"Wait, you're Jewish..."
Last week I lent one of my students a study aid to help her prepare for the next exam. She started to say it felt like I had given her a Christmas present, then (remembering that I had canceled class for Erev Yom Kippur) she corrected herself: "wait, you're Jewish, you don't celebrate Christmas. Maybe a Chanukkah present, then." Teaching as I do in a town where students regularly correct my "Happy Holidays" wishes to "Merry Christmas," Dr. Camp, I was pleasantly surprised she had noticed.
And yet, her comment made me uncomfortable for two reasons.
The first reason is that, of all the many things I am giving up as I leave the faith of my upbringing, Christmas is the one thing I have had substantial regret about leaving behind. Even though I am trading Protestant Christianity's two holidays for about a dozen Jewish ones, I am just not ready to give up the songs, stories, and family traditions of Dec 25th. But that is fodder for another post.
So that's why I had never been called Jewish before, but now that I have...why did it make me uncomfortable?
But I think being called "Jewish" was also uncomfortable because I wasn't sure if I had yet "earned" the label she had given me. Certainly, the Jewish establishment (such as it is) would not yet consider me "Jewish," and that leaves me wondering if I am committing some sort of pretense by holding myself out to my students that way. Not that I make a big deal out of it, of course, but I had explained that Yom Kippur was going to be a day off from class because it was "my religion's big holy day" -- the question in my mind is whether I am allowed to call it "my religion" yet, and if it has become my religion, then why is it that I am not yet an official Jew? If I am inhabiting a de facto no-man's-land between things, what do I call myself in the meantime: a Jew-in-training, perhaps?
And that is, honestly, one of the biggest difficulties in becoming Jewish. Nobody can exactly agree on what "Jewish" is, but they all seem to agree on what it isn't. A person who wasn't born-and-raised Jewish cannot just join a synagogue and instantly become a Jew: there is a quite lengthy learning (and vetting) process to go through. This is a bit of a difference from other religions we encounter in America. Anyone who has joined a Christian church of any sort counts as a Christian**. Usually there is a baptism hurdle to clear before membership will be granted, and sometimes there is a new member class one has to complete, but in my experience Christian churches are so eager to gain new members that they make these hurdles as low and as few in number as possible. UU congregations sometimes require a new member class, sometimes not, but you sign the membership book and you can proudly call yourself a Unitarian Universalist to the few people outside your congregation who have any idea what that means. As far as I know, becoming Muslim or Buddhist is even simpler: accept the core teachings and start living the lifestyle and you are in, whether or not you have ever formally joined a mosque or a sangha.
Judaism, on the other hand, does not actively want to add newcomers to its ranks, and therefore stacks the barriers between the interested newbie and their formal conversion high and long. You have to convince Judaism that you are both ready to commit for life and knowledgeable of what you are committing to. In that process, there is a lot of formal or informal study to undertake, a new language to learn, a few ritual hurdles said to be quite a bit more daunting than a Christian baptism ceremony, a new Hebrew name to take (not legally, of course, but at least for Jewish ritual purposes and, of course, to proudly display on Facebook), and a tradition of the Rabbi refusing to let you convert until you have asked on at least three separate occasions. Many Rabbis won't even talk to you about any of those "hurdles" until you have lived (and studied and practiced) for a year as a Jew!
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* yes, technically, Halloween is a religious holiday. Or at least it was at some point, and certain clerics keep trying to convince us that it still is. In reality, of course, it has evolved into a civic holiday with only a slight religious overtone. You know, like what Christmas is becoming.
And yet, her comment made me uncomfortable for two reasons.
The first reason is that, of all the many things I am giving up as I leave the faith of my upbringing, Christmas is the one thing I have had substantial regret about leaving behind. Even though I am trading Protestant Christianity's two holidays for about a dozen Jewish ones, I am just not ready to give up the songs, stories, and family traditions of Dec 25th. But that is fodder for another post.
What I really want to talk about here is the second reason: this was the first time anyone had referred to me as "Jewish," and I wasn't sure that the label fit. After all, the good people of my shul community know that I haven't formally converted yet, and while they are all exceedingly polite about never mentioning the fact, none of them would at this point in my journey call me "Jewish". We say I'm "new to Judaism" and "figuring things out." In the world outside Judaism, most of my circle of family and friends have no idea what to make of my year of "trying on" Judaism, so they too are avoiding any labels.
