In no particular order:
-Knowing that miracles happen
-Shabbos naps
-Israel
-The comfort food
-The parsha each week and all the layers of meaning
-Living life with purpose
-Getting inside jokes
-Kol Nidre
-Stories about great Rabbis
-Saying blessings over tree blossoms and thunderstorms
-Feeling quite small and quite significant at the same time
-Counting three stars in summer
-Jewish blogs
-Tehillim
-Caring about where my food comes from
-Everything that pushes me to be a better person than I am
-A sense of community wherever I go
-Knowing that I chose this
xo cbg
Showing posts with label Jew. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jew. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 25, 2014
Sunday, December 29, 2013
Xmas Makes Me Believe
I grew up believing in a lot of things. I believed that an overweight man in strange clothes spied on me throughout the year and then rewarded good behavior by breaking into my family's home through inexplicable means and leaving a pile of presents and a stocking of sweets. On a more serious note, I was raised to believe that the holiday was really all about the birth of a Jewish man, a story replete with details that required an even bigger leap of faith.
I thought that I would be leaving Xmas far behind by converting to Judaism, but I was wrong. There's no escaping it. Jews of all persuasions seem just as preoccupied with it as my goyishe family, though for different reasons. How do we prevent Jewish children from wanting Xmas? Are Xmas traditions for Chanukah ok, e.g. gifts or blue and white lights? How do I handle being wished "Merry Christmas"?
Being a Jewish convert during the holiday season is no easy feat, but I have come to believe Xmas can be used to strengthen my Judaism, not weaken it. I don't regard it as a coincidence that the Jewish holiday that commemorates resisting assimilation lands on the calendar right around the time everything gets hyper holly jolly.
People on both sides have a hard time believing I don't miss Xmas. It helps that I never had a tree in any of my residences after leaving home and I hate most of the music with a passion. That being said, it's easy to take things for granted when they're a regular part of your life. Several months after beginning my conversion studies, I approached my first Xmas warily. Would I feel a twinge of regret over giving all this up?
If I wasn't fully sure I had what it took to be a committed Jew, that first Xmas made me believe. In the art and fashion worlds, juxtaposition is often used to make certain details "pop." Xmas makes my Judaism "pop." The more I know what Judaism is, what I stand for, the less intimidated I am by Xmas. Pretty lights are pretty lights. Magic fades. Myths are outgrown. I choose to believe in miracles.
I believe in Judaism. I believe in its beauty and its strength; no need to gild the lily with traditions that aren't ours. I believe that giving my children an entire heritage is more important than giving them stuff. I believe in resisting assimilation and being proud to be different. I believe in the power of family, because I've remained close with mine despite giving up their holidays. I believe that Xmas is generally good for the world. I believe in my Judaism enough that I can say that. I believe that I can admire certain things about the holiday season, and still be happy and grateful that I left it behind and became a Jew. I believe all these things because of Xmas. It can be the best time of the year to be Jewish, believe me.
I thought that I would be leaving Xmas far behind by converting to Judaism, but I was wrong. There's no escaping it. Jews of all persuasions seem just as preoccupied with it as my goyishe family, though for different reasons. How do we prevent Jewish children from wanting Xmas? Are Xmas traditions for Chanukah ok, e.g. gifts or blue and white lights? How do I handle being wished "Merry Christmas"?
Being a Jewish convert during the holiday season is no easy feat, but I have come to believe Xmas can be used to strengthen my Judaism, not weaken it. I don't regard it as a coincidence that the Jewish holiday that commemorates resisting assimilation lands on the calendar right around the time everything gets hyper holly jolly.
People on both sides have a hard time believing I don't miss Xmas. It helps that I never had a tree in any of my residences after leaving home and I hate most of the music with a passion. That being said, it's easy to take things for granted when they're a regular part of your life. Several months after beginning my conversion studies, I approached my first Xmas warily. Would I feel a twinge of regret over giving all this up?
If I wasn't fully sure I had what it took to be a committed Jew, that first Xmas made me believe. In the art and fashion worlds, juxtaposition is often used to make certain details "pop." Xmas makes my Judaism "pop." The more I know what Judaism is, what I stand for, the less intimidated I am by Xmas. Pretty lights are pretty lights. Magic fades. Myths are outgrown. I choose to believe in miracles.
I believe in Judaism. I believe in its beauty and its strength; no need to gild the lily with traditions that aren't ours. I believe that giving my children an entire heritage is more important than giving them stuff. I believe in resisting assimilation and being proud to be different. I believe in the power of family, because I've remained close with mine despite giving up their holidays. I believe that Xmas is generally good for the world. I believe in my Judaism enough that I can say that. I believe that I can admire certain things about the holiday season, and still be happy and grateful that I left it behind and became a Jew. I believe all these things because of Xmas. It can be the best time of the year to be Jewish, believe me.
Tuesday, March 19, 2013
No Going Back.
In Plato's Allegory of the Cave, Socrates imagines a prisoner who breaks free from the cave where he has been held with other unfortunates, where a lack of both light and perspective have created a false reality. Such a man, the philosopher posits, would at first resist the truth once it was revealed to him. Sunlight would be blinding; so much so that his initial instinct would be to return to his former familiar captivity.
