My earliest religious memories go back to my early childhood. I was three, maybe four. I was with my uncle and brother. We were sitting in a large crowded orthodox synagogue on Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn. Everything was new and interesting/fascinating to me. Every seat was filled -  no women, just men in suits. We would stand, sit, then stand and sit . . ., over and over again. I had no idea what was going on, but that didn't matter. It was all new. Suddenly, a man was going round. He ran over to us, looked down at me, and asked a question in Yiddish. I nervously asked my Uncle what was going on. He said they were looking for the youngest child. When the man learned how young I was, he called out to the men in black clothes standing on a raised platform (the bima) in the front. I think he called out my age. The men gestured for him to bring me up. He took me by the hand. I was surprised and nervous. As he led me towards them, I looked back anxiously at my Uncle. He seemed surprised, but smiled reassuringly.  

 

     I found my small self surrounded by bearded men in black clothing. They - if Memory serves - were chanting. Then they extinguished the flame of a large twisted candle in wine they had poured into a bowl. One of the men gave me some wine in a cup. I sipped cautiously and made a face. “Nu, how did it taste?” “Bitter.” They laughed. I laughed. I felt loved and protected by these men. My first (remembered) Jewish religious experience.

 

     Shortly after, my brother and I were separated and I was alone with my aunt & uncle. They were not observant, but they tried - sort of. We lived in a Bensonhurst apartment house peopled by Jews, except for the McCauley’s, Irish Catholics. Of course, I stayed home on the High Holy Days. Early on, I would run to Synagogue to hear the strange sounds of the Shofar, the ram’s horn, in the evening. I almost always made it, but I was sometimes late. You see, we had a routine. On a High Holy Day, the three of us would don our best clothes, and in the morning, pass our neighbors. We looked very much like the model of a Nice Jewish Family. We weren't, however, on our way to Synagogue. Instead, we walked to the distant subway entrance. We boarded the train. I loved going over the Brooklyn Bridge. We got off at 50th Street in Manhattan. Radio City! My Uncle paid for the tickets and we joined a long line. The wait was worth it. A movie & its famous stage show, including the famous Rockettes. I didn’t think too much about the annual ruse. That’s just the way it was. And truth-to-tell, I loved Radio City, its cavernous art-deco space, the huge screen, the huge stage - and the acts. Theatre! I was, however, confused by one act. A man was introduced as a cantor. He sang Kol Nidre. I didn’t know much, but I knew enough to know that you didn’t fool around with this song. It had such meaning, such power. I knew that you didn’t have to be Jewish to sing it. (Perry Como tried.) But why introduce the singer as a cantor? Shouldn’t he have been in synagogue? And how could he have a gig on the holiest of days? (Of course, this led to, “What was I doing here?” But I repressed the troubling thought.)

 

     We left Radio City happy. We ate at a coffee shop and returned via the subway. Sometimes, we got back late. The evening service was about to begin. My aunt and uncle went home and I ran. Usually, I made it in time to hear the sounding of the shofar! Magical/primitive! Jewish!

 

     That about covers my connection to Judaism, the religion. I knew I was Jewish, felt good about it. I do remember a theological discussion with my uncle and brother in front of 715 St. Marks Avenue. My brother was asking questions. My uncle was responding - clumsily and with difficulty. He was trying, I think, to do a very unJewish thing - describe G-d. I can’t recollect specifically what he said, but my takeaway was that G-d was up above, in the sky, looking down on us. I envisioned him as a kindly smiling farmer working a piece of straw between his teeth. (Huh?! Ich veiss?! I know where this came from? I was a kid.)

 

     In September, 1954, I was nine, time to enroll me in Talmud Torah at B’nai Isaac/Sons of Isaac Synagogue. I was gleeful and enthusiastic. I remember, the night before starting, singing as loudly as I could the tuneful popular song, “On the Street Where You Live” from My Fair Lady over and over again. (Ich veiss?!)  It meant three years of Hebrew & religious instruction, twice a week after public school,  culminating with my Bar Mitzvah.  I had such joyful expectations!   * 

 

     Still, I tried. I really did. I attended the Junior Congregation’s Shabbat service upstairs, held while the adults were praying downstairs. Initially, I was, again, happy & enthusiastic. I loved the service, especially the small cup of sweet Manischewitz wine served with a small slice of sponge cake at service’s end. (Jewish ambrosia!) I was even elected President of the Junior Congregation. (The election was close, but I skillfully outmaneuvered my rival.) 

 

     But then came Mr. K. 

 

     He was a rabbi-in-training. ( B’nai Isaac’s did have a well-known rabbi. He even had a radio show. He often had a cigar in his mouth. He was impressive, in a pretentious way. More than once, he asked me to present to the adult congregation. I played King Achaverus for Purim - “I need a queen to sit beside me on the throne. Oh, Esther, if you will be my queen, I'll give you half the lands I own!” I made a speech, etc. But our learned Rabbi had no time for children of those who were not well-off contributors. If you were, you were encouraged to continue with your Talmud Torah studies. Coming from a disinterested/unwealthy family, I wasn’t. The great Rabbi seldom appeared before the Junior Congregation.)

