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March 26, 2010
Science meets religion
Writer values our ability to doubt and dissent.
CYNTHIA RAMSAY
In his most recent book, Faceoff or Interface? (2009), New Westminster writer Eugene Kaellis weighs in on the science versus religion debate, and finds the arguments on both extremes lacking. He proposes that “both science and religion couch their message in essentially metaphoric terms and are both profoundly shaped by their cultural, social, economic and political milieu, in the development of which they, in turn, help fashion.”
In a lively analysis, Kaellis makes clear his own biases, and injects his personality throughout. For example, when discussing how the Jewish prohibition against milk and meat is sometimes rationalized, Kaellis writes, “That this proscription expressed a humane attitude, a rabbinic explanation, when animal sacrifice was a prescribed Temple practice, is obviously ridiculous.” He is blunt, sometimes disorganized in his thoughts on the page, but his arguments are clear, as is his conclusion:
“The basic difference between science and religion is that religion can offer us the faith that the Mystery is not against us, it is, in the ultimate sense, for us.... This is not the beginning of an exploration (which we can never pursue) or an elaboration. It stipulates that, as finite creatures, we can never know the Infinite, but our faith tells us that the Infinite is ultimately benign precisely because it has elevated us to the stage where we can doubt and dissent.”
Kaellis, who was born and educated in New York, has been a prolific author in the last several years, and his publications include Making Jews, a nonfiction book about the need for Jews to proselytize; and A Question of Values, a work of fiction about two women who become friends, but whose relationship is strained when one woman begins to question the other’s past – then discovers that her own background might not be what she had been led to believe. In 2009, he won an American Jewish Press Association Rockower Award for excellence in Jewish journalism for a profile on Ayn Rand, which he wrote for the Jewish Independent.
“The major reason for my turning out these books in a relatively short time was the death of my wife, Rhoda, on May 31, 2006,” explained Kaellis. “I had and still have a great deal of free time and I have an obsession with work. So, I completed a book of short stories (Downers). As you can tell from the title, they are rather grim, but so am I. I also completed Purge, a novel about the Stalin trials in the thirties. I actually wrote a play with music (I had a music collaborator) and I received a very enthusiastic reply from a Broadway agent. I think the only place it could have run would be NYC. Anyway, whatever his enthusiasm, he couldn’t get a producer, so I ended up with the novel.”
Kaellis and his wife used to teach couples relationship courses and one project he has completed is an updated version of Couple Power, “a ‘relationships repair and maintenance manual,’ with a foldout board game that people can use to practise three techniques to help their relationship. The book does not ‘psychologize,’ which I think is largely a waste of time and money. It prescribes behavior, learned in three techniques. I believe that this reflects our Jewishness, with its emphasis on behavior rather than on sentiment or belief.”
He also has recently finished Tickets, “a novel on the imprinting of children at a very early age, something that restricts their potential and can ... generate a lot of grief,” and he is about half finished with another set of short stories. All of his books can be purchased from lulu.com or amazon.com.
Kaellis, 81, was married to his wife for more than 53 years. She was in the same high school graduating class, but he didn’t know her then.
“Rhoda was an extremely talented person,” he said. “She wrote two Holocaust novels, assisted the Holocaust centre in the compilation of interviews of Vancouver-area survivors, made innumerable paintings (both oil and water color), was an excellent draftsperson, played the piano, sang well enough to have performed at a local bistro, was a fine clay sculptor (president of the society) and, almost invariably, a political activist, which is how I met her. She had performed an illegal act (a sit-in) in the civil rights movement of the early fifties and went to jail for it. When I found out that there was, on her release, going to be a party in her honor, I went and knew immediately that she was my soulmate, my intended life’s companion. She, on the other hand, was not quite as smitten. It took patience and effort to convince her that we were made for each other, or at least that she was made for me.”
Rhoda Kaellis graduated from the Fashion Institute of Technology and Design in New York and subsequently became a painter, sculptor and writer. She was also a strong advocate for affordable housing.
Of her novels, Kaellis said, “One was printed by a small Vancouver publisher. She died before finishing the other. I completed it, edited it, and will send it on to lulu.... [It’s] about a ‘catcher.’ These were people threatened or bribed by the Nazis to point out Jews hiding as ‘Aryans.’”
Kaellis has a bachelor of science (chemistry) from Brooklyn College, a doctor of dental surgery from New York University, and a master’s and doctorate degree, also from NYU, the latter in biochemical endocrinology. After getting his dental degree, he interned in a tuberculosis hospital. “Drugs tested there were so successful that, after a few years, the hospital, occupying several buildings on large grounds, was converted into an old age home,” he said, adding that TB is “making a comeback, as is syphilis, the former especially on Canada’s skid rows and Native reservations.”
Kaellis also did a stint in the U.S. Army, where he worked in a TB hospital – managing to improve its sterilization procedures while he was there – before moving to Canada in 1967. “I got a tenured associate professorship at the University of Saskatchewan’s brand new dental college, where I was supposed to teach oral biology,” he said. “Sometimes people ask me, ‘What is oral biology?’ I tell them that oral biology is to dentistry what anal biology is to proctology. After that, they stop asking.... Most of my research has been on the mammalian thyroid gland, with some on dental enamel solubility and cartilage calcification.”
After three years in Saskatoon, the family moved to Victoria. There, Kaellis worked as a dentist in a clinic housed in a youth hostel, serving low-income clientele.
“It was more interesting than most dental practices because, since I couldn’t refer patients, I had to do all the surgery, orthodontia, prosthetics, etc., myself,” he said.
He eventually stopped working as a dentist, “partly (perhaps largely) because I was working very hard (about 22 patients a day) and because I was getting discouraged. Some of the patients came from as far away as Prince George. They had somehow learned about the clinic, hitchhiked to Victoria, stayed in the hostel for three or four nights for little or no money, had their dinners in the hostel and spent much of their daytime in the clinic, where I was restoring their mouths. A major reason for my quitting is that patients like this would come back two or three years later with their mouths once again in shambles because of neglect.”
After about 20 years in Victoria, Kaellis said, “[We] moved, first to Burnaby. Rhoda and I got a job doing a weekly column (on seniors) for the Vancouver Sun. Years later, they dropped us, during one of their panics about circulation ... and they felt that we weren’t attracting enough seniors as subscribers.
“We managed to get along. I did tutoring, which I still do: in science, math, French ... and whatever other subjects I can pretend to be expert in, as long as I know more than the students (a very easily met requirement). And, for many years, Rhoda and I did relationships classes.”
After his wife died – she had a cancer that had recurred after 25 years – Kaellis sold the house and moved into an apartment.
“My daughter, married, a truly fine person, possessing an opera-quality voice, teaches voice in Dartmouth, N.S.,” he said. “My son lives just a few blocks from me. He is a security guard. I see him regularly. Lately, he, too, has begun to write.”
Kaellis noted that a former hotel in New Westminster is being refurbished to serve as a residence for homeless people. “The society that is doing this has decided to name it ‘Rhoda Kaellis House,’ which I think is fitting,” he said. “The dedication ceremony will take place later this year.... An oil self-portrait of Rhoda (admired by Ben Shahn, a well-known American painter) and one of her clay statues will be placed in the house’s foyer.”
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