Even a fiercely secular scholar can feel involuntary religious ecstasy.

Evidence

Today was the Day of Atonement… . The Jewish house of prayer always more disgusted than edified me… . And, nevertheless, it pulled me today to Hasköy [the Jewish neighborhood], to the house of prayer of the Sephardim … to appear in the community I detest, that I hate with all the fire and enthusiasm of my heart; and, still, I have never shed such hot tears as today in the midst of the community, in the Jewish synagogue. I cried bitterly, I lamented … I felt elevated as I kissed the Torah, whose legends and myths I mercilessly analyze, whose roster of authors I dare construe with certainty, whose formation as to year and day I make bold to fix with proud assurance. Am I weak or mad? A hypocrite I am not, for my tears flowed too endlessly salty against my will, this much I can say. Explain it, friends; I cannot. — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 406

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the broader literature on self-hatred and ambivalent identity — parallels the tension explored in Home Boy and The Reluctant Fundamentalist, where belonging and repulsion coexist.