Letters

LETTERS Names To the Editor: I grew up knowing of no Remson, Rimson, or Remsen other than our family. Like author Howard Husock (March 1979) I thought my name was religiously and ethnically...

...I can only speak for myself...
...So to the Freilich and Klieman families—I love you...
...Intellectuals have only rare contact with our folk...
...He rightly claimed that he and his contemporaries had built worthy and creative structures for Jewish life in America, and he challenged my generation to provide a foundation for those structures...
...I too grew up in West Hartford, Connecticut, though seventeen years later than Professor Neusner...
...However, he is biased when it comes to Transcendental Meditation...
...I am one of those few who converted to Judaism out of conviction with no pretense of marriage...
...This was the time I needed an information center, to inform me what the conversion program offered and what I could offer the program...
...I attended a NFTY camp where Hebrew was common not only in prayer, and my college studies included a year in Israel...
...I found that the silence which was cultivated through TM allowed me to again appreciate the power, the depth and the beauty of Jewish prayer and worship...
...Mil To the Editor: As a professional, a Jew and a meditator, I found Lawrence Tabak's article on Maharishi U extremely insulting (January/February 1979...
...But enter I did...
...His Jewish camp was Hebrew-free, and birkat hamazon shocked him in college...
...Third, we need to consider the plight of Jewry outside the three main centers of Israel, North America, and the Soviet Union...
...3. JESPY House—a unique residence for Jewish special young adults in which norms of Jewish living (Shabbat, Kashrut, etc...
...The benefits of TM are undeniable...
...No intelligent person would continue meditating twice a day, spending that precious time, unless it made him feel substantially better...
...My dismay was engendered by the realization that Dr...
...Should I decide to stop being a poor Russian Jew and become a wealthy Dutchman, a simple typographical error will suffice...
...Anyone who has been practicing the technique for any amount of time can speak personally about improved health, increased vigor, sharper mental processes, and, in general, a much calmer and more enjoyable life...
...History will test what he has said and what we will do...
...But the conversion class is over and I have been left to sink or swim...
...Thanks again for publishing a magazine that reflects the unreflectable—the 1,000 facets of the American Jewish experience, most of which are contradictory...
...Clearly Mr...
...Like author Howard Husock (March 1979) I thought my name was religiously and ethnically nondescript...
...Others will prescribe additional halachot in response to Professor Neusner's aggadot...
...I revered the same rabbi but saw the rabbinate as only one and not necessarily the most important of Jewish occupations...
...Our newly-buried ancestors have built structures to accommodate these enterprises, but I believe that we must recognize how much is yet unfulfilled...
...The reason so many Jews and gentiles, Nobel laureates included, practice the TM technique is that it works...
...The problem I face is finding my niche...
...Second, we must integrate other groups now marginal in Jewish life...
...Eric Jon Brink Bryan, Texas Learning Disabilities To the Editor: I read "Every Tenth Child" (December 1979) with both delight and dismay...
...We may properly secularize without succumbing to secularism...
...Tabak wants to understand this phenomenon...
...For him, contemplating a rabbi's death raised the specter of Judaism's demise...
...We are still disciples, not yet masters...
...We are neither as few or as "mad" as was suggested in your article...
...Finally, we must discover and communicate new dimensions of Torah, and we must find more persuasive and thoughtful ways of speaking about God...
...Edya Arzt Education Director Women's League for Conservative Judaism New York, New York...
...At that time a synagogue, or in my case, a Hillel office seemd a forbidding place to enter alone...
...Michael M. Remson Kenosha, Wisconsin Wanted Dead or Alive To the Editor: Jacob Neusner, my teacher and friend, recently praised and then buried his generation of American Jews (January 1979...
...Faigel, for all his interest in and understanding of the learning disabled child, is obviously unaware of the work of the Special Education Committee of the United Synagogue Commission on Jewish education...
...I needed reliable materials with a minimal amount of ambiguity and hassle...
...Salvation has hardly arrived, but Torah has been transmitted...
...We need to reflect on the mysteries and commandments of tradition without letting nostalgia paralyze our will to live and create...
...First, we—of both sexes—must liberate women...
...The Remsons (Rimson until Ellis Island) are a poor Russian Jewish family who were late settlers of New York State...
...are observed as routine...
