GATE: We always help our Christian friends and relatives celebrate Christmas , but we don't celebrate it for ourselves, because we don't believe that Jesus is the son of G-d.
DYBBUK (age 7 & 3/4ths) : That's because we are all G-d's children. Even though you have a father and I have a father, we are still children of G-d
Back during my first Holiday season as a blogger, the news of the day compelled me to post my first piece about being a member of a minority religion in America, though it was certainly not my last. I reprint it every year about this time on my Facebook page.
It's about time for an update.
My nephew by marriage has just become a dad, putting me for the first time into “Generation Granddad.” As a result, he and his wife are too overwhelmed with parenthood to be extending us an invite for Christmas, while the illness of my youngest brother’s father-in-law makes a Jersey invite similarly unlikely
It is beginning to look like Dim Sum in Sunset Park and a showing of “Yogi Bear.”
This coincides with another inquiry from a new Facebook friend has asking me what I mean when I call myself a “Heterodox Jew.”
The common thread here is the balance those of us who practice a minority religion must maintain to reconcile our purported beliefs with the world we live in.
As to my new friend’s inquiry, despite its common usage as a manifestation of conformity, the word “hetero” means different.
Heterodox is just a way of saying “Unorthodox.”
In my household, we embrace what traditions we do and try to make it up as we go along while not forgetting where we came from.
Three thoughts-
-back when I worked for a pol who represented Williamsburg, I attended many an Hasidic wedding; I used to find myself on the sidelines looking on in shared amusement with other Jews who were mainstream or modern Orthodox–as different as my lifestyles was from their’s, we were part of the same world, engaged with the present, and there we sat smiling, sharing much the same thoughts–later we'd dine with the other outsiders, together at a table which had a name both the Hasidic political types and the regular wedding-going outsiders shared as a common joke.
We were “The White People’s Table.” Even if some of us were black.
One time I remember Congressman Ed Towns, a black man who represented the Hasidim, calling over black political aspirant Charlie King (who looked like a lost little lamb) to join us.
"Hey Charlie, you're supposed to sit here at the 'White People's Table'"
Charlie went on to work for Al Sharpton.
Thought two
Back when I used to go to schul nearly every Friday, I would occasionally get grabbed by some member of the Lubavitcher-run modern Orthodox schul down the block from my Reform congregation, to help make a minyan, so someone could say kaddish before shabbos started.
I told this to my Rabbi, and he responded:
"being a reform Jew means you can daven in many schuls"
Thought three
Domestic Partner and I met two months after September 11, through Jdate (a dating site for Jews in the last stages of desperation) — her entry was dead and should have been removed, but somehow we found each other–a longer story for another time.
By February, we were engaged, and went to see my Rabbi. He asked DP if she was Jewish and she answered in Yiddish.
Serge is a modern reform Rabbi, which means he's more open to tradition than those I grew up with. DP told Serge she wanted a traditional Orthodox wedding and Serge said "I have three wedding books, one of them is Orthodox, so I can do that".
Serge had only one iron clad rule. There would have to be a reciprocal exchange of rings. We agreed and planned a Hanuka wedding.
I remember my father telling me that if we wanted a child at our ages, not to even try on our own, but see a fertility specialist.
By June, DP was pregnant–and we weren't trying–we were trying not.
A change in plans seemed in order, and I called Serge. Hanuka was going to have to come early.
"Rabbi, have you ever heard the joke about the difference between a Reform, Conservative and Orthodox wedding?”
(Ortho: bride's mother's pregnant; Conserv: bride is pregnant; Reform: Rabbi is pregnant)
Serge had heard the joke and interrupted to congratulate me, but he could not accommodate an August wedding, because he was on paternity leave.
I called my mother-in-law, who also had access to a free Rabbi, to tell her the good news that we were having a Conservative wedding in every sense.
She also interrupted to tell me her Rabbi would not be conducting the wedding–She had spent four years hiding in an attic with her cousin, who was ultra Orthodox and coming from Israel for the wedding. Her cousin would deign to sit through a Reform wedding with my male Rabbi, but not a Conservative wedding with her female Rabbi.
We ended up using the Rabbi I grew up with.
Selig was not a "modern" Reform Rabbi. DP told him she wanted a traditional Orthodox wedding, and he said "you want to walk around him seven times?"
"Yes"
"Why?"
However, Selig could not care less about the politically correct question of who gave how many rings to whom.
We sort of smorgasborded; I wore a talit and a kittle, the wedding was kosher style (no shellfish or pork, but milk for the coffee–except for my 94 year old grandma, who insisted on having shrimp ) with high quality kosher meals for those who needed them. The two Hasids who deigned to attend were effusive in praise for the cantor, and one spoke at the party.
Selig explained during the wedding how Sabina and I were striving to embrace "tradition and modernity", but slipped and said "maternity"
These days, like Jacob in the desert, we wrestle with the angels to find the spirit within the laws. A wise post I once found on the web says:
“The basic definition of Heterodox Judaism is tradition gets a vote, not a veto. If tradition is irrelevant, then there is no reason to do anything Jewish. If tradition constrains us and we… have to follow it regardless of what we personally think or feel about it, then we need to be Orthodox….tradition is useful, but not binding…Jewish tradition is a human invention, but…it was invented by really smart people, tested in diverse circumstances and found useful. This means giving Judaism the same kind of respect that Common Law gets.”
I divide commandments into those impacting others, and those which impact only ourselves (and G-d, if we choose to believe). There is no nobility to the latter, as it is a discipline, like yoga, which one does for their own self improvement. When I go to services, I go because I get something out of it–when I volunteer to help victims of domestic violence, or work in a shelter, or deliver meals, I may get something out of it, but others do as well.
For Jews, the Day of Atonement only atones for the sins between themselves and G-d. This is because you have to apologize to all those you've wronged. All our sins are sins against G-d, but not every sin against G-d impacts as others as well; it is those sins which are far worse.
In prioritizing what traditions I embrace, those things which help me to be a better person, or help to deliver that message to our son (things like charity = justice) take priority.
DP, whose family in Poland grew up eating every part of the pig but the squeal, abstains from pork or shellfish on the Sabbath. When I questioned this as superstition, rather than devotion, and asked her what other commandments she was keeping on the Sabbath, she told me she was not committing adultery.
Schver to be a Yid.