I've been thinking of religion lately. Playing Misericorde has it even more a forefront of my thoughts.
I'm not religious, not sure I ever have been. It's been a complicated relationship. Add in Jewish mother and Christian dad/later also stepdad. So I saw myself as Jewish if not super practicing. And, to an extent I still do, but that is a thought for another time.
As I get older I see more another side of religion I hadn't before. I'd seen it as a cudgel, as a succor, people had tried to convert me and I always wished they'd succeed. I'd seen how in true age people come to it as they fear death. And perhaps in time I will too. But it as praise? Never.
But days and years pass and I see the world around me. Not just the world as a whole, but that around me. As tragic and beautiful as the whole in synecdoche. And I think "how could I not want to appreciate the art in front of me, to give thanks to the artist that wove every flower and sang every small gesture of kindness I see."
May as well put my thoughts about religion and myself here as well.
In Jewish tradition, it's not what your father's religion is that makes you Jewish, but that your mother is. And mine is. She wasn't particularly devout or practicing during my childhood. How could she be? There was too much to deal with in her immediate life. A child at 18, planned no less. Another at 21, also planned. Let alone her financial situation, or my dad being...well, a layabout and eventually a philanderer. She believed in god, and would celebrate certain holidays. Hanukkah, Passover, Rosh Hashanah. Synagogue was a truly rare thing, often bc of her own stepmother encouraging it. Her own mother though was where she got her non practicing from.
I didn't receive a bar mitzvah, certainly not a bat mitzvah. A small favor, I was never recognized as a Man in Jewish faith. We simply couldn't afford such a thing. And even if we could Once, what of my younger brother? Or my younger sister? What of when they had gotten to that age? Were I devout I could've lobbied for one still. Smaller, cheaper, less the celebration it has become and more a ceremony of adulthood.
But I'm not. Around 12 I realized I just...don't believe in any of it. ANY of it. Not in some epic atheist way. Not even in the way of seeing the tragedy around me killing such religiosity. No, I simply didn't believe. But I wanted to. I wanted the peace and comfort of an afterlife. Friends throughout my life tried to convert me, if to Christianity. It angered me, but also I desperately wished it would work. I feared death so much. Still do, in a way, as do we all. That this accompanied the start of suicidal ideations and my mental health becoming a problem overall in my youth is...amusing.
All this is context. Nothing exists without context. Not a thought, not a word. No painting or novel or gesture or moment in time is without context.
The question then rises. I call myself Jewish still, but why, what does that mean?
In short it means I'd love to learn Yiddish, but never, Never Hebrew. For me my Judaism is cultural. Not the culture of the Torah, of biblical times, or Israel at all esp not the nation today. It's that otherness I had growing up. It's the stories like Maus and Fiddler on the Roof. I don't know how far back my family could trace itself, and it's faith. And it's possible I'll never know. It's likely such knowledge is lost since a century ago.
And here's the punchline despite it all. That people often have religion as their source of Community. And perhaps that lack is part of why I came not to believe. Bullying for being Jewish outside in my neighborhood. At school maybe 1 or 2 other Jewish ppl. And we never really connected over that. It's rare that I've connected over that with Anyone who wasn't already family.
But I still hold onto the identity. How could I not. Should I abandon it, rather than treat it as a lifelong scar I wince at but would never cover up? Idk. But lately I've been thinking a lot on it. On how at my core, the lessons taught to me that have helped make me a better person were from religion.
The mitzvah. The simple mitzvah. A good deed, helping others. I call it doing someone a good turn, but ultimately it's the mitzvah I learned of renamed. Or my time at a quaker elementary school, a time I hold a lot of respect for in how it shaped me, and how they hoped to teach the kids to be better people, kinder, willing to help those around them. And despite my quick temper and all my most unsavory parts, I really do think those lessons have been etched into my being.