Jewing it Up
So I took the day off today, as was my initial plan anyway, but for different reasons. Last night I came up to Scarsdale with Alison and we went to Yom Kippur services. She is fasting; I am not. She is attoning; I am not. She will be written in the Book of Life next year; I will not. But she is happy I was willing to come and experience as much of this as I can with her. It was my first time at a non-Christian religious service. I was dismayed there was so much Hebrew because I only know a few words I'd picked up over the years, and there was no mention of "Star Wars Episode I" in the chants, so I couldn't understand any of it. Also, I now completely understand what Carla meant all those years ago in high school when I asked her what one does on Yom Kippur and she said, "stand up, sit down, stand up, sit down, stand up, sit down." I have always thought of myself as being very open to other religions, and I am in the sense that I respect them all, and am curious about them, and recognize that each is also a true path to the same goal, but now I am realizing that I might not vbe quite as open in practice as I had thought I was. All through the service I was thinking of everything with such a Christian bias that I felt really really out of place and almost bad, not for being there, but for being there and being so incapable of feeling any spiritual power. I could feel that elements of it were powerful, but it seemed to wash over me withotu much result. And that made me feel so left out. It feel almost guilty that I can't experience it more. Doing a Lenten sacrifice as a non-Catholic has always made me realize the power of these types of rituals and I'm sort of sad that I can't experience this too. Maybe by next year I will be less uncomfortable in a temple and with the traditions of the Judaism and I can try to share this more with Alison. That can be my oath to myself for the new year.