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 They interpret the halacha in an outdated way to exclude people and to stunt the evolution of the Jewish people.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.

The Church & Cigarettes

Remember when I made that New Year's resolution to blog about things within a week of their occurrence? I've totally failed already. This quarter was very insane what with 22 credit hours of class, 3 jobs, and tons of extra curriculars. Excuses, I know. Hopefully I can catch up over spring break and get back on track spring quarter. The next few posts may not be in chronological order, but they all happened in the past two months.

You may recall me saying that the chef at Hillel isn't Jewish (yay gentiles!). Well, one day I went into Hillel to work on some stuff and ordered lunch at the cafe. He called me back into the kitchen to chat while he made my food. He asked me once last year about conversion, but we've gotten a lot closer since then, so he asked again. I told him I am starting to think about it more seriously. He said, you know that's great if you do and what's great about Hillel is they'll welcome you if you convert and they'll welcome you if you don't. Whatever choices you make, people here are going to accept them and be cool with it. Then he asked me about my childhood and religious background. So predictable. I explained the very liberal, open, Catholic household in which I was raised - that my brother went to Catholic school for 7 years but he switched to public schools when I started. The chef was raised Catholic, too, and he told me his excellent story...

He went to Catholic school through the 8th grade. At some point before that, his parents got divorced. Now, if for some reason you are unfamiliar with the Catholic stance on divorce - either you live under a rock or are from Mars - let me explain in a very simple way: it's a BIG NO NO. The official rules say NO DIVORCE in big black letters, bolded and underlined, twice. The Church will still recognize you as married, and they say G-d does, too. A famous case of the Church not allowing divorce is Henry VIII of England. Google it. But I digress. So his parents are divorced. Few years later, his mom wants to get remarried. You may be thinking that the Church said no, absolutely not. False. They said no conditionally. If she were to make a very large donation to the Church, they would recognize her new marriage as valid.

If the word that comes to mind here is hypocrisy then you are spot on. To be perfectly honest, if I had to choose just one word to describe the Catholic Church, it would be hypocrisy. This is terribly ironic because I vividly remember learning this word for the first time in church. At some point in the New Testament, Jesus talks about hypocrites and how they suck and all that. I was about 5 when I heard this word in the second reading during mass. I tugged at my mother's sleeve and asked "Mom, what's hypocrite?" She said "It's someone who says not to do something but then does it anyways." Small child confused look. "Like if someone tells you not to smoke cigarettes then goes and smokes one. That's a hypocrite."

It seems the Church will let you smoke all the cigarettes you want so long as you pay them lots of money. This apparently doesn't violate their moral code in anyway. While my family's experience with the hypocrisy of the Church isn't quite the same as his and maybe isn't as dramatic, it also has to do with their laws on marriage. Not only will the Church not recognize a new marriage after a divorce, they will not recognize any marriage performed outside of the Church, even if it is the first one for both people. Basically, if your marriage does not perfectly fulfill their requirements (save for any monetary bribes or payments) then you're not married to them. So, what I am trying to get at here is that my brother and I weren't supposed to be baptized.

My parents didn't get married in the Church, or in a church at all. They got married at justice of the peace. The Church makes you do a full year of marriage counseling before you can get married. It's to make sure you're compatible or some crap like that. My dad told the priest straight up, "I've been with her for five years. We're compatible. I don't need counseling." When the priest refused to give in, they said fine, we just won't get married here. They had things to do, children to have, lives to build. Well, they actually waited almost 5 more years before having a child but they probably didn't know that at the time. A week or two after my brother was born, my mom calls the church to arrange his baptism. They tell her no. They say she and my dad weren't married in the Church so their son isn't a legitimate child and cannot be baptized. They will need to be remarried in the Church and then he can be baptized. Oh damn, were my parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents mad. Like my parents were really going to get re-married? They don't have time to be re-married, especially with all the hoops a Catholic marriage entails. My grandma and great-grandma went to the church and had a word with the priest. Then my brother was baptized.

What happened? I always got the impression my grandma and great-grandma pulled the money card. You threaten to take away that regular donation from a long-standing Catholic family, and you're gonna have issues. That's why the priest gave in. There were no problems when my baptism rolled around, although it was performed at a much later date than normal (3 months after I was born). I guess no one was concerned about the fate of my soul being stuck in limbo for all of eternity. Probably because that doesn't happen.

