My mother was Jewish. As was her mother before her and so on, going far back into her Russian heritage. So by Jewish custom, I too am a Jew. My father was Roman Catholic, with all the sacraments, he even served as an alter boy. Neither of them practiced their religion. My mother grew up in a cultural but not religious Jewish household, my father abandoned the church when he was a teenager. They met, fell in love, got married and adopted atheism.
I grew up without any religious instruction. When others in my neighborhood went to Sunday mass, we went to Burger King (my friends were quite jealous). My mother was always very proud of her Jewish heritage, she wore her Star of David, made challach bread and matzo ball soup, read Jewish authors but never practiced the religion. She always said she didn't believe in God, but I wonder now if that was true.
I always believed in something but never knew what to call it. In the 80's I spent a lot of time with the New Age and Pagan movements searching for that spiritual connection that always eluded me. It wasn't until I joined AA that I found God. At least a version of God that was presented as a one size fits all. And that was OK. That God was the spiritual staff I needed to get past my alcoholism.
Still, something was missing. It was like I was on one side of a chasm and God was on the other and I needed to build a bridge to get to the other side where God was waiting. Eventually I returned to my Jewish roots. I moved around a lot, and not always to metropolitan areas. Temples and community were hard to find, and when I did find them they always seemed so alien to me. You see, I don't know how to be a Jew, I didn't know what that meant or what was expected of me.
I read a lot, studied, but with the mind of an scholar, not a believer. Little by little I gained knowledge of things I should have been taught as a child. I also studied Catholicism, I was especially drawn to the ritualistic aspect of it. I like ritual and prayer, it gives me structure and purpose. But I don't know how to be a Catholic either. So again it all felt so foreign to me.
But still I pushed on, I had faith, I had a deity and I was determined to find a way to live a life that included worship. I needed to find a way to show my gratitude. Mine was not an easy life; made up of poor decisions that harmed me and the ones around me. Yet despite it all, here at the "twilight" of my years, I'm doing very well. Better than anything I could have planned for myself and certainly better than what I believe I deserve. There's no other way to explain it, except that I've been blessed and watched over by a power far greater than myself. For what purpose or why I don't know. All I know is that I have a deep desire to give thanks everyday for the life I now have. And for me the way to do that was with religion.
But which? In my heart I'm a Jew. I won't turn my back on my heritage, but its not easy to live life as a Jew especially without Temple or community. Maybe if I had been raised and instructed in Judaism, this wouldn't be a problem now. But I wasn't, so it is.
Where I live now, across the park from my front door there is a neighborhood church. For years, I'd walk past the doors of that church, sometimes I would hear the congregation singing or praying out loud. I don't know how many times I stood before those doors, hesitant to walk in. One day, I said "fuck it, what have I got to loose?" and stepped inside. There was an afternoon mass, a handful of people were there, my sister came along with me for support. I had some idea of what was going on but it felt awkward, just like when I had attended services at Temple.
But the people there were welcoming and afterward the priest came out to speak to us, invited us to come back. And I did, creating the first link to that bridge that would connect me with God.
That was a year ago, and this blog is dedicated to sharing my journey.