Unfortunately, I had to leave after only one hour of class, so I am only going to comment on that one hour and some of the reading that I can remember. I am excited to be hitting the big holidays straight up in the beginning, since these are what we consider an integral part of making a "Jewish home" for our family. I have celebrated Rosh Hashana a few times, but once it was at a HUGE seder of 100 Israelis or so in Beijing with everything in Hebrew and the other two times was with Nancy's family, where the high holidays (is that the right term?) are sort of celebrated reflexively (if that makes sense) and there was little explanation of what was going on (and no one can remember the right prayers etc.). As I said in class, it was interesting to learn that there is an element of grimness to the holiday, and I liked learning about the round bread, the reasons behind the apples and honey, etc.
I am a little nervous, however, about learning about all these holidays at once and then moving on ... there are so many of them! I think I would like our family to regularly celebrate Rosh Hashanah, Passover and Sukkot. All three have nice stories attached to them and it seems like we could celebrate the historical aspect of Judaism and Jewish culture in a way that meshes with our lack of religiosity (which I separate rather starkly from spirituality). On a practical level (and back to my nervousness) -- how do we pull these off ourselves? I'm guessing we need to start attending as many seders as we can get invited to, and we are planning on going to a second-night Passover seder that is hosted by a friend who is a rabbinical student this year. The same goes for Shabbot and Rosh Hashanah -- I don't know how we can come up with our own traditions, our own seamless and meaningful recognition of these holidays working from scratch and with a few books with lists of ingredients. I almost feel like I need a "how-to video" to pull this off! And then there is a part of me that feels silly (I can't speak for Nancy) just bumbling into this ancient religion and trying to become a part of it without growing up in it and partnered to someone who didn't really grow up with it either (well she did and she didn't). And in addition to building our own traditions, there is the question of when we should draw the line, so to speak, when we should decide that delving any further into tradition and ritual would be hypocritical and meaningless. Because reading Leviticus, dry, lifeless, pompous Leviticus, I am reminded of all the silliness that is attached to religion. Or not attached, that makes UP religion. It helps to have other resources to read, and to have participated in living and breathing Jewish life and culture (as strange and random as it has been, from seders in Beijing, to secular Jewish life in Israel to Nancy's atheistic Germanic upbringing) and I have to keep reminding myself of those aspects when I read these Bible excerpts. Because really, they are too -- almost absurd -- when taken and read at face value ... I know that is a harsh word, but these lists of remedies for leperous people and leperous houses (still trying to figure that one out) and menstruating women and discharging men is killing me! It makes God out as a micro-manager when really the whole thing was obviously written by a bunch of priests who were micro-managers (for practical reasons in some instances, from what I understand) and obviously profited from all these cooked sacrifices ...
This class is also highlighting how little I know about religion in general, and makes me feel at a disadvantage even in terms of not being Jewish, because I wasn't raised in any religion so I don't have any background or means of comparing the religions and making sense of these systems of thought. So I would like to put that out there -- I am not coming from a Christian background either, so am woefully ignorant of the Old Testament as well, which partly accounts for my feeling a little at sea in class I believe (as I went into in my last entry).
However, to end on a positive note, I actually am happy to be taking this class, and am enjoying the wrestling with ideas, conflicting desires, etc.!
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Megan,
I see you wrestling so hard and it is intense in so many simultaneously beautiful and challenging ways. What stands out to me in this post are the shoulds and I would like to explore those some with you. I feel like you have a sense (maybe vague, maybe very clear) of what Judaism SHOULD look like. Can you tell more about what that is? I think you are comparing yourself to a standard (as well all do) and it seems to me that examining what that standard is and seeing how you feel about that might be a powerful practice.
As for drive-by holiday learning...let's try some out-which holidays would you like to practice? I am sure you are not alone in this desire. We can easily arrange the celebration of any holiday for practice. I would be honored to partner with you and Nancy in organizing and hosting any celebration you would like so you do not have to feel like you are doing it alone. You never are. There is always someone (me high on the list) who is there to help you learn, explore, wrestle and try!!
As for a how to video-well, you can have that too! I am not kidding. With the internet what it is today...
This site I am particularly fond of...http://myjewishlearning.com/holidays/Passover/TO_Pesach_Home/PassoverPreparationHowTo.htm
and then there is this: http://www.holidays.net/passover/easy_seder.htm which has audio, video and musical seders as well. And of course...there is always youtube...http://youtube.com/results?search_query=Passover+Seder&search_type=
Another question of clarification: Do you feel in yourself a separation of your spirituality or is that something you see in the holiday celebrations which feels dissonant and you would like to rectify?
Keep enjoying the struggle and keep highlighting the things you particularly like. I think this is like developing a relationship with anyone...you will hopefully love/like/enjoy more than you dislike/reject/abhor and will have an ongoing experience of happiness, joy, sadness, anger, frustration and connectedness to this entity called "Judaism"
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