Choosing (A) Life

Whew, what a week. I hope none of you actually took that bet about me getting this post done before Yom Kippur. (But in the spirit of Yom Kippur, I forgive myself for not getting it done before then, and I hope you do too.)

So, better late than never, right? As promised, here is a slightly more finished (because I suspect this is a subject that I could write many, many posts on) version of the post I've been working on regarding belief and organized religion(s). The topic's been going around--both Josh and Daphne have posted about this topic lately, and it's been much on my mind as well. So even though I'm late to the party, I'm going to jump on that blogwagon and go for a ride as well. There's a lot to unpack here, so bear with me during this long and winding post.

First, let me talk about the organized religion part. As some of you who read Joshua's Journals may already know, we just took the big step of actually joining a local synagogue as official dues-paying members. Last week we went to services at said synagogue to celebrate Rosh Hashanah, the beginning of the new year (or as they put it later at the children's service we also attended with Eli, "the birthday of the world"), and yesterday we went to Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement) services. We're strongly considering going to check out Sukkot celebration in our neighborhood next week. We might even go to a children's Shabbat tomorrow, just to see what it's like.

All this Jewishness! What's up with *that*? Joining an official, huge, organized religious community is a big step both for Josh and for me, for a lot of reasons. I think Josh eloquently put out his own thoughts on the matter in his post; I want to share (or at least record for posterity) mine.

Here are some of the things that have gone through my head before and after this whole joining-a-synagogue experience:

For all that I've always proudly identified as a Jew, especially on the cultural/ethnic side of Jewishness, I've always had a conflicted relationship with the religion itself. Not because I didn't *like* what Judiasm taught--actually, the more I analyze the values I structure my life around, the more I come to understand that I probably got many of those values indirectly from being raised Jewish--but because I didn't feel like I really even *knew* what Judiasm taught. I've always felt like I was in the weird position of being an imposter, like some sort of trompe l'oeil Jew who looks right from one direction but there's nothing really there underneath. Or to put it another way, I felt Jewish by osmosis--a Jew by virtue of growing up around certain bits of Jewish practice or culture (and of course by genetic background), but without a lot of formal knowledge of what Jewish beliefs or values or practices are. I celebrate some of the holidays, I sort of generally know what Jews believe in, and I know enough of the rituals to be able to fake it at services--but I never got Bat Mitzvah'd, I don't read Hebrew, and I don't think I could really articulate well the "why" of the rituals that I do know the "how" of. I have, for most of my adult life, felt like a Jew on the fringes, someone not quite on the outside looking in, but rather existing in a weird demilitarized zone between Jew and non-Jew. You know, where the non-Jews see me as Jewish, and the "real" (we'll leave aside the question of what a "real" Jew is for the moment) Jews see me as suspiciously secular. I guess what I'm realizing here is that I haven't felt a total sense of ownership of the "Jew" piece of my identity, because I didn't feel like I was behaving like a "full" (e.g. in some way observant/practicing) Jew.

But it wasn't just not being a "full" Jew that I felt (feel?) conflicted about. It was the idea of being an observant/practicing *anything*. Given my wildly liberal, progressive, feminist upbringing and young adult experience (especially in college and grad school), how could I not feel prejudiced against (and faintly snide about) people who were regular practitioners of their faith? Hardly anyone I know (family or friends) is any kind of religiously observant. I rarely heard good things about organized religions of any sort--opiate of the masses! Stubborn, close-minded literalists! Unquestioning, anti-scientific, xenophobic fundamentalists! And let's be honest, a lot of really heinous stuff has historically been perpetrated by overly enthusisastic practitioners of various stripes (although I know mostly about the Christian stripes, given that Jews were often targets of said heinous stuff) under the guise of "God wants us to___" (fill in your own blank). Holy wars! Pogroms! Witch Hunts! Inquisitions! Eeek! I certainly wouldn't want to be one of those...well, "zealots" would be another way to put it. I mean really, that whole thing about being a raised a member of a religion whose people got at best repressed and discriminated against and at worst hunted down and killed whenever local Christians started feeling particularly threatened...that kind of turns you off from thinking positively of people who identify as strongly religious, you know? I realize now that I was struggling with a mostly unexamined assumption that people who are "too" religious (e.g. those who might actually go to weekly services or those who didn't flinch--or indulge in eye-rolling sighs--when "God" or "Jesus" or whoever got brought up) were either dumb, deluded or dangerous. And you know what? That's like assuming that everything in the world is falling apart and that people are inherently evil because all you ever see is are the unfortunate victims and perpetrators on the 6 o'clock news (which obviously has its own skewed view of the world as a dumb, deluded, dangerous place). It's just not the whole story.

Ok so that's a bit of the conflicted background with which I came to this whole joining-the-synagogue thing: a fear of not being Jewish enough, combined with a fear of being too religious in general (which leads to a general distrust of organized religion). But mixed in here with all my issues, there is also a strong feeling of personal belief I have in, well, something (or should I say, Something) like a "higher power" (I usually call it the Universe because I still have a conflicted relationship with the word "God"--there's a lot of baggage in that word for me). I do believe there is something larger than ourselves, something good, something quintessentially unknowable by the brain but feel-able by the heart and spirit, although now that I've mentioned this I realize I'm not feeling up to really going into a whole examination of my concept of God (or the Universe) right now--maybe in a different post. Anyway, being the eternal glass-half-full Optimist that I am, I also have a strong belief in the general sweetness and sacredness of life--but not in the scary Operation Rescue or militant vegan kind of way, where all life is considered equal (though this is a perfectly nice idea in theory, it's virtually impossible in action--at least for me). I believe in the saying "choose life", in the sense that we should not shut ourselves off from the world or practice non-attachment, but rather that we should deeply involve ourselves with the world, and care for all its pieces (including each other) as well and as much as we can. I do feel like there is a purpose to our lives on this planet, and I do believe that it has to do with helping to heal a broken world--whether the broken bits are in ourselves, in others, in our societies, or in our planet. This idea of being responsible for healing the world is a strongly Jewish point of view--in Hebrew it's called "Tikkun Olam"--so depending on how you look at it (Chicken? Egg?) either it's not surprising that I feel this way because I was raised Jewish, or I'm so attracted to Judaism now because it dovetails so well with what I personally believe.

Of course, Judiasm also says that we should not only "choose life" just generally, but we should choose to live a particular kind of life, one according to the precepts of Jewish law laid down by God when the ten commandments were given to Moses and endlessly embroidered upon by generations of learned rabbis. Here's where it can get a bit dicey for me, since some of those laws are not to my personal taste. (Like keeping kosher? Not for me, thanks--although I do have my own moral dietary restrictions involving not eating mammals, because I just can't bring myself to eat animals that love their babies. And don't start with me about how chickens love their babies too, I'm working on it.) Lucky for me, however, even though I might quibble with some of the specifics, I can totally get behind the main "how to be a good person" laws of Judiasm--visit the sick, care for the old and the young, celebrate with the bride and groom, clothe the needy, feed the hungry, take care of the planet--in other words, be excellent to each other.

One of the major things that was/is attracting me about this whole joining the synagogue thing is that I think it will provide a specific outlet, a focus if you will, that will help me put my beliefs into practice. (That's always been the hard part for me--the translation of perfectly good intentions into actual action.) No more of this "yeah I'd like to if I could only figure out how in my copious spare time" laziness barrier to action--the opportunity to get involved on a variety of levels (personal, spiritual, communal, societal) is pretty much the point of organized religious groups. What will be interesting is to see how and whether and in what way these increased opportunities will translate into long-term commitments for both me and my family. Stay tuned.