My Adventures with God by Stephen Tobolowsky

Author:Stephen Tobolowsky [Tobolowsky, Stephen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

5

THE UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES OF EDEN

I don’t know when I knew. It wasn’t a matter of looking in a mirror. It was something that crept up on me and became clearer over time. I was a traditionalist.

The tip-off should have been that I liked the song “Teen Angel.” To like “Teen Angel” you have to believe in God, believe in heaven, and believe that it’s still rock and roll even if there are angels singing in the background.

I am not sure if being a traditionalist is something we are born with like a priori knowledge, or if it is learned. If it is a priori, then perhaps it could be a genetic trait, like being left- or right-handed. Nature makes sure that we have enough traditionalists to keep necktie salesmen in business.

I grew up in the fifties and sixties. It was an era when everyone wanted to be a rebel. Not me. I was uncomfortable with the bell-bottoms. In college being a traditionalist made me far less attractive than I could have been. I didn’t have the nerve to grow a beard or wear a Che Guevara T-shirt. I grew bushy sideburns and wore shirts my mother bought at Sears. I looked like a Young Republican with poor grooming.

My traditionalism has had side effects. I didn’t drink a beer until I was nineteen. I didn’t smoke dope until I was in graduate school. Even for the brief period when I was a drug dealer, I was a very traditional drug dealer—with the exception of a few moments in Albert’s truck.

Tradition gets a bad rap. People assume tradition means “old news.” That’s not true. Traditionalists are interested in the future. We worry about it all the time. We save money. We have children, which, by definition, is the future. A big part of tradition is innovation. Take Judaism. It takes a lot of imagination and creativity to make something thousands of years old new again.

When I returned to Judaism, I embraced anything that was part of the tradition. Even for a traditionalist it was daunting.

You have to have your head covered. I could handle that. I still had my yarmulke Rabbi Klein gave me in first grade. I wore it when I started going to Beth Meier. Rabbi Schimmel laughed when he first saw me wearing it. “Let me guess,” he said, “your first Simchas Torah!”

You have to wear prayer shawls. I recognize this is not normal, but not distasteful. Boys usually get a prayer shawl, or tallit, as a gift for their bar mitzvah. I did not have a bar mitzvah, so I never got a prayer shawl. Beth Meier had a rack of loaners. Anyone could come in and borrow a tallit for the service. According to tradition, before you place the prayer shawl on your shoulders, you hold it in front of you and say a prayer. It is even customary to kiss the tallit before putting it in place. I found this behavior odd but sweet. Saying the prayer was always pleasant.

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