Sam Blackman - That’s Me in the Temple. That’s Me in the Spotlight.

 

 

Wow. A 70-year-old Jew trapped in the body of a 10-year-old boy. [audience laughter] That's what my parents would say about me. It was because on Saturday afternoons, I would walk by myself to our temple for Mincha and Maariv, the evening worship. It was because when grownups would ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I said I wanted to be a doctor, and a rabbi and a mohel. [audience laughter] All three. If you don't know what a mohel is, it's the ritual Jewish circumciser. [audience laughter] My parents had no explanation for that. [audience laughter] They were high holiday Jews, so they were confused by the depth and profundity of my devotion. It was there, because I really, I truly believed in God. I felt God. 

 

When I was a little boy, I would close my eyes and I would visualize God. And you know what I saw? I saw the Jolly Green Giant [audience laughter] from the 1970s vegetable commercials. And don't laugh, because this was important to me, that I felt protected, I felt sheltered. This was 1980, the Iran hostage crisis, and the Cold War and Ronald Reagan was coming. So, a Jolly Green Jewish God worked for me. [audience laughter] But more than that, I loved being Jewish. I loved Judaism. I would go to temple on a Friday night and I would sit in the front row and I would sing my heart out. And afterwards, I'd run up to my rabbi like a groupie at a concert. [audience laughter] I would go to my regular grade school, and then afterwards I'd go to Hebrew school and then after that I'd go to extra bar mitzvah classes. 

 

My bar mitzvah, when I turned 13, was the high point of my young life. Because now, I could be part of a minion. And a minion is this 10-man quorum that you need to conduct prayer services. And so, I had God. But more importantly, I belonged to something that was bigger than me, that was important to me. And for a weird, nerdy kid from New Jersey, this was a big deal. But When I was 15, my rabbi was fired for contractual reasons. I was devastated, because I loved Rabbi Kimelman. He was short and bald and wise, and he had this singing voice that soared to the heavens. When we would talk, he would look me in the eyes and hold my hand and he would let me ask an infinite number of questions. 

 

He was so patient with me, because that's what you do when you're a good Jew. You keep asking questions. And now, he's gone because of money. This new rabbi, Rabbi Rogoff, he was different. He was tall and aloof and he'd talk to me, but he'd cross his arms and he'd loom over me. But I could see him scanning above my head for somebody else to talk to. He redecorated the synagogue in mid-1980s pastels and mauve. [audience laughter] He hired a cantor. He outsourced the singing. [audience laughter] 

 

Now, not long after that, my parents’ marriage erupted in a conflagration of mutual infidelity. And both of them sought counsel from Rabbi Rogoff. My father, the doctor, the one who paid the Hebrew school tuition and made the annual contributions to the temple, he got the rabbi's counsel and wisdom. But my mother, the college dropout who had an affair with the plumber, was told she needed psychiatric care. And then, one day, I'm 16 and I'm sitting in the back row of a temple that's now unrecognizable to me with my father and his girlfriend. And for the first time, I noticed that in the middle of services, people will waltz in through the back, and adults will turn and look and whisper, “Who's there? Who are they with? What are they wearing?” 

 

I become aware that this is a performance, that the people here are acting Jewish. They know the lines, they're wearing costumes, they got the musical numbers down. But my teenage brain is saying, “This is a show.” And then, suddenly, inside, I'm falling and I've got nothing solid to grab onto. Rabbi Kimelman fired my parent’s marriage, shattered my temple mauve. [audience laughter] Everything that I reach touch is plastic. I turn inside and I look for God, but my 16-year-old Jewish brain knows that the Jolly Green Giant, it's just a logo on the side of a can of watery green beans. 

 

This despair surges in me and I start to cry and I shoot up to my feet and my father growls at me, “Sit down.” But I don't sit down. I run. I run out of the back of the temple, and I run out of the back of the building, I'm like Benjamin Braddock running in the Graduate. And I run and I run and I don't look back. And in that moment, I break. I break with God and I break with Judaism. I pave over the ruins with three decades of science and medicine. And in 35 years, I never set foot in a temple until three weeks ago when my oldest friend, Adam, invites my wife and daughter and I to come to San Francisco for his daughter's bat Mitzvah. 

 

You go, because that's what you do when a friend you've known since 10 calls you. And for the first time in 35 years, I put on a tallit, the Jewish prayer shawl, and I put on a yarmulke. And as the rabbi chants the prayers, the Aleinu, the Shema, the Kaddish, the words and the melodies come flooding back to me. And just for a moment, I am that 12-year-old boy again and it's all still there inside me. When they parade the Torah around, I remember that you take the corner of your tallit and you touch the Torah, you don't touch it with your hand, and then you kiss that part of the tallit. 

 

When my daughter gets restless during the services, I say to her, “Here, you can braid the fringes of the tallit” which is what my father said to me when I was her age. It was like seeing that first person who broke your heart 35 years later and you go now, now, now I remember why I fell in love with you when I felt that belonging. And I thought to myself, what would have happened? 

 

After the service, our daughter, who was raised with no religion, comes up to my wife and I, she goes, “Daddy, I want to go to Hebrew school and be bat mitzvahed.” Is this God? Because if it is, He's got a hell of a sense of humor. [audience laughter] I don't know. But what about Judaism? I mean, is this a first date? Are we going to start seeing each other again? [audience laughter] I don't know, but maybe I think, maybe we can still be friends. Thank you very much.