A Year of Living UnJewishly

In the beginning, meaning starting today, I will spend a year living unJewishly.  I will check off the spiritual but not religious box, will hang with the none-of-the-above or all-of-the-above millennials and their spiritually non-specific peer-group, will seek some greater power, or, perhaps, none at all.  I will celebrate Kwanzaa, practice with the Pagans, sink into Sujud (prostration) with Muslims, and perhaps, even eat a bacon cheeseburger.  Or not.   Christmas Tree?  Check back in December.  The point is to perambulate out of my Jewish comfort zone, as the comfort zone has begun to get uncomfortable.

Speaking only from personal experience, as I don’t know if there are others of you out there – but here goes – I am feeling like a weary traveler around Jewish ritual life.  I’m beginning to look for the exit any time I see a drum to “shake-up” Jewish prayer (don’t even get me started about the presence of an acoustic guitar or “really cool band”).   I guess I could call this “a return to my roots” as I was raised ecumenically as a child of intermarriage and came to Jewish identity through following my own curiosity. 

Whatever the motivation may be, this is, ostensibly, about a continuation of identity formation.  And so — I “out” myself with full disclosure as three significant things have happened to me over the past few years:

Thing #1:  I became a rabbi.  (Best way to burn out your Jewish juice).

Thing #2:  I became a mom.  (Best way to shake up your identity).

Thing #3:  I turned 40. (!)

And so – Hineini, or, rather — here I am.  

I suppose James Fowler, author of  “Stages of Faith”, would identify me as dwelling in his Fifth Stage of Development, a stage identified as “conjunctive faith” aka mid-life crisis whereby the individual comes to “a complex understanding of a multidimensional, interdependent ‘truth’ that cannot be explained by any particular statement.”   (Stages of Faith:  The Psychology of Human Development and the Quest for Meaning).   Indeed, I feel myself identifying more with those polled by the Pew study that the Jewish community is assiduously trying to understand and reach than I do with my devoutly certain colleagues.

And so…

I stand before you, dear readership, open, vulnerable, and completely wide-eyed as I seek new ways of seeing.  I want my fellow Hindus, Buddhists, Zoroastrians, and NFL worshippers to teach me.  Show me your ways.  Teach me your rituals.  Help me see the path to meaning again.  Teach me about your god, gods or just your shopping habits, for I am hungry for new pathways and destinations.

Teach me to feel wonder, again, for Abraham Joshua Heschel’s (my former patron saint for Jewish inspiration) poetry has turned prosaic to my hungry mind.   Teach me the fourth or fifth dimension beyond I and Thou, as even Martin Buber’s bubble has burst.  Yea, I am a Lonely Woman of Faith(lessness).

And so, this year, I am open and seeking meaning through American Religions and Rituals.  There are no rules but one:

THE RULE:

Wherever people gather to find something greater than themselves, I will journey.  Without judgement.  With open heart and mind and the aspiration to rediscover my soul and, B’ezrat Hashem (with the help of G?d), GOD in the process…if there is one. 

To read more about James W. Fowler Stages of Faith, check out his book: