I was born and raised Jewish. For the most part, that meant bagels and lox with the family on Sunday and living in a middle class neighborhood in Queens, New York. A fair percentage of my parents’ friends who lived in the vicinity were Jewish, and there was some tradition involved in sending your kids to Sunday School, which was about the last thing I ever wanted to do on a Sunday morning.
Three years of Sunday School led to three more years of Sunday School along with three years of Hebrew School. There was a Bar Mitzvah at age 13 in there somewhere, along with a Confirmation at 16. That’s a Jewish Confirmation, which I still believe was nothing more than an excuse to extort three more years of temple dues from parents who couldn’t resist doing the same thing all their friends were doing, which was sending their kids to religious school.
In all of my four years in High School, I had one fist fight, and that was during Confirmation Rehearsal. The Rabbi pulled me off some kid. I decided against throwing the Rabbi off of me and proceeding to pummel said kid.
I liked the Rabbi. He was one of those young, hip Rabbis. We were Reform Jews. That means we were more liberal, we could eat seafood, we really could do whatever we wanted, which included having hip Rabbis. I think we were the first temple to have a female Cantor. These days, there are even female Rabbis.
Years later, I would get involved with a girl who used to be Chasidic. She claimed not to be religious anymore. Still, when I told her we were Reform Jews, she just kind of snickered. “You’re not Jewish,” she said.
I admire the dedication of the Chasidic Jews. You don’t see too many cultures in America that subject their children to living in the middle of poor, depressed inner city neighborhoods, keeping to themselves, and walking around dressed head to toe in black suits. Try doing that in Williamsburg, Brooklyn in the middle of a sweltering August day. Dedication or not, I consider that to be child abuse.
To a Chasidic Jew, I’m not Jewish. To me, they’re fanatics, though I don’t think they’re especially dangerous. They’re not the Taliban, much as some of them might bear a striking resemblance, minus the suits.
When asked about my religion these days, it’s more convenient to say I’m Jewish. Most people don’t have the time to hear me go on about my feelings on the matter. It’s sort of like saying, “How are you doing?” You never want the real answer to that one.
The real answer is a simple one: I don’t know. I haven’t tried that answer out on anyone yet, but I suspect that if someone asks me what religion I am, “I don’t know” might prompt some discussion.
I really don’t know what, if any, religion I am, because I don’t know what religion really is. There really is no single definition for the term. One popular definition refers to a belief in some higher power, or god, or whatever; another common one refers to practices based on the teachings of a spiritual leader; a third is simply a cause, principle or activity pursued with zeal or conscientious devotion.
Maybe “I don’t know” is my religion. It seems like a pretty safe one to me. It’s honest. I really don’t know, and I’m not trying to pretend that I do. I don’t feel compelled to force “I don’t know” on anyone else, much less react violently if someone disagrees. In fact, if anyone does disagree on this matter, I would recommend counseling, and definitely not religious counseling. There are far more important issues to be concerned with, so anyone who would spend any energy at all on voicing their disagreement with this might want to consider they might not be spending their precious time wisely. I don’t use “I don’t know” as an excuse for anything; rather, I’m finding that “I don’t know” makes more sense to me with each passing moment, and the more I realize I don’t know, the more inspired I am to learn new things. It seems like there are always new things to learn, because this whole cycle has been keeping me pretty busy.