A Reflection

The school year is almost over, and it's time for reflection. I have been going to Hillel for over a year. I feel like I've grown a lot in that time, but in some ways still feel like I am at square one. I go to Hillel Friday night shabbat services most weeks and go there a lot during the week, usually to eat. I've been to reform and orthodox shuls and all three kinds of services. I've still never been to a conservative shul, though. I know the standard reform service and am working on conservative. I can read Hebrew. I've read all of Jewish Literacy (and if you know the book, you know it's a shlep to get through it), as well as This is My G-d, half of To Be  A Jew, and I'm partially through at least seven other books on Judaism (please see What I'm Reading). At least an hour of my day is spent reading Jewish blogs or Jewish information online. I try not to do that on shabbat out of respect (plus the fact that some of them go off line on shabbat). I am about to take my third Jewish studies class in the fall. I study Torah. I have read half of the Tanakh and plan to make a dent in the rest this summer.  I recently made the decision to cut out all pork (it was down to just bacon anyway) and seafood. I kept Passover and the Yom Kippur fast.

So what does all of this mean? Well, it seems, if anything, I've developed a Jewish identity. It's a little scary. But it's also really cool. Also starting to accumulate a Jewish wardrobe (ya know, Jew tshirts). But most important (I think), I no longer feel the Catholic identity projected onto me. I've shed that completely and I know that that was the single most important element to moving on in my life. Even if I wanted to be a Universalist or something, I still would have had to completely rid myself of that conflicting identity. Even though I didn't believe in or practice Catholicism, I was still hurting all the time when I felt Catholic projected on me. Now I don't feel that happening, ever. I don't get so upset anymore to learn about the mishaps of the Church (which happen quite frequently as you all know). There is such freedom to that. With that gone, there is lots of room for a Jewish identity to fill in. I know I have the rest of my life for that to happen and for the identity to develop and change, but I imagine the bulk will happen in the next year or two. And I'm really freaking excited.

I have plans to find a rabbi this summer, in addition to several other Jewish goals. But I mostly want to find a rabbi (or two) so I can learn more. My parents asked me not to study with a rabbi until I graduate college, but I have kind of plateaued with my Jewish learning and it is very frustrating. I have to learn more. Learning continually, incessantly is how I got here and I have no intentions of stopping. It was Confucius who said it matters not how slowly you go so long as you do not stop. I cannot stop learning, for then that means I stop living. Who knows when I'll actually convert but I have to continue learning. It is the Jewish way, after all.

Nonconformity

This is a sister post to the one earlier today. It is meant to answer that discussion question, when do you not conform? Well, I stopped conforming the minute I decided I would never set foot in a Catholic church again. I didn't conform when I told my mom I wanted to leave the Church like my aunt did. I didn't conform when I went to Hillel for the first time, or the second time or the third time. I didn't conform when I met with a rabbi just to talk. And on and on.

It seems rather trite that I would even discuss nonconformity in a blog like this. The whole concept centers around nonconformity. But the truth is, I've never really been able to conform fully. Everywhere I went, every group I found myself in there was always one little piece of me that didn't quite fit. Whether I was with the cheerleaders, or the honors kids, or the art kids, or the Christians, or the atheists, I just didn't fully fit. I could never conform - not because I didn't want to, but because I literally couldn't. Something in me kept me from remaining the slightest bit different.

There will always be times when I feel different, times when I have to suppress an opinion or two so I don't cause problems, or times when I have to suppress a part of my personality. But it sucks if those times are all the time. There were very few completely safe spaces for me growing up, and for a while in college I wasn't sure if I would find another one. The total, complete, no-bullshit truth is, that space is with my Jewish friends. I can be totally open and free with them. And they are - for all intents and purposes - my Jewish community. It's good to be nerdy and know a lot of things. It's normal to be sarcastic and funny. Making mistakes, laughing, and being philosophical all in one sitting is a regular occurrence. I am at home with them whether or not I am technically Jewish. The best part is, though, that I don't feel like I am conforming or have to conform to anything. I am just being.

I am comfortable here and now even if it makes other people uncomfortable that I am not conforming to other standards.

Conformity

Last night I went to another Dinner and Dialogue at Hillel. And again I did not say the meaningful things I was thinking during the discussion. One day, perhaps, I will be brave enough to say these things in the moment, but until then, I have this blog. The discussion was on conformity: when do you conform? when should you conform? when should you not? I gave some generic and pretty lame responses. They were real responses but just not as profound as what I could have said.

