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Judaism is hard. As I begin the eight days of breadlessness that is Passover, I am reminded of this. Ours is not a religion of beliefs and faith alone – we are supposed to do and not do things, and it is often quite inconvenient.
When I was home over winter break, I rented the movie "Knocked Up" to watch with my mom. It's the story of a schlubby Jewish guy (Seth Rogan) who impregnates and then charms a hottie entertainment reporter (Katherine Heigl). My mom loved the movie. She was doubled over in laughter at times, tears coming out of her eyes. When the movie was over, I asked her how she liked it. "I don't like it when movies have Jewish guys ending up with non-Jewish girls" was her response. Intermarriage, the constant source of fear and anxiety for committed American Jews, has the ability to rear its ugly head even during a seemingly innocent movie night. Indeed, intermarriage is a huge concern as rates of Jews marrying non-Jews go up and the Jewish population decreases.
I have been a campus tour guide at Boston University for four-and-a-half semesters and one full summer. That adds up to hundreds of campus tours given. And on every tour that I have ever given, there is a time when it becomes apparent who the Jews in the crowd are. Sometimes it's as easy as a yarmulke or an Israeli army T-shirt on a prospective student. When I pick up on this, I’ll add some Jewish tidbits into the tour to make my Jewishness known: I’ll point out the kosher dining hall in the Hillel house, or mention the Hebrew classes I’ve taken.
One finding of the recent Pew study on the American religious landscape that did not surprise me was that the largest Jewish populations are in New York and New Jersey, with Jews comprising 6% of each state’s population.
This week the Pew Forum came out with a study of the American religious landscape. As soon as I saw an article about the study, I eagerly read it and then went to check it out first hand. While there were many interesting findings in the study (35 percent of Jews have graduate degrees! Jews make up less than half of a percent of my home state of Wisconsin!) ...
The leaders of Conservative Judaism, the movement that I grew up in and still affiliate with, currently have their knickers in a twist over a part of the Catholic Church's Latin Good Friday Mass, which, according to the New York Times, translates to: "Let us pray for the Jews.
Last week I voted in my first presidential primary, in Massachusetts. My mom and step-dad voted too. Each of us voted with concern for what would be “good for the Jews,” and yet we voted for three different candidates.
Entering the dressing room of a Turkish bath in Istanbul this past August, I was interested to see dignified hijab-wearing ladies unveiling in preparation for their baths. It had seemed to me that the scarves were permanently affixed to these Muslim women’s heads, and yet here they were, nonchalantly removing them.
This morning at the gym, a modestly-dressed hijabi whom I had spotted earlier working out with the hand weights came up next to me at the sinks as I was blow-drying my hair and slowly unwrapped her veil. In Istanbul this sort of sighting was part of the exotic local color, right up there with the calls to prayer and the mosques on every street corner. Seeing the exact same thing this morning in Boston was a bit more surprising.
I am doing a directed study on Islam in America this semester, and my Istanbul flashback this morning really drove home for me one of the key themes we’ve been talking about: It is a fact that Muslims are no longer exotic and distant, only to be found abroad; they are a part of our American religious landscape. The Muslim population in America is growing and we women should probably get used to seeing un-veilings in the locker room.
I have a particular affinity for time travel movies. And I don’t mean the ones where adventurers go 10,000 years into the future or back to the time of the dinosaurs. I specifically love the ones involving a trip backwards in time where people change their destinies and learn about themselves and their families.
My favorite movies of all time are those of the "Back to the Future" trilogy. The first time I saw Part I on TV when I was nine, I immediately made my mom go to the video store to rent the other two; since then I have seen each movie a crazy amount of times, and my sixteenth birthday part was BTTF themed. Last night I watched "Peggy Sue Got Married" again with my roommate, partially inspired by a recent re-viewing of BTTF, and fell in love with it. Another notable mention in this category is the time-travel part of season 4 of Felicity.
I think that my fascination with these sorts of stories comes from the poignancy of seeing how the nature of people’s entire lives can be traced back to specific moments or actions. It addresses the unpredictability of life – you never know when that definitive moment is going to come or what its consequences will be. That’s where faith helps me out. It’s the belief that in those moments of great decision-making and importance, there is something greater and all-knowing guiding me and making sure that everything will work out.