                                                                                         

     We were left with Mr. K.           

 

     So he taught about the Exodus. I followed what he said closely. In my Mind’s Eye I saw our personification of redemption & salvation - Moses. (He was/is such a wonderfully complex, heroic, flawed, human character - so Jewish. Even as a child I understood he wasn’t, couldn’t possibly be, a god because he was visible, and the (Jewish) god is ONE/invisible.) I followed Moses up the mountain, became more anxious as the Hebrews lost patience/faith and built their golden calf. When he came down, I was not surprised that he raged against the ungrateful idolaters, but was upset when Mr. K gleefully described Moses using his staff to open up the Earth beneath the idol and the idolaters, sending them to their deserved hellish deaths. Though I later read that it’s estimated about 3,000 died, I am pretty sure he said the number was about 20,000. After, he stopped, seemed spent (orgasm?), and was about to end the service.

 

     I tentatively raised my hand. Oy . . .

 

     (surprised & annoyed)  “You have a question, Yaakov?”  **

 

     (nervously) “Did G-d have to kill them?”

 

     (disbelievingly) “Did you hear me tell you what they had done?”

 

     (confused) But couldn't He just have punished them, not killed them?”

 

     (Angrily) “You’re questioning G-d?”

 

     (more nervous/more confused) “I . . . I . . .”

 

     (enraged, spittle flying) “Who are you to question G-d?”

                                                                                               

     I didn’t know how to answer Mr. K. What could I say? I still partly thought of G-d as that kindly farmer-in-the-sky. But: Why kill? Why open the earth to kill? People make mistakes. I distinctly recollect Mr. K’s protruding neck veins, the harshness and shrillness of his voice, and the spittle coming out of his mouth. I had upset Mr. K. But I, too, was upset. Very. There was absolute quiet in the room. No one else was going to say anything. I was very much alone. Alone. I closed down. But I was never the same. Something profound had happened. Slowly, over the years, I began to realize that the Mr. K’s of the world use “religion” as a cudgel, a weapon. They are, actually are, eager to beat you down with it. G-d/God/god had nothing to do with it. They are twisted/unhappy/angry people. Religion serves them well. Religion serves them well.

 

      I could write that I gradually became an agnostic. For a time, I sort of did. But over time even that boat sailed. I have come to have absolute faith in my Atheism, albeit Jewish atheism. I am very proud of my flawed, argumentative and eternally questioning People, der Juden. Although we were not the first, we made quantum intellectual & spiritual leaps for Humanity by envisioning an invisible/indivisible national deity. One of the great & tragic Turning Points in human history, was the concretization of belief. Moses was our leader, but he was flawed because he was human. He was human. (He wasn’t even allowed to cross over into the Promised Land. That was his punishment for a transgression by an unforgiving god capable of pettiness and meanness.) But once you divide god, once you render god visible, you are talking pagan. You are regressing. Red Regression Alert! Red Regression Alert! The consequences have been, and continue to be historically cataclysmic. 

 

     Und zo, I am a Jewish Atheist. I have come to believe that our lives are represented by the hyphen on the gravestone, that we only have each other, that there is no divine intervention & forgiveness. There is no Divine.  And this road to Atheism began with Mr. K more than 65 years ago.  

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*I had such joyful expectations, but The People of the Book had been thoughtless/careless when it came to educating American-Jewish kinder. This wasn’t the Europe of the Shtetl, of Tevye and Tradition, of the Given. The Fifties was a time of critical American-Jewish transition. And I believe that my negative experience was similar to that of a large cohort of young Jews. Talmud Torah was essentially oppressive. We were taught to read & write Hebrew, but only enough to read prayers. Seldom were we taught about the meaning of the prayers, their words.You were graded with the teacher checking your speed with a stop-watch. (I am not making this up!) There was very little cultural & historical discussion. (Israel was hardly mentioned.The Holocaust? Never!) It is my belief there was a moment, a very brief moment, where Things could have gone in such a different way. It is my belief that Talmud Torah “education”, at least the kind that I and others experienced, did lethal lifelong harm to the sense of Jewish identity among the kinder. A shonda, a sad shonda. 
 

**“You have a question, Yaakov?”   More than sixty years ago, I had no immediate answer to this question.Who was I to stand up to a rabbi-in-training?! I wasn’t even sure of my Hebrew name. I knew it might not be be Yaakov. It was given to me by Mrs. Wald, my first Talmud Torah teacher. Seems that when my second brother, Jay Erich Eisenmesser, was born in ’42, an incompetent doctor had examined my mother, Anne Eisenmesser/nee Moskowitz, shortly before the birth.  When he inserted an instrument, the head had been damaged. In about two weeks, my brother was dead. So two years later, I was named after him. Life . . .