Losing my religion

Today is the start of Channukah and many of my friends are posting pics of their Menorah on Facebook or Instagram. Today is also the anniversary of my Barmitzvah, it's been 29 years since I stood at the Bimah and read my portion from the Torah (the holy scrolls). 

At dinner tonight someone made a comment about being Jewish and I reminded them I was a member of the tribe too. 

I grew up pretty religious. South African Jews, in contrast to many parts of the world, would be considered pretty Orthodox. My mother kept a Kosher home because she felt it important to give my sister and me the option. On Pesach we hauled out the special crockery and cutlery (one set for meat and one for milk) and sealed up the chometz (all bread and associated goods). On the night before the festival started we would turn off the lights and follow the tradition of seeking out crumbs of bread with a candle and feather. 

I went to Shul (Synagogue or "Jewish Church" as I've heard it be referred to) every Friday night. I went to a Jewish school where we prayed every morning and I laid Tefilin. In the evenings I studied aspects of religion with a Rabbi that I was friendly with. My extended family thought I was way too religious and on the path of becoming a Rabbi myself. 

My Jewish identity was strong. 

For me Judaism is about religion but it's also about family and tradition. It's about community. Again, at dinner tonight, I made a comment that not everything needs to be blamed on ones childhood. Some things just are. Yet here I am about to lay the blame myself. 

My mother suffered from depression and other ailments and by some coincidence would sabotage events of seeming importance. She would be fine until a birthday approached and would suddenly fall ill. On High Holidays like Rosh Hashana or Yom Kippur we would often be invited to friends and she would fall ill the afternoon of the event having to suddenly cancel. My sister and I would end up making dinner for ourselves and watch TV while my mother lay in bed. It didn't happen all the time but it happened. 

My family was broken and fragmented and I yearned to sit at a table full of food and loud mouths. Over the years I had opportunity to do this first with family-by-girlfriend and later with family-by-boyfriend. I was blessed to be made to feel as much a part of those families had I been born into them. 

But I questioned my religion and beliefs. I questioned the rules. My favorite saying was "why believe in a religion that preaches freedom of choice and yet punishes you for choices you make". Naive as it was, things didn't seem to make sense. I then met a wonderful person who started to teach me about things that weren't my religion. We spoke about eastern philosophy, and Egyptology, and crystals and sacred geometry and Wicca! We meditated and we made spells. I studied Reiki. And I drifted farther and farther away from Judaism. I designed my own beliefs and came to my own conclusions. It's been 20 years. 

Earlier this year my friend Christina decided to make the Pesach dinner for me. She invited some friends and she did her research. We arrived to a table laid out perfectly with all the traditional and symbolic foods. We sat at the table and we began the Sedar (the story of the Jews wandering the desert). I had forgotten how much I knew, I remembered instantly, the words came back to me, the tunes to the songs flowed easily. It was a magnificent evening that took me back to the days when my identity was strong. 

It's been a long time since I was inside a Shul. I think that if I had married a nice Jewish girl and had nice Jewish kids I would likely not have stopped. For whatever reason I tied my sense of religious self to my feelings about family and because those were broken I thought the other was irrelevant. I blamed my childhood.  

For me, religion and faith are not the same. For me, family is not necessarily blood. I've written about that before. 

I was at a table of 11 tonight. We ate, we drank, we laughed, we snapped at eachother, we shared. We were family. We are all different, of different blood and religion, and yet there is something common that brings us together. I looked at my family around the table and I felt fulfilled. This is my religion. 

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