In the time before I came to school, I had a vision about what college would be like, what the other kids would be like. I expected open-minded, free-spirited atheists, agnostics, and generally non-religious people. For some reason, I figured no one in college would be religious because we'd all left our parents houses and that's where religion came from. None of the college kids I saw on TV were religious. And obviously TV is a reflection of reality.

I was quite shocked to find myself surrounded by devout Christians. Some of them were even Evangelical. People asked me to go to church with them, and when I declined, I was deemed an outsider. It didn't bother me much at the beginning of the year. But then as people got to know each other better, they started discussing politics. And with politics comes the discussions of abortion, gay marriage, and the like. I couldn't believe how many kids on my floor were pro-life and against marriage equality. Even if I wasn't actually outnumbered, I felt outnumbered. I was an outsider for sure. I had to keep silent and conform to their standards. I didn't like it.

What's worse was when everyone wanted to label me. So and so was a Methodist, what's-her-face Catholic, that one guy Russian Orthodox. So what was I? Well you've got an Italian last name so you must be Catholic. They put me in that box and I couldn't seem to get out. So I let that be my identity for a while, because that's what other people were comfortable with. The thing is, most of the people who put me in that box were not Catholics themselves and carry with them all the negative things about Catholics with them. So do I. So when they would make jokes, I would make them too. My humor is already rather self-deprecating so knocking myself for being a really bad Catholic was easy. Other Catholics - good Catholics - don't like that. They especially don't like it when they sense you're a non-believer. Good Catholics are not fond of bad Catholics conforming, which might seem antithetical to the idea of Catholicism, but it's true.

Technically, I could have kept that Catholic identity as long as I wanted. I could have conformed to what I was "supposed" to be, with the Italian last name and all. I was confirmed and no one can really take that rite away. But there was no way I could have permanently conformed. I was in a new place and in a new time in my life. It made sense to conform in the moment, but once I was removed from that dorm and those people, it didn't make sense anymore. Hell, without those people forcing me to conform I probably never would have set foot in a church in college. I don't know if that's a good or a bad thing. It just is. I don't regret anything in my life, but I am so freaking glad I stopped conforming. It was terribly unfulfilling.

Learning Torah

A while back the Hillel rabbi decided the next step in my Jewish education was to find someone to learn Torah with. Right after that one of my close friends suggested we study Torah together. Perfect! We started learning together a few weeks ago and it is honestly my new favorite pastime. The friend I learn with has studied at Pardes in Israel so he's basically a Torah scholar (jokes). But he is experienced and has a good approach that really works for me.

We take turns reading through the parsha out loud: he reads from the Artscroll translation and I read from the JPS translation. Neither of us really knows Hebrew so the different translations help us understand what may or may not be going on in the original text. We note tense changes, repetition of words, and other oddities to decipher what is really going on in the portion.

It takes about 2 and a half hours for us to learn the whole parsha, and that two and a half hours is usually the highlight of my week. We discuss theology, history, rhetoric, math, evolution, personal experiences and more as a result of just a few chapters in the Torah. It is incredible. After our sessions, I swear, I literally feel my mind expand. I think I expected Torah study to be cumbersome, like analyzing Shakespeare for an English class, but it isn't. It's uplifting. It relieves pressure from life somehow, rather than adding. This is what it means that the Torah is a gift.

I don't have much else to say except that Torah study has been the most meaningful addition to my Jewish experience. Every week when we conclude I look forward to the next session and wonder what will happen next. It makes me want to learn more and more. It truly is a driving force in my progression of a full Jewish identity.

It gets beautiful

So, this might seem a little dense at first. But I had a major breakthrough lately. This is something I've always known, but I've never really known. It took a long time to realize it but I feel like I've reached a new phase in my journey because of it.

Jews can be bad people.

All people can be bad people. Righteousness nor immorality are limited to or from any group. Whether it's the Haredi in Israel forcing women to the back of the bus, sexual abuse in the Ultra-Orthodox communities in New York, Orthodox Jews excluding converts and children from converts from the community, anyone excluding LGBTQs or Jews of color, rabbis abusing potential converts, or anything else you can think of, Jews can be just as mean or misbehaved as the next (non Jewish) person.

But I still want to be Jewish. Today, I can firmly say that. And now, for the first time in my life, I understand why people remain Catholic in spite of its antisemitic, oppressive, homophobic, sexual abuse history and current affairs. For so long I was frustrated by people who seemed to ignore these things and stay in a religion that to me mistreats people and disregards people on the margins. But people don't stay Catholic because they're OK with these things. They stay Catholic because of the religion. They connect to spiritual and intellectual things that no child-abusing priest can get in the way of. Now I get it.

