There are things I love about being in a city. One of the things I CRAVE about being in and around D.C. are all the freaking Jews.
I say that facetiously, but I am actually quite serious. My first week, it was the little family at Noodle Company with their kippas and Israeli football t-shirts. This week, it was the guy at the Mason card office in jeans and a red flannel, his yarmulke placed haphazardly upon his tuft of hair and the talis dangling from the bottom of his shirt.
I just wanted to go up to him and be like "so, you are a Jew too, huh?" That is all I wanted to say. I just wanted to introduce myself, make friends, and possibly go to shul together.
But in reality, I would have been alienating him just as much as he probably already feels alienated on this campus full of Muslims and Christians.
I remember my first trip to New York City, on a bus with my friend TC. As soon as we drove into Hell's Kitchen, I saw Jews. And I exclaimed "TC---LOOK AT ALL THE JEWS." I am sure I offended someone on the bus. But it was the first time in my life, outside of my shul, that I experienced a Jew with the curly hair and the kippa. And some of them had on those long coats and the big tophats.
Being around Jews is foreign to me. Though I grew up in a synangogue, I never went to school with Jewish peers. I have been on the margins of spiritual society my entire life. I have had to explain to relatively intelligent people why painting Easter eggs and bunnies on campus really doesn't create a welcoming atmosphere. Through high school, I had to argue with a couple of teachers about WHY I needed to skip two days of class. I struggled with my attachments to Judaism when all I craved was fellowship, and the only thing that surrounded me were my Christian friends.
Then I went to Israel. And though I don't necessarily agree with Israeli's political tactics all the time, I felt (for the first time in my life) at home. I was at home, in the Middle East, in one of the most dangerous places on earth. I was at home. The first few days, all the Chasidim still caught me off guard. By by the middle of my trip, this was business as usual. Stopping in a shopping mall with hundreds of other Jews to light Channukah candles was normal. "Baruch Hashem" is a normal phrase. Shabbos is just what you do...everyone is doing it---you should, too!
Judaism, for me, has always existed in the margins. It has always only been in that wonderful synagogue in Charleston, tucked between the mountains, surrounded by crosses and church slogans. I am always on the defense. I am always the underdog, watching out for how things just aren't as fair as we would like them to be. This is a habit.
I still don't go to shul weekly. I still don't keep kosher (and never will---ham is a beautiful, beautiful thang...). I don't keep the Sabbath (though I miss it ever week....I yearn for it).
But I am Jewish, finding my fellowship with whatever I can, in whatever ways I can. The cognative dissonance separating myself from spirituality is disappearing.
I stood at that wall, in Jerusalem. For those who have read my earlier entries about what that is like, you know how that was such a pivotal moment in my life----much like the moment Louise shot Harlan in "Thelma and Louise". That pathic moment changed my life. And so here I am, writing this. This Friday, I will spend Shabbos with other Jews for the first time since my trip. One (Jackie) was with me during my trip in Israel. And we will see what that is like. But I am sure it will be lovely.
