I’m trying to start a haunted (i.e. outside) minyan for next Shabbat. Conveniently, a friend wrote me an email making an offhand comment about my patrilineal descent (something I’m already highly self-conscious about), and its effect on my minyan: “Either accept fate as a reform [Jew] whose lineage will die out with her and organize a reform minyan, or convert first and organize a traditional minyan.” Suddenly my minyan—my pet project!—was undermined. Worse, so was my already tenuous lineage. How could I start Yom Kippur this way? About two hours before I was supposed to begin fasting, I decided that I wasn’t going to. Why should I? I was living a lie. And I have to admit I’d been fearing Yom Kippur for an entire year before. No, really—it’s basically become a phobia. I’ve never tried to actually do the fast before, so at that point I would have taken any sign that I “wasn’t meant to do it after all.”
Apparently, this sort of thing is going to be a yearly event on Yom Kippur — I stubbornly refuse to join in, I question my entire existence, and then I end up joining in anyway. It happened last year too, only with more existence-questioning and less fasting. This year, I did end up fasting, partially because I hate eating anyway.
I didn’t go to the synagogue though. I know, I’m out of control. I went on Rosh Hashana, and that’s where I found out that, to my horror, I don’t connect very much with responsive readings and the vague theological statements that characterize the machzor. (I’m not complaining—it’s not like I’m hoping for complex theological statements.) So I decided to stay home and read books. I wondered whether I was missing the point, but then again I’m still not entirely sure what the point of the High Holy Days is. So you get what you can, I think. I read Who Needs God by Harold Kushner, whom I secretly think writes good inspirational books. Anyway, I conveniently opened to a page on the issue of overwhelming guilt, and how you can’t expect to forgive yourself for your own guilt, which was pretty relevant considering I was becoming ever more certain that I wasn’t going to be forgiven for my ambiguous sins if I wasn’t in shul on the Most Important Day.
I think I was revived though, not in the least because a friend came over Saturday night and we played her favorite song, Na Nach. We also played the trailer to the Punk Jews documentary (knowing they’ll never show the actual documentary here) and wondered about life outside of this Williamsburg (Virginia, that is) bubble (Occupy Wall Street? What’s that?). And what a life I bet it is out there!
But alas, we have to settle for our current world; characterized by Jewish students who, sources tell me, “just want a social club.” Maybe it’s not Hillel’s fault. Whether it is or not, my friend and I have decided the world is ready for us to start a new club — still under wraps — which will consist of such things as making useful crafts, my minyan project, and eventually the Na Nach song. And people who know what fun is will join, and people who don’t know what’s good for them won’t join. But seriously, our Hillel is currently planning to have a comedian come to campus. A comedian. That’s the best they can do.
I live in a town with 13,000 people in it; I’m allowed to get worked up about these things. Maybe other people can’t get into the machzor or the High Holy Days either. Instead of huddling on my bed wondering whether I’m living a lie and should just be Catholic instead, I think it would be a good idea to get these hypothetical people together to say, “It’s OK! You have us! It’s not all or nothing, and you don’t have do things the way you think you ‘should.’ You don’t have to renounce your religion!”
Laura Cooper is a Religious Studies major at the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, VA. Her interests include graphic novels, punk rock, and making Judaism interesting. She blogs at Crystal Decadenz. Her column, The Jew in the Boonies, appears here on alternating Sundays.
