(no subject)
Am I "religious"?
I have never thought of myself in that way, primarily because, in my mind, the term religious carries with it an overload of connotations that don't apply to me at all. But, as someone dedicated to the study of religion as an academic pursuit, shouldn't I be a little less presumptuous on what it means to be "religious"?
Breaking it down, I would assume it would describe someone who lives their life according to a canonized set of practices and/or beliefs represented by an organized system.
If this is the case, then observing kashrut, requesting off work on the Jewish holidays, and preferring Friday evening and Saturdays off (for the reasons I do), would make me "religious."
Yet, when I think of religious Jews, I don't think of girls like me. Sure, I honor some practices that most Jews disregard, but I have never been devout enough to pray three times a day. I don't honor the Sabbath anymore. I rarely (in fact, never since I've moved to Nashville) go to synagogue to daven. And, honestly, I eat vegetarian now more so out of habit than for the spiritual excitement it once gave me. Whereas at one point, refraining from a steak at Texas Roadhouse served as a reminder to me of both the Jewish community and G-d, now it's just second nature.
But, perhaps what makes me "religious" is my desire. I WANT to do more. I want to go to synagogue and when I don't, I feel guilty about it. I WANT to study the Torah and when I don't, I feel morally incomplete. I WANT to pray three times a day, and when I don't, I blame it on society. I WANT to do a lot of the 613 that I don't anymore, so maybe that is enough.
Maybe it's enough for me to feel connected to a religious community, despite not having any real Jewish friends since leaving DC. Maybe it's enough that at one point, I wore long skirts on Friday nights, took 10 flights of stairs to my apartment in order to avoid the elevator, didn't turn on or off my lights, left my Sabbath candles burning where they wouldn't burn my apartment down, gave d'vrei torah (sermons), led services, and kept strictly kosher with separate dishes... Perhaps it's enough that without that, I feel disappointed.
But, despite all this, I still hesitate to call myself "religious." And I feel like that has a lot to do with what I grew up thinking about people who were "religious." It was not a quality I wanted to see in people close to me. It meant not only blind faith, but being judgmental as well. It meant wanting to be a missionary. And I don't want to associate myself with that.
I want to be Jewish, not religious. I want to be passionate, not devout. I want to be dedicated not obsessed. Because, to me, Judaism provides more than a mere set of beliefs, but a lifestyle that--absent of all the belief system and Biblical texts--remains structured and dedicated to a set of morals to which I can and will always agree.
Just as the Rabbis said, religion--Judaism--shouldn't be about pulling down what's holy into the everyday world in order to lift it up; it should be about lifting up the mundane world until it itself becomes holy.
So, when I refrain from my sausage gravy that I want so much, it is not so that I can lift myself, my religion, and my life above this world, but instead so that I can bring the intangible, incalculable, unimaginable into a moment as simple as sitting at a cafe and deciding what to best flank my coffee cup.
If that makes me religious, then I guess I am. But, I must say that I still hate that term.
I have never thought of myself in that way, primarily because, in my mind, the term religious carries with it an overload of connotations that don't apply to me at all. But, as someone dedicated to the study of religion as an academic pursuit, shouldn't I be a little less presumptuous on what it means to be "religious"?
Breaking it down, I would assume it would describe someone who lives their life according to a canonized set of practices and/or beliefs represented by an organized system.
If this is the case, then observing kashrut, requesting off work on the Jewish holidays, and preferring Friday evening and Saturdays off (for the reasons I do), would make me "religious."
Yet, when I think of religious Jews, I don't think of girls like me. Sure, I honor some practices that most Jews disregard, but I have never been devout enough to pray three times a day. I don't honor the Sabbath anymore. I rarely (in fact, never since I've moved to Nashville) go to synagogue to daven. And, honestly, I eat vegetarian now more so out of habit than for the spiritual excitement it once gave me. Whereas at one point, refraining from a steak at Texas Roadhouse served as a reminder to me of both the Jewish community and G-d, now it's just second nature.
But, perhaps what makes me "religious" is my desire. I WANT to do more. I want to go to synagogue and when I don't, I feel guilty about it. I WANT to study the Torah and when I don't, I feel morally incomplete. I WANT to pray three times a day, and when I don't, I blame it on society. I WANT to do a lot of the 613 that I don't anymore, so maybe that is enough.
Maybe it's enough for me to feel connected to a religious community, despite not having any real Jewish friends since leaving DC. Maybe it's enough that at one point, I wore long skirts on Friday nights, took 10 flights of stairs to my apartment in order to avoid the elevator, didn't turn on or off my lights, left my Sabbath candles burning where they wouldn't burn my apartment down, gave d'vrei torah (sermons), led services, and kept strictly kosher with separate dishes... Perhaps it's enough that without that, I feel disappointed.
But, despite all this, I still hesitate to call myself "religious." And I feel like that has a lot to do with what I grew up thinking about people who were "religious." It was not a quality I wanted to see in people close to me. It meant not only blind faith, but being judgmental as well. It meant wanting to be a missionary. And I don't want to associate myself with that.
I want to be Jewish, not religious. I want to be passionate, not devout. I want to be dedicated not obsessed. Because, to me, Judaism provides more than a mere set of beliefs, but a lifestyle that--absent of all the belief system and Biblical texts--remains structured and dedicated to a set of morals to which I can and will always agree.
Just as the Rabbis said, religion--Judaism--shouldn't be about pulling down what's holy into the everyday world in order to lift it up; it should be about lifting up the mundane world until it itself becomes holy.
So, when I refrain from my sausage gravy that I want so much, it is not so that I can lift myself, my religion, and my life above this world, but instead so that I can bring the intangible, incalculable, unimaginable into a moment as simple as sitting at a cafe and deciding what to best flank my coffee cup.
If that makes me religious, then I guess I am. But, I must say that I still hate that term.