I'm not unlike my dad. Sometimes we cry at commercials together. I prefer to drink my coffee with cream, no sugar. While he's slightly more introverted and introspective, I take a little bit more after my mom- I can make conversation with a wall; I try not to make a habit out of it. People start to look at you funny.
But he's kind and thoughtful, hardworking, intelligent, handy around the house, and has a knack for saying the right thing when I call him sobbing hysterically. I can't boast in sharing any of these aforementioned qualities- I'm still in process. He's Jewish. So I am too.
And it's this weird idea that I've been tossing around for a while. Not tossing around. That makes my identity sound like a bouncy ball. Mulling over. It started when I was in first grade. We were lining up for music class and I began to talk about Hanukkah. Who was it? Emmy? Paul? That asked me, "You mean you get 8 nights of presents! NO FAIR!"
I was pretty proud of myself in that moment. Darn right I get 8 nights of presents and Christmas! Did not realize at the time that I wasn't getting extra presents. They were just spread out over a longer period of time.
Then I was thirteen and I hated my life because I was stuck listening to a tape of Isaiah 60 in Hebrew for my Bat Mitzvah. Woe is I. I let everybody know too how miserable I was. I looked at my parents, "YOU DID THIS TO ME! WHY DO I HAVE TO BE JEWISH?"Then I stopped crying when I opened up the bracelet from Tiffany's after all was said and done. Pain is beauty.
But then, always with the up and down and back and forth. Sometimes being Jewish was a nice cop-out answer when someone asked if I was religious and I wasn't excited to tell them that I was a Christian. Sometimes I was just a Christian so that I could avoid the raised eyebrows and the perplexed looks and the question: "So wait. You're like, Catholic or something?"And to some, I was neither. My high school principle, for example who looked me squarely in the face and announced in my AP World History class, "Oh no honey. You're not Jewish. You can't be Jewish if you're a Christian."
Tell that to my dad. Actually, I did tell that to my dad. He didn't like it anymore than I did.
So what does it mean? What does it mean to be Jewish? Is it a culture? Ethnicity? Nationality? Religion?
All of the above?
Like I said, I'm in process. I'm still trying to figure it out.
But one thing I am sure of. The longer I've walked with the Lord, the more heavily I have felt burdened by my Jewishness. Not in a bad way. I haven't ever wanted to get rid of it. More in the sense of, "what does this look like for me?"
This is a rather inconclusive post. I am really trying to work through this and figure it out. I am about to start a research paper that asks if being Anti-Zionist is synonymous to being Anti-Semitic. Is it? Maybe? If we deny the Jewish people the right to have a Jewish state, an ethnic state essentially, then it would be anti-semitic. And I don't think it's fair to say that being Jewish is simply a religion. Because then we couldn't call the Holocaust a genocide, and what else could we call it?
A million things. Horrific, to start. But definitely genocide.
So I'm learning. I'm learning from my Dad who taught me many things well. And I'm learning from my heavenly Father. I bear His image too.
But he's kind and thoughtful, hardworking, intelligent, handy around the house, and has a knack for saying the right thing when I call him sobbing hysterically. I can't boast in sharing any of these aforementioned qualities- I'm still in process. He's Jewish. So I am too.
And it's this weird idea that I've been tossing around for a while. Not tossing around. That makes my identity sound like a bouncy ball. Mulling over. It started when I was in first grade. We were lining up for music class and I began to talk about Hanukkah. Who was it? Emmy? Paul? That asked me, "You mean you get 8 nights of presents! NO FAIR!"
I was pretty proud of myself in that moment. Darn right I get 8 nights of presents and Christmas! Did not realize at the time that I wasn't getting extra presents. They were just spread out over a longer period of time.
Then I was thirteen and I hated my life because I was stuck listening to a tape of Isaiah 60 in Hebrew for my Bat Mitzvah. Woe is I. I let everybody know too how miserable I was. I looked at my parents, "YOU DID THIS TO ME! WHY DO I HAVE TO BE JEWISH?"Then I stopped crying when I opened up the bracelet from Tiffany's after all was said and done. Pain is beauty.
But then, always with the up and down and back and forth. Sometimes being Jewish was a nice cop-out answer when someone asked if I was religious and I wasn't excited to tell them that I was a Christian. Sometimes I was just a Christian so that I could avoid the raised eyebrows and the perplexed looks and the question: "So wait. You're like, Catholic or something?"And to some, I was neither. My high school principle, for example who looked me squarely in the face and announced in my AP World History class, "Oh no honey. You're not Jewish. You can't be Jewish if you're a Christian."
Tell that to my dad. Actually, I did tell that to my dad. He didn't like it anymore than I did.
So what does it mean? What does it mean to be Jewish? Is it a culture? Ethnicity? Nationality? Religion?
All of the above?
Like I said, I'm in process. I'm still trying to figure it out.
But one thing I am sure of. The longer I've walked with the Lord, the more heavily I have felt burdened by my Jewishness. Not in a bad way. I haven't ever wanted to get rid of it. More in the sense of, "what does this look like for me?"
This is a rather inconclusive post. I am really trying to work through this and figure it out. I am about to start a research paper that asks if being Anti-Zionist is synonymous to being Anti-Semitic. Is it? Maybe? If we deny the Jewish people the right to have a Jewish state, an ethnic state essentially, then it would be anti-semitic. And I don't think it's fair to say that being Jewish is simply a religion. Because then we couldn't call the Holocaust a genocide, and what else could we call it?
A million things. Horrific, to start. But definitely genocide.
So I'm learning. I'm learning from my Dad who taught me many things well. And I'm learning from my heavenly Father. I bear His image too.