In "Back to the Future Part I," (in which the definitive moment is George and Lorraine kissing at the Enchantment Under the Sea dance) Marty McFly’s time travel and interference with his young parents results in a better life for his whole family when he returns to 1985. In both "Peggy Sue Got Married" (key moment = getting it on with her boyfriend on her 18th birthday) and Felicity (key moment: choosing Ben over Noel), the protagonists learn that their original decisions, wrong as they may have seemed in retrospect amidst pain and confusion, actually were preferable to the alternative. These stories tap into universal fears and concerns, and to me they convey a valuable lesson: Faith means not having to travel back in time to figure out that where you are is where you are meant to be.
I did it again. This Sunday I once more ventured out into the Christian megachurch world of my southern hometown, this time hitting up the local Methodist church. After awkwardly noting when people greeted me that there is no Christian equivalent to “Good Shabbos,” and taking note that it was less okay to wear jeans among the Methodists than it was with the Baptists (oops!) I sat down in a pew near the back and thumbed through the program. Sometime during the sermon, after the baby baptism and before the hand holding, as the preacher decried the “demonic” influences in our culture and noted that one didn’t need to travel to Africa to do missionary work, but could do it in my subdivision (yikes!), I started thinking about my last post on Jewish identity. I looked down at the Church announcements, which listed activities from “Quilting for Christ” to youth sports to a women’s professional group, and heard the preacher talk about the different ministries that people could join.
It occurred to me that these ministries are similar to the wide array of Jewish organizations with which people affiliate. These megachurches get the concept of being around coreligionists. In the Jewish world, though, the different “ministries” are not contained within the synagogue. Because Judaism is not only a religion, the synagogue is one ministry among many. Recently I was reading in Jonathan Sarna’s "American Judaism: A History" about the synagogue-center concept, which earlier in American Jewish history was popular; referred to as “shuls with pools” (“shul” is Yiddish for synagogue), these were like early Jewish megachurches. Eventually, though, more secular Jewish Community Centers beat them out, and so now the synagogue doesn’t encompass all of Jewish life, but is one manifestation of it. This makes me wonder: is this set up more naturally suited to Judaism? Or if the synagogue-center had become the predominant model, would Jewish mega-synagogues have created a more vibrant Jewish religious life, akin to the success of evangelical Christianity today?
On Faith asks:
“Starting this week PBS will air a series on ‘The Jewish Americans.’ We know what ‘Jewish identity’ has meant in the past. What will it mean in the future? How does a minority religion retain its roots and embrace change?”
For me this is not just a question. It is THE question. And while I have no crystal ball, for me Jewish identity depends and will continue to depend on maintaining ties to other Jews.
It’s important to remember that Judaism is not just a religion or a cultural inclination. Jews originally constituted a tribe. There is a reason that there must be 10 people (or men, if you’re orthodox) present in order to pray. And for much of our history we lived separated from non-Jews. Our religion is intended for a physical community.
I haven’t spent a lot of time at home since I went away to college. One week here, a few days there; I never stay for too long. I don’t have any high school friends left here, and so being home is always a relaxed affair. The one organizing event for my stays is synagogue. Although I never go to Saturday morning services at school, and I love sleeping in, every Sabbath that I am home I wake up early and walk to synagogue.
When I get there, I see my former fellow youth group members, also home from college for winter break; the children of congregants now running around and talking whom I remember as babies; my parent’s friends, eager to know what I’ve been up to; the Rabbis, welcoming me home and asking if I’m planning on taking any Jewish studies classes; the older gentleman who likes to show off his metals from the Israeli War of Independence, coming over to ask me how I’m doing in Hebrew. Yeah, praying happens, but there is also a heavy dose of schmoozing.
For the most part, things haven’t changed that much since I lived here. There is still a mass exodus to the bathroom during the bar mitzvah boy’s speech; the lunch afterward features the same bagels, tuna salad and black and white cookies; the synagogue president is still a bit long-winded during weekly announcements. It is comfortably and wonderfully constant.
In the vast Starbucks-sprinkled, strip-malled expanse of suburbia, synagogue is where I go to see familiar faces and catch up with old friends. It is like a little village conveniently housed in one building. Yes, we are there as a common group of Jews who gather to pray, but we are more than that. We are people who have seen each other every week for years and have become a true community.
