site. All the existentialists believe that being is nothingness, that life is just what you make it and nothing more, that there is no God, which suited my nihilistic value system; I questioned the value of human existence. I sat late into the nights reading and discussing this philosophy that had great meaning to me. My life had been dark and sad as a child, with much arguing and insults thrown at me; existentialism seemed the right way to explain the world. I remained an existentialist until I began to read the anarchist Jews whose ideology suited me even more. But that was years later. For now, “being is nothingness” fit my way of seeing the world. I also carried so much anger that in the 60s I called myself “Fury”. I was furious at how I was being treated as a girl who was told she was “stupid”, “crazy like your uncle”, and that I knew nothing. All I wanted was to be respected, which never came from my family. As I aged, I did attend high holidays periodically. When teaching college, I would duck out of my classes to run to the chapel where the Hillel director was holding services; I did not believe but felt that I should show up (why I was not sure). I never joined a synagogue, even for the community that I might have wanted. I felt that would be sacrilegious since I was not a believer. If I ever went to sedars they were always self-created freedom sedars, with feminist underpinnings. I saw these events as political and not religious. When my child was born my father had a baby naming for her in his synagogue, but I did not attend, feeling that it had no relevance to her or to me as a family. My husband at the time was born Jewish but also had no interest in the religion either. So, we raised our child with nothing related to Judaism. All she knew was that she was 100% Ashkenazi Jewish, with no understanding as to what that meant. It was not that I had not been seeking some form of spirituality my whole life. There were times I went on silent meditational retreats lead by a Sufi guide. Those events were quite profound, with remarkable experiences as part and parcel of my weekends. Once I was sitting in a field meditation when a deer approached me. We stared at each other for quite a few minutes, looking intensely at each other, wondering what the other was all about. At another time I was on a porch looking at a small pond when a butterfly lit on my hand and remained for quite a while. Clearly, I had attained some level of peace if those beings were drawn to me. Another time I was working with my guide on an early childhood trauma I had experienced about the murder of my family in the Holocaust. During that remarkable experience the guide was helpful in bringing my murdered family into the room and I was able to communicate with them; I determined that they had found peace after their own traumatic death’s; they urged me to do the same with my own intergenerational trauma. It was quite helpful indeed. Another time I visited a Zen Buddhist monastery where the monks were droning on and on. I listened for a while, trying to connect with their voices and prayer. However, what I really came away with was that if I was going to listen to droning, that I might as well return to the synagogue, where at least the droning was in a language and sung by my own people, to whom I could relate. Also being an atheist did not mean that I did not adhere to the Jewish values I had been imbued with. I did believe in doing good in the world, and dedicated myself to social justice work very early, including walking to school with an African American school chum when my mother had forbidden it. I went to civil rights demonstrations in the 1960s, became an ardent feminist in the 1970s as well as a radical
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