But What About the Children?

On my last post, Rambling Jew commented:

"what will you do when you have children of your own? How will you educate them?"

The question brings up a really complex set of issues which has weighed on me with growing intensity over the last few years.

Of course, I'm still not sure if I want to have children. I've rarely written about my personal (read: love) life here, just because I feel like said topic might reveal my identity to certain people. Suffice it to say that having children is a possibility for me over the next few years.

That road, of course, would open up a pretty messy can of worms. I live my life outside of the bounds of any real Jewish movement. I feel attached to many of the Orthodox rituals and yet find some of the values/philosophies that undergird these rituals problematic for my own worldview (not to mention that I find some of the rituals themselves to be misaligned with my values). At the same time, I am inspired by some of the non-Orthodox movements, but don't really feel comfortable aligning myself with them.

I've already watched this play out for some of my friends. Some have cast aside their own problems with Orthodoxy, embraced the culture as "Orthopraxers," and begun to raise their kids according to the Orthodox way without really bringing up the issue.

For others, the issue seems not as easily resolved. One of my friends, in particular, is currently struggling with whether she should continue to send her nursery-school aged children to day school. It doesn't make sense to her, she says, to spend all that money educating her kids about something she herself doesn't really believe. Still, she says, when she sees the kids that come out of the public schools, it seems (to her) that they don't have a strong value system. Or at least not one that she'd like her kids to have.

For me, the question brings up so many issues:

Of course, should I have kids, I also want them to have a strong system of values that resonate with my own. That's a really hard thing to accomplish, especially when you're bringing said children up in a world that doesn't necessarily agree with those values. Still, if it were only on this level, I don't think I'd have such a problem.

Sure, there are lots of people in the secular world who have values with which I strongly disagree; the same, however, could be said of the Orthodox world. In my nieces' and nephews' schools, for example, gender norms are steeped into every part of the curriculum -- and this is really not what I'd want my children to be taught. Of course, that's a more Ultra-Orthodox world, rather than a Modern Orthodox world. But even the MO world is full of people whose values I strongly disagree with. In my own MO education, some of my teachers espoused their racist, homophobic, and materialistic ideologies pretty consistently.

Mind you, that's not to say that racist/homophobic/materialistic people exist solely within a Modern Orthodox world. Of course not! They exist everywhere, in every corner of society. Nor are these ideologies intrinsic to Modern Orthodoxy. When you come down to the core of the values Judaism espouses, I agree almost all of the time. But at the same time, I see a lot of these values equally espoused in secular society. And, as I mentioned above, the same can be said of negative values.

In the end, I believe that if I choose a good community (i.e., town -- not necessarily Jewish community) with a good school district, and I practice the values that I preach, my children will grow up with a good and solid value system. The tens of thousands of dollars don't seem like a worthwhile investment if it's made for the sake of values alone.

Where the line does start to get murky for me is when I start to think about Jewish tradition. As my posts have reflected, I value my tradition strongly and I'd like to pass that along to any children I might have. But what happens when I don't agree with certain traditions? What happens when there's no school that mirrors what I believe? Do I shell out all those tuition dollars to send my kids to a school that doesn't really reflect my Jewish practices?

It gives me a headache to think about it.

This past Shabbat, I went to a Conservative shul (more on this later, of course!). That weekend, a girl was celebrating her bat mitzvah, was called up to the Torah, etc. There were a lot of positive things I took away from this experience, but one negative for me was seeing how uncomfortable the girl, her friends, and family (who were called up) seemed to be with the Hebrew.

That said, I'm very close friends with a Conservative family in the town to which I've recently moved, and while their kids may not be as comfortable with reading Hebrew as I was during my childhood, Judaism definitely pervades everything that goes on in their home. They do not have a strictly kosher kitchen, do not abide by Orthodox definitions of Shabbat, but they have Shabbat dinner & lunch every week, the holidays are intrinsic to their family life in the same way that they were to my family when I was a child.

Their daughter attended a Jewish school for a while, but is now in public school. That doesn't seem to make her any less excited about going to shul every week, saying brachot, making Sukkah decorations, shaking the lulav, etc..

It's nervewracking territory to venture out into bringing the Judaism you personally believe in into a house without a day school as a support network, but I think it's do-able. If I can bring to my house the enthusiasm that I feel for Jewish traditions and be honest about what I believe and don't believe, maybe that's enough? I'm not sure.

For 15 years (if you include nursery & kindergarten), I went to an MO day school that cost my parents tens of thousands of dollars. I did gain a valuable spectrum of knowledge about Judaism from this (though I'm not sure I can say the same for secular subjects; in high school, at least, the academics at my school were rather pathetic).

With all that education, though, the feelings and attachment I have toward Jewish traditions comes from my parents and my home. So many of the OTD/skeptic friends I have talk about the negativity they feel toward Orthodoxy because of what they experienced in their homes -- their parents screaming and panicking before Shabbos, their being forced to learn and go to/stay in shul in spite of their nature that would have them do otherwise, the emphasis their parents put on the "don't"s, the lack of any excitement in celebrations.

