On Being a Bad Jew

[forestofglory]

I'm a only sometimes observant, uneducated, intermairried, agnostic Jew. My mother's mother was Jewish. (My mother is Jewish-Buddhist-Spiritual.) I've been trying to learn about Jews practice more as an adult, but it is hard. Living in a small town in the midwest doesn't help.

This year for the high holy days I ate some apples and honey. That's about it. Most years I make round challah, but I've been so busy this year that I didn't. I could go to services, but I'm intimated by the local community. So many people I don't know, and I feel like they expect me to know more about Judaism than I do.

Meanwhile I'm trying to pull together something for Sukkot, which is a more minor holiday, but one that I really enjoy. (It's harvest festival were you get to build a fort -- so very awesome!) We don't currently have any outdoor space, so we may build an indoor sukkah, even though it not really legit.

Anyways while my non-jewish friends have been teasing me about being a bad Jew, I've never gotten that line from anyone Jewish.

Comments

[lethargic_man]

My girlfriend (aviva_m) was also raised as a non-practising Jew, and for years was also too intimidated to try attending synagogue because she feared people would expect her to know more than she does. Eventually she did, found there was no such expectation at all, and she's now a regular at shul, knows more than I did fifteen years ago (when I was practising but not particularly knowledgeable), and helps to organise her country's Limmud.

I can't obviously speak for your local community, but any community worth its Jewish name ought to be pleased that someone wants to participate rather than disapproving of any lack of knowledge. They may presuppose more knowledge than you actually possess, but they won't look down on you when they discover that you don't, unless you show yourself actively unwilling to remedy that.

[oursin]

How, dare I say it, and of course it may not be applicable, unChristian of them (also pretty much unBuddhist). It's a bit much, even in 'teasing', to police how somebody else engages with their traditions, or want them to produce a particular identity performance.

[zhelana]

My rabbi's sukkah is on a balcony of his condo every year. I say indoors is legit.

[lethargic_man]

That depends on whether you're coming from a halachic denomination (Orthodox, Masorti/Conservative) or not. My rabbi says if you can't build a succah, you should put some twigs on your table לְזֵכֶר סֻכָּה (in memory of a succah), and building on on a balcony strikes me as being comparable: it gets you into the feel of it, but does not discharge your halachic obligation (unless it's directly beneath an openable skylight!).

FWIW, the Samaritans have for a thousand years and more been building their succahs inside; this is because of living through a period in which they faced persecution from their Muslim compatriots.

[darthbitsy]

Meanwhile in Brookline, no one has ever questioned my knowledge or said anything about how observant I am. When, on the other hand, I've told people about my background I've been told “I assumed you were far more Jewish than that.”

I've learned that most communities are just happy to have people show up (or at least happy to have people with the last name Perlman show up, I don't know how they'd react to a Sims or a Xin) and there isn't a problem if you don't know things. On the other hand, they aren't exactly going out of there way to be welcoming or allow outsiders to follow.

I think this way of assuming the in-group know and the out-group doesn't need to be told (even if they don't object when someone asks) is alienating many Jews who grew up in non-observant households.

This bothers me slightly less than the lack of effort made to remind people that in 1983 the Reform movement accepted patrilineal descent (and that the matrilineal descent tradition was not one that accepted children of intermarried women, just children of women in the community if the father was not supporting here or known to the community). The number of people who I talk to that tell me “well, I'm sort of Jewish, but not really, because my father is (implied my mother is not) but I wasn't really raised with a religion” makes me really angry. These people still seem to me to want to be Jewish and feel alienated, but I don't think there children will want to be unless these people stop feeling alienated.

Which is to say: your non-Jewish friends don't know that most Jews are bad Jews. It is also not anyone's place to judge.