to attract or to repel

From an interview discussing his latest book, Maimonides, Sherwin Nuland’s response to, Did this book in any way change your relationship to Judaism?

Well, I'm a funny kind of a Jew. I call myself an observant agnostic, because I go to shul every Saturday. The rabbi knows I'm an agnostic. You know, my colleagues in the shul know I'm an agnostic, but I get carried away by the emotion of the thing. Having been brought up in an Orthodox home, I become the biggest shuckler in the place. And without meaning to, in becoming someone knowledgeable in the biography of Maimonides, I look at myself as a little more a part of the Jewish community of this town than I did before.

Reading this, I got the feeling that I had read it before, and I did, but coming from someone else, of another generation, and in slightly different terminology (posted here).

Makes me wonder whether, if all Jews felt this drawing towards other Jews, regardless of their philosophical leanings, if perhaps we wouldn’t need to be concerned about the American Jew vanishing after all...Is this the secret to our immortality that amazed Mark Twain*? And if so, are we in danger of losing our “immortality” as too many Jews try to run from their identity (or their seeming lack thereof) and alienate themselves from other Jews?

*(He has made a marvellous fight in this world, in all the ages; and has done it with his hands tied behind him. He could be vain of himself, and be excused for it. The Egyptian, the Babylonian, and the Persian rose, filled the planet with sound and splendor, then faded to dream-stuff and passed away; the Greek and the Roman followed, and made a vast noise, and they are gone; other peoples have sprung up and held their torch high for a time, but it burned out, and they sit in twilight now, or have vanished.

The Jew saw them all, beat them all, and is now what he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities of age, no weakening of his parts, no slowing of his energies, no dulling of his alert and aggressive mind. All things are mortal but the Jew; all other forces pass, but he remains. What is the secret of his immortality?)