Maybe it was because they were Ba'al Teshuva, maybe it was because of their personalities, I don't know -- but in my house, the emphasis was always on the excitement -- the screaming and panics before Shabbos were minimal or non-existent. For me, growing up, my parents made Judaism feel like something beautiful, something fun, something I wanted to be a part of.

When I got older and became, for intellectual reasons, an agnostic, it was the memories of my parents' practices of Judaism that made me want to stay Jewish in any way at all. When you're dealing with religion and tradition, I really think it's what's in the home that counts more than anything.

I'm still not sure that means I won't send my kids to a Jewish day school. It's something I'll think about when I'm there. But I don't think it's the end-all-and-be-all.

Furthermore, I don't think that Orthodoxy in the home is the only way to raise kids who will feel something for (and continue) their tradition. In fact, if you're Orthodox and don't want to be, your home is more likely to look like the negative OJ home. A positive, inspired, finding-your-own-path Judaism seems like a better, more productive, and more sound way to go.

...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 in Non-Traditional Ways

Recently I went to a Conservative Friday night service. Excluding one Conservative bar mitzvah I went to as a kid (and a Reconstructionist funeral...not sure if that counts), this was the first non-Orthodox service I've ever attended.

A girl I'd met a few weeks ago who grew up Conservative had asked me if I wanted to come with her to services once in a while. I told her I was all for it. I'm definitely curious to see what other ways I can continue to feel connected to my Jewishness that might be more in line with my beliefs.

So she took me. She'd never been to this service. It caters to the 20s-30s set, is egalitarian, led by a female rabbi, and sees itself as traditional.

For me, the whole experience was a lot less strange than I thought it would be. Maybe it was because it felt more like an informal prayer group than a formal service, maybe it was because I was seated next to women, but for some reason davening without a mechitzah did not feel weird at all. (Even more bizarre, because when I was at my friend's Christian wedding a few months ago, sitting next to men did feel weird.) In fact, it was nice to feel like I counted, nice to feel like I was really part of things.

Nor, for that matter, did it feel strange to have a female rabbi. Again, this might have been because of the informality of the service. Still, I really liked her. She seemed so excited about everything and she gave a d'var torah that was actually interesting. Not to say that I've never liked a male rabbi before. But there's always been that distance that I've had to keep from them - not a "respect the rabbi" distance (which I did feel with this rabbi, too), but a gender distance, which was suddenly gone.

Two other things did strike me, one of which I liked, and one of which I didn't.

The first - and this, although I found it a bit jarring, I liked - was the addition of the word "imahot" wherever "avot" is usually said, as well as the names of the imahot, wherever the names of the avot are said. Yeah, it made me stumble over chunks of davening, which I've long ago memorized and can repeat by rote. But that feeling was nice because it made me think about what I was doing and what I was saying... And also, though I identify as a feminist, I'd never even noticed how many times it says "avot" or their names without mentioning the imahot. Admittedly, it feels kind of artificial, but not in a bad way. And if I went to such services enough, I'm sure it would begin to feel pretty natural.

The thing I really didn't like (interestingly enough, my friend didn't like it either) was the fact that this service switched off between English and Hebrew. I understand that idea behind it. I get it, I really do. But it sounds awful and it feels awkward... And yeah, I'm spoiled in a way, because I know Hebrew so I understand what I'm saying even when it's not in translation. But I think if I'm going to find one of these groups in which I feel comfortable, it'll have to be entirely in Hebrew.

Kosher vs. Kosher; Religious vs. Religious

The NY Times Dining section recently printed a review by Frank Bruni of the newly opened Second Avenue Deli. In his review, he writes, "The restaurant remains kosher." In response to another writer's reaction, "Because it is open on the Sabbath, almost no observant Jew would consider it kosher," Bruni wrote, "A Kosher Quibble" in which he tries to fetter out the definition of kosher.

What was most interesting to me (though not particularly surprising) was the slew of response from Orthodox Jews. Their definition of kosher, of course, includes the fact a Jewish-owned restaurant must be closed on Shabbos (or keeping the laws of Shabbos during food preparation).

What I do find noteworthy (although again, not surprising) is their oresponses almost all assume a strict dichotomy between "religious Jews" (i.e., Orthodox) and "non-religious Jews" (i.e., non-Orthodox). It is inconceivable to them that being a religious Jew could mean anything but keeping Orthodox strictures.

When I was a kid, my parents used to correct me when I called someone "not religious," telling me to refer to them as "non-observant" instead. I don't think that term actually fixes the problem. "Observant," I suppose, is taken to mean, "observing the laws of the Torah." So, in theory -- by my parents' assumption, someone could be religious (i.e., believe in God, attend services, have holiday celebrations, etc.) but not observant of the Torah and/or rabbinic laws.
But whether or not Orthodox Jews agree with them, there is a system of Conservative Jewish halacha...and if a Conservative Jew follows that halacha, they are being observant Jews.