15
In his
autobiography, Einstein wrote that “the essential inthe being of a man of my type lies precisely in
what
hethinks and
how
he thinks, not in what he does or suffers.”
1
Had we strictly complied with this statement, we wouldhave had to restrict our discussion on Einstein’s thoughtabout religion and the arguments on which he based hisreligious belief. But because a religious credo is usually con-ditioned, partially at least, by the milieu in which one growsup, by the education one receives, and by the literature onehas read, we shall begin with an account of these factorsinsofar as they are relevant to Einstein’s religious outlook.Official records and Jewish family registers reveal that,since at least 1750, Einstein’s paternal and maternal ances-tors had lived in southern Germany, mainly in Buchau, asmall town not far from Ulm. Albert’s great-grandfather was born there in 1759, his grandfather Abraham in 1808, and hisfather Hermann in 1847. The fact that Albert, born in Ulm onMarch 14, 1879, was, contrary to Jewish tradition, not given thename of his grandfather, shows that his parents were notdogmatic in matters of religion. Although they never re-nounced their Jewish heritage, they did not observe tradi-tional rites or dietary laws and never attended religious ser-vice at the synagogue. Hermann Einstein regarded Jewishrituals as relics of an ancient superstition and “was proud that Jewish rites were not practiced in his home,” as Albert’s son-in-law Rudolf Kayser wrote in his biography of Einstein,which he published under the pseudonym Anton Reiser.
2
1
A. Einstein, “Autobiographical Notes,” in
Albert Einstein: Philoso- pher-Scientist
, ed. P. A. Schilpp (Library of Living Philosophers, Evan-ston, Ill., 1949), p. 33.
2
A. Reiser,
Albert Einstein—A Biographical Portrait
(A. and C. Boni,New York, 1930), p. 28.
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