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Synagogue Sermon

May 18, 1948

עוד על "אם" (1948)

Parenting
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The profound change that has come over parent-child relationships in the last decade or two, and which has been ably documented and explored by perceptive sociologists, should be of more than casual interest to Orthodox Jews. If indeed the child is father to the man, then the radical transformation of these relationships is bound to have a tremendous impact on the kind of Jew who will soon build the synagogue, pay for them, pray in them, preach in them and perhaps stay away from them. More important, this change today will determine what kind of synagogue will be built and what kind of "Judaism” will be practiced tomorrow.What is of concern to us here is not the upbringing of Jewish children per se. Our problem is solely, how will this affect their religious character as mature adults. Will the training they now receive—training, not necessarily education—predispose them to the genuine form of Jewish piety called Orthodoxy, or to a watery modernism with its progressive dimunition of Tradition to the vanishing point?The Father “Image”There is no doubt that, generally speaking, there is a carry-over from the child's attitude to his parents, par-ticularly his father, to his attitude to G-d. We disagree vigorously with the Freudian psychologist who concludes that Religion is nothing more than a “projection” of childhood fantasies and G-d is a “mere” father-image.There is nothing fantastic about Religion, and the fact that its emotional strength is often enhanced by “projec-tions” from childhood does not detract from its validity. Albert Einstein’s inclinations for mathematics may have come from childhood fantasies and projections, but that does not give us cause for repealing the Theories of Rela-tivity. And neither is there anything “mere” about G-d as a father-image. G-d, in Judaism, is many things: Judge, Liberator, Beloved, Lawgiver, Warrior—and also, perhaps primarily. Father. The fact that we graft onto our reli-gious attitudes the feelings we had for our human f…
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