Last week, the ultra-Orthodox yeshiva high school where I teach marked the end of the year with a siyum, a celebration in honor of the completion of a tractate of the Talmud. Almost every male there wore a black hat, but I wore a crocheted kippah. It was clear that they were ultra-Orthodox and that I was not, but it was less clear – both to them and to me – what that makes me.
As I danced with my students, I was struck by the irony of the fact that I was their teacher. I had identified with Orthodoxy very strongly for over a decade. After I stopped believing in the principles underlying Orthodoxy, I turned my focus to secular education and became a history teacher. Although I teach in a yeshiva, I teach only secular classes and am generally removed from the religious life of the yeshiva. At the siyum, years after my emphatic rejection of Orthodoxy, I found myself dancing at what was fundamentally a celebration over the perpetuation of the ultra-Orthodox way of life.
The siyum was a bittersweet evening for me, not only because it meant saying goodbye to students whom I have enjoyed teaching. My students’ joy was so evident, there was a palpable sense of community, and I was on the outside looking in. As a teacher, I was proud of my students and shared in their joy. As a religiously progressive Jew, I disagreed with the beliefs that form the essence of the yeshiva’s outlook. And as a formerly Orthodox Jew, I was nostalgic for the emotions and experiences that the Orthodox lifestyle can create, particularly the sense of communal joy.
The evening left me pondering the role of nostalgia in Jewish identity. There are those who become secularized because they find the traditional restrictions to be too confining, or because they think they will be happier outside of an observant lifestyle. But what about those of us who find joy and meaning in traditional Judaism but who reject its fundamental beliefs? Can nostalgia be a valid reason for clinging to tradition – even a replacement for faith? And how can we balance nostalgia for a way of life with disagreement with the principles underlying it?
Needless to say, the evening left me with more questions than answers.
