Maddie, you ask the most complex questions. Let me try to explain to you how it is that I am still a Jew. Yes, Papa Eddie is Catholic. We live in a Catholic village in New Mexico half the year and often attend church in a village chapel. Our home is filled with religious art and we have a large altar in our living room, honoring many saints and lit with candles. Papa Eddie is a santero, a saint maker, a wood carver in the Northern New Mexico, Spanish Colonial tradition. What is harder to see, Maddie, is the effect my childhood and my travels have had on my choices.
I'm about the same age as the Jewish Nation of Israel and grew up celebrating the birth of that homeland, buying trees, holding fund raisers and making donations. It was a huge part of our lives and important that our family, friends, and others support this tiny, young, struggling democracy, the only one in the Middle East, the only country with not one drop of oil.
Our Conservative Jewish Temple offered "Sunday" school on Saturday and our parents gratefully dropped us off each week for our lessons but did not attend temple themselves. Melanie and I were confirmed around age 16. Both of us were members of Bnai Brith, a Jewish organization that did good deeds. I went on to become a Regional Officer of that organization, serving my people while wildly rebellious. The family attended services like most Jews in Los Angeles, sporadically and usually around the High Holy Days. While we learned of holidays at temple, we mostly celebrated Chanukah, lighting our menorah for eight days and often partying with our large, extended family. Grandma Hazel had 3 siblings and Grandpa Al, who died when I was 23, your Mom just an infant, had 11 siblings, so there were always many aunts, uncles and cousins around. I remember my Mom grating potatoes for pancakes during this time...she had to make millions! She also grated horseradish for Passover and my recollections of her doing this include her tears and the smell that permeated the whole backyard, where she set up her grinder.
In those early days of celebrating the birth of Israel, the people in my life were not torn with a multitude of ideals...Isrealis came from all over the world at large and having a homeland was a simple thing to celebrate. I do not recall hearing the story of the Palestinians and how they were displaced to make room for my people. I do not recall radicalism or terrorism being a part of my learnings. I do remember my Mom playing a card game called, Pan, short for Panguini, I think. Her friends were all Jewish and they talked often of Israel and the need for all of us to "do our part".
Later in her life, Grandma Hazel, traveled with cousins to Tblissi, Georgia, then a part of Russia, and helped some distant relatives leave Russia where the persecution and anti-semitism was rampant and had become unbearable. Under extreme hardships they emigrated to Israel. In order to leave, they had to give up their high level jobs, leave their home and belongings and wait for permission, sometimes years. Then they had to pay the Russian government $10,000. per family member before leaving. Mom never spoke specifically of amounts but I am certain that my Mom and her cousins funded this effort. Few Russians Jews, particularly after they started the application process and lost their jobs, had any money.
There have always been certain things that I love about my Judaism. I am a cultural Jew, rather than a religious one. My spirituality comes from within after years of travel and interaction with people all over the world, all of whom have some sort of belief system.
I love Judaism for never making any peoples' belief systems wrong but teaching me to respect them and look at how alike and how different my beliefs are from theirs. I chuckle at the numbers of young religions today, born from the belief that someone, usually a man, had a vision. It is their belief that they are right and therefore that makes others wrong. The God I learned to love would NEVER have accepted that very narrow view of human nature.
We must all remember the religions that have existed for thousands of years and give them the respect they deserve. The Zoroastrians are credited with being the oldest religion and there are still people who practice this belief system today. Remember too that all of the world's holy books were written, in most cases, much later, by men, to interpret and make sense of the things they didn't understand.
Thousands of years ago, women were not allowed to be schooled therefore, men played the only part in most religions. Some still work this way. Thanks goodness today there are female Rabbis and it's important to Jews that women be as educated just as men. Give thanks that women are given choices and respected as leaders, doctors, holy people, mothers, and teachers.
Judaism does not go out and convert people. Much the contrary...if one wants to convert to Judaism, one has to study, take tests, discuss questions with learned leaders and study more. This process is a long and difficult one. How I respect this aspect of Judaism.
I love my Judaism for encouraging me to ask questions and when I get the answers to those questions, they simply raise others. It is an intelligent, "thinking religion" that respects learned people and wants Jews to inquire and think for themselves, rather than blindly adopting some rules set down by others.
Judaism teaches that if you HAVE, it is your duty to spread it around. I love this idea of giving. It is bigger than tithing a percentage and different than giving only to the "church". It has to do with giving back to world society and being a worthy, responsible person, one who cares for everyone on our Earth.
I love it that for Jews, no baby is born "in sin". This Christian idea just seems weird to me and I've always had a hard time buying the sinfulness of infants. After all...babies are delicious!
God gave me the ability to worship my Spirit Power in any building on our planet (or maybe another planet, too). Our backyard in California, our patio in New Mexico, the estuary in Baja, or the airport in Athens all invite spiritual quests. Within each of us is the ability to know a Higher Power and turn our lives over to him/her. Yoga helps me meditate and reminds me to stay quiet and allow God or Spirit to enter. God is where you need her/him.
The photos above represent a Greek Orthodox Church and mural, The Ortega's, Our Lady of Guadalupe Chapel, a Buddhist monk in a complex in Asia, my painting of the Jewish Rebecca, and Papa Eddie's San Rafael, Our Lady of Guadalupe and Santa Librada. It is a good thing to have roots. It is a good thing to know you belong. It is also critical to love and to respect all people. Make efforts to understand the positions that may be different from yours. Be all inclusive. Make comparisons. Ask questions. Love yourself. Forgive easily.
Le chaim...to LIFE!
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