Mel Scult

Mel Scult was born in Paterson New Jersey in 1934. He has degrees from NYU, Harvard University and Brandeis. He spent his work life teaching Judaic Studies at Vassar and at Brooklyn College. He is the biographer of Mordecai Kaplan [see 1993 biography] and the editor of Kaplan's twenty seven volume journal [ see selections 2001]. His latest book "The Radical American Judaism of Mordecai Kaplan" presents Kaplan's thought in its entirety. He lives in New York City. contact him through motke@prodigy.net

My faith and Kaplan's faith are illustrated by the following statement from kaplan's diary.

The Sacredness of Individuality

May 17, 1939.

I still believe that before all else we Jews ought to answer ourselves the question To what end? What are we Jews for? Without some kind of a satisfying answer, our condition ceases to be even tragic, and becomes completely meaningless. There can be no evil greater than meaningless suffering. I say that we must redeem this suffering of its meaninglessness and I don't think it is so difficult. The existence of mankind as a whole, bound up as it is with every conceivable evil, would appear nothing less than a cosmic error, if we were not to attach significance to consciousness, spirit, mind, reason, a significance that all the infinite universe of dead matter cannot destroy. If man thus dares affirm his right to existence in the face of a vast universe that woke him to life only to crush him with its infinite ponderousness, why should not the Jew have the courage to defy the savage element of mankind that seeks to annihilate him? It is man's function to assert the right of the mind to exist. So it is the Jew's function to assert the right of human individuality, which is the most important expression of the mind. The minority status to which Jews seem to be condemned is the opportunity which the Jews must exploit to affirm the right of the human being to be something else besides being a creature of the herd, to be himself. This human dignity, which it has fallen upon the Jew to defend, is what the Jew should live for as a Jew.