My (sort of) first Jewish Spiritual encounter was a negative one. I lived in Cleveland, Ohio at the time and I was in elementary school. I had gone to use the bathroom at school and it was there that I encountered two classmates - not friends, just classmates. They were boisterous and a bit obnoxious but I paid them no mind. Not paying any attention to them caused one of them to call me a "dirty Jew". I said nothing and left. I wasn't sure why they said that or for that matter, what it really meant. I wasn't dirty - not in my house, you bathed (no showers) daily and washed your hands before every meal, and when you came inside from playing outdoors. But, I was Jewish.
I spoke to my mother and later she and my father had a little talk with me about being Jewish, about our grandparents that lived with us, the Orthodox home we kept, family in Europe, troubles in Europe, and the Temple we belonged to. A beautiful picture was unfolding for me and strong impressions were etched into my brain. I was proud. I knew who I was. I had a new understanding.
I had an identification that would travel with me through the rest of my life.
3 comments:
Welcome George to blogging and to the spiritual conversation!
That you found a "negative" propelled you to the spiritual is nothing surprising. So often it is something "bad" - illness, death, loss of relationship, loss of financial security - that moves people to seek the something deeper. (How unfortunate that we often forget the spiritual when things are going well!)
I have often found that once we realize we don't know everything and control everything, we become more open to a reality of something beyond us. The transcendent. The immanent. The Holy One.
My interfaith family made a decision several years ago to identify ourselves as "Jewish". My children, then 5 and 8, were full participants in our decision to forgo Christmas and other Christian-tradition celebrations in favor of observing more fully - and exclusively - the Jewish cycle of holidays, rituals, and observances.
We have never looked back, never regretted this shift in our family's identity. While I gave up the pleasure of passing down some joyful traditions to my children, I gained something even more important to me. Watching the strength and poise and pride that both my children have developed as they embrace their Jewishness fills me with pleasure. They both have something I never had as a child -- the security of a meaningful religious identity, and membership in a meaningful spiritual community. (Debby Pattiz)
Making a positive decision for a spiritual life. How inspiring! I love when Debby writes about providing her family with "the security of a meaningful religious identity, and membership in a meaningful spiritual community."
We provide our children with an education, with a habits for being healthy, with music/sports/art and the like. Of course we should be providing them with the security of a meaningful religious identity too. That takes more than just dropping them off at temple. It takes conversation and connect and interconnection.
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