(Aside: The only book in its league is Kate Hennessey's "Saved By Beauty", the poignant inside story of the relationship of her grandmother Dorothy Day with her mother Tamar. Both books describe the journey of the children of iconic, saintly Catholics away from that faith.)
Stephen Dubner, of NY Times Magazine and "Freakenomics" fame, is a brilliant investigative journalist in the mode of Malcom Gladwell. He unravels the story of his parents' conversion to Catholicsm from Judaism during WWII, before his birth, and then relates his own reversion back to Judaism in his adult life.
His family and life is very different from my own but his story touched me in so many places. His parents married in 1946, the same year as mine. They raised 8 children, my own parents 9, in strong Catholic families. I was oldest, he the youngest. His upbringing resonated with my own and the way we raised ourown children: the rosary and devotion to Mary, altar boy and all the sacraments, admiration for Dorothy Day (they moved to a farm), pro-life and charismatic movements, connection with Cardinal O'Connor of NYC, Rabbi Finkel and Father John Ostereicher of Seton Hall University, quotes from Buber, Heschel and others.
Both parents underwent a profound, passionate conversion to Catholicism; and a total break with their Jewish past. Stephen was raised in an intense if parochial rural Catholic ambience, completely ignorant of his parents' past. His mother Florence, later Veronica, was raised in a constricted, secular Jewish family which she escaped in adolescence for the glamorous world of ballet. Talented and beautiful, she performed at Radio City and was launched on a fine career when she broke her leg. At that very time she had encountered Catholicism...and it was love at first sight. Calmly she decided that she was not interested in celebrity or success but in holiness. She was an intelligent, stable, resilient and immensely formibable woman.
His father, Sol, later Paul, Dubner, was quiet, thoughtful, conscientious, charming, handsome, drawn to music, writing, newspapers and baseball. He was close to his mother who died at an early age because (many thought) she worked so hard, alone, in the family restaurant, while her husband sat in the synagogue reading and talking Torah. Sol's father was deeply pious, in a simple manner. And Sol was alientated from him. Durding the war, Sol fell into a deep depression as he found himself as a solitary Jew in military service in the Pacific. He encountered Catholicism which brought him new life. As they war ended the two fell in love and married. It was an enduring, touching romance that never faded. Throughout the marriage, he wrote simple, heartfelt love letters. Example: "God made two perfect women: our Blessed Mother and you."
Paul worked on and off for newpapers and had some articles published, as he worked part-time jobs and for the Church, but was not a success financially. They moved from the city to the country for a more wholesome environment for the kids. Veronica was frugal, resourceful and indomitable. She tolerated no complaining: "We had a choice between money and kids and we chose kids and you can't complain because if we chose money you would not be here." In midlife, Paul's depression returned with a vengeance and tormented him to the point that he got shock treatments. Veronica's faith and support were unfaltering. They connected with the charismatic renewal and Paul experienced a miraculous emotional healing. His death of heart attack later was itself another intrusion of the supernatural (or bizarre, if you prefer).
Despite the extraordinary example of his parents, Stephen never took to Catholicism, although he always retained a sense of God and a fairly clear moral compass. For example, he describes his creepy feeling about receiving the Eucharist as he pictured this sad, suffering man coming into him. There does not seem to have been an emotional revolt or renunciation. He seems to have had a mild tempermental allergy to things Catholic, especially the charismatic emotionalism. In college he started a rock band and was (much like his own mother) on his way to success, cutting albums and travelling the country, when he realized he didn't want the celebrity of a music career. He walked away with no particular direction in mind.
Around this time he is getting interested in Judaism, and his parent's history. A dynamic, observant Jewish acting coach named Ivan enters here and has a huge impact. Sternly, but paternally, he admonishes him (in so many words): You are a Catholic or you are a Jew but you are not to wander aimlessly in this morally chaotic world.
And so his search into Judaism and his family past begins. He does a magnificent work of investigative journalism in revealing his family history. It is mesmerizing! He discovers that he is indeed, deeply, interiorly, passionately a Jew.
