Editing Richard Feynman (section)

===Religion===
Feynman's parents were both from Jewish families,<ref name="turnbull"/> and his family went to the [[synagogue]] every Friday.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Haynie |first=D. T. |title=And the award goes to... |journal=International Journal of Nanomedicine |issn=1176-9114 |year=2007 |volume=2 |issue=2 |pages=125–127 |pmid=17722541 |pmc=2673976 }}</ref> However, by his youth, Feynman described himself as an "avowed [[atheist]]".{{sfn|Feynman|1988a|p=25}}{{sfn|Brian|2001|p=49|ps=: "Interviewer: Do you call yourself an agnostic or an atheist? Feynman: An atheist. Agnostic for me would be trying to weasel out and sound a little nicer than I am about this."}} Many years later, in a letter to [[Tina Levitan]], declining a request for information for her book on Jewish Nobel Prize winners, he stated, "To select, for approbation the peculiar elements that come from some supposedly Jewish heredity is to open the door to all kinds of nonsense on racial theory", adding, "at thirteen I was not only converted to other religious views, but I also stopped believing that the Jewish people are in any way 'the [[chosen people]]'".<ref name="Harrison">{{cite news|last=Harrison|first=John|title=Physics, bongos and the art of the nude|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/3643596/Physics-bongos-and-the-art-of-the-nude.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220110/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/3643596/Physics-bongos-and-the-art-of-the-nude.html |archive-date=January 10, 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live|newspaper=[[The Daily Telegraph]]|access-date=April 23, 2013}}{{cbignore}}</ref>

Later in life, during a visit to the [[Jewish Theological Seminary of America|Jewish Theological Seminary]], Feynman encountered the [[Talmud]] for the first time. He saw that it contained the original text in a little square on each page, and surrounding it were commentaries written over time by different people. In this way the Talmud had evolved, and everything that was discussed was carefully recorded. Despite being impressed, Feynman was disappointed with the lack of interest for nature and the outside world expressed by the rabbis, who cared about only those questions which arise from the Talmud.{{sfn|Feynman|1985|pp=284–287}}