Passion Week

I've gone to the synagogue these past two weeks on Friday night.  I went with Dave, but we couldn't sit together, so before it started, my first time there, he very kindly took me into a corner with a prayer book and showed me where to read.  I followed along all right, only getting lost at the parts where everyone reads to themselves.  The service is fairly short--an hour, maybe an hour and a half--and a lot of it is strangely familiar to me, except for the fact that it's all in Hebrew.  Part of it comes from the Psalms--92 through 99, or something like that--which I find, in an odd way, truly comforting.  These are Psalms I used to memorize (in English of course) and say out loud in bed, on long walks, in airplanes, when I was happy, or sad, or anxious.  Psalm 96 especially.  It has a strange effect on me when I hear it sung in Hebrew.  It makes me feel thick and liquid inside.  There's no explaining it, but there it is.  It makes me miss and miss and miss God.

A little faith

The other night I was at a party, sitting around a huge glass table drinking wine and talking about the things you talk about at parties like that, when we started talking about religion.  My friend Maya made some joke about me being a Jesus Freak, and without thinking, I blurted out "ex-Jesus Freak."  The minute the words were out of my mouth, I felt the most horrible sense of shame.  After all, these are my private, painful musings, not meant to be made into a public joke; after all, this is Jesus we are talking about, to whom my entire life was dedicated for so long; after all, I am still my mother's daughter. 

So the question remains, what do I really think?  Who is it that I am becoming, what leg does she have to stand on?  My search seems much more frantic from the pages of this website; the truth is I am more than stalled.  I wrestle constantly with converting to Judaism, even still, but mostly I manage to keep that urge quiet.  As for Christianity, I try not even to think about it anymore.  There are no answers that satisfy me.  Instead I fill up my days with distractions, until some comment at some party jolts me back into the middle of whatever inner conflict it is that I am successfully ignoring most of the time.

But today is gorgeous and the sun is shining, and my only odd urge is to write.  I want to grab a pen and a notebook and sit in the sun in the old city somewhere and make up some people who understand me, give somebody life--you know, be God for a little bit, make things right.

Smartypants

I have to admit, I often feel like an idiot here. I mean, here I am, a graduate student in religious studies, with absolutely no knowledge of religion from a scholarly perspective. Everything I know about religion I learned in Sunday school and on my numerous mission trips. Until now, my religion has been based on my own experiences, my own interpretations of scripture, and what I've read from Christian books that can (sadly) be described as somewhat-less-than intellectual. It has been far more personal than anything else.

The point is that I thought I knew a lot, and, as it turns out, I don't. I know next to nothing of this religion I profess, and even less of the religion that gave birth to it. I sit in these classes, and everyone's discussing pseudepigripha and Maimonedes and Shekhinah, and they all know what they're talking about, and it's taken for granted that I should know too. And I suppose I should, but this is all new to me. Nobody talks about how they feel about God. That's what I'm used to--warm fuzzies and unconditional love, not the transformation of the Ein Sof--or invisible, unknowable, infinite nothingness--into the personal God that interacts and creates.

But this, after all, is why I came. This is exactly what I want, as far behind as I am and as ignorant as I feel. I can no longer satisfy the questions of my intellect with the rhetoric of Wednesday Night Bible Studies or Vacation Bible School. If I am really, truly going to believe what I have always believed, then I need to challenge it, scrutinize it--detach from it even. It's too close for me to see clearly. And here, every day, I feel like I'm taking a step or two back. Whether this will lead to a more focused picture or a more confusing maze I can't yet say.

Meanderings

Last night I had a few friends over for Shabbat dinner, and we ended up talking politics until two in the morning. The major consensus: Labor good, Likud bad. Well, that pleases me anyway, even though I wouldn't be inclined to describe any party here as actually good. But I've already admitted to not knowing very much, so my opinion doesn't carry that much weight at the moment. I'm still learning, still trying to sift through the myriad of very strong, very opposing opinions I hear everywhere I go.

Today I wandered through the Old City again, winding my way through the Arab market, buying a few things here and there, touching everything. At one point a picked up a copy of the Koran at a shop in order to impress Ksenia with my knowledge of Arabic, and the shopkeeper came over and asked us if we were Muslims. We said no, and he took the book from me and said "No Muslim, no touch Koran." He wasn't rude or anything, but I felt pretty dumb. Here is a rule I did not know. Oops.

Eventually we ended up on the Via Dolorosa. I didn't stop at all the stations, didn't sit and ponder what had transpired on that same street two thousand years ago. I surprise myself with my current detachment from all the religious themes that have been the center of my life. Now, here I am, in the center of it all, and I can't tear my eyes from the scenery long enough to contemplate where I really am. I'm cutting myself a little slack--there's a lot to take in. I just hope one day these two strands of my life will fuse here: the beliefs I've held forever, and the city I live in now.