The next movie on my Netflix queue is “White Christmas,” which I have seen at least twenty or thirty times since I was a toddler. My mom and I went in together on “The Christmas Album” a couple of years ago, and so it is perfectly routine for my iPod to go from an Israeli hip hop song to “Silver Bells” to Coldplay to another Israeli song.
My relationship with Christmas is awkward. Christmas used to be a scary time of year for Jews, where we were persecuted and accused of killing Jesus. But now, integrated as we are into American culture, it is an equally pleasant time of year for us as it is for our Christian neighbors. The struggles of intermarried couples to try to directly combine Christmas and Hanukkah have been well documented, but I think that for all Jewish Americans there are tensions.
Latke making. Check. Dreidel spinning. Check. Standing next to a nine foot menorah in the middle of campus (I am in the white scarf with my rabbi and family). Check.
Yes, it has been a good Chanukah indeed.
I loved Chanukah when I was little for the obvious reason: yummy food and presents. Sure the story of Judah and the Maccabees defending Jews from Hellenization by force was cool, but mostly I just wanted another jelly donut please. As I got older, I started to become a bit disillusioned. My family stopped doing hard core gift-giving and I started to realize that the holiday is mostly popular because it happens to coincide with Christmas and it has gotten caught up in multiculturalism of the past few decades.
Without Christmas propping up Chanukah, it just would’ve been a minor celebration forgotten by most Jews, and completely unknown to non-Jews.
And much thanks to MIT's Jewish fraternity, AEPi, for letting me light the menorah they made out of Natural Light beer cans! Very innovative, boys.
A few weeks ago I went to Montreal, where I met up with a friend of mine who grew up in a very religious family, although she herself is modern Orthodox. She was telling me that she recently went on a shidduch date.
A shidduch date is set up by a Jewish matchmaker with the aim of marriage; this kind of dating is not done casually, but is serious business. The guy came in to see my friend from another city, and had been set up with her a year and a half after she initially saw the matchmaker because it was the first man of comparable religiosity that she found for my friend.
The date didn’t go well, but I still can’t help thinking that maybe there is something to this old school style of up front and pragmatic dating.
Unlike my esteemed colleague Chase, I myself nurture a two-tumbler-a-day coffee addiction and am steeped in the Starbucks lingo. As a Jew, however, I too am under some fairly strict dietary obligations that make a good amount of nutritional sense.
Tonight I went to the first of a three-session course at BU Hillel about keeping a kosher kitchen. The rabbi’s wife talked about shopping for food, telling some particularly harrowing stories about bugs in produce (kosher fruits and vegetables are meticulously checked to be free of any bugs). We are also commanded not to eat pork, shellfish, horses, and other animals that don’t fall in line with specific standards recorded in the biblical book of Leviticus. Kosher animals have to be slaughtered without the knife snagging on the animal’s skin in order to be suitable to eat, a precaution that ensures that the animal is killed more quickly and humanely. Milk and meat have to be eaten separately and most foods have to have a special symbol, a hechsher, indicating that their production was overseen by a knowledgeable Jew.
I recently wrote about Abraham Joshua Heschel’s The Sabbath, which I read for a class. After I wrote that post, we were discussing the book in class, and the professor asked us what might be the American or secular version of the Sabbath, or Shabbat. Suddenly it hit me: Thanksgiving!
Yes, Thanksgiving is the annual American Shabbat. I say this having lived for three months in Jerusalem, where for Shabbat everything shuts down, no one works, and everyone spends time with their family eating and napping. Sound familiar?
Just like many religious Jews on Shabbat, we Americans don’t even consider not celebrating Thanksgiving; it’s just what we do. It’s a holiday for all Americans, remembering the founding of our country, as Shabbat is for all Jews, commemorating the creation of the world. Both holidays channel this people-wide celebration through the family.
Although Thanksgiving comes just once a year, it has the same power that Shabbat has to help us contemplate and take a break from our lives to give thanks for what we have and spend time with those we love.
The root “Shabbat” in Hebrew literally means “stop.” So Shabbat Shalom, a peaceful stop to everyone. Happy Thanksgiving!
My governor, Sonny Purdue of Georgia, led a prayer service at the state capital on Tuesday to ask God for rain to relieve the current drought. It sounds like a modern-day rain dance to me. Was it appropriate to pray with three Protestant ministers on the steps of the state capital? Probably not. But will it work? I sure hope so.
