A Preacher of Spiritual Non-Commitment

by Betsy Robinson

“I’ll be a wandering secular Jew, preaching spiritual non-commitment at Jewish Community Centers across the country,” says Evan Handler, straight-faced. As part of a Jewish Book Council program, from November through April, Handler, best known for his role as Harry Goldenblatt on Sex and the City, will be appearing in 25 cities to talk about and read from his new book, It’s Only Temporary: The Good News and the Bad News of Being Alive (Riverhead Books). The chapter titled “I Don’t Know” best sums up his idiosyncratic philosophy about our common human predicament:

“I am fascinated by our conundrum as humans living on planet Earth,” he writes. “I’ve said to friends, probably more times than they’ve wanted to hear, ‘We live in outer space. Do you know that? Can you believe it? We live in outer space.’ It’s a crucial thing to remind myself, because it justifies and enhances my choice to remain committed to philosophical non-commitment. We do not know where we live. We have no idea of our own address. . . . we have no idea what substance contains us, where it came from or where it’s headed, if it has a purpose or what it might be, how it started, or how long it will last.”

About a decade ago, Handler, a veteran of supposedly incurable acute leukemia, did a hilarious one-man show about his unexpected recovery in a less-than-hospitable health-care system, and for the second act wrote a critically acclaimed book with the same title, Time on Fire: My Comedy of Terrors. His new book tour promises to be equally entertaining and thought-provoking. To find out the locations and dates of the tour, go to EvanHandler.com.

To read more about the book, go to www.SpiritualityHealth.com/EvanHandler.