Archive for March, 2007
Self Contemplation
I am going to take a moment for self-review and encouragement. I need to put things a little in perspective since, being the perfectionist that I am, I need to keep my life and my actions in perspective.
To myself:
For the events of the last few years, I am doing pretty well. In the past seven years (since 1999), I have:
- graduated from a four-year Institute, receiving a BA equivalent in a foreign language, in a foreign country
- moved to Russia and back TWO times (I am talking full out moving, not visiting); so that makes 4 international moves–3 of which I was pregnant for
- I have gotten married (including meeting my future spouse-courtship, etc)
- we have gone through three pregnancies, three births (ranging from medical c-section to vbac, to unassisted home birth–that last wasn’t officially planned!)
- have been baptised in the Russian Orthodox church, then am currently in the process of returning to my birthright: Judaism
- have lived in countless different living-spaces from apartment to garage to other places I don’t feel like sharing at the moment;
- been a stay-at-home-mom with three toddlers, and now am working full time.
During this time I have been blonde twice, reddish-haired many times, and natural dark-brown a couple.
My children have changed childcare and schools almost every 3-6 months.
Okay? Now, where am I?
I am still married, living in a stable situation (G-d willing that such a situation should continue), returning to Judaism with my three children (G-d willing, we are all in good health), working, praying, looking for the newest way forward.
I was thinking of putting a mezuzah on our front doorway.
What do you think of that?
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Hats…
“A religion is a movement in which people find themselves; a cult is a movement in which people lose themselves.
A cult hijacks your identity and makes you into someone you aren’t. A true religion should enhance and deepen your identity, to make you a better you.”
This is a quote from the last post. My writing is not that great lately. Blogging is not bringing out my inner-nitpicking editor. Perhaps that is because I like some space to look back on what I’ve written from a distance, and this journaling style doesn’t allow for it. On the other hand, guess that maybe I just won’t assume that being a journalist is close to my current capabilites. So, here goes, I’ll dive in!
The above quote could just as well be about losing myself in another person: a good statement about co-dependency vs. interdependency.
I admit, I have a strong streak of the co-dependent in me. Although I may seem independent, it all depends on having that one “someone” to base all my personal reference points on.
I see, as my other-half is away for a 2 week trip, that I am lapsing in to non-personality self. Or maybe another word is depression.
But it is the same for religion; if I lose my reference point of religion, I become a non-soul. I know that sounds dramatic, but it is very real to me.
Hopefully this next week or two will be a positive experience, as my coming to Judaism was.
A little history: I had been Eastern Orthodox for 5 plus years, then I began actually going to church regularly, singing in the choir, enjoying it all…and after about a year, I wanted to really get deeper–I prayed regularly as I could, using the correct books, but it didn’t have a good hold on me–and so I tried a couple of times to talk to the priest, and although a very kind and moral man, he didn’t really have any practical advice. (Maybe I thought he was a Rabbi? to give me day to day practical advice)…
So I decided to read the Bible, here I came upon, almost immediately (in the book of Genesis) some confusing things about giants that were possibly marrying the daughters of G-d??? And there were these Nephilim giants as well, or something else entirely. First clue that the Bible cannot stand on it’s own–only much later did I find out about Talmud.
Okay, so I tell my husband, we can’t figure anything out between us, and we ask the priest, and he says, “oh yes, everybody has thought up various answers to that, it’s already been explored,” but that’s not really helpful.
Next, I am reading and everything is so gory and angry all the time, and I think, “what does this have to do with Jesus Christ–and why is G-d always punishing people? Why does someone need to be born save us from G-d, I don’t agree with believing in that kind of god” Basically, I realized that the Old and New Testament are not at all alike.
I fell into a deep depression (relatively, I mean, I could go to work and talk and stuff) and life felt black and hopeless for about a five days. I had not been depressed in years, so although it this wasn’t a long time, I was afraid that it could continue–it felt familiar to the depression I’d had for years as a teenager.
Then I met someone who had subscribed a particularly wild theory about the universe and the meaning of life (it involved aliens and genetics) — and that side-tracked me for a while.
When I came to the conclusion that this particular theory was all bunk, I was feeling really completely intellectually fizzled out…I was left with going to church, and not believing in the validity of it all, since I couldn’t reconcile the Bible with real life, and I find religions like Buddhism depressing, since there since there isn’t any G-d in it. I mean, I was brought up atheist/existentialist, and that had depressed me no end, which is how I got involved in religion in the first place.
I had never considered Judaism as a viable religion, the general culture mainly accepting it as a precursor to Christianity (and all those booklets from the short time I’d studied with a Catholic priest, as well as the ones from evangelicals about how “Christianity is the only religion where you have a personal relationship G-d.”
A couple months later I started to think about Israel and the Middle East, read up on it a little, and then “coincidentally” the whole crisis that went on in 2006 began, and I was glad of the informational background.
As I accepted my Jewish-self, for the first time I felt accepting and respecting of myself in general. I hadn’t realized how much disregarding my Jewishness had affected me, but after “coincidentally” watching a documentary about Orthodox Jews, I suddenly began to feel like I understood myself, and had a right to connect to G-d.
Bit by bit started looking into Judaism, met the local Chabad family and began going to Shul.
Oh, by the way, my mother is full-blooded Jewish, though not religious, so I was immediately accepted as Jewish, as were my three children.