I never wanted to be a part of Catholicism not because of the history and the abuse, but because there is no connection for me. With no connection to the religion, what is there for me? If I don't connect to the spiritual aspect of Catholicism, I sure as hell ain't gonna connect to the hierarchy and patriarchy that excludes women from all leadership and LGBTQ fully participation, obviously things that bother me. There is simply no place for me, and I'm OK with that.

Some Jews can really turn Judaism ugly. They use it for their own purposes. They interpret the halacha in an outdated way to exclude people and to stunt the evolution of the Jewish people. But, my G-d, Judaism can be so beautiful. It's not up to other Jews how my Judaism turns out. I see my friends Judaism and it is beautiful. Mine will be too. While the Jews who mistreat others and justify it using Jewish tradition and law, I am not going to let them stop me from seeing the traditions differently. My Judaism will be just as open and liberal as I am now. The connection I feel to G-d and Judaism will not be hindered by others.

My connection to my father and Catholic/Christian friends and anyone else won't be hindered anymore either. Because now I know what it's like. I know what it's like to be drawn to something in spite of the errors of others who've been a part of the same religion. We're all human and can only do so much. We can't change major institutions in a year or two. Hell, we can't even change them over a lifetime. And I can't be upset with people for being a part of a religion that I see as outdated.

Now my life is a little brighter and a little happier because I see where I am going clearly for the first time. No one is going to get in the way of that.

Atheist

I want to discuss atheists. Religious people like to ignore atheists, pray for them, or argue with them. Not that I consider myself religious, but I think these options kind of sucks. I think atheists/agnostics/skeptics/freethinkers are freakin' awesome. Honestly. I really appreciate the atheist perspective on life because I used to be there, and in many ways I still am. I never accept anything at face value. I am not a fan of just accepting "G-d's plan," and luckily for me, neither are Jews.

When I was around 15-16, I identified as agnostic. I explained to people that I believed there was probably something higher but there was no way of knowing. Much of this stemmed from the fact that I recognized that I didn't fit in with Christians. Because I am so math oriented, I tended to create little proofs in my head that eventually led to me finding that G-d does, in fact, exist. I always began with the premise that G-d did not exist and evaluated many of my experiences, things like my brother's military life, my aunt's sickness and ultimate survival, the wonder in my niece's eyes, and the beauty of the world. Every way I went, G-d not existing didn't allow for these things. After so long, I knew that the gut feeling I had was right and I had used a logical path to determining this. In mathematics, this is known as a proof by contradiction: start with the opposite of what you want to prove and produce a contradiction, showing that what you originally wanted must be true.

Atheists question everything, and I still find that to be very much a part of who I am. Atheists don't attempt to explain things (like earthquakes) by saying it's some message from G-d (like that the government needs to get a better budget, ehem, Michelle Bachmann). I don't attempt to do so either. I just accept that natural disasters and the weather occur because of various conditions that science can explain for us. I do believe G-d ultimately controls it, but I'm not going to get mad at an atheist for saying "no, He doesn't." What difference does it make? None of us can control it anyway.  I just cannot comprehend life without G-d, which is where atheists and I part ways.

I get the sense from some people - and yes, many of them are Christians - that you must believe in G-d to get His help. Well, that doesn't sound like an all-loving G-d to me. Unlike those people (some of them are my friends) I don't believe that G-d abandons people who don't believe in him. I believe that G-d helps people whether or not they acknowledge his presence. I mean, before Abraham figured out that G-d is G-d and those other gods are fakes, did no good things happen to people? No, G-d has always been there taking care of people, changing things, and creating things. The universe is billions of years old, so there's no way we can say G-d didn't care about  and love things until people started to worship Him 4,000 years ago. This is clearly demonstrated by all of the amazing atheist/skeptic thinkers out there making our world a better place. G-d didn't smite them or abandon because He still loves them and appreciates there work.

Sometimes I forget that not all Jews believe in G-d. But I am often reminded by one person or another and you know what? This is honestly one of the greatest things about Judaism. Even though some would disagree, there is still room for people who don't believe in G-d in this great, old tradition. It's very reassuring when I am struggling trying to figure out where I belong. Many Jews though do not find atheism a threat to Judaism since the Jewish tradition is based on questioning, fueled by doubt in many ways. One can take on an entire atheist mind set and be completely comfortable in the Jewish tradition.