...My delight was in the fact that your magazine has joined in the effort to take these youngsters and their families "out of the closet" and give them the Jewish education they rightfully deserve...
...And the answer to the question on your cover: Maharishi is smiling because he's happy...
...Half of world Jewry is still enslaved psychologically, unenfranchised politically, and severely constrained socially and economically...
...Those who are neither children nor parents have little place in our synagogues and other organizations...
...My problem when I started thinking of converting to Judaism was searching for someone I could discuss it with...
...Tabak dismisses Rabbi Levine's enthusiasm for TM in four brief sentences and devotes pages to others who share his negative view...
...What really makes it worthwhile are those families who have taken me under their wing to give me a warmth and love that a sometimes cold synagogue cannot...
...Tabak snidely refers to Jews, like myself, who have rediscovered their Jewishness through TM...
...I for now conclude with praise for those who made good use of the fruits of life: zichronam livracha...
...but I would like to articulate some directions I believe my generation must follow in pursuing the ends Professor Neusner so eloquently recommends...
...We have been instrumental in the formation of: 1. Shalaym—a national organization of parents of and those interested in Jewish special children...
...I started going to Temple again after a 20 year absence...
...We publish a Manual for organizing special classes, a Bibliography for articles on Jewish special education (1978), a List of Classes for Jewish Special children in the United States and Canada...
...I don't have the advantages that a couple would have, yet all the same, the challenge and the excitement more than compensates...
...He also overlooks Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach who has been practicing TM for over a year...
...Stephen Molasky Chicago, Illinois Amichai To the Editor: I always knew you had a terrific magazine but the final proof is in your handling of the poems of Yehuda Amichai—in English for them as needs it and in Hebrew for them who can appreciate it...
...Faigel is quite right in saying "Learning disabled children need not be lost to us...
...I take his directive personally...
...Joanne Greenberg Golden, Colorado Comersion To the Editor: In reference to Jewish proselytzing I think the idea of information centers (or at least highly publicized programs) is an excellent one...
...David Altshuler Judaic Studies Department George Washington University Washington, D.C...
...Tabak is an intelligent man who knows how to write...
...As technology shrinks our globe, yisrael can aspire to be more of a klal...
...I later heard that the Remsens are a wealthy Dutch family who were early settlers of New York State...
...I was quite surprised when a member of the Admissions Committee of the New York School of Hebrew Union College once asked me how I got such a goyishe name...
...For him, being Jewish was to be done only in private...
...And the aged and infirm often are shunted into institutions that set them apart from the mainstreams of Jewish life...
...Judging from what he has written, he and I experienced very different environments while coming of age as Jews and as Americans...
...The published scientific studies on TM fill two volumes as lengthy as the Chicago telephone directory...
...We have co-published, with the UAHC, materials for instruction of Jewish Special Children, and are shortly publishing "The Other Child in Jewish Education," a detailed program of religious instruction...
...I do not know if Mr...
...for me, the 1960s brought American activists to the streets and 1967 propelled American Jews out of the closet...
...Please tell him that, indeed, they are not...
...My decision to convert was a sound one, and a happy one for both my parents, who are Unitarians and for me...
...This is the one most important item Tabak leaves out of his article...
...For him, pervasive waspifying raised doubts about Jewish survival...
...2. Tikvah—a summer camping for Jewish special children integrated into a Ramah setting...
...Either he has not done much research or he chose to overlook Rabbi Harry Essrig, a distinguished member of the Board of Southern California Rabbis, who, along with his wife and two children, has been meditating for five years...
...His closing statement, likening the TM program to a cult, is outrageous, especially at a time when the word cult conjures images of mindless emotionalism, herd instinct and violence...
...At least four tasks seem to me crucial...
...for me, Jewish identity was intensifying all around as the American dream crumbled...
...Tabak is unable to answer his query as to why so many bright Jews meditate and involve themselves in positions of leadership within the movement...
...In sum, my generation was lucky to inherit the structures of Jewish life that his generation built...
...The answer is quite simple...

Vol. 4 • May 1979 • No. 5


 
Developed by
Kanda Sofware
  Kanda Software, Inc.