Perspective:Zentermarriage
Blank, William
PERSPECTIVE ZENTER-MARRIAGE WILLIAM BLANK I am a Reform rabbi. I do not officiate at marriages where one of the marriage partners is not Jewish. My congregation is located in Rochester, New York,...
...This book had a significant influence upon me, when, as an undergraduate, I first became interested in phenomenology of religion...
...I indicated that I was sorry too, as I was enjoying all of this as well...
...But in this case, I was not so sure...
...Perhaps it is because I will not deny the subjective validity of anyone's experience of the holy, as long as it ¦ harms no one else, no matter how j bizarre or blasphemous it may seem...
...They were able to talk about and appreciate the spiritual dimension in life far better than 90 percent of the Jews I know...
...I suppose it was inevitable that the request I received two days ago would eventually come my way...
...We did not communicate for several months after that first meeting, and then our summer vacations meshed in such a way that we did not get in touch again until two days before the ceremony...
...I have mixed feelings...
...Jon indicated that he was sorry that he did not tell me about their involvement with the Zen Center when first we met, because now that it was in the open, they were actually learning a lot from my questions and my statements about Judaism...
...They explained that they had many warm and meaningful attachments to Judaism and that the roshi teaches in the West, one cannot deny previous religious upbringing—it is a part of one's karma that must be accepted...
...And perhaps it is because I believe that Jewish rituals are sacred, and the river of holiness is so deep that mixing rituals makes shatnez (the halachic combining of ' materials) look like child's play...
...Both indicated that they were proud of being Jews and that they had never denied that fact...
...Although I have no statistics on or real firsthand knowledge of most of the members of the Zen Center, I am certain that a much larger percentage of its members were born Jewish than a random sample of the American urban, educated population would dictate...
...No belief in the divinity of the Buddha is at issue, except insofar as all people are a reflection of the divine Buddha-nature...
...When I asked what sort of religious education they planned on giving their children, should they have any, they replied that they hadn't yet discussed the matter...
...And I genuinely liked them both...
...Perhaps it is because I do not know if I can help this couple—if indeed they want to be helped—to strengthen their Jewish ties or if they are beyond the point of no return...
...So it appears that a certain amount of midrash is needed to understand the "nonreligious character of Zen...
...They agreed on its meaning: that one acknowledges a personal Buddha-nature, one's deity within...
...Yet in the Zen Center's own publication, Zen Bow, a student wrote a letter to the roshi expressing his concern over the prostrations to the Buddha and ceremonial offerings which, increasingly, had become a part of life at the Center...
...This led to a series of questions...
...Linda and Jon (fictional names), born Jewish and members of the Zen Center for two years, asked me to officiate at their wedding...
...Although I have never met the man, I have a very profound respect for him...
...Yet at the same time, they participated in rituals that were certainly, by Jewish standards, idolatrous...
...She did not quite seem able to understand that a tradition could put so much energy into study at the expense of merely living...
...I asked them what they meant when they recited the Buddhist equivalent of "Sh'ma Yisrael," "I take refuge in the Buddha...
...They agreed that they were looking forward to our future meetings...
...Each replied "yes" without a moment's hesitation...
...If the second ceremony they were to have would have been Christian, I would have certainly refused...
...All of this is background...
...I pointed out to them that the ketubah I use asks that the bride and groom promise "to work for the perpetuation of Judaism and of the Jewish people in their home, in their family life, and in their communal endeavors...
...I suggested that they ought to consider the matter soon...
...They seemed to be a typical Jewish couple: aware of being Jewish and somewhat proud of the fact, but not overly committed to or concerned about having a strong Jewish element in their daily lives...
...After all, both partners were Jewish by birth, and they had not chosen to renounce that fact...
...Zen stresses acquiring a direct, personal, religious experience which, in and of itself, can be adapted to practically any religious framework...
...We agreed to spell out that contract more fully at our first meeting, to be held soon after their honeymoon...
...I replied that I always had regarded study of Torah as looking into a mirror of one's own soul...
...The founder and roshi (that's the Zen equivalent of 'Rosh Yeshiva') of the Zen Center is Philip Kapleau (yes he was born Jewish, as well...
...I first asked them what their feelings about Judaism were...
...and they professed a creed which, while not antithetic to Judaism, requires more explanation to bring it into accord with most Jewish teachings than either of them would have the skills to do...
...I finally decided that I would officiate at their ceremony on the condition that the three of us spend more time together...
...I really enjoyed the hour I spent with them...
...William Blank is rabbi at Temple Emanuel in Rochester, New York...
...They were open and loving and sincere and alive...
...I officiated...
...They agreed that with the right teachers and guidance this might not have been the case, but as things were they had to look elsewhere...
...I asked them if they would sign that...
...The roshi answered that in all of these rituals, one is only bowing before one's own Buddha-nature, one's own deity within...
...I have even considered, on occasion, attending one of the Center's introductory workshops on the practice of Zen meditation myself...
...Perhaps that is because I know that if fate had turned for me a bit diflerendy ten years ago, I might now be in the Zen Center instead of the Synagogue...
...As I by then had guessed, they indicated that seeking a rabbi to marry them in the first place was, for the most part, a concession to their parents' wishes...
...Yet by the time they entered adulthood, they had come to realize that the Judaism which they had been taught was not sufficient to meet their spiritual needs...
...Needless to say, that prompted a meeting of the three of us at the earliest convenient hour, which was that same afternoon...
...I looked for some more obvious Jewish components in their lives, and they both said that they had recently read Golda Meir's autobiography and had become aware, for the first time, of the importance of Israel and Zionism in their lives...
...One can be a practicing Zen Buddhist and also a Christian or a Jew or an atheist...
...But at the same time, Linda indicated that in her youth, she had been taught that the greatest good was study of Torah and that all the Jewish heroes had stayed up all night for weeks studying Torah...
...My congregation is located in Rochester, New York, which is also the home of one of the oldest and largest Zen Buddhist centers in the country...
...When I pointed out that the direct experiential aspects of religion are very prominent in Judaism, particularly in the Kabbalah, they were genuinely interested...
...Zen Buddhist practice, Kapleau and other authorities state, does not necessarily imply a personal belief structure as most Western religions dictate...
...At this point I was becoming increasingly confused as to whether or not I would still officiate at their ceremony...
...When first we met several months ago, they made no mention of their membership in the Zen Center, nor did they have any plans, at that time, they later told me, to have more than one wedding ceremony...
...Had time not been so short, I would have required more time together before the ceremony...
...This morning was their wedding...
...She did not seem impressed...
...They were certainly no less "Jewish" in their concerns than three-quarters of the other couples at whose weddings I officiate...
...My own study of Zen confirms this fact as far as Zen meditational practice is concerned...
...They wanted a more intense religious life, and they could not find it in Judaism...
...His book, The Three Pillars of Zen (Beacon Press: Boston, 1965) is the finest work on Zen Buddhism in English...
...This interest, rather than a deep belief of feeling for Torah—on the conscious level, at least—ultimately led me to the rabbinate...
...It was only much later that belief and feeling for Torah became preeminent in my own religious life...
...They had attended religious school as children and had celebrated bar mitzvah (Jon) and confirmation (Linda...
...At that time, they informed me on the telephone that they had decided over the summer to have a second ceremony, a Buddhist ceremony, the day after I was to marry them in my study...
...He is at work on a book about bar mitzvah...
...I do not know if I did the right thing...
...But then they came to feel that their real religious energies lay with the Zen Center, and that they wanted a Buddhist ceremony as well...
Vol. 4 • December 1978 • No. 2
