Today I am a bad Jew. It is Yom Kippur, the Holiest day in the Jewish calendar, and I am at home, not attending services and barely contemplating my “sins,” as they may be. My sister, Marianne, a convert to Buddhism (does one convert to Buddhism?), once wrote a piece about being a Bad Buddhist, so I can’t say my self-judgment as a bad Jew is anything original.
In Judaism, concepts of right and wrong do hold a central place in the religion‘s history--particular as it is filtered through the Deuteronomist priests who wrote some of the most important books of the Pentateuch (yes, I subscribe to the notion that the Bible was written by human hands, not God's--so sue me!).
My sense of much of Jewish law is that though it may have been relevant to Israelite practitioners several millenia ago, a lot of it is now out-dated, even unethical by modern standards (such as condemning homosexuality or prescribing that a witch be stoned to death, or considering cross-dressing a serious offense). I do ascribe, however, to the interesting concept (more rabbinic than of the Torah, per se) that we human beings have two inclinations: the yetzer ha tov and yetzer ha ra, the good as well as the bad (actually, ra is more frequently translated as "evil"). Unlike my more secular relativist friends, I do believe that good and bad exist.
The concepts of yetzer ha ra (the evil inclination) and yetzer ha tov (the good inclination) do not define individuals as All-Good or All-Evil, but rather judge actions and behaviors: condoning or condemning the deed, rather than the being. To the extent we ARE our actions and behaviors, however, we become good or evil people, and it is my understanding of Judaism that doing and being are intertwined as we become ourselves: I do this (i.e., study Torah), in order to be that (i.e., a good Jew). I'm just not sure how many yetzer ha ra's one must rack up before you are an evil person, and the system of atonement is a practice of reckoning up, forgiving and asking forgiveness, and cleansing oneself a year-at-a-time.
By such logic, not attending services and doing my annual atonement on Yom Kippur, would very well condemn me as a Bad Jew, at least give me a flying leap towards the yetzer ha ra as I begin the new year. (Maybe next High Holy Days, I’ll be able to balance the scale.)
As a Jew-by-choice who has taken her place in the most liberal of the Jewish denominations, the Reform movement, I hold individual conscience in high regard and must negotiate around halacha (the law) with a certain relativism. In truly Orthodox circles, I wouldn’t be considered a Jew at all, especially if they caught wind that I sat out Yom Kippur by working at home on my computer, writing, and enjoying a huge breakfast of bacon-homefries-and-eggs. (But then, they wouldn’t consider me a Jew anyway for a variety of reasons: 1) I wasn’t born of a Jewish mother; 2) I did not have an Orthodox conversion; and, 3) I married a Gentile and have disobeyed the commandment to "be fruitful and multiply" since I specifically chose not to have children.)
I was raised a-religiously, with a mother and father who only symbolically identified themselves as Christians, taking us to church for Christmas and Easter. My mother, the descendant of Presbyterian ministers, did send us to Sunday school a few times and once to summer Bible school, but she also said, on a quite regular basis, that she could pray just as well sitting on the pot as in a pew; my Southern dad made a big deal out of his Episcopalian heritage, but only when he was on a bender and rather perversely trotted us down the aisles of the upscale St. James Cathedral in our best Sunday dress. While I loved the pomp and music of the Anglican tradition, I felt out of place, ashamed and lonely in that cross-town church. Fortunately, Sunday church-going was never routine in my family.
When I formally converted to Judaism, one of the rabbis on my beit din (the council that oversees Jewish conversions) impressed upon me the importance of joining a people as much as joining a religion. I took this somewhat alien concept (to me) to heart and started synagogue-shopping, finally settling in at Temple Sinai in Oakland where I have been involved in an off-again/on-again fashion for nearly 15 years.
When I am “on-again,” I am very much devoted to my community, as an active member of the social action committee (where I helped launch a volunteer literacy program), and as a participant in our Temple's sisterhood and other committees. I am a regular at our weekly Torah class, and last year, I participated in a Shabbat Initiative program designed to make Shabbat more meaningful for Temple congregants.
In 2010, I participated in our Temple’s sisterhood Shabbat service, writing some of the liturgy, and I have joined a new committee taking on responsibility for providing ritual burial for our congregants. I've also organized several Shabbat evening celebrations for Temple members and continued my Torah study, occasionally giving the weekly drash, or Torah commentary. I’m hardly a back-bencher when it comes to community involvement. And, I think of myself, express myself, and engage in daily life as a firmly committed religious Jew, a committed Zionist in the sense that I believe in the right of a Jewish state to exist, and an outspoken member of my community, both within a synagogue's walls and without, frequently facing and defying the anti-Semitism I encounter due to the fact that I don't "look" Jewish and people will say things in my presence because they don't know that I am Jewish. I feel deeply committed as well, to learning Jewish history, studying Torah, and trying desperately to know God through this rich and varied tradition.
When I opt out of High Holy Days services, it is in part because ritual is the least important aspect of my Judaism. Although I love sitting in a room full of singing, praying, reading Jews, I grow weary after about an hour and often come home feeling drained. It is partly the result of being in a large crowd, meeting and greeting friends before and after the service, and having to sit in one place for three hours that wears me out. But it is also the consequence of my chronic depression and the low-energy I experience for social gatherings. Put me in a classroom or movie theater, and I can last a little longer.
I can’t feel too badly about being a Bad Jew this New Year. I intend to continue in my weekly practice of studying the Torah, applying its lessons to my life. I am committed to taking my 93-year-old friend Shirley to our Saturday Torah group most weeks and I am happy to organize Shabbat dinners. I have taken responsibility for drafting a Tahara manual for our Chevra Kadisha (the committee doing ritual burial), and have written drash’s and poems for service programs as requested. Yes, I even occasionally attend services and special events at the synagogues and love the music and the people, the rabbis and the food.
My parents treated their Christianity as a once-a-year kind of thing and were not at all community-minded. Their actions left our family in complete isolation as we experienced the roughest years of my father’s violent alcoholism, our financial struggles, and other nuclear-family traumas. While I have adopted my mother’s and father’s indifference to religious ritual, I’ve eschewed their indifference to being part of a community--both the giving to it and receiving from it. I am part of a large synagogue where I am known to many and feel love and nurturance whenever I am in a room with my Jewish family.
If I feel like a Bad Jew, it is usually on these high points of the Jewish ritual year. The rest of the time, I am rather consistently involved in Jewish community and activities. Perhaps, I am a better-than-average Jew, after all. What I hope most sincerely, is that in the eyes of God, I am seen as someone who deeply loves her community, its history and literature, even if I often opt out of the events that draw the largest crowds. Often those crowds are full of people I don't recognize because we never see them at shul the rest of the year.
Jannie,
ReplyDeleteI wholeheartedly agree with your feelings about the high holiday crush of people you haven't seen before. I look around the room trying to find "my" people -- the ones I worship with more regularly. This year, I really wasn't into attending the services, but I went to most of it anyway, since my family counts on me. The prayer book doesn't reach me at all.
--Barbara Kluger
It's hard to define what a Reform Jew is, but mostly I think of us as a people who think carefully about things; that we take responsibility for our communities even though most don't. You certainly do that. I appreciate your efforts very much and your willingness to share yourself with others.