So the chef finished that year in his Catholic school so he could be confirmed, but his brother was taken out of school right after that episode. His mom sat them down and said you guys are old enough to decide for yourselves what you want to do, but I am not going to go to church there anymore. So they didn't go to a Catholic church anymore. Sometimes he and his family now go to a non-denominational church, but they're not very religious. He likes to talk about G-d without calling him any name, i.e. Jesus, and without drawing any pictures, i.e. of Jesus, which I think is pretty cool. It makes me feel better that I can see the options for my future in him and other people at Hillel. Though at this point I would rather do the work to convert to Judaism than have no religion at all, at least I know I have another good avenue to go on.

Moving Forward

This weekend I went home for a night and a day. It was my niece's 7th birthday party. All week I was kind of planning to talk to my mom about all of this (as in the content of this blog). Ask her what she thinks of me converting to Judaism. Both of my parents know that I have been reading about Judaism and that I have a rather large amount of Jewish friends. In fact, I think that my mom has tried talking to me about this before, it's just that we both suck at starting those kinds of conversations and I just wasn't taking her bait. Examples: fall quarter, Hillel had a havdala event for which they created a facebook event and I attended (both on facebook and in real life). When I went home the next day for whatever reason, my mom tried to ask me what it was but she pronounced the word way wrong so I didn't know what she said at first then I was annoyed that she had asked that way. Winter break, the newspaper did a feature story on Hanukka, and she brought it up. Christmas eve, my parents and I were having dinner and my mom randomly said, maybe this year we should have gone to temple... my dad and I both looked at her and said what?? she was all, yeahh! isn't it Hanukka right now? we could've done something different. So, I guess I'm really stupid for not taking advantage of those opportunities. But in my defense, I was still super uncertain about what was happening way back in October and over winter break I was processing my week of Orthodox Jewish life.

So what about now? Well, now it's been almost two months since that last opportunity, but more importantly it's been a year since I first started seriously learning about Judaism. And this week is Ash Wednesday, which begins Lent. Last year at Ash Wednesday I made a conscious decision not to go, ever again. Ash Wednesday is one of those seemingly less important holidays in Catholicism but in actuality carries great weight. For one who is quite uncertain about their religious identity, going to Ash Wednesday is like saying, for the next two and a half months, I am committed to Christianity. For Lent, people usually give stuff up to try to appreciate this supposed sacrifice that Jesus made for all people. Lent is the season that prepares people for the most holy time of the Christian year. And honestly, I never really appreciated the enormity of Ash Wednesday until I decided I would never again participate. It was always this thing I did because my parents had sent me to CCD and basically made me. I don't even know if I went in high school because I always had dance on Wednesday nights. But I digress.

You probably want to know what happened with my mother. Well, in short, nothing. I got home late on Friday night, because I refused to miss Shabbat services and dinner, and my parents were watching one of their shows. When it was over, my dad immediately started talking to me and we got into a huge historical and political discussion. But, oh, the irony. My dad starts talking about the Catholic Church. He started watching some new miniseries about these infamous Spanish Popes. He was quite emphatic when he started in, "Mary. Now listen. Get this: 1492 Alexander Borja becomes Pope.... .... .... His grandfather was also the Pope... ... !!!!!!!!!" He looks at me with these big eyes, asking "Can you believe that?" Uh, yeah, kinda. Not at all surprised. He explains more of the history and blah blah blah. He was just totally beyond belief that these Popes weren't celibate or well behaved in any way. I just responded by saying, "Has celibacy ever been a real practice? Not really." He asked when celibacy became a practice and I said the end of the 12th century, and it was because priests were having these huge families and the parishes couldn't support them. My dad then says "I feel like now I need to look back through all the Popes and see who the first one was who actually followed the rules. I just can't believe this! I went to Catholic school for all those years as a boy and I just never knew any of this." My mom said, "Come ON, hun!" And I said, "Well, come on, Mom. The Church isn't going to teach people all of the naughty things these guys did over the years. That's stupid for them to tell young kids what hypocrites Catholics have been throughout history." I mean, it makes sense that the Church doesn't want to admit some of those shameful things. But they also shouldn't try to make it seem like the Church has been this perfect entity either. But that's besides the point. The last important thing my dad said was, "I can't believe how these Popes were. I had always placed the Popes on the same level as the Apostles." Woah...

