West End Synagogue: Mel Scult: Peering into Kaplan's Diaries

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Peering into Kaplan's Diaries
Originally published in The Forward, June 1, 2001
Mel Scult

Mordecai Kaplan (1881-1983), the founder of Reconstructionism, is one of the greatest diarists the Jewish people have produced. His diary, which he kept from 1913 until shortly before his death, comes to some twenty-seven volumes. The Kaplan journals afford us a unique opportunity to peer into the mind and the heart of a great religious thinker. Kaplan, a compulsive diarist, kept nothing hidden from his journal. We see him struggling with hostile colleagues, with indifferent congregants, and above all with his own doubt and despair. We see him grappling with the perennial questions of how to create a more vibrant, relevant Judaism. We cannot help but be moved by his candor, his tenacity and his depth of feeling.

Because so much of the diary is written in close proximity to the events as they happen, this work projects a raw feeling -- immediate and undiminished. The journal brims with candid reactions; indeed, one of the great attractions of the diary is the impression it conveys of the sense of immediate access to Kaplan's inner life.

Recording one's thoughts gives them permanence and rescues the self from oblivion. The diary functions in a very basic way in Kaplan's psychic life. At one point Kaplan had been working on a precis of the rabbinic midrash on the Song of Songs. After a point, he put it down and turned to the diary. "Which was more important," he asked himself, "this literary work or the diary? There was no contest. The rabbinic work could be written by another. "On the other hand no one but myself could write my diary. Whether what I have to say is wise or foolish, interesting or boring it is the attempt of a personality to save itself from inarticulateness and oblivion by the mere skin of its teeth. Its struggles are entirely its own and no other person in the world could know them and record them."

Kaplan's importance in American Jewish life is enormous. During the first half of the twentieth century there was no other voice which attempted to articulate for progressive Jews how Judaism could be made viable in the modern age. Before Heschel and Buber and Levinas there was Kaplan. Committed Jews of the second generation who worried about the massive assimilation of their brothers and sisters had only Mordecai Kaplan to sustain them.

The diary is a wonderful resource for anyone interested in American Jewish life. Through the journals we gain direct first hand insight into the workings of the great Jewish instutions of the day: The Jewish Center, The Zionist Organization, and above all else the Jewish Theological Seminary. The knowledge that we gain is of a very special sort. For example, we can sit in on a faculty meeting with Solomon Schechter a few months before this great leader's death. He had established the foundation of the Conservative movement in America, but as this excerpt clearly indicates, he was not fully aware of all he had accomplished.

[The scene is a Seminary faculty meeting]

Then came the matter of scholarships for next year. There are at present seventeen scholarships for distribution.... One could see that a storm was brewing. One name was mentioned then another without aim or purpose. Schechter was at a loss what to do. He was reluctant to refuse scholarships to men who had received them before.... Finally Schechter burst out. He fairly screamed at the top of his voice; he banged at the table he jumped up and ran about the room hurling invectives.... "I need scholarships and there is no body to help me to get them. See what they are doing at Cincinnati. They give each man twice the amount we give. If we can't offer scholarships we can't have any students. There used to be times when I could approach a member of the board for money to buy some rare manuscript.... Unfortunately the last days of my life have become bound up with the Seminary and I hoped to see it before I die established on a firm footing. Instead of that it is going down and down.... I am really sorry that I have to speak out this way, but it hurts me and I can't help myself."

At other times the journal is much more philosophical. For example, sometimes we see Kaplan thinking through his philosophical and theological positions. There are many who think that Kaplan gave up God rather early in his life, but the truth is he thought about God constantly.

What I mean by God

January 15, 1931

After all the years of thinking on the problem of religion, I am still at a loss how to connect the conclusions I hold with the actual situation in which we find ourselves. I know very well what I mean by God. God to me is the process that makes for creativity, integration, love and justice. The function of prayer is to render us conscious of that process. I can react with a sense of holiness or momentousness to existence because it is continually being worked upon by this divine process. I am not troubled in the least by the fact that God is not an identifiable being; for that matter neither is my Ego an identifiable being. Nor am I troubled by the fact that God is not perfect. He would have to be static to be perfect. Nothing dynamic can be perfect since to be dynamic implies to be in the state of becoming.

But how shall I relate all these ideas to the problem of the Jewish religion.

The Kaplan journal is, above all else, a very human document that gives us insight into struggles and moments we all share.

A Moment of Loneliness

April 12, 1928

I have been very much in the dumps of late. The longer I live the more alone I feel. I have not a single friend or companion in the world with whom I can share my interests and problems. What can wife and children do for me? They have their own lives to live. Of course they love me and I love them. But all they can do is to sympathize with me. What good can sympathy do me? In all the years that I have worked in the field of Judaism I have not succeeded in finding anybody who would be willing to collaborate with me on any project for the advancement or reconstruction of Judaism.

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Communings of the Spirit: The Journals of Mordecai M. Kaplan, Volume One: 1913-1934, edited by Mel Scult, may be obtained from Wayne State University Press (800-978-7323), The Reconstructionist Press (877-573-7827), or from West Side Judaica in New York City.