That Time of Year Again? Ugh.

Yeah, one of the things that prevents me from letting go of Judaism entirely is its holidays. I love Jewish holidays. With one exception: Pesach.

Things I do not love about Pesach:

1. The guilt trip that goes on in my brain, whereby I can still hear all my elementary & high school teachers implying that anyone who does not follow every single stringency when it comes to Pesach will be cut off from the Jewish people/burn in Hell.

2. Pesach cleaning. It's not the good kind of cleaning. It's all panic, anxiety, and OCD scrubbing.

3. Eight days of a malnourished me. Because I'm all about carbohydrates. And when I eat mostly protein (as will happen on Pesach, lest I get a stomach ache from too much matzah/potato starch), I never really feel full.

4. Kitniyot. Seriously?!?! On Pesach, I lament my Ashkenaz background. But honestly, why do we even have to keep this? What's the deal? Pesach is already so excessive, what's with this extra (ridiculously huge) restriction?

On the Other Side of the Mechitzah

A few days ago, I attended an event organized for people from Chasidic backgrounds who are becoming "modern" and trying to integrate themselves into secular society.

(I'm being especially cautious with this post, as I don't believe there to be many such events [correct me if I'm wrong!] and I do want to remain anonymous.)

My presence there, obviously, was somewhat accidental. I came with a friend whose friend had once been in the abovementioned situation. I was an anomaly there, having come from a Modern Orthodox background. In this way, I was really just a spectator of sorts -- and possibly shouldn't have been there. That said, it was one of the most interesting experiences I've had in the recent weeks.

It was eye-opening to come face-to-face with girls changing from skirts into pants in the bathroom stalls, guys who grew up in America speaking English haltingly, men with payes and women dancing Jewish-style together to Jewish music.

What was strangest for me, though, was that the whole experience was religiously uplifting to me. It had been a long time since I'd been somewhere with so many people singing and playing Jewish music with such exuberance and joy. And it was (unsurprisingly) the first time that I ever found myself dancing in a circle with Chasidic-looking men. In fact, it was really one of the first times I ever interacted with men like these.

The dancing, in particular, was amazing. I've yet to find a women's section with truly exuberant dancing. Maybe it's our own fault, maybe it's the way we were raised, maybe it's the space constraints of women's sections in general. All I know is, with the exception of a few weddings, I've never experienced the kind of dancing I did at this event (and weddings are kind of different, because the focus is on a person, rather than the dancing itself -- and rarely does the exuberant dancing include more than the inner circle of 5-8 people).

For me, this kind of dancing has always been something to stare at from above - or through the mechitzah. I remember specifically, one time in Tzfat, being taken to one of these shuls where the dancing was supposed to be fantastic. Everyone had told me about it, and I was eager to go. When I got there, though, all I found was a horde of women crowded up against the mechitzah, pulling back the little lace curtains, and staring two stories down at the men.

But at this event, it was suddenly like I'd crossed over to the men's section - to the ground floor of the shul in Tzfat - the focal point of the activity. And it felt overwhelming. And it felt uplifting. And it felt beautiful.

Religious Questioning & The State of Israel

An old friend of mine with whom I've recently gotten back into contact has also "lost her religion" - to a far greater extent than I have.

While she still enjoys aspects of Jewish culture (i.e., food, music, literature, etc.), she's completely rejected anything to do with Judaism (as in the religion). Questioning religion, for her, was only a part of questioning the entire value system in which she was raised. Much like me, she was raised to be a Zionist, went to Israel for the year, went to religious Zionist camps, etc. And so, Zionism was one of the value systems which she questioned and ultimately rejected.

She's now not only pro-Palestinian, but actually anti-Israel.

I have always been more "liberal" in my Zionism than others. By that, I mean that I've always been appalled by people who implied or openly stated that the Palestinians had no legitimate side. Even as I saw certain Palestinian tactics as murderous and unethical, I've never been able to understand some people's reactions to them. One really otherwise-sweet girl in my seminary, for example, declared that if she had a machine gun, she would walk into East Jerusalem and open fire. This - and all of those people I would meet who espoused Kahane-esque philosophies - was completely incomprehensible to me. I always believed, you can't lump a nation/race all together and say they are all evil and all deserve to die. (That is, at the end of the day, the biggest problem I have with the biblical injunction to eradicate Amalek.)

It wasn't until I was in my early twenties that I actually began to read literature written about and from the Palestinian viewpoint.

Up until that point, I had always been taught as though Israel had never done anything wrong EVER (almost certainly a mistake from an educational standpoint). That every piece of land acquired by the State of Israel was done so either by purchase from absentee landlords (thus, the problem was with angry tenants, as it was) or by humane methods after the UN Resolution.

When I found out that this wasn't always the case, I was left really confused. In addition to this, because I was simultaneously questioning whether the Torah was true, I wasn't really sure how the State of Israel could be justified. If God didn't give us the land, what claim did we have to it?

