I’m one of those Jews that no one believes is Jewish. Maybe it’s that I look more like a Viking than an Israelite. I sometimes find myself reciting the Hebrew blessing over the wine in the middle of Foss Hill to prove that I am a Jew to some stranger. I am one of those Jews—and perhaps we are a generation—that feels guilty for not being Jewish enough. We know this prayer, but we don’t know that one. We get calls from our mothers and grandmothers asking us if we are going to attend services. We weren’t planning to, but we feel their fingers pinching our cheeks and so we look for something nice to wear. We find ourselves in Synagogue, moving our lips, a second behind the melody. Everything is familiar. Nothing is internal.
I went to Hebrew School and hated every minute of it. I came home one Sunday and told my father it was the most boring thing ever and that Mrs. Bernstein was stupid and that I didn’t want to be Jewish if I had to go anymore. I was seven years old. My father insisted that I go again the next week, but decided to come along with me to see if it was really as bad as I had made it out to be. The day he attended, my class was building a Sukkah, a simple outdoor structure with at least three walls for the festival of Sukkot. The kids were all busy collecting tree branches and vines as it is a custom to decorate the structure, much like Christians might decorate a Christmