Homesick for Tradition

"It feels like Friday but it's only Wednesday," you tell the barista, explaining why it's been that kind of week, or why you seem the way you seem.

But the truth is, it smells like Sukkot outside and all you can think about is the way the moon used to look through the cracks in the bamboo roof and bundling yourself up in a coat while eating chicken soup slowly, spoonful by spoonful.

It's Sukkot again and you're not in the sukkah again and in your mind there's the glow of blue and yellow canvas from the kitchen window and the sound of voices in the backyard.

I wrote this while sitting in a coffee shop the first night of Sukkot this year. To me, it illustrates the way in which I have a tendency to equate Orthodox Jewish tradition with my childhood experience and the way in which I actually become homesick for it.

Granted, there is absolutely no reason why I couldn't have been sitting in a sukkah instead of a coffee shop that night, except that I wasn't listening to myself, to what I really wanted, and so I didn't make the appropriate plans or do the appropriate research.

Something about Sukkot brings it home more clearly than other holidays for me: how there is an essential component that is missing from my life that Orthodox Judaism once provided for me. I know I have to find a viable replacement and soon. I've had many suggestions of the Reconstructionist and/or Renewal branches of Judaism and I may just try one or both of those out soon to see how they do or don't fill that need.

Working on Yom Tov

I never did it. When I was going through my major crisis of faith a few years ago, I (ironically?) worked for a Jewish company which gave off for all the Yom Tovim.

After that, I moved across the country and was not working for just under a year.

This year, I took off for Pesach, Shavuot, and Rosh Hashanah. But when it came to Sukkot, I found that I didn't have enough vacation days and would have to either take days unpaid (something not necessarily smiled upon by the management of my company) or work.

I chose the latter. And I'll say this: it did not feel good.

I was a little bit overemotional maybe, yes, but the whole way to work on the first day, I felt like crying.

Maybe it's because Sukkot is, hands-down, my favorite holiday (of all holidays, not only Jewish ones). But it just felt so empty... and I kept thinking of my parents' sukkah in their backyard and the way all of our neighbors would be outside at the same time eating... and how I had made a series of choices that led away from that.

I started this blog in my late 20s (28, I think?). I am 31 now. In between that time, I became less and then more and then a lot less Orthodox (or Orthoprax, or whatever you want to call it).

But I'm starting to feel like I went too far again. My instinct is to gravitate back toward Orthodoxy again, but I'm not sure that's the right move. After all, there are concrete and good reasons why I left it. Comments on my last post suggested that I should try to become part of a non-Orthodox community and maybe that really is the way to go. I'm not sure why I have such resistance to it in my brain...

What I do know is that these pulls away from and toward Orthodoxy/Judaism/traditionalism seem to be a pattern in my life.

I'm not sure there's ever a point at which anyone "grows up" in the way that I understood that concept as a child. I always thought that at some point in my life, everything would just kind of congeal and I'd be that way (whatever it was) for The Rest of My Life. But if, at 31, I'm still having these major fluctuations in the way I feel and the things that seem most right for me, I'm guessing that this may just be something that doesn't really ever end.

Non-Traditional Yom Kippur: The Run Down

I wish I could say that everything turned out the way I planned it to.
But then (to wax philosophical) nothing ever really turns out the way people plan, does it?

In any case, for logistical reasons that I won't go into here, the camping part of my Yom Kippur plan didn't happen. The night of Yom Kippur, I stayed home, read a book (nothing particularly earth shattering), and yes, I ate a little bit.

But early on the morning of Yom Kippur, I got in a car, and drove about 2 hours to go hiking in a beautiful mountain/forest area.

The hike itself was incredible, especially because I hadn't been hiking in so long. The leaves were already changing colors and the sky was completely clear and my mind was able to do that contemplative, almost meditative thing that I had anticipated it would.

I kept in mind during the hike that it was Yom Kippur that day and it did alter the experience to feel more like self-growth and to keep my mind somewhat focused on the year behind me and the year ahead of me. I will say that on a personal level, it was much more meaningful than anything I've ever experienced on Yom Kippur in shul (or, more likely, lying on the couch, feeling weak, and counting the hours until I could eat again).

That said, I did find myself feeling guilty at times. Not on the hike itself, but while on the way there (i.e., while driving), in the morning while getting ready to leave, and even a little bit on the way back.

I wish this wouldn't have been the case, but it was. Somewhere in my brain, there was this little voice that kept saying, "But it's Yom Kippur!" At these times, I felt more guilty than I ever had while sneaking snacks at my parents' house on Yom Kippur. Or maybe I really just felt weird about it? I'm not sure...

I think, if I'm completely honest with myself, there's a not-so-small part of me that lives somewhere in my conscience that is still Orthodox, has an Orthodox mentality, and judges myself based on those standards that I once learned. This is the part of me that was not okay with my non-traditional Yom Kippur. It's also the part of me that every once in a while looks at my life despairingly because I haven't kept Shabbos in so long.

But if Yom Kippur is a time of self-realization, then I suppose it's useful to at least acknowledge this part of who I am. How long it will continue to exist, I'm not sure. But I do know that it's as real a part of me as the woman who decided that a non-traditional Yom Kippur was more relevant to her life and experienced that sense of peace while hiking.

A Different Kind of Yom Kippur

This year, for the first time in my non-Orthodox life, I will not be spending Yom Kippur at my parents' house. Every other year, if I decided not to fast, it meant sneaking a little bit of granola here or there, sipping some water when no one was looking, but otherwise going to shul or at least sleeping and reading.

When I thought about what I wanted to do for Yom Kippur, the answer wasn't immediately obvious. I did take off for Rosh Hashana this year and had a semi-traditional celebration of it -- went to (an Orthodox!) shul, heard the shofar, ate apples/challah and honey.

But I love Rosh Hashana and somehow that kind of celebration felt appropriate, like my autumn would feel empty without it.

Yom Kippur, on the other hand, I do not love. In my head, the words "Yom Kippur" conjure up the image of sitting in a sea of white, my stomach growling, flipping through the pages and counting to see how many we had left. It also elicits the image of lying on the couch, nauseous and dizzy, crying, to weak to even stand; and (frequently) actually vomiting.

A (non Jewish) friend of mine invited me to a party - a barbecue! - on Saturday. When I realized that it was Yom Kippur, I struggled for a little bit with whether or not to accept. Why not? I kept thinking, I want to go! It sounds like fun! But something kept holding me back. A party?! A barbecue on Yom Kippur? It felt wrong. I'm still not sure why I'd have a conscience about these things, but apparently I do.

So I said no. Or rather, I said I'd come after the fast was over.

But I still didn't know what I'd do with the day. Sit around and watch videos? Read books? It all sounded so uninteresting.

And then I came up with an idea. It may seem equally as wrong as going to a party to some people. But to me it feels right. I am going to go camping and hiking.

Why these? I thought about what Yom Kippur is supposed to mean, from my understanding of it and I came up with this -- it's a holiday about becoming purified, becoming closer to God, and ultimately, self-growth.

I don't know what God is anymore, whether or not God even exists, but I do know that the closest to "spiritual" I feel is when I am out in nature, stripped of all the excess technologies that have come to signify life these days. This is intrinsically linked to how I see myself at my most pure - in the quiet of nature, away from my everyday life, thinking about what it means to live and what it means to be me.

It will also be a significant step in a direction of literal healing for me, as a few months ago, I was pretty badly injured, and this will be my first hike since then.

And yes, I will certainly be eating and drinking. But the eating and drinking will be a hiking version of eating and drinking, which is to say that it will be functional, not recreational. Somehow to me that's still an important distinction.

I will report back in a week or so on what it felt like.

...But I Still Like Tradition!: The Conundrum

On my last post, an anonymous commenter asked that I write about resolving the “‘I like the social parts of Jewish traditions/holidays, etc. but that's it’ conundrum.”

Well, the statement is not completely accurate (is that an actual quote from my blog? If so, oy!), nor am I sure I’ve really resolved that conundrum, but here goes nothing…

I’ll make sure to get my actual feelings on the subject out first.

The phrase “social parts” is sort of vague and I’m not sure it actually describes what I like about Jewish traditions and holidays. As I mentioned in a previous post, I'm traditional, but not a traditionalist, in that I don’t think tradition trumps all. For example, if a tradition violates my deeply held moral/ethical beliefs, I’ll have a big problem following said tradition.

In other words, I do like and have a respect for tradition as a whole. That's partly because I have a respect of my ancestry, my heritage, my fascination with the history of the Jewish people...

But it’s true that many of the Jewish traditions and holidays include rituals, etc., that don’t fit with my worldview. It’s also true that I’m an agnostic, don’t believe in the divinity of the Torah, and have issues with the values of some of the rabbis who constructed the Halachic code by which Orthodox Jews live today. So yes, I’m definitely not Orthodox. And in a lot of ways I’ve stopped even acting as such in my daily life. Though I’m still not fully “out” to my parents, siblings, and certain friends of mine. (They know I’m less religious then them now, but don’t really know to what extent.)

That said, I do want to keep as much Jewish tradition in my life as possible (as discussed above), so long as it does not contradict my values. And since the Modern Orthodox tradition is the one in which I was raised, it is in many ways the one that’s most comfortable to me (though I’m not necessarily sure comfort is a good way to determine how I should live my life), and therefore is the one that I tend to look toward first for a traditional element in my life.

And I do enjoy what you might call the “social” aspect of it. It means something to me, not only because it’s part of my ancestry, but because it’s part of my life to an even greater degree than American cultural events like July 4^th or New Years (after all, if my family happened to be out of the country on July 4^th, it would go nearly unnoticed; the same can obviously not be said for Jewish holidays). It is, in effect, part of the makeup of who I am.

And I do love it. I love the feeling of sitting in a Succah on Succos…of smell of the etrog…the crazy dancing on Simchat Torah…lighting menorah and eating latkes with my family on Chanukah. And, like I’ve said before, the non-Orthodox versions of these rituals often feel strange to me, almost devoid of “realness."

So what to do? The agnostic, quasi-practicing Jewish girl has an affinity for (some) Orthodox rituals!

Well, like I said, I’m not really sure I’ve solved the conundrum, but here’s what I’ve done in the last year:

I’ve tried out Conservative services. This, as I blogged, was nice in some ways, and really strange in others.

I’ve gone to my parents’ house for holidays/Shabbos, while slowly letting them know (through more subtle conversational hints) that while I do appreciate this way of doing things, I’m not fully in the same boat as them theologically, and I don’t always do things like this on my own. This approach seems to be working in a not-so-painful way. As an aside, every time I’ve been there, I’ve had my also not-so-Orthodox boyfriend (his theology and upbringing is pretty similar to mine) there as a support network. This has been immensely helpful.

For those holidays I’ve done on my own (see fast day posts), I’ve tailored the rituals to fit my life, my reality, and my philosophy. This worked with the fast days. It hasn’t really worked (i.e., hasn’t felt right) with the other holidays.

I’ve gone to Chabad. I like them. Not their theology, but their approach. I know that deep down they’re looking to make me as Orthodox as possible (and that they have some beliefs that go beyond even regular Orthodoxy, with which I do not agree), but it never feels awkward or sinister to me. And the traditions there are done as traditionally as it comes…which is comfortable for me. Though as I said above, I’m not sure that I should be using comfort as a criterion (i.e., I’m offended by the idea of a mechitza and of not being counted in a minyan, etc., even as it feels comfortable to me).

So this is where I am right now. It’s definitely not optimal but it’s better than it was at this time last year! As for where I’m going, I’d like to start looking (more actively) for a community of traditional non-Orthodox Jews to see how that feels. Also, I’d like to start holding non-traditional Friday night dinners (and other Jewish rituals) with my other less-than-Orthodox (and maybe non-Jewish?) friends.

Tradition for Tradition's Sake?

So, tradition…

These days, when someone asks me to define myself religiously – i.e., put myself into a category – I usually tell them I prefer not to. I mean, I can’t call myself Orthodox in good faith anymore.

But am I Conservative? Conservadox? Well, not really…

If pressed, I’d probably say I’m Traditional. I like it because it’s not a category that most people use on its own when talking about Judaism – although there are a few synagogues that bill themselves simply as “Traditional.”

But also, I like it, because it’s the closest thing to the truth. I’m an agnostic, I definitely don’t buy into the idea of Torah Min Hashamayim, nor do I buy into the importance and/or infallibility of rabbinic law.

That said, Jewish traditions mean something to me. I’ve never really been sure why – maybe because my parents raised me in a house where Judaism, Shabbos, and the holidays were beautiful things, maybe it’s because of some idea of cultural heritage… I’m not sure the “why” matters, though. It’s just the way things are.

But there are limits to my traditionalism. That is, where aspects of the tradition seem immoral to me, or seem to uphold values that I see as immoral, I can’t be okay with it. Rather, I’m as traditional as possible within certain limits, but I’m not an advocate of “tradition for tradition’s sake” when such a policy holds back social progress or justice. In fact, even if tradition simply contradicts a belief that I have, I can’t stand behind that tradition.

In other words: for me, tradition is a luxury, not a necessity. I stand behind specific traditions because I find them valuable. Where a specific tradition ceases to have meaning – or begins to have an offensive meaning – I’m not interested in perpetuating it.

A few weeks ago, Product and I had a bit of a back-and-forth about the blog entry I’d written on my Christian friend’s wedding. He couldn’t understand why I’d be offended or uncomfortable with Orthodox Jewish wedding ceremonies.

In an e-mail to me, he wrote, “I don’t have a problem with marriages done the Orthodox way. You see? So many things we do are rooted in historic customs, principles, and beliefs we no longer believe in, but we continue doing it anyway.”

Here, to a certain extent I agree with him. I try to make Jewish holidays special, to celebrate them in ways my ancestors celebrated them. So do I eat matzah on Pesach because I believe that God took the Jews out of slavery in Egypt and they left in such a hurry that the bread didn’t have time to rise? No. I eat it because my grandparents ate it, because I grew up eating it. I eat it for a similar reason (though on a deeper and more significant level) that I watch fireworks on July 4^th. Because it means something to me. Because it feels good. Because some of the lessons from the Passover story – the value of freedom, the horror of being persecuted – have value for me. And yes, finally, because being from a line of Jews who’ve done these things for centuries means something to me. In a cultural heritage sort of way.

But that doesn’t mean that when a tradition comes into conflict with my values – as does an Orthodox wedding ceremony – that I will just accept it because it’s tradition. On the contrary! I do think the Orthodox ceremony has some nice symbols – the chupah, for example. And I would like to see a perpetuation of those traditions. But in terms of the silent women, the enforced passivity of the women involved – I am not okay with that. Sure, if the people getting married feel that those customs reflect their values, they should keep it up. But for so many of us, it’s completely contradictory to how we see the world, even to how we see marriage.

Product made a point in a blog post* he wrote on the subject that, in Orthodox Judaism, women are consecrated to their husbands but not vice versa. I know this to be true and it’s a problem. Even if it’s only a technicality, it’s a technicality that has practical implications (think agunot).

Regarding my post, again, Product questioned my critique of the reading given during the Christian wedding. I had called the passage (at least in the way it was excerpted) misogynist. He felt I needn’t be offended by such passages (an aside, the groom was as well) because when they were originally written, they reflected the values of the time, and nobody was offended.

In his email to me, he elaborated: “I recently watched the Godfather series; I think it was shot in the 50’s. In Godfather I, the Godfather calls all colored people animals and in Godfather II, Michael is rebuked for trusting a Jew. Was I appalled? No. Neither should the black folks be offended. We all know that at the time Anti-Semitic and racist statements were acceptable. I’m not worried, because I know such lines would be censored from today’s movies.”

His supposition of when the movies were made is wrong (they were made in the ‘70s), but let’s just assume for a moment that they were actually shot in the ‘50s and that the values expressed within the movies reflected those of the societies around them (I don’t think it’s quite that simple even if they had been made in the '50s, but I’m making a hypothetical case). In such a case, I think it’s true that one should be able to watch such a film without being offended (the way, for example, I can read 19^th century texts about women’s “proper roles” without being offended. In fact, I’m not really offended when I read sexist remarks in the Tanach – it only serves as evidence for me that it’s a biased, human-written text).

However, watching these films is not what we’re talking about here. We’re talking about choosing that specific quote to read aloud in a modern day context. That is, imagine if someone stood up at a Jewish benefit and read the anti-Semitic section of the script from Godfather II. Unless he/she was doing so as part of a speech on the history of anti-Semitism, the attendees would all be appalled, and rightly so!

Tradition and traditional texts, by extension, have their limits. When they're quoted or referred to as a way to uphold sexist/racist/anti-Semitic values in modern day society, it is not okay.

Ultimately, Product closed his email by expounding upon what he saw as the “fundamental problem with Reform Judaism.” That is, that “[r]eligion practices the word of God, whether you believe in it or not. A religion that claims to be man-made is not a religion. When you start to accommodate religion to suit contemporary beliefs, you pull the floor from underneath your feet. Instead, let religion be the original that it is, and you have three options. You can take it, leave it, or throw it away. You can practice it, leave it in synagogue and visit whenever you feel like it, or hate it and reject anything that resembles it. The point is, don’t change it or you will mess the whole thing up.”

