Klavan’s Conversion and Kol Nidre

Kol Nidre is the prelude to the Yom Kippur prayers. Lewis Black called it the spookiest piece of music ever written. The tune and setting evoke fear and awe. The words, however, are quite a let down: uninspiring, depressing, and morally troubling. It’s a declaration that all oaths, from the year that just ended and from the one just starting, are null and void.

Jew-haters use the service as proof that Jews value dishonesty. Rabbis tried to kill the prayer, but the community wouldn’t let it go. I think most Jews just feel the tune and setting without considering the words. I get through Kol Nidre by imagining I’m in a Shul in Spain in the 1490s. The Shul is mostly filled with people who continue resisting the overwhelming pressure to leave the Jewish community. Shame-faced in the back are some crying Jews who succumbed to the pressure to leave the community, but — on this Yom Kippur at least — wish they hadn’t. Before beginning the Yom Kippur prayers the congregation declares that by the will of Heaven and by will of the community, according to Heavenly and Earthly courtrooms, we permit prayer with those who strayed. We then annul the words with which Jews left the community, and we tearfully and fearfully recite a verse declaring “And the entire congregation of Israel will be forgiven” and another declaring “And God said: I have forgiven, according to your request.”

The audacity to believe that the community can speak for God is a remarkable Jewish conceit. And note that it's the community, not some great individual. But that's for another post. The Kol Nidre actually predates the Spanish Inquisition by centuries. It was written during one of many other, long forgotten, times of extreme persecution. The climactic scene of The Jazz Singer, a movie about an American Jew leaving his father and his religion behind, features the Kol Nidre. Andrew Klavan and I are descendants of those who spent millennia withstanding the immense pressure and promise to leave Judaism. I purchased the Audible version of A Great Good Thing: A Secular Jew Comes to Faith in Christ only after great hesitation, and with the hope that my late mother would understand. I only listened to it when alone, not wanting to have to explain why I was listening. But I needed to understand what drove this Jew away. Andrew’s conversion was a very Jewish journey. He searched for God and religious truth and community. It was the opposite of opportunistic. In Andrew’s professional circles, converting from Judaism surely closes more doors than it opens. It was not a betrayal of his people. Andrew remains a staunch and outspoken ally of the Jewish people, and is just as hated by Jew-haters now as he was before. It was also not an exit from general Jewish values or practices. He maintains the universal values and practices of Judaism, and he never possessed the particularist ones. Andrew’s early positive religious experiences were all Christian, and were all within the embrace of loving Christian parental figures. The loving housekeeper in whose home he experienced Christmas and feared and then loved the Baby Jesus image near his bed. The father-in-law who first made him realize that there were people who lived in the world of ideas, and that this could be his world. The pastor good friend and neighbor. As Andrew got older, he identified with Jesus, wrote a book about him, and saw himself as the tortured misunderstood one-of-a-kind visionary. This is one reason Jews object to giving God a human face. He created us in His image, and we strive to emulate His deeds. But we shouldn’t imagine ourselves as God in flesh. Andrew’s early Jewish religious experiences were negative, some traumatically so. They were in the context of phoniness and disbelief. His sophisticated family distanced themselves from the common Jews to whom they felt superior. Andrew had a painful relationship with his father, who repeatedly sabotaged him. His father’s greatest anger was when Andrew began reading the New Testament. When Andrew started getting closer to God, it was within the Christian idiom, and he heard a call to be baptized. As an Orthodox Jew, the idea that God told a Jew to get baptized goes against what I believe to be true. Naturally, I prefer to explain it away as the product of his experiences and relationships. Either Andrew or I are wrong about this. Andrew learned of Judaism as a child rebelling against it. I don’t know if he tried to re-encounter it as an adult. When he realized much of Western Civilization was built on Christian (I’d say Judeo-Christian) heritage, he began reading the New Testament for himself. I don’t know if he ever revisited the Old Testament to understand what Christianity and much of Western Civilization were built on. If he didn’t, I wish he would. Andrew, if you’re reading, I’d love to host you here in Israel and take you around Jewish and Christian sites, and host you for Shabbat. Act now, and you can experience Sukkot in nice weather, as intended. Andrew has great appreciation for the Jewish people, but I don’t think he has enough appreciation of Judaism, or of how much of what he publicly ascribes to Christianity is actually Jewish. For one example, he made a big deal on a recent podcast about Christianity giving the world the idea that happiness was a religious value. It would be more accurate to say that Christians spread this Jewish idea. Deuteronomy repeatedly commands us to be happy, and declares that when tragedies befall us, we should realize that they are “because you didn’t serve God with happiness and a good heart when you had everything.” Dennis Prager does a great job with this idea. I wish Andrew would discuss these ideas as Judeo-Christian, and not just Christian. There are people who see Christians as those who replaced the Jews and our primitive ideas. The phrase Judeo-Christianity conveys a view that your Christianity continues rather than replaces Jewish ideas. I was raised to be pained by any Jew embracing Christ. Andrew should understand that, as he was too. But oddly we’re probably closer to each other’s religious and ethical views today than we were when he was a secular Jew. I wish Andrew all the best, even as I hope that other Jews searching for God would look within Judaism too. My offer to host people for Shabbat or holidays is open to all. If you’re coming to Israel, let me know! Wishing you all a wonderful year of growth and fulfillment, and of getting closer to God and man.

---

There's a great comment thread on this here at Richocet.

And Andrew Klavan conveyed his appreciation of this speech at around the 3:50 mark of this video.