Vol. 61 No. 3 1994 - page 369

IS THERE A CURE FOR ANTI-SEMITISM?
369
person behind that history. The notion of a substantial person has been
subjected by some modern thinkers to tests which bring to mind the
crash dummies used by engineers in simulated collisions or airline disasters
in which the dummies are consumed by flaming aviation fuel. All I have
to say, speaking as a novelist, is that some of these thinkers have raised
questions which perhaps do not need to be raised. And that they wrote
books I now regret having read.
I
will ask you, for the present, to believe that
I
am right and that
my life is not based on inauthentic premises and ideological delusions.
There are so many people, you see, who don't really know what they're
talking about. And one has to listen to them. It is thought to be only
fair.
The philosopher Morris R . Cohen was once asked by a student,
"Professor, how do I know that I exist?"
"So?" the professor replied, "And who is asking?"
A question can come only from a questioner. But Cohen's Jewish
answer goes far beyond epistemology and refers his student to an even
more radical mystery, that of his own substantiality. This anecdote covers
me. I can continue to do what I have done all my life; that is, to turn
instinctively toward my first consciousness. This first consciousness has al–
ways seemed easily accessible and most real. For persons who have no ac–
cess to any such core consciousness, there are no mysteries; and where
mystery is lacking, being itself wavers uneasily. But our modern, edu–
cated, "advanced" thought throws doubt on my first consciousness,
which has a long unbroken history. I wouldn't know how to prove its
reality or justifY its sincerity or its authenticity. All I can say is that it is a
durable fact, it has lasted a lifetime, and I cannot see why anyone should
feel it necessary to put its reality in doubt.
So, in my first consciousness I am, among other things, a Jew, the
child of Jewish immigrants. At home our parents spoke Russian to each
other. The children spoke Yiddish to the parents, English amongst them–
selves. At the age of four we were set to study the Old Testament in
Hebrew. We observed Jewish customs, reciting prayers and blessings all
day long. Because we read Genesis again and again, my first consciousness
was that of a cosmos, and in that cosmos I was a Jew. I suppose it
would now seem proper to apply the word "archaic" to such a repre–
sentation of the world - archaic, prehistoric - but this was my given,
and it would be idle to quarrel with it. A millennial belief in a Holy
God may have the effect of deepening the soul, but it is also obviously
archaic, and modern influences would presently bring me up to date and
reveal how antiquated such a conception of my origins was. To turn
away from such origins has, however, always seemed utterly impossible. It
would be a treason to my first consciousness to "un-Jew" myself. One
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