Sometimes school and life and God play tricks on me. Over the weekend for one of my classes I had to read Abraham Joshua Heschel’s “The Sabbath”, which gives his philosophy of Judaism as a religion of time and the Sabbath, or Shabbat, as the figurative bride of Israel, connecting Jews to God and freeing us from the chaos of the week. “The Sabbath is not for the sake of the weekdays; the weekdays are for the sake of Sabbath. It is not an interlude but the climax of living,” Heschel writes in his elegant and beautiful prose. “The Sabbath is the day on which we learn the art of surpassing civilization.”
It was announced this week that Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has prostate cancer. During the day, YNet News ran an article on Olmert's illness that I found particularly moving. It was headlined "World Leaders Reach Out to Olmert" and basically listed all of the politicians who had called to express support and wish Olmert a quick recovery.
They included Tony Blair, Condoleeza Rice, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani, who himself survived prostate cancer and had a long chat with Olmert. Even Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad called.
We hear fairly often in the news about Olmert meeting with Palestinian Authority and other world leaders to discuss contentious issues. The beauty of this story, however, is that it is a reminder that when it comes down to it, all of these politicians are human, and they've spent a good amount of time together. So when Olmert gets sick, he's not just the guy across the negotiating table with whom they get into frustrating arguments; he is a person, an acquaintance if you will, who is going through a most human experience - sickness. And they did the right thing; namely, they acted like mensches.
Last night I went to the concert of Teapacks, a popular Israeli band. I’ve been to quite a few Israeli concerts in Boston, and the same thing always happens. The band will speak in English between songs and inevitably some Israeli screams at the top of their lungs, usually in Hebrew, “Everyone understands Hebrew! Sing in Hebrew!” The band or singer jokes about it in Hebrew and then continues in English. Last night was no exception as far as the heckling goes, but this time the lead singer of Teapacks fought back – he actually stopped and gave a full-on lecture in Hebrew.
“Let’s explain to the Israelis,” he said. He talked about how they are an international band and they want everyone to understand them, including, he specifically mentioned, “Jews who don’t speak Hebrew.” I felt like the entire Hebrew-speaking audience had just been given a time-out. But it struck me that he specifically mentioned Jews who don’t speak Hebrew as targets of their music. I certainly thought it was noble that as an Israeli musician he was trying to be inclusive to all Jews, including those that don’t speak Hebrew, but at the same time, I wanted to hear more Hebrew!
I can relate to the recent post on Lox et Veritas about how sports is a religion for many people. I say this because I can see Fenway Park from my dorm room, and as I sit typing, there are swarms of fans flooding Beacon Street outside my window, cheering and running and shouting expletives. I just saw my friend Larry out there banging on a cowbell. My roommate and I didn't even have to ask anyone or turn on the TV or check online to see if the Red Sox won - we could hear it. The Red Sox are going to the World Series and the people of Boston are in a religious ecstasy.
Of course all season we've heard fans walking past our apartment on their way home from the game at ungodly hours. One particularly charming incident was on the first night of Rosh Hashannah, when I lay in bed, tossing and turning to drunken screams of "Go Red Sox!" and, oddly, "Konichiwa!" outside. Their religious event and mine coincided. But now this is the culmination of the Red Sox fans' pure and unwavering devotion. I don't know a lot about baseball, but I do know that starting Wednesday night, I should probably not plan on going to bed early.
In my first blog, I wrote about learning about Christianity – there is a flip side to that story. Part of my taking courses on Christianity came from my being adamant that I would not take Judaic studies classes. I was not some overly-parochial Jew who just wanted to take classes in what was about me. Plus I wanted to surprise people with my worldliness and open-mindedness. Everyone expected my study of religion to be about Judaism, and I was determined not to give them the satisfaction of being right. As I said in my first blog, it was my own small form of rebellion.
Tonight at BU Hillel we had an event on Jewish Literacy that I helped organized. It featured Rabbi Nehemia Polen and fellow On Faith blogger Stephen Prothero, chairman of our religion department and author of “Religious Literacy.” The event really got me thinking about my own Jewish literacy.
Last Thursday I spent the night drinking, dancing and partying. But I was not at a fraternity house or a seedy bar. I was at Boston University’s Hillel House. Simchat Torah has got to be one of the top three holidays we’ve got.
