Xviii I Introduction Studies, Whose Stately White Marble Building Is One

xix xviii I Introduction Introduction ) a visafor the UnitedStates, Studies,whose stately white marble building is one of the few in Europe he neversucceeded" In r g4zhewas arrested '' in Hollandand he died in Bergen-Belsen. associatedwith my fatherthat remainstanding today. t , When the Nazisinvaded He usedto describehow Polesunderestimated the dangers of a German Poland,my father'ssister Esther was killed in a bombing.His mother threat,confident that the famedPolish cavalry would be victorious.My ', andsister Gittel had to abandon their apartment, andtheir circumstances fathercontinued to struggleto 6nd a way out of Europe, andat the JaSt becamevery difficult. They sent poitcardsin which theyworried moment,just six weeksbefore the Cerman invasion of Poland,he suc- lovingly abouthis well-being and beggedfor newsof hissafety. "Each day we ceededin leavingWarsaw for London. that receivea Jetterfrom you," Gittel wrote,"is a holidayfor us." Both wereultimately murdered, My fatherescaped thanks to /ulian Morgenstern,the presidentof He- his motherin Warsaw, Gittel probably brewUnion College in Cincinnati,who hadbeen trying for severalyears most in Treblinka.Another sister, Devorah, who was married to securevisas from the StateDepartment to bring fewishscholars oui of and living in Vienna,was eventually deported to Theresienstadt on Europe.Michael Meyer has described the terribleobstacles Morgenstern Octoberz, rg4z, and from theresent to Auschwitz,where she was murdered encounteredat the StateDepartment, as well as his perseverance.2rHe upon her arrivalon May 16, 1944. poland. wasfinally given only fivevisas. My fathei'sname had been recommended My fathern€ver returned to Germany,or to Austria,or to He oncewrote: "If by severalcolleagues, on the basisof his publicationsand reputationin I shouldgo to Polandor Germany,every stone, every tree wouldremind Germany.That he wasunmarried helped; visas for spousesand children me of contempt,hatred, murder, of childrenkilled, of mothers weremore difficult to obtain,since the collegehad to takeresponsibility burnedalive, of human beingsasphyxiated."Zz for the financialmaintenance of the entirefamily. The formalletter from AFTER Dr. Morgensterninvited my fatherto serveas a ResearchFellow in Bible REcEIVtNc hisAmerican visa, my fatherarrived in NewYork in March Lg4o.Hestayed at firstwith membersof his family. and fewish philosophy for two years,at an annualsalary of $5oo, plus His oldest sister, boardand lodgingin the collegedormitory. My fatherwas first told by Sarah,and her husbandand most of their childrenhad already the Americanconsul in Warsawthat he would haveto be placedon a arrivedfrom Vienna, and there were also other cousinsfrom Warsaw. quotavisa and wait nine monthsbefore his casewas even considered' Hisposition in Cincinnatiwas not professorbut instructor.He wasgiven Instead,he appealedto the Americanconsul in Stuttgart.He finally a roomin the studentdormitory, where he alsokept his own food,since thecafeteria was receivedhis Americanvisa in |anuary Lg4o,and reachedNew York in not kosher.The studentswere a disappointmentto him March. aswell, becausetheir background in fewishtexts was much weakerthan My father'sdeportation from Germany in the midst of the e$ortsto thatof his studentsat the Berlinseminary. securethe visamade the processmore difficult.In April 1939he had to The yearsin Cincinnatiwere lonely, My fatherstruggled constantly to returnfrom Warsawto Stuttgartto attendto paperworkat the American bring his mother and sisterfrom Warsaw,and to saveother frields, consulatethere. Finally, in the summerof r939, he wasable to leave colleagues,and relativeswho remainedstranded in Europe.They wrote to him, Polandfor England,where his brother,facob, was serving as rabbi to an beggingfor help. He wasfrustrated with the AmericanJewish Orthodoxcongregation. My fatherremained in Londonfor six months, community,which he felt did not recognizethe emergency.The news fromEurope became andtogether with otherrefugee |ewish scholars and the help of the Theo- worseand worse. He continuedto receivemail from dorHerzl Society in London,he establishedan Institutefor JewishLearn- hismother and sistersand triedunsuccessfully to securevisas; he learned ing in February1g4o. The studentswere refugees,many en route to oftheir murder while he wasin Cincinnati,Within his immediate family, Palestine.During his monthsin London, my tatheralso attempted to theonly survivorswere those who fed beforethe war began:his brother, securework for friendswho werestill in Germany.He wasin closecontact ]acob,who left Viennafor Londonwith his wife, Susie,and daughter, with Arthur Spanier,who had servedas director of the fudaicadivision Thena,in r939,and his sister, Sarah, and her husband, the Kapitshinitzer of the