While not a proponent of Reform Judaism, I respectfully disagree with Product’s opinion here. I don’t think you compromise the whole thing by changing pieces of it. Not that this is relevant to my life – but even the most extreme brands of Orthodox Judaism don’t claim to be fully the word of God. In fact, most of the things I find to be in conflict with my value system don’t claim to be the word of God (there are, of course, exceptions to this rule). The reason for that is because Judaism – yes, even Orthodox Judaism – is an organic, evolving thing. The rulings of rabbis, even as they try to stay as close as possible to the original texts, have always been informed by the societies around them. How else to explain Rav Gershom’s edict against polygamy? This one instance is more obvious than some others, but if you look closely, these outside influences become more and more clear.

Obviously, the happenings within Orthodoxy are less relevant to my life now that I’ve (sort of) made the decisions that I have. But really my point is that I don’t think there’s anything necessarily wrong or threatening about adapting traditions. And I do think there can be harm done by simply valuing “tradition for tradition’s sake” without any critical analysis. Perhaps more on this another time…

*Yes, Product's blog is in Yiddish, a language which I don't understand. However, he sent me a translation of the post and it's really very interesting. Perhaps he will post that translation on his blog?

Why I Haven't Told: The Self, Divided

Slowly I’m coming to the realization that my situation is more complex than I originally thought. I’ve tried, but haven’t been able to tell my parents and the more I think about it, the more I realize that my reluctance is not just related to my cowardice (although I’m sure that factors into it, too).

The truth is that I’m really torn. In addition to my intellectual problems with Judaism, and all of the things I find problematic within its social structures, there is also so much that I love about being part of the Orthodox community. So much that I’m not sure I could just let go of.

I’m using this entry as a way to organize my thoughts on this – a way to understand what it is that I love and what I find problematic. So here goes nothing…

I’ll start with what I love:

--Shabbos. Whenever I decide not to keep it (this happens more and more frequently lately), it honestly makes me feel empty. Sure, I can go to the mall or to some concert I wanted to go to, I can watch whatever came from Netflix on Friday afternoon. But the thing is, growing up, my parents always made Shabbos such a beautiful experience. And even when I got older, the day provided a space for real bonding with friends (one uninterrupted by ringing cell phones, laptops, TV shows, etc.). As tempting as it is to live one weekend here or there without it, going Shabbos-free for life seems like a colorless existence to me.

--Holidays. The best memories of my childhood are the scents, colors, textures of the Jewish holidays.I know this seems related to the Shabbos thing, and I suppose it is, but most secular celebrations of Jewish holidays that I’ve been to don’t cut it for me. This past Sukkos, in particular, I found myself in a crisis. Faced with the prospect of a three-day Yom Tov, I decided that I would let myself just chill for those few days and maybe attend a Sukkos dinner at the Conservative synagogue. The whole experience left me so sad, there aren’t words to describe it.

--Community. Yeah, I know you can find this anywhere. Community is not exclusive to the Jewish world. But to me, there’s something really nice about the way the MO Jewish community functions, especially when combined with what I love about Shabbos and the holidays.

But I conflict greatly with the MO community in terms of the things I believe in. Some of these are:

--God. I’m an agnostic, not an atheist, but I definitely lean more towards the atheist side these days. And God’s a huge issue. If you don’t believe in it, why are you practicing all of these rituals?

--Torah. Even if I could make that jump from agnostic to believer, I can’t believe that a book with so many inaccuracies and morally problematic (for me) ideas could be divine. And unlike others for whom this doesn’t matter, it’s pretty crucial for me.

--A Definition of Morality. Mine differs pretty greatly from that of most MO Jews I’ve met (even some of the most vehemently modern ones). I don’t see how I can live within a system with such strict gender divisions and with such a heteronormative culture. While I can admit that Judaism’s morality may have pretty progressive at one point in time, today it just doesn’t measure up in my eyes.

--Set Expectations/Normalcy. (Linked, definitely, to morality) Again, not limited to the Jewish community – and certainly not inherent in Judaism as a religion – but prevalent in most MO Jewish communities I’ve been to. That is, there is an idea that your life will follow a certain course and that course is even more limiting that the “normal” course proscribed by contemporary secular society (which is already quite limiting!). “What?! You’re 28 and not married? Oy!”

This is just a starting point. There’s so much more to say. But in the end, what I’m trying to get at is that it’s not just the problem of how to tell my parents, it’s the problem of how to tell myself. Because I actually feel like there are two sides of me at war here, and I’m not sure which way to turn.