I tried. Really, and I mean truly and sincerely tried. And for years, that was enough. What I mean is that I went to services. I learned about Torah and Jewish teachings. For my whole life, from the time I was a baby, I celebrated Jewish holidays with my family. I even continued my Jewish education through High School, became a Jewish Educator, and earned a Master's degree in Jewish Studies. So you can't deny I made an effort. Believe me, that adds up to a lot of time in temple, praying in services. For 38 years of my life, I never felt anything from all of this. I mean, spiritually.
Peoplehood, culture, all those "belonging" sorts of things - those were there. I'm part of a People, with a History, and a Culture, and shared experiences. Yeah, I felt that. I also went to Israel. I enjoyed the trip.
Again, though, none of that fed me spiritually. I didn't feel any more sure that there was a God than if I had spent all of that time doing anything else.
But then something changed. It wasn't in temple.
I learned Reiki. One day, OMG. I felt something. What I felt was a physical feeling (tingles) that came from spiritual energy (Reiki). I had been given a spiritual connection, finally. I had been shown that there is something outside of my own 5 senses, something that connects everyone, that can help anyone, anything alive. This was big. SO big for me, that I had found something that had eluded me for my entire life before this. Here was the spiritual connection I had always sought and hadn't found until now.
That was the good thing. The bad thing is that it made praying in services utterly ridiculous for me. Stand up, sit down, Hebrew prayers, responsive, all together, read from page x, sing this...my spirit started to protest. "No!" it shouted, "This isn't the way!" I feel connected to Spirit when I'm sitting quietly, hands tingling, sharing Reiki energy with someone a continent away. This someone feels the energy, feels better, and then emails to tell me so.
"No!" my spirit shouted louder, "this isn't the way!" God/Spirit/Source doesn't exist outside of us, needing to be addressed in prayerbook-poetic pleas, prayers, supplications, and offerings. We are all parts of Spirit, manifesting and creating our lives, with this powerful energy that we all have. Our intention, meditation, and tuning in to ask OURSELVES will bring about more change. We just need to raise our conscious presence to feel that always present connection, and as we ask angels, or Spirit, or whatever for help, what we're really doing is asking ourselves to join with the power of creation to bring about what we need and want. I've spiritually become a Spiritualist because my experience has brought me here.
So here, on the most introspective Jewish High Holiday of the year, I'm feeling resentful in temple. I resent that my religion, to which I gave so many years of living, learning and teaching, has let me down. I resent being in services when I no longer need this structured stuff to feel connected. I resent that I had to put on a dress and uncomfortable shoes to sit down, stand up, and recite (or ignore) Hebrew prayers for three hours today.
So, why don't I just stop going to services, you might ask. This is a logical question. The reason is...this life I've created. Thankfully, I'm not a Jewish Educator anymore. I've left that behind to create a career as a Reiki Master Teacher and run a School of Intuitive Development. But the reason I can't just skip out on this set of rituals that means nothing to me, is my family.
My kids (all four of them) attend Jewish Day School. This is private school. It's a great school, and we sacrifice a lot to pay the tuition each month. My kids really love it and thrive there. My parents and my family belong to the same temple where I grew up. We celebrate Jewish holidays together every holiday and every Friday night. I don't mind the family time, the meals, the cultural stuff. I actually like the coziness of it and the emphasis on family is very important to me. I know I'm giving my kids a strong foundation in that. But each time we have to go to temple (which is only a few times a year really), it's bringing up a lot of resistance in my head and my spirit.
Can I skip out? What kind of example does that set? The kids would say, "Why is MOM staying home and I have to go?" And if they knew that I don't jibe with this service stuff, they might also decide that they don't jibe with it. For some reason, that makes me uncomfortable. All this, with my oldest daughter's Bat Mitzvah just a month away.
My kids all practice Reiki. We are used to discussing spiritual topics and they hear my view of things. It usually enriches what they learn in school rather than conflicting. But I know that the ritualized service experience is part of the whole thing somehow, and I'm afraid to show them that I'd like to discard it. It could give my kids a lot of conflicts (especially at school where they pray every day) that they're not ready to tackle on their own yet. It would also send mixed messages between their mom and dad, and it would put me at odds with my parents and extended family too.
Today I'm supposed to be fasting. I can't seem to find within myself the meaning in that either. Every day, I think about my actions, and how I can bring good energy into my life and to others. I'm self reflective not once a year or season, but all the time. I don't need to starve myself for a day to help me focus on this. It doesn't feel like a spiritually advantageous thing to deprive my body (and my emotions and energy level) of food and drink. For most years of my life since I was 12 years old (excepting when I was pregnant), I fasted on Yom Kippur. Then it stopped having meaning for me. So there's another dilemma. Do I let my kids see me eat? If I'm not fasting, than I'm not following one of the basic commandments for a Jew who has passed the age of 13. If I tell the kids that this has no meaning for me, then that gives them permission to question the validity of what they are being taught in school. They will be getting mixed messages. So here I am, hiding my frustration, and hiding the little bites of food I took today because I just don't feel like spending the day crabby and weak from being hungry.
Instead, I'm crabby from having gone to services and having hated being there. I'm crabby from feeling one way and doing something different.
Then I remind myself that it's one day, and tomorrow goes back to normal.
But still. It's more than just today. It's where I am inside, compared to where I was. It's where I am inside, compared to where everyone else around me is. And it's where I am inside, compared to what I've created with this Jewish life we're living.
I started this blog so I'd have some way to express the things that are rubbing me wrong. I need to type this stuff out so I don't stuff this stuff in. If you'd like to comment, go ahead. I'll respond.
G'mar Tov (literally, "a good finish to you" - said to people to mean hope you get through this day and all goes well for you. For me, it means it'll be good to finish this already.)
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