Intuitive Jewing

Anyone who knows me well will probably tell you I’m hotheaded, a flamethrower, a free radical, untethered to the norms other folks follow. As a rabbi told my husband, “Nina is honest. To a fault.” Guilty as charged. None of this serves me terribly well in a world–especially an American Jewish world–that expects certain kinds of behaviors and adherences, few of which I’m willing to sign on to without getting answers to my questions, i.e., why? why now? why this? why me? why you? why us?  what for? And so on.

I did not become bat mitzvah until my fortieth year. My parents lived to see that day, but my father, z”l, only two more years after that. I was too terrified by the cantor to learn Torah trope, so I stuck with chanting the Haftorah with another classmate. I recall little of what I learned through that process, but am incredibly grateful I went through it with my older sister.

I tried to make sense through the years of my father’s explanations and non-explanations of things Jewish, of why we do or don’t do this or that. It took me well into adulthood to realize that a large part of why I couldn’t get explanations that made sense to me is that my father didn’t have them. His Jewishness lived in his bones, in all of his internal organs. Asking him to explain the details of this or that practice was like asking him to explain the particular rhythms of his heartbeat.

I have pursued my own adult Jewish education, trying to get many of the answers my father could not give me, on and off for decades now. Am I, as a result, a deeply educated and knowledgeable Jew? I would say no, though I imagine my husband and my children might differ. If you quiz me on particulars, I am quite sure I would fail.  My understanding of Judaism comes a bit from formal learning (much of which I promptly forget, and losing the notes I take in various classes doesn’t help), but much more so from my own evolved understanding. I’ve never cross-checked what I’ve come to understand as true for and within Judaism with anyone else, but I’ll share it here in the belief that my Judaism is consistent with what I think we are meant to believe, know, and do, irrespective of whether it shows up in a particular tractate, Talmudic argument, rabbinic dispensation, etc.

Some examples:

Why keep Kosher? There is the standard explanation of not cooking a kid in its mother’s milk, but I’ve no idea why that is. So I arrived at an understanding that I find more compelling, easier to embrace, and fully consistent with what I believe we are meant to take from the practice of keeping kosher. Keeping kosher is a way to practice intentional eating. Rather than just randomly shoveling all kinds of food onto our plates and into our mouths, kashrut compels us to pause, to consider the choices we are making about the food we eat, and the order in which we eat it. Do I wait four hours between eating milk and dairy? No. Do I even know why it’s four hours (or maybe it’s even three or six)?  No. But I think about that time gap every single time I shift from one type of food to another. Every. Single. Time.

Welcoming the stranger. This is a big one. We are commanded to do this. But what does this actually mean in practice, and what’s the Jewish way to do it? Again, I don’t know what the Torah playbook says, but I do know that doing is my way of being. From inviting Israelis into our home years ago, during the awful period of the intifadas in Israel, so they could ply their wares and try to keep their businesses alive via the States; to inviting a father and son we’d never met to stay in our apartment so they could attend pro-democracy protests for Israel in New York City; to taking in an Israeli couple stranded in New York City after the attacks of October 7th, it feels just normal to me to invite people in, to offer shelter, comfort, help.  Not because I’m heroic, but because that’s what my faith tradition demands of me.

But my father, z”l, did that so much better, inviting men known back in the day as “Bowery bums” to our home for dinner. Imagine taking someone off the streets, or from a flop house, and bringing him home to your family for dinner. That is exactly what my father did. Multiple times. I had the greatest Jewish teacher imaginable.  For that reason, and so many more.

Yet one more example:

Tikkun olam, a term that has become trite and trivialized in the mouths of those who define the entirety of Judaism by their version of doing some good deeds, but without a sense of accountability, obligation, or a serious understanding of what the brokenness we are called to repair is really all about. Tikkun olam requires us, in my understanding, to go through the world with eyes wide open, ears unplugged, and hearts ready. Then and only then can we do the work of real repair. Without that, tikkun olam becomes a kind of box-checking performance, a way to score points disconnected from the tradition that is making real demands of us, calling us to attend to the ruptures humans have caused. And will continue to cause.

Judaism for me is foundational. However, it is not easy. It requires hard, sometimes brain-exhausting work. I am more often than not barely up to the task. But it has become a task essential to my being. Judaism is my inheritance. It is mine to nurture or squander. It is mine to pass on to my children, and hopefully for them to pass on to their children, god willing. Judaism can feel byzantine, contradictory, uncomfortable, confounding, inexplicable, exhausting, and even constraining. But there is also this, which rises above all of that, reminding us that perhaps the greatest thing about Judaism is the miracles we are reminded to see, right in front of us.

One of my kids is autistic. He will periodically and randomly announce: “We’re Jewish!” To which I always reply, “Yes, we are. How does that make you feel?” “Joyful.”