Of course, the literature I was reading was very one-sided and written from an emotional perspective. And though I have since come to see things differently, for a while (maybe a year or two), I felt really strange about my allegiance to Israel. So much so, that I couldn't even bring myself to say the word "Israel" around non-Jewish people without a queasy feeling in the bottom of my stomach. That said, for some reason, I still felt really attached the country itself. When I did visit, it still felt good in that way that it always had. And I couldn't (and didn't want to) imagine a world without Israel.

Interestingly enough, it took conversations with an Evangelical Christian Zionist to balance out my perspective again.

From these conversations, I have since come to the understanding that while Israel was not ethical in every decision it has made, no country can make such a claim. Yes, there were Palestinians exiled in unfair and inhumane ways. Yes, that's awful. But Israel has been ethical in many of its decisions. And those instances in which it has not been ethical do not revoke its right to exist.

The original settlements and the subsequent founding of the State of Israel were at least partially premised on the idea that in this hostile world, Jews needed their own homeland. And world events (pogroms, the Holocaust, and other persecutions) supported this thesis. If we look at Middle Eastern countries and/or certain European countries, today's world events still point to this need.

I'm rambling, admittedly, but it really made me feel strange to talk to this girl who now believes that the State of Israel should not exist -- especially at this point in the evolution of my belief system. She says that unless we look to the Bible, we have no claim to this land (implicit in her statement is that the Bible is not a valid source).

Now, I don't really want to use the Bible as a source either for such disputes. But certainly, if the Jews are to choose any land for the purpose described above, we do at least have a historic connection to the land.

I don't even know if that's important, though. In my mind, what it comes down to, is that she's now arguing for something completely unethical. There are generations of Israelis who have now grown up in this land, who own property, who understand this as their home. How would removing these people be ethical when removing Arabs from their homes was not? Can we correct something that was unethical (from her perspective) in the past by doing something equally as unethical today? Following her line of reasoning, to me, would be equivalent to arguing that we should remove the residents of the American West and give all the land to the Native Americans.

It's so strange. The more I read, the less convinced I become in the divinity of the Torah, God, the Orthodox interpretation of Judaism.

And yet...

For the past two+ months, suddenly, I've been becoming more and more Orthodox, at least in terms of practice.

By that, I mean I've been (for the most part) keeping kosher & Shabbos diligently.

And the thing is - I'm not even sure why. Or rather, I know why I've been keeping Shabbos. I enjoy it. For the most part, it really does something for me. (See here.)

But I have absolutely no idea why I've been abstaining from eating in non-kosher restaurants. I was back and forth on this for a while -- but for a really long time, I was doing the keep-a-kosher-kitchen, eat kosher around those who would otherwise be upset (i.e., family and certain religious friends), and otherwise eat out non-kosher (vegetarian, for the most part).

It's so strange. And so contrary to what's been going on in my brain. I'm not really sure why this is happening at all.

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.

Lately

The reading project:

I'm still pretty knee-deep in this; I've been taking notes - writing down questions, thoughts, interesting quotes - on most of the books I've read. When I have time, hopefully, I will post some of the more relevant notes up here.


Reunions / Homosexuality & Orthodox Judaism:

A friend recently called my attention to the Flatbush reunion story. It seems a lot like the Noah Feldman article from a while back...

I understand that the schools promote a certain ideology, but it seems strange to me that this stretches beyond the bounds of educating the children currently in their schools. In other words, while I certainly don't agree with the schools' viewpoints & I don't condone what Feldman's school (allegedly -- some claim it wasn't as he said) did to the group photo, this latest story seems to make even less sense to me.

What I mean:
Okay, Flatbush strongly disagrees with how this particular alumnus is living his life. But a reunion isn't a newsletter. I'm not really sure how allowing the partner to come to the reunion translates into condoning his lifestyle choice.

The whole thing just seems weird to me. Granted, I don't subscribe to the belief system that says homosexuality is wrong. But to me, a reunion is just for the alumni to get together, reminisce, reconnect, etc.. The reunion might also be used to procure donations for the school and photographs of the reunion might later be used to promote the school's image, but the reunion itself should be about the alumni (whoever they turned out to be), not the school.

Of course, this issue also serves to highlight one reason I feel highly uncomfortable being part of the OJ community. Most OJs I've talked to have argued that there's no way OJ (and as an extention of that, OJ schools) can accept homosexuality as it is biblically forbidden. And they're right; it is biblically forbidden. It would require a revision in the way I think about Tanach's role in Judaism for me to be able to reconcile this. And if I accepted that revised way of thinking about the Tanach, would I still be considered Orthodox?

A Note About the Silence

Over the past few weeks I've just been trying to figure myself out. As I said in the previous post, I'm a more than a little bit confused about what I actually want. This is still the case. I'm currently engaging in a full-fledged, intensive reading project and looking around me to see what my real options are.

More to come on all of this.