I have never heard my dad talk like this. He never has talked about Jesus or the Apostles or Catholic teachings. Just sooo weird -- definitely wasn't the time to bring up converting to Judaism, just saying. My mom pressed him by asking, "Didn't you ever question Catholic teachings growing up? Because I did, all the time." Timeout. All the time you questioned Catholic teachings -- and now no longer consider yourself Catholic -- but decided to raise your kids Catholic anyways? What the heck, Mom. Kind of nonsensical but nevertheless... Two things: 1. Now I know I inherited the fierce questioning and confusion from my mother and I don't feel like such an outsider from my family and 2. Now I know that my Mom will be supportive. It might seem like she didn't say anything about supporting a Jewish daughter, but I guess you had to be there and have to know my mother.

So, I didn't talk to my mom about becoming a Jew, but something extremely important came out of this visit home.

Mom "quits religion"

The other day, my mom told my dad that she "quit religion." Today, while I was playing with my niece, I heard her tell my grandma that she doesn't believe in the Catholic Faith anymore. My grandma of course asked why and she said a bunch of stuff but all I heard was the priest sex scandal and cover up.

I don't know what's going on. I don't know if this is a good thing or a bad thing. Am I causing this? Or should I be glad because if one day I do switch religions she'll be more open about it? Oy, but what if she is against all religions like I was in high school. All religions really have a bad part to their history... I've heard my mom say that before and it's probably why she said she quit religion and not quit Catholicism. I, of course, am just of the opinion that the Church's bad history is much more extravagant than any other religion's.

I just wanted to report that this happened and that it's something I'm thinking about. Even if my mom was understanding, because she usually is, I still have my dad and my brother to worry about.

Celibacy, Gay Marriage, and Secular Societies

This post is just about non-theological issues of why I am not and cannot be Catholic. In regard to the big controversies, I am not on the Church's side. I'll try to keep this brief...

Celibacy. Celibacy is unnatural and it is not divine law. Simple as that. How does it make any sense that an institution that preaches the prime importance of the family doesn't allow its main leaders (priests, bishops, cardinals, popes, monks, and nuns) to have families? Did G-d not say, "Be fruitful and multiply"? Celibacy didn't come into play until the twelfth century and should've been undone in the thirteenth. But here we are 11 centuries later and priests are still celibate (sort of...).

Abortion. My parents and I are very liberal. We are pro-choice. I really despise when people say I'm "for abortion." I am not in any way for abortion. I just believe a woman (and her partner) have the right to choose not to bring a child into this world, especially for medical reasons. I think it is OK to be pro-life. I just don't like when people try to make pro-life laws in secular societies. Being firm in your beliefs and allowing your faith to deeply influence your life is awesome; but you shouldn't force your beliefs or faith on others. The choices I make in my own life - I do not expect others to make those same choices.

Gay Marriage. This is an equal rights issue, people, and I'm in equal rights type of girl. My dad and I were both thrilled when New York finally got it together. I was not thrilled when I learned that the Catholic Church is now no longer accepting donations from any of the legislators who voted in favor of the bill. The bill doesn't force churches to perform same sex marriages, so this makes no sense to me.

Birth Control. I recently read a survey that said 98% of Catholic women have used or do use some kind of contraception. Kids are expensive. Responsible adults can use BC if they want. Obviously 98% of Catholics don't care about the Church's stance on this. Also, if non-religious teens and young adults are having sex, they should be using birth control. Bringing a child into this world before emotionally, intellectually, and financially ready is a great tragedy, for so many reasons.

The Secular Agenda. The Pope and a lot of Protestant leaders in the world like to throw punches at "the secular agenda." Of course there's a secular agenda in secular societies! And clearly, there are religious agendas in secular societies. It's OK to have a religious agenda but not a secular one? I love that America is a secular society. Basically, I love America. As Eboo Patel brilliantly stated in a recent article, America is sacred. And she's sacred because she's a secular society. We don't always live up to our core values of equality across all spectrums, but we work for it in every way in every day. It's freaking awesome.

The Sex Abuse Scandal. As my father said, the sex abuse scandal is maybe one of the worst things in the history of the Church. There are a few others, but this is really up there on the list. The worst part of it all wasn't finding out about the rampant abuse, it was finding out the way the Church covered it up and dealt with it. These priests should have been excommunicated on the spot. Sexually abusing a child is in no way consistent with the teachings of Jesus or of the Church. Instead they were kept safe by the Church's money and offered therapy. However, the Church only took 4 months to excommunicate Fr. Roy Bourgeois who ordained a female priest, ending his 36 year career.

Soo, I didn't keep it that brief... Sorry.