Page 194 - The Legacy of Abraham Rothstein - text

Old age and the future

Today is Jewish New Year, nineteen fifty-two. When young and
religious, I went to the house of prayer and, with all the brethren of
our race, I prayed, confessing to myself all the shortcomings and
faults committed during daily life and making resolutions to amend
my ways and follow a righteous course in the future. In the Hebrew
liturgy, we call that an evaluation and accounting of our soul. We
analyze ourselves, and in some ways it is good for our feelings, if we
have any feelings and understand what life is. Most of the younger
people, never understanding what religion is, or not understanding
the words that they say and not taking religion seriously, in time
forget and become irreligious. Then, later in life, when the body and
mind are weakened, and they encounter obstacles which jostle them
off the road they dreamed of riding on, they either rebel against
society, despising all men and themselves, or destroy themselves—
sometimes going insane. Others, resigned to their fate, become
deeply religious.
I belong to the class who in their youth are deeply religious,
scrupulously believing and performing all the tenets of their religion,
yet when they encounter some slight obstacle in the path of their
desires, it shakes their belief and they lose their faith. As I have told it
before, when Fannie suddenly rejected me on account of her aunt’s
advice, it struck me like lightning. Being the quiet little town boy who
never knew enough about girls to understand their whims, I just
rebelled against society and the heavens. Why, I asked, should I, who
go to services, study the liturgy, and conform to orthodoxy, be
tortured and suffer? It was around the Holy Days in September, and
since then my reasoning has become the conqueror of my belief. At
this old age of mine I am the analyst of my soul and the very contrast
of my younger years. Yet I must tell the truth, or rather the feeling,
that as far as I am from that younger belief, so nearer am I to my
people on these Holy Days. I enjoy seeing my children or
grandchildren (some of them) go to the synagogue on that day; that
much at least they are Jewish.

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