August 22, 2010
Benyamin Cohen’s My Jesus Year
I have never gone to a church service in my life.
To be honest, I can’t even say I’ve been curious. If anything, I don’t even like the fact that I have to go into a church to vote on election day. The one where I used to go to vote had this big Jesus tapestry on the wall and I always felt like the first century rabbi was staring down at me.
What can I say? He makes me nervous.
I can’t say the same thing for my friend Benyamin Cohen. Not only was he curious about church services, he spent an entire year going to all sorts of Christian events and chronicled his adventures in the book, My Jesus Year: A Rabbi’s Son Wanders the Bible Belt in Search of His Own Faith.
First, a little background. I’ve known Benyamin for about 11 years now and I can tell you that he’s a frum-from-birth Orthodox Jew who’s father and brothers are all rabbis. He’s the only journalist of the family and that’s how our paths first crossed. We were both cub reporters at the Atlanta Jewish Times and worked together there for about a year. Just recently, we began working together again but I like to keep my day job separate from this blog so let’s just move on.
Cohen’s motivation for attending church was ostensibly to find out why churches always seem to be full on Sundays while synagogues are almost always empty except for three days a year. At the same time, Cohen himself was feeling disconnected from religion and wanted something to help him rejuvenate his Judaism.
As he wrote about in the book, he says that at the time he decided to tackle this project his davening lacked verve and his Judaism felt stale.
But the broadening experience helped him re-focus and re-connect with religion. He saw how other people appreciate their own faith in inspiring and occasionally poignant ways and these observations helped Cohen appreciate his own Orthodox lifestyle in a new way.
Now while he saw several inspiring and poignant things, there also were lots of bizarre, outlandish, and comical moments as well.
At one point during his reporting at a largely African-American mega-church in Atlanta, he was outed in the crowd when the camera operator swooped in on him and put his skullcap-wearing mug on the Jesus JumboTron for all 15,000 people in attendance to see. “Oh, God, forgive me,” Cohen wrote.
Another time, he went to see an Ultimate Christian Wrestling event somewhere in rural Georgia. This apparently had all the trappings of a regular professional wrestling event but with a “Jesus Saves” theme. In fact, that was the climax of the night: a wrestler quote-unquote dies in the ring but he’s resurrected to the cheers of the adoring crowd. Afterward, the wrestler gives a fiery sermon and asks for people who want to be saved to come down to the ring. To Cohen’s surprise, several people actually come forward to answer the call.
Later in the book, he witnesses a guy who appears to be a charlatan faith-healer who miraculously helps a man in wheelchair regain his ability to walk. Cohen writes that he saw it coming from a mile away but that many other people in the crowd seemed to believe they had witnessed a bone-fide miracle.
I should note that the book is not a collection of stories about all the crazy things you’ll find in Christianity. Like I said, there are several poignant moments and one of my favorites is when Cohen strikes up a conversation with a handicapped man after attending an Episcopalian service.
This man, who attends church weekly and suffers from a debilitating disease that causes his body to contort in abnormal poses, helps Cohen learn about gratitude and understand that faith in God can truly help those who may feel like they have a legitimate gripe with the man upstairs.
It’s these types of lessons, picked up slowly over the course of the year, that helped Cohen come to terms with several gripes he had with God and Judaism. It’s an end that justified the means — even if you get outed on the Jesus JumboTron.
Thank you for your review on, The Jesus Year. Sounds like a book to read to regain Judiasm and ideal for a Jew wanting to feel the spirit again. I am a southern Jew, so I can relate to what he talks about. I leave in Myrtle Beach. All I see on Sundays are packed churches, in the sunday best’s. Us Jews are lucky have we get 20 on a Summer Saturday morning. I would love to know the answer.
Another note I was wondering if you know about the Jewish book carnival. If you are interested knowing more info. You may email me.
I read this book a while ago.