Incredulously, we read the kvetching of the Israelites to Moses after the Exodus. Under the Egyptians, they experienced hardships beyond imagining, backbreaking work for no pay, even infanticide. And yet, at the first hint of the unfamiliar, the people are ready to run back to that existence. In spite of witnessing firsthand the miracles that led them to freedom, they find it difficult to trust G-d with the little things.
How much more so for us, who can only dream about the parting of the Red Sea. There's an old saying, "The devil you know..." about our tendency to stay in comfort zones that we know are bad for us, but that are just so comfortable. As a convert, I have felt exactly like the prisoner in Plato's tale; ignorance really was bliss in so many ways. But like that protagonist, and like my spiritual ancestors in the desert, turning back was never really an option. A taste of freedom, whether for the mind, body, or both, only increases over time. The human spirit longs for growth, for challenges to overcome, even when the road ahead is daunting.
Don't just make Pesach about cleaning or shopping or burning out on macaroons. Which deserts did you cross in the last year? Which oppressive habits will you leave behind in the months to come, marching bravely and brazenly into the unknown future?
Onwards and upwards, my fellow Jews. Chag Kosher V'Sameach!
cbg
Incredulously, we read the kvetching of the Israelites to Moses after the Exodus. Under the Egyptians, they experienced hardships beyond imagining, backbreaking work for no pay, even infanticide. And yet, at the first hint of the unfamiliar, the people are ready to run back to that existence. In spite of witnessing firsthand the miracles that led them to freedom, they find it difficult to trust G-d with the little things.
How much more so for us, who can only dream about the parting of the Red Sea. There's an old saying, "The devil you know..." about our tendency to stay in comfort zones that we know are bad for us, but that are just so comfortable. As a convert, I have felt exactly like the prisoner in Plato's tale; ignorance really was bliss in so many ways. But like that protagonist, and like my spiritual ancestors in the desert, turning back was never really an option. A taste of freedom, whether for the mind, body, or both, only increases over time. The human spirit longs for growth, for challenges to overcome, even when the road ahead is daunting.
Don't just make Pesach about cleaning or shopping or burning out on macaroons. Which deserts did you cross in the last year? Which oppressive habits will you leave behind in the months to come, marching bravely and brazenly into the unknown future?
Onwards and upwards, my fellow Jews. Chag Kosher V'Sameach!
cbg
Sunday, March 3, 2013
Ideals and Idols.
Parshat Ki Tisa has always been one of my favorites: There's the precedent of counting the Jews by their contributions, not their numbers; a call to eat with compassion with the prohibition against combining milk with meat; a reminder of what a gift Shabbat is; and of course, the golden calf dramz.
I once read a commentary which said that when Moses descended from the mountain and witnessed the worship of the idol, he did not smash the tablets in a temper tantrum. Rather, he understood that if the people felt they needed an intermediary between them and G-d to replace the MIA Moses, then they would only turn the mitzvot into idols as well. According to the Talmud (Shabbos 87a), G-d Himself affirmed that Moses had done the right thing, so we can see a clear distinction between this incident and the one that resulted in Moses not being allowed to enter the Promised Land.
It would be great if we could say Moses' concerns were completely resolved in the forty day period before he received the second set of tablets, but fast forward a few thousand years and some change, and unfortunately, there's still some major mitzvah worship going on. Instead of each Jew utilizing the mitzvot to connect to G-d and set an example of a G-dly life, they uphold a certain few (and only their interpretation of them, no less) as an end-all, be-all form of Judaism. I do not believe that Moses brought down the Torah so that any one Jew could zero in on and obsess over one particular thing and ignore all other aspects of their neighbor. In keeping with the mitzvah of giving someone else the benefit of the doubt, let's presume that every Jew is better than us in at least one aspect of Judaism, and know that the Jewish people—and the world—are better for it. In this way, we will learn not to worship idols in any form, and only then can the sin of the golden calf be fully rectified.
Shavua tov,
cbg
I once read a commentary which said that when Moses descended from the mountain and witnessed the worship of the idol, he did not smash the tablets in a temper tantrum. Rather, he understood that if the people felt they needed an intermediary between them and G-d to replace the MIA Moses, then they would only turn the mitzvot into idols as well. According to the Talmud (Shabbos 87a), G-d Himself affirmed that Moses had done the right thing, so we can see a clear distinction between this incident and the one that resulted in Moses not being allowed to enter the Promised Land.
It would be great if we could say Moses' concerns were completely resolved in the forty day period before he received the second set of tablets, but fast forward a few thousand years and some change, and unfortunately, there's still some major mitzvah worship going on. Instead of each Jew utilizing the mitzvot to connect to G-d and set an example of a G-dly life, they uphold a certain few (and only their interpretation of them, no less) as an end-all, be-all form of Judaism. I do not believe that Moses brought down the Torah so that any one Jew could zero in on and obsess over one particular thing and ignore all other aspects of their neighbor. In keeping with the mitzvah of giving someone else the benefit of the doubt, let's presume that every Jew is better than us in at least one aspect of Judaism, and know that the Jewish people—and the world—are better for it. In this way, we will learn not to worship idols in any form, and only then can the sin of the golden calf be fully rectified.
Shavua tov,
cbg
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