I didn’t realized until this time that I had taken myself to be of some really lesser ilke than the rest of the world, that it wasn’t good to be short and dark-haired and earthy. I am not saying I am bad-looking 
but I always felt insecure about not being blond… now I realize that the reason my mom had passed onto me these odd ideas was because of what her Jewish generation had been through–and that my grandmother had thought these same things…all of because the difficult times they had lived in. So I also suddenly felt SO connected to Hash-m!
I never felt right praying to Jesus. I would say “Jesus save me” and cross myself in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and feel cut-off. I thought it was just lack of emotionality. Now I feel that it was my innate sense that one cannot put someone else before G-d.
At the current moment, after going back and forth in myself about this question, I have come to the understanding that for me, Jesus, may have lived, and if he did, and if some of the Gospels are correct, then he was a Teacher. But the idea of him being G-d is not clear to me. I also have some of my own theories about the necessity of there arising the religion of Christianity at the time it did–and they turned out to be the same as the Rabbi explained he had learned, so I guess I’m not so dumb…
Now I have been going to Shul, trying not to rush my kids or self into anything. But we also stopped going to the church (it was “coincidentally” such good timing for it not to be too awkward, since the priest we had known there the whole year we’d been going to this parish, as well as the one woman I was close to, transferred to another area just then).
I have a feeling I will be going back to edit this at some point soon–but I will post it, until it seems to messy, at which point I will either edit it or delete it.
Now we go to Shul weekly, I keep semi-kosher (don’t buy non-kosher meat, don’t serve meat and dairy together), and I for some reason decided to start dressing more modestly. I liked the idea of covering my head/hair, and for about three months I did this, until people started mistaking me for a fully-observant Jew, and it was uncomfortable. I hadn’t understood this issue till it happened to me personally. I was flattered to be thought as such, but if I didn’t eat kosher food at a restaurant, for example, it looked hypocrytical. Also people started talking to me in Hebrew before we were introduced, and also a few times mistook me for various local Rabbis’ wives (my three young children, under the age of six, seem to have contributed to this idea, as well).
My daughter’s ceramics teacher asked, “Are you Orthodox Jewish or something? Because, I was in Israel once with my Church, and I know that Orthodox women have lots of kids, I saw so many of them with lots of kids.”
Anyway, as I said, I kept this up for three months, and people at work started commenting on my new hat collection…but the thing that ended it all was I realized that my husband wasn’t into all this.
He had seemed interested in Judaism, a few times telling me stories of how he had identified with Jews as a child, wondering if he was related… but at some point he became less receptive, and didn’t seem interested in attending the Jewish events with me and the kids– and then one day I realized, “I’m not married to a Jewish man. It’s silly for me to be keeping this rule when I am not only not married according to the laws of Israel, but he’s not even Jewish.”
Well, that was sort of personal for an anonymous blog. But I’ll leave it in. And I’ll wrap this up and get going to bed. I didn’t explore the personality/codependency/religious framework thing, but it’ll have to wait for a day when don’t have to get up so early the next day…
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Q U E S T I O N O F T H E W E E K
Hopefully it is acceptable to post this, since the link is included to the source. I have read this before, and there are a lot of questions that this answers that I am going to base my next post on:
Cult or Religion?
By Aron Moss
—————–
Question:
I’m in Israel now and I’ve come across a situation that I don’t know what to make of; perhaps you can help. I’m asking you because you’re the only religious person I know.
Basically I bumped into an old classmate of mine. She is studying here in some Jewish seminary, and she has become religious. After speaking to her for about 5 seconds I felt that she has been brainwashed. The way she was speaking was as if she was in a cult. It was a bit scary.
I have nothing against religion, but could it be that religious Judaism is a cult?
Answer:
While it is not a cult, even Judaism can sometimes be used in ways that are disturbingly similar to how people behave in a cult.
What is the difference between a cult and a religion? Most people define the term cult so vaguely that anyone with strong opinions could be classified as a cult follower.
The best working definition I have heard is this:
A religion is a movement in which people find themselves; a cult is a movement in which people lose themselves.
A cult hijacks your identity and makes you into someone you aren’t. A true religion should enhance and deepen your identity, to make you a better you.
People who find religion go through changes. They learn to explore parts to their personality that they never knew existed. As a result, they often re-evaluate themselves and their lives. All growth is accompanied by some upheaval and instability, so they may go through a short period where they seem a bit weird to their friends and family. They may even missionize a bit, and try to “convert” everyone around them. They mean well — they just want to share their newfound inspiration with those they love. This is normal, and the family should try to be patient.
However, if they start to turn into someone else altogether, if they seem unrecognizable, then there could be cause for concern. If they lose their personality, their sense of humor, their interest in others, or their ability to think, then they may have lost themselves. If these symptoms persist, seek rabbinic advice. They may have fallen prey to a cult — or are using a religion as a cult.
Cults demand that you jump in unquestioningly. But when you make such sudden changes, you will have to leave your self behind. This is not the Jewish way. Judaism encourages questioning, even honest skepticism. Jewish spiritual development is done gradually and with thought. That way the changes will be real, as they integrate and harmonize with your personality rather than overwhelm it.
Give your friend some time. If she is indeed brainwashed, it probably won’t last — she will jump out as quickly as she jumped in. Judaism can’t be used as a cult for long. But more likely she will settle to a balanced medium, where her old self will come back again, but with a depth and direction that she never had before. Sometimes you have to lose yourself a little bit to find yourself again.
- Rabbi Aron Moss teaches Kabbalah, Talmud and practical Judaism in Sydney, Australia.
- To view this article on the Web, or to post a comment, please click here: http://www.chabad.org/166907.
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