Adventures in Judaism

You know, I've begun to think that it's very difficult to be a Jew in this culture (I could probably just stop there) without getting a bit of a chip on your shoulder (there, too) about holidays (oh, so that's  what this is about). One the one hand, there's the fact that Jews have easily five times as many religious holidays as Christians do, in addition to being "allowed" to celebrate any American holidays that can be considered "secular" either in origin or in current observance. You can measure your passage through a year in a manner that comes pretty close to "what holiday are we preparing for or celebrating this  week?" It's a lot for a new Jew to learn, and I feel like I haven't gotten any holiday but Chanukkah "right" yet. Just this weekend, we have our kids each a small gift for Purim, partly in lieu of the "Easter bunny" gifts they would have gotten this time of year, but partly because we heard somewher...

A conversation I had with some students this evening has been bugging me tonight, kind of in the way that you find yourself coming up with snappier comebacks or wittier comments than the ones you actually said, hours or even days after they no longer matter. But in this case, it wasn't an insult I wanted a comeback to or a conversation I wanted to sound a bit wittier in, but a terribly vital, deceptively simple question: why? I had overheard a conversation about problems of a religious sort between a couple of students who had dropped in for anatomy tutoring this evening, but when I offhandedly asked what was up they told me it was "church problems," in a tone of voice that seemed to say "you're Jewish, you wouldn't understand." Wanting to feel a little more relevant, I admitted to having tried to be a Christian minister once, prior to   choosing  Judaism. This decision seemed to puzzle them. They wanted to know why I would do such a thing.  Why become J...

It's been a while since I've written a blog post. Partly, that's because it's been a while since I've felt I had anything to write about. Lately, being Jewish just hasn't been a central focus of my attention: no holidays being celebrated this month, no new religious practices being integrated into my life, in short: no news. Either that means I'm doing something wrong, or it means I'm doing something very right in letting Judaism become part of the background hum of my life: the new normal, as it were. You see, more so than any other religion I have been part of, Judaism isn't something you do once or twice a week and besides that maybe ponder once in a while. No, Judaism stakes a claim on every moment of your life in one way or another. In a way, Judaism is less something you do and more something you are . Something you become . The wonder of that is that over time you get so used to it that all of those religious practices that once required gr...

This evening, in the parking lot of the Lutheran church that hosts my sons' day care center, the pastor was out offering to impose a cross of ashes on the forehead of any passers-by. It's a few-year-old tradition they call Ashes To Go, and my family did it once - back when we were Christian. Last year, in fact, we were so taken as to be drawn in to the sanctuary to attend their Ash Wednesday service proper. It was all about my mortality, my sinfulness, my puniness in the grand scheme of things, my inability to help myself, my need for holy water that nonetheless could never wash off the stain of the ashes. It was truly a beautiful service, and it genuinely moved me...just not in the direction the pastor had intended. I wondered what the pastor would think if I told him that last year's Ash Wednesday was another first step on my road to Judaism. What problem could I possibly have with Ash Wednesday, though, and with the bigger Lenten tradition it kicks off, when I am jum...

Readers of this blog may have the impression that my interest in Judaism is only about half a year old, but I can actually trace my Jewish journey back to this very day 18 years ago, give or take a day or two.  The story begins with one of my best friends from college, or rather with his sister. As I recall, she had somewhat recently married a Jew and was going through the process of converting to Judaism. Her brother, my friend, was picking up odd bits and pieces of Jewish culture and seemed to enjoy sharing them with me about as much as I enjoyed being shared with. Prior to that point, my exposure to Judaism was limited to having learned the phrase "L'chaim" from watching  Fiddler on the Roof. That, and the fact that my family was awfully fond of Yiddish words like shnoz and toucus.  So at some point, my friend invited me to come along with him to the house of one of his sister's new Jewish friends for a Tu B'Shevat Seder. I loved it – so much so that I still re...

I've been working with my eldest for several months now on a lesson I learned back on Yom Kippur: that taking responsibility for your behavior is about more than just saying "I'm sorry," and yet it stops short of having to admit that you're a bad person.  That is to say, if you do something that hurts or bothers another person, Judaism says that you have to go beyond a huffy "I'm sorry!" apology to doing something that repairs the relationship, if that is at all possible. I have been trying to do this with some people in my life, with different amounts of success, and I'm not sure that it's always possible. But I have  gotten my son to turn around and think about how to make it up to me or another family member after being rude or hurtful. He once brought me a glass of water after he had made it take longer for me to mow the yard! Slowly, slowly, he's getting it. But he's missing the second half: that you don't have to go so far a...

It's the secular New Year, and the Internet is full of Top 10 lists, many of questionable value to anybody but who wrote them, but they abound all the same. So, in that spirit, I offer my list of the top 10 ways in which Judaism has pleasantly surprised me so far this year.  In no particular order, they are... 1. A one-point statement of belief "Hear, O Israel, Adonai our god, Adonai is one". This is all the theology you are asked to agree to during a Jewish prayer service – and to be honest, there are plenty of agnostic Jews who don't firmly believe that much. But no holy trinity, no virgin birth, none of the many other "I believes" that I couldn't bring myself to believe growing up. One God, that's it. Love it! 2. It's not all about one guy Growing up I remember getting fed up with the fact that the answer to every question in Sunday School was "Jesus." Our liturgical calendar traced the life of that same guy. Every week we heard a ...