So that's why I had never been called Jewish before, but now that I have...why did it make me uncomfortable?
To some extent, it is always a little uncomfortable for me when one of my students calls me out as being "other" – in this case: wait, you're different from everybody else, you celebrate a different holiday. While I am used to being different from everybody else in my classroom in a lot of ways, most of those differences (much higher formal-education level, quite different life experiences and resulting world view, frequently different historical-cultural eras that we grew up in) are just expected in a professor-student relationship. But now I am missing an expected cultural reference point: the bland version of Christianity that has always constituted American Civil Religion, with its celebration of Christmas and All Hallows Eve* and Thanksgiving and Sunday blue laws and, frankly, not much else.
But I think being called "Jewish" was also uncomfortable because I wasn't sure if I had yet "earned" the label she had given me. Certainly, the Jewish establishment (such as it is) would not yet consider me "Jewish," and that leaves me wondering if I am committing some sort of pretense by holding myself out to my students that way. Not that I make a big deal out of it, of course, but I had explained that Yom Kippur was going to be a day off from class because it was "my religion's big holy day" -- the question in my mind is whether I am allowed to call it "my religion" yet, and if it has become my religion, then why is it that I am not yet an official Jew? If I am inhabiting a de facto no-man's-land between things, what do I call myself in the meantime: a Jew-in-training, perhaps?
And that is, honestly, one of the biggest difficulties in becoming Jewish. Nobody can exactly agree on what "Jewish" is, but they all seem to agree on what it isn't. A person who wasn't born-and-raised Jewish cannot just join a synagogue and instantly become a Jew: there is a quite lengthy learning (and vetting) process to go through. This is a bit of a difference from other religions we encounter in America. Anyone who has joined a Christian church of any sort counts as a Christian**. Usually there is a baptism hurdle to clear before membership will be granted, and sometimes there is a new member class one has to complete, but in my experience Christian churches are so eager to gain new members that they make these hurdles as low and as few in number as possible. UU congregations sometimes require a new member class, sometimes not, but you sign the membership book and you can proudly call yourself a Unitarian Universalist to the few people outside your congregation who have any idea what that means. As far as I know, becoming Muslim or Buddhist is even simpler: accept the core teachings and start living the lifestyle and you are in, whether or not you have ever formally joined a mosque or a sangha.
Judaism, on the other hand, does not actively want to add newcomers to its ranks, and therefore stacks the barriers between the interested newbie and their formal conversion high and long. You have to convince Judaism that you are both ready to commit for life and knowledgeable of what you are committing to. In that process, there is a lot of formal or informal study to undertake, a new language to learn, a few ritual hurdles said to be quite a bit more daunting than a Christian baptism ceremony, a new Hebrew name to take (not legally, of course, but at least for Jewish ritual purposes and, of course, to proudly display on Facebook), and a tradition of the Rabbi refusing to let you convert until you have asked on at least three separate occasions. Many Rabbis won't even talk to you about any of those "hurdles" until you have lived (and studied and practiced) for a year as a Jew!
What gives?!?
I think the difference can be found in the Jewish liturgy itself. Weekly we remind ourselves that we are children of Jacob and citizens of Israel. Becoming Jewish is harder than becoming part of most other religions because you are not just asking for a new religious label, but for a new religious ancestry. You are not just asking to be part of a religious institution, but to become a member of a people. You are asking, in short, to be adopted. And that, I suppose, really should involve more than a signature on a dotted line, a sprinkle or a dunk with a few magic words, or even a ten-week class to explain all of the mysteries of life. It should involve as much of your life as you are willing to put into it, and a demonstrated long-term commitment to the people you are asking to adopt you.
But that does still leave me hanging as to what I can call myself for now. A "foster Jew," perhaps?
;-)
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* yes, technically, Halloween is a religious holiday. Or at least it was at some point, and certain clerics keep trying to convince us that it still is. In reality, of course, it has evolved into a civic holiday with only a slight religious overtone. You know, like what Christmas is becoming.
** except perhaps to members of certain exclusivist sects who believe that the only real Christians are the ones that meet the strict criteria of their church; I mean, in this sense, that if a person were to announce that "I joined Neighborhood Community Church last Sunday," the majority of Christians will ignore any denominational differences at least long enough to say "welcome to the club". In contrast, when we announced that we had joined our local Temple, several folks on Facebook said something along the lines of "but wait, you haven't concerted yet".
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