#bible stories
[Letter to a devout, practicing Jew mother on how to raise her son who “believes in science”]
Of course in a free country, within limits, you can raise your children how you please, on whatever belief system you choose. For this reason, most people in the world who are religious, practice the religion of their parents. For example, the chances of Christians raising a child who later becomes Muslim, or a Muslim family raising a child who later becomes Jewish are extremely rare. The children will be more likely to grow up believing in no Gods than in the Gods of other religions.
So the urge to raise your son as a devout, practicing Jew, being one yourself, is entirely normal and natural. But of course you have, at most, only 18 years of direct influence on him. Your son will spend more than eighty percent of his life under a different roof than you.
From what I have seen and encountered, Judaism manifests across a huge range of practices - from emboldened Jews who enthusiastically eat bacon to the various sects of Orthodox Jews who, among other practices, maintain separate kitchen utensils for dairy and for meat. As a scientist, I have much more experience with atheist Jews. They do not view the Torah as the word of God. They see it as a book of stories - not to be judged for their truth or falsehood, but as a repository of insights from which wisdom for living one’s life can be derived.
Think about it - when we read fairy tales, we are not judging them for whether they are true or not. Instead, we fold lessons derived from them into our world views. Not only this, atheist Jews will commonly celebrate the high holidays with no less ritual than practicing Jews, right on down to leaving an open seat the Seder table for Elijah, and making sure the front door is unlocked, so he can just walk right in if he happens to show up.
Why would an atheist Jew do this? The answer is not hard. Rituals and traditions account for some of the strongest binding forces among peoples of the world. Attending Mass on Sundays for Catholics. Prayer five times per day for Muslims. Ancestor worship for the Animist religions. One can participate without judging whether the events that established the ritual have any literal truth at all. The participation creates a sense of community. which has almost always contributed value to civilization. It disrupts civilization only when people require that others share their particular rituals, with threat of force to achieve it.
Being on the spectrum and liking science as he does, your best bet might be to not enforce the literalism of anything religious, but to keep him plugged into the beautiful traditions of the religion, and emphasize the value of ritual as a seed and taproot of community. Often that alone represents the greatest challenge when raising autistic children - getting them to embrace the value of love and compassion for people and for relationships.
Rest assured that you can raise a wholesome, intelligent, law-abiding child without requiring he believe that Moses turned a staff into a snake, or that manna fell from heaven.
Good luck. In my experience, it takes some of that too.
- Neil deGrasse Tyson in ‘Letters from an Astrophysicist’
Back in September I had a friend undergoing some struggles and I wrote a few things down that I thought would be an encouragement…but I wound up never actually sending it to that friend. After listening to Pastor Zarlengo’s message today and Pastor Erdvig’s last week, I felt it was just as suited for me today, than it was for my friend a few months back. I am writing them out here in hopes that…
“No Gabriel, why don’t YOU go have a baby? I’m busy.” (Carlo da Camerino)
“Oh. You woke me up. For this. Thanks.” (Dante Gabriel Rosetti)
To be fair, neither Mary nor Gabriel looks thrilled, here. (Duccio di Buoninsegna)
“UUUUUUUUGH” (Jan van Eyck)
“UUUUUUUUUUUUGH” (Jan van Eyck, again) (van Eyck gets bonus points for Gabriel’s fabulous wings)
Mary is clearly about to steal Gabriel’s stick and stab him with it. (Hans Memling)
“Just no. No, I’m not doing that, no.” (Allessandro Allori)
One of my favorite phenomena in art history is the obvious distaste with which the Virgin Mary reacts to the Annunciation. (For non-Christian Tumbletonians, this is the moment in Luke 1:26-38 when the angel Gabriel visits Mary to inform her that she, a virgin, will bear the son of God.)
Imagine yourself as a teenage girl. You’ve never been touched by a man, in a culture that values sexual purity in women. Suddenly, a winged dude descends from on high, blows a trumpet, and starts hollering that you’re going to have a baby. But it’s totally fine, because said baby will be the Messiah. So the elderly carpenter that your parents will con into marrying you will be totally cool with your mystery baby. (Sorry, Joseph.) And oh, by the way, you’ll outlive your son, who will be murdered by the State for being a radical.
Luke 1:29 reads, in deep understatement, “Mary was troubled by his [Gabriel’s] words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be.”
Now, we can see why the face of the Virgin, in art history, isn’t quite as beatific as one might expect. She ranges from mildly upset…
(Fra Angelico) (also just look at Adam and Eve off gossiping in the corner)
(Godfried Schalcken, who evidently imagined the angel Gabriel as Louis XVI in his nightgown)
…to genuinely puzzled…
“You want WHAT now?”
(Matthias Stom)
…to actually running and hiding…
“Mary? No, you want the next weird tower over. I’m Marcy. No Mary here.”(Guido da Siena)
…to downright salty.
“Bitch I AM READING.” (Jean Hey)
…AND my favorite:
“Fuck right off very much, Gabriel.”
(Simone Martini)
