Living Jewishly in Uncertain Times

Living our most authentic Jewish lives, or as I like to call it, Jewishly, is no longer things like your usual Shabbat dinner and grandma’s matzo ball soup. Long gone are the days where living Jewishly meant being your family’s designated carrier of recipes and holiday traditions, wearing the Jewish star you received for your Bat Mitzvah, discussing that youth group and camp life, and playing an unexpected game of Jewish geography. 

Nowadays, to live Jewishly involves layers of complexity. We are often asked our level of practice; do we live by halakha (Jewish law)? Is there room for flexibility there? What about social justice? Where do we land on interfaith marriage? What about traditional ritual practices? Are we being too liberal or not traditional enough? And a current favorite, are you a zionist?!

Take a deep breath and let's unpack this or, in my case, at least take out the stuff you immediately need and leave the rest for the next round of laundry (let’s be honest here, unpacking from a week-long trip takes a few days, and we are unpacking millenia).

1. To live Jewishly is to feel our practice. Practice for the sake of completion lacks connection. Without connection, we miss a key component of the very core of Judaism: to take our place in our Jewish story through a conscious effort to sustain our traditions from generation to generation. If we do not feel connected to our practice, it becomes empty and devoid of meaning.

2. To live Jewishly is to see ourselves reflected in the story. I went through a period growing up where I felt that dressing modestly was my ticket to being the perfect Jewish woman. Like many teenagers, I did not bother to look through the meaning of this practice, I just knew that orthodox girls were “closer to God” and therefore wearing the long skirt was the way to go. That however was short-lived (most likely because I grew up and realized how naive I was, though that’s still up for debate). The error of my ways here was that I wasn’t being myself, I was being who I thought I was supposed to be. Thing is, there was nothing about “me” in the way that I dressed, which, again, left the practice empty.

3. To live Jewishly is to allow yourself to understand we will never know even half of what we should. I have always envied those who can easily find Jewish text and craft the most meaningful pieces of Torah study. I have always marveled at how easy and seamless they make it seem: there is Torah for everything and they know exactly where to find it. I have come to learn, after years of attempting to figure out a way to fast-track Torah scholarship myself, that to understand Judaism is to understand that we will never know what we want, but will receive what we need. It is not about looking for Torah to find meaning, but to find meaning in Torah when it presents itself. Breathe and relax, I assure you at least one of the branches of your Jewish geography game will have the Torah you are looking for, you don’t need all the answers!.

4. To live Jewishly is to know you will never be alone. To introverts like me, this one is particularly daunting. However, one of the most beautiful parts of being Jewish is how community takes an important role in how we shape our lives. For every moment, there is room and even sometimes a need for the community to come together for the ritual to be fulfilled. For every life cycle moment, you can count on your community to show up for you.

5. To live Jewishly is to do so unapologetically. This to me might just be the most important piece of the puzzle. I have a confession to make on this one: there was a longer-than-a-split-second moment during a recent trip through NYC where I felt the need to hide my Israel necklace. The current political climate has made being forward with our Jewishness scary. We may consider this to be a personal mea culpa, if you will, as I recognize that we cannot live our most authentic Jewish lives if we do so only behind closed doors. We should not be expected to hide who we are just to appease a world that currently thrives on hate and divisiveness. We come from generations of fighters; our ancestors fought time and time again to make sure that we could live our Jewish lives freely today. 

I have no doubt that I could spend another week trying to unpack this clearly overweight suitcase full of Jewish conundrums. However, in a world where being Jewish goes beyond the kosher deli around the corner and instead presents an infinite number of complexities and challenges, our efforts must be in finding Jewish pride and Jewish joy in our daily lives. It is about finding ourselves in our story and creating a narrative that will resonate with our next generation. When I look at my children, I see the weight of my choices; how little it matters whether the siddur on my shelf uses conservative or reform liturgy compared to how important it is that they see me proud to be one of the many generations of Jewish women that have paved their path. I may not have much Torah to share with my students, but I do have one piece of advice that I always give them: the mitzvah of reading the Torah on the day of their Bnei Mitzvah service  is not on doing it perfectly, but in doing it from their heart. To live Jewishly, in my humble opinion, is to practice not just with our hands, but with our heart and soul.