It’s easy to forget, especially after the marathon prayer services of the high holidays, that Judaism is not boring. But luckily, soon after comes Simchat Torah, or “celebration of the Torah,” which is basically a big party for our holy book.
The Campus Catholic’s posting a few weeks ago about the lameness of church sounded familiar, but in American Judaism the lameness lies not in the message being delivered, but in the prayer itself. In synagogues across America, Jews sit in pews chatting with their friends, prayer book casually opened on their laps, feeling very little. Usually there are a few individuals who pray with intent and passion, but for the most part there is almost no sense of passion in the community during worship. Too many times services in American synagogues lack real emotion and are straight up boring. And for many of the young American Jews defecting from the religion, this is part of the reason.
When I hear people casually mention "the Holy Spirit," I smile. When someone around me says "Insh'allah" (god willing in Arabic), I get happy. I love it when Jews say "Baruch Hashem" (God bless in Hebrew). The people who say these things are so faithful and their religion is such an integral part of their lives that it sanctifies their words, slipping into their everyday speech, even with people not of their own faith.
I have a confession to make. This year, during the month leading up to the High Holidays and even during the ten days of awe between Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year) and Yom Kippur (the Day of Repentance), I prayed a lot and I fasted, but I did not apologize to a single person. This is a big deal. Unlike in Catholicism, Jews can’t confess to a priest and be forgiven, and unlike Christians in general, Jews have no comforting idea that Jesus died for our sins. Jews are hard core.
On Rosh Hashanah, God opens the book of life and writes down what will happen to you in the next year – whether you will be happy or sad, whether you will live or die – and on Yom Kippur, the book of life is sealed. During this time, in order to ensure a good write-up in the book, you have to set yourself right with God and with those around you. To be honest, God is a much easier customer. Whereas you can simply pray to God, apologizing and promising to improve next year, with people you have to actually approach them, look them in the eyes and say sorry. Only when you are forgiven by everyone in your life are you really prepared to begin the New Year.
“Madonna tells Peres she is ‘in love with Israel.’” The other day I came across this headline on the English language website of “Yediot Ahronot,” a popular Israeli newspaper. At first glance, it appeared to be reporting that the international pop superstar had a crush and had been confiding in Israeli president Shimon Peres.
That was not the case. Madonna, along with a smattering of other celebrities, including Demi and Ashton, was visiting Israel over the Jewish New Year for a Kabbalah conference. She and Peres, whose role as president is ceremonial, met up to chat about the peace and exchange autographed books. Luckily for us the event is documented by a series of photographs, the most awkward of which features a beaming Madonna flanked by Peres, whose eyes are closed, and husband Guy Ritchie, who looks supremely uncomfortable.
Madonna has been practicing Kabbalah, esoteric Jewish mysticism, for several years now, and even took on the Hebrew name Esther. My Grandmother, whose name is Esther, was thrilled: “I always liked my name!” she gleefully declared at the time.
While sharing my usual cup of coffee and Sunday paper with friends this week, I couldn’t help but notice the Nonfiction Best Sellers in the New York Times Book Review. There at number five, under four memoirs, was It’s All About Him by Denise Jackson with Ellen Vaughn, described as “The wife of the country music star Alan Jackson describes how religious faith restored her marriage” (which by the way is super awkward if she ever gets divorced). This alone didn’t surprise me. Scripture is used to treat all sorts of problems, from debt to drug addiction.
But then juxtaposed immediately underneath this clearly Christian book at number six was God is Not Great, Christopher Hitchens’ anti-religion polemic. Curious isn’t it? Is the American reading public schizophrenic?
A few Sundays ago, my mom dropped me off at the gargantuan local Southern Baptist church, warning me as I got out of the car clutching a notebook, “Don’t kneel!” My mom has a permanent mental image of me being forced to bow before a crucifix. Misguided warning notwithstanding, the fact that my mother was willing to facilitate my attending church at all is another step towards her coming to terms with the fact that her nice Jewish daughter likes to study Christianity.
As committed American Jews, my family and many others like us have a precarious relationship with Christianity. It is the religion of the vast majority of the people around us, but we are afraid to learn about it or even to encounter it outside of secular environments because of a collective memory of forced conversion and persecution.
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