Is It Possible?
Photos by Bo nn ie Cou scns
Colloquium scholars help define the secular Jewish concept of spirituality.
SHARON LUCKERMAN
.
Staff W77iter
I-
good, bad or dangerous.
He said it needed an
ethical center to make it
good.
In another session, on
"Rethinking Jewish
Left: Professor Rachel
Mysticism," Elior
Elior, .Cohn Chair of
defined mysticism as
Jewish Philosophy at
"the history of the
Hebrew University in
imagination in the con-
Jerusalem, speaks on
text of religion."
"Rethinking Jewish
Though the spirituali-
Mysticism."
ty of all religions should
be equally respected, she
added, they are pro-
foundly different.
Elior said each reli-
gion brings its own cul-
ture and language to its
spirituality. Only Jewish
mystics had to return
their insights back to
the community in the fofm of mitzvot.
In addition, Jewish mysticism is Unique in being
centered on the Kabbalah, which is a decoding of
the past, not in historical terms, but by deciphering
an inner truth.
Other panelists at the colloquium included Dr.
Dan Cohn-Sherbok, professor of Judaism at the
University of Wales; Ruth Calderon, founder and
director of Alma Hebrew College in Tel Aviv; Harry
T. Cook, rector of St. Andrew's Church in Clawson;
Rabbi Daniel Friedman, retired leader of
Congregation Beth Or in Deerfield, Ill.; Dr. Norbert
M. Samuelson, writer and chair of Jewish Studies at
Arizona State University; Dr. Mitchell Silver, cultur-
al director of Camp Kinderland and educational
director of the I.L Peretz School of Workmen's
Circle in Boston; and Ralph Williams, English lan-
guage and literature professor at the University of
Michigan.
"The power of the colloquium lies in bringing
together people from all over the world and in the
questions they can ask," Rabbi Wine said.
"The audience is enthusiastic, very gratifying,"
said Aciman. "I'm very happy to see a group of Jews
who want to do something together. They are enri-
fled and should; this is how we Jews survive." ❑
Far left:
Dr. Joseph Chuman
discusses "Ethics and
Spirituality"
believe we all have a chronicle, a spiritual
journey," Andre Aciman told an audience of
about 425 at the opening session of the
Humanistic Colloquium on Secular Jewish
Spirituality.
A writer and professor of French and English
comparative literature at New York's Bard College,
Aciman's own chronicle began in Egypt. Since then,
he has associated lavender and its scent with those
early years of tenderness between himself and his
parents — a loving, happy, safe time.
Once his Sephardic Jewish family fled Egypt,
Adman's search for that past — a rich time no
longer part of his life in exile — was encapsulated in
his real and literary search for lavender. Yet he could
never match the scent that persisted in his memory.
This led him into queStions and assessments about
both his present life and his past, he said. What is
real? What is lost? What is the meaning of life he
wishes to pass on to his sons?
Aciman's talk set the tone for the fourth biennial
colloquium of the International Institute for Secular
Humanistic Judaism. Held at the Pivnick Center in
Farmington Hills Oct. 18-21, it attracted partici-
pants from this country and abroad.
Along with 10 other scholars from America,
Europe and Israel, Aciman explored whether spiritu-
ality and rational Judaism can coexist. Discussion
groups gave participants a chance to form their own
ideas about the issues presented.
"What is secular spirituality?" asked Humanistic
Rabbi Sherwin Wine, a member of the panel.
"Where does one find it? How do we enhance our
lives with it?
"We are addressing an issue from a new perspec-
tive, not only to help our movement but for other
Jews who are not involved [in any Jewish practice]
but who would like to connect with their Jewish
identity," he said.
Aciman presented what Rabbi Wine called a spiri-
tual experience. "Spirituality is something we smell,
touch, not just feel," Rabbi Wine said.
Colloquium participant Lee Marsh, of Berkeley,
Calif, said: "Aciman gave the story of his life and
everybody else's through the use of lavender. It was
so intricate."
Aciman exemplifies a "relatively new voice" in
Jewish history, said panelist Rachel Elior, Cohn
Chair of Jewish philosophy at Hebrew University in
Jerusalem.
This is the first century, she said, that Jews talk
about the present in terms of individual experiences,
disconnected from the past and the future.
De-mystifying Spirituality
At another colloquium session, Dr. Joseph Chuman,
leader of the Ethical Culture Society of Bergen
County N.J., and teacher of such classes as religion
and human rights at Columbia University, discussed
"Ethics and Spirituality."
"There are two ways to understand spirituality —
from a traditional and a contemporary standpoint,"
he said. "Both imply a different concept of reality."
When an audience member asked if Jewish spiri-
tuality was the same as Islamic extremist Osama bin
Laden's, Chuman responded that spirituality can be
Correction
Shirlee and Jack Iden of West Bloomfield are
the parents of Tzviah Idan of Tiberias, Israel,
who wrote about the murder of her boss,
Tourism Minister Rehavam Ze'evi ("Murder
Hits Home," Oct. 19, page 19).