Marvelously, his tender love for his rediscovered Jewish family does not diminsh his affection for his Catholic parents and family. For his brothers and sisters (three practicing Catholics, four have drifted away) his love is effortless, fluid, wholesome, heartfelt. But his relationship to Mom and Dad is fascinating.
He felt he did not really know his father. His search into Judaism is largely a search for Dad as well as an inquiry into his coversion. Paul was a loyal, devoted father but the distance is understandable: Stephen was the last of eight and could hardly have gotten the attention he desired. Paul was hard working and conscientious but unsuccessful and prone to depression and so probably unavailable emotionally at key periods of the young Stephen's life. By reconnecting with Paul-Sol's pre-Catholic life Stephen was discovering his father. The Jewish past had been a complete blank for the young Stephen. When Paul converted, his father sat "Shiva" for him, declaring him dead and that his name was never to be mentioned again. For the most part, the family complied. Paul's prior life was dead to him. Stephen set out to revive that life...and did so superbly. Later in the narrative there is a jubillant reunion of all the Dubner's, Jewish and Catholic.
His relationship with mother Florence-Veronica is equally interesting and complex. At one point the author describes his mother as a formidable mountain that could not be ignored; in contrast to his father who is a vapor, mysterious and intangible. She is a force to be reckoned with: confident, steadfast, unwavering...especially in her faith. She is, understandabley, less than happy with the trajectory of her youngest son's life back to her origins. But the mutual affection and reverence between mother and son remain. I had the sense that her presence, however loving, was so strong for Stephen that to form his own identity (religious, ethnic, masculine) he had to detach, although with love. And so, he found in Judaism a more masculine (search for father) way without the fierce maternal presence.
Most significantly, no one could explain to him the nature of his father Paul's conversion: he had confided to no one. But mother Veronica gave him a Catholic devotional that had impacted Paul during the war. There Stephen found his answer: Paul was drawn to the Blessed Mother. The author does not go into pop psychology: but there is a perfect synmetry here. Paul in his longing for mother was satisfied in Catholicism; Stephen in his yearning for father was drawn into Judaism. It is possible that what drew Paul out of Judaism into Catholicism pulled Stephen out of Catholicism back to Judaism: Mary, a strong Jewish mother. This is not to reduce spirituality to psychology, but to recognize them as deeply intermingled.
Never have I seen such a self-aware, tender (to self and others), and intelligent description of the journey out of Catholicism. As a conservative Catholic, I grieve the "loss of faith" of any Catholic. But as a charismatic I have come to respect and celebrate so many who have moved out of a lifeless, formalistic Catholicism into a fervent evangelical or pentecostal embrace of Jesus Christ in the Holy Spirit (even as I hope for a further step, a reversion to the fuller Christ-centered symphony that is Catholicism.)
In the later stage of his conversion, when his relationship with mother Veronica is most tense, he meets with Cardinal O'Connor, a prolife hero to Veronica who had publically quoted Stephen from the pulpit. The Cardinal explains the positive, newer Catholic evaluation of Judaism: it is not an archaic religion that has been replaced, but an enduringly valid and living covenant of the Eternal God with His chosen people. Furthermore, he explains that if Stephen is moving into Judaism with an informed conscience, having prayed and studied and discussed, and is confident it is God's will, then he surely should make that decision. That wise counsel, shared with Mom, leads to mutual reconciliation and serentiy.
Around the same time, wise surrogate Jewish father Ivan introduces Stephen to Rabbi Asher Finkel, brilliant scholar and magnificent man who taught me at Seton Hall. After telling the story of the parent's abandonment of Judaism, Stephen expects the customary Rabbinic condemnation. The Rabbi-Scholar-Mensch shakes his head in wonder and proclaims: "It took great courage for your parents to make that journey. They have passed that courage onto you. It is not for us to question why Ruach, the Spirit of God, does one thing with this person and another thing with that. It is for you to surround yourself with people of good influence and grow ever closer to God."
I cannot imagine better counsel for all of us! This is a happy, inspiring story. God bless the Dubners...Jewish and Catholic!
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