PrussianState Library until he wasfired in r935 becausehe was rebbe,and their children,who left Vienna in February,tg3g, for New a non-Aryan,and who subsequentlyworked as an instructorand librarian York. atthe Hochschule in Berlin.In r938Spanier fled to Holland,and through Someof the rabbinicalstudents at HebrewUnion Collegebecame his him my fatherwas able to sendmoney and foodto his motherand one friends,helping him improvehis English,and he alsobecame friendly survivingsister in Warsaw.Although Spanier struggled for yearsto obtain withmembers of the faculty.'Heparticularly enf oyed Professor Abraham Yx I Introduction Introduction I xxi visiteda home importantscholarly articles on earlyHasidism, the pietistmovement of cronbach,famous for his biblicalstories, with whom he message EasternEurope that began during the eighteenth century; and he received for unwedmothers in cinci'nati. He wonderedwhat the biblical Hagar's a GuggenheimFellowship in r gS4towrite a biographyof themovenent's wouldbe andwas moved by ProfessorCronbach's presentation of founder,Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov.2+ At the end of his life, he wrote story. Straus' hvo bookson Hasidism-a two-volumeYiddish study of Menachem Ii *as in Cincinnatithat my fatherfirst met my mother,Sylvia a concert Mendl of Kotzk, a famed nineteenthcentury Hasidic master, and A at the homeof Professorand Mrs. facobMarcus. My mother, study Passion Truth, a comparisonof the Kotzkerand S/ren Kierkegaard. pianist,had come to Cincinnatifrom her hometown;Cleveland, to for piano, Formy father,Hasidism was an extraordinarymoment in spiritual with SeverinEisenberger. That eveningshe was asked to playthe |ewish her history:"Then cameRabbi Israel Baal ShemTov and broughtheaven and my fatherfell in lou. with her. Shortly thereafterhe attended to celebrate' downto earth. In the daysof Moses,Israel had a revelationof God; .on..riat theCincinnati music conservatory and took her out in thedays of the BaalShem, God had a revelationof Israel.Suddenly, Wiit; a few months,he wasoft'ered a position at the fewishTheological After therewas revealed a holinessin fewishlife that had accumulat'edin the Seminaryin New York, the seatof the Conservativemovement' with the courseof manygenerations. "?5 hearingir.I. plry, Arthur Rubinsteinurged my motherto study parents How couldthe spiritualityof Hasidism,the holiness of EastEuropean pianistEduard Steuermann, who alsolived in New York. My life, now utterlydestroyed, be expressed in thelanguage of postwar weremarried in December 1946in Los Angeles,where my mother's |ewish America? ashis doctoraldissertation had challengedthe interpretive parentshad moved. Just work categoriesof modernbiblical scholarship, his firstEnglish articles were It is strikingthat my fatherdid not undertakemaior theological he radicalchallenges to the conventionalcategories used by scholarsof re- until afterhe wasmarried. During the earlyyears of their marriage, thought ligionto interpretreligious experience. His articlesof the lg^+os,reprinted completedhis most importantbooks, masterpieces of religious (tqlt! T.heSabbath in thisvolume, begin by contendingthat conventionalcategories used to thatseemed to pour o,ri of him: Man Is Not Alone (195a)'At understandpiety, prayer, and holiness are reductionist and inappropriate. (r95r), Codin Searchof Man ('95'), Man'sQuest for God destruction Insteadof understandingpieV on its own terms,for example,scl'rolars in. rr-. time,he wasable to givevoice to hismourning for the to speak too oftenreduce it to a psychologicalphenomenon, or criticizeit as of his familyand the worldof EastEuropean |ews' He wasasked for irrationaland counterproductive. He usedto sayin his lectures,"fust as on EastEuropean |ewish life in 1946at YIVO, the Institute fewish in Yiddish you cannotstudy philosophy through praying, you cannotstudy prayer ScientificResearch in New York,where he deliveredan elegy writers' throughphilosophizing."z6 In Man Is Nof Alonehe wrote:"Evaluating somoving that the audience, composed mainly of secularYiddish the faith in termsof reasonis like trying to understandlove as a syllogism spontaneJuslystood up at the end of the speechand said kaddish, waslater expanded and andbeauty as an algebraicequation."27 Instead, he arguedthat piety is a |ewis6memorial prry.i for thedead. That speech phenomenonthat mustbe describedon its own terms,as an attitude,a publishedin his bookThe Earth Is the Lord's' a wayof thinkingin which the piousperson feels God to be alwaysclose In many waysmy father'sevocation of East European|ews was joy of being andpresent: "Awareness of God is asclose to him asthe throbbingof his descriptionof his own Personality.He writesof the sheer ownheart, often deep and calm, but at timesoverwhelming, intoxicating, the vitality,the

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