I struggled while enrolled in the public schools, most keenly upon entering junior high: the oversized classrooms, distant teachers, and what seemed irrelevant information became an ongoing source of estrangement for me. So it was a surprise to my parents when religious school sparked my enthusiasm and interest. It might have been that most of my friends were Jewish and thus in close proximity to me at Temple rather than dispersed among the far-reaching and somewhat ominous population of our district junior high. (More than once I was the subject of an anti-semetic slur.) And true too is that the two schools were anathema to each other in look and feel. Temple Emanuel was housed in a multi-storied brick building that beckoned me through its wooden hallways and modest classrooms atop a glorious velvet-laden sanctuary. In contrast, Chandler Junior High was a newly-built, industrial composite, an infinitely corridored ramble that made my head spin. But surely, more than any of this, it was the curriculum that drove me to perform in those after-school classes at Temple Emanuel. I was intrigued by the antics of Cain and Abel, the woes of Sarah, the repetition of the Aleph Bet and the suggestion that the pursuit of the spirit was worth my attention.
In particular, I recall a class I took with a personal friend of my father’s named Josh Marks. To me he was Mr. Marks, to my father, Josh, and so in my child’s view he landed somewhere in between. He was my favorite teacher, and he was as well, someone who had won my father’s admiration for reasons that evoked my curiosity and thirst.
Mr. Marks taught a class in the Pirkei Avot or Sayings of the Fathers, a section of the Midrash that comprises a collection of transmissions from ancient rabbis on ethical conduct, a kind of Judaic Confucianism. When I decided to attempt this essay, I went searching for a particular translation of the Pirkei Avot that I bought a few years ago. I knew I’d stored it somewhere in the hodge-podge of bookshelves in my house, but it wasn’t easy to find and my eyes fell instead upon a slim volume, long forgotten, that my father must have bought me decades ago, or perhaps I confiscated it from my mother after his passing. The nondescript taupe color of the book’s spine leapt out at me, surprisingly so, given that I was without glasses and the shelf was dimly lit.
As I opened the book, right to left as is the Hebrew tradition, I knew I had uncovered a treasure from my past. I would not normally be attracted to a code of conduct as I’ve developed an aversion to what can become the rote do’s and don’ts attached to religion, and surely the Pirkei Avot can be viewed as such. But I trusted that while leafing through its many passages I would land upon a jewel that transcended didactics and instead evoke a mind-shifting poignancy likened to the Tao Te Ching.
As is often the case with charmed books, I found a passage right off that reminded me of what had drawn me to it, both at thirteen with Mr. Marks, and again at thirty after my father’s passing, and again only a few years ago when I was moved to purchase the newer volume.
“Despise not any man and carp not at anything; for there is not a man that has not his hour, and there is not a thing that has not its place.”
One could read these words and derive any level of meaning. Reading it now I hear the teachings of the Buddha, a pointer towards right thought, and speech, not so much as a dictum or reprimand but in recognition that all is as it should be, each of us placed where we need to be, as we need to be for the purpose of the whole. And a reminder that the truth is far wiser in its mysterious and unpredictable unfolding of events than the small complaints of our minds can comprehend.
What did I think it meant when I first read it?
What did Josh Marks think it meant?
And my father?
Mr. Marks was tall and buoyant with a rim of tight curls below a bald dome. Always, it seemed, he sported a wide, lovely smile and friendly manner that appeared especially animated in my direction. Bounding across the creaky wood floors of our temple classroom, with a passion for the Pirkei Avot, I saw something driving out from him, a desire to ignite. He wanted us to see.
Something tells me these teachings were not merely ethics to him. The rabbis weren’t only pointing out the importance of being kind to each other simply to encourage us to be goodhearted, they were imparting a truth that extended beyond our daily behaviors into the realm of cosmic understanding. The rabbis and Mr. Marks understood that the imperative of love is one and the same with universal will.
After a given class I would report back to my father over dinner. He would be thirsty to know. “How was class with Josh?” And then he’d add with a shake of his head, “Ah, that Josh, he’s really something, isn’t he?” He was clearly enjoying our joint appreciation of Mr. Marks and in this way Josh stood apart from his other friends. He was someone unique, someone who could help us both touch home.
I’d show him the passages we’d studied in class and we’d reflect while he flipped through the pages, dog-earing his favorites. I can see his hands, solid and imposing, yet smoothing the pages of the small book with care. He ate while he talked, shoveling forkfuls into his mouth with one hand and gesticulating with the other, while intoning the words of the sages, his ruddy face pointed towards me, sweat forming on his upper lip, his whole manner one of awe and regard for the inspired Mr. Marks and the enlightened authors of the Pirkei Avot. But mostly, surely mostly, was his delight and solidarity for the thirteen year old in front of him, exhausted from the numbing history and algebra lessons of Chandler Junior High, frightened to even walk those chilly hallways for fear of running into Janet Tresk, that mean, misguided girl from the other side of town who was taught that Jews had horns and killed their Lord.
There, finally, in the pages of the Sayings of the Fathers, I found a bit of salvation. Somewhere between my father and Mr. Marks, I folded into that mystery hidden inside the rabbinic instruction to be kind. To be kind for kindness sake and because there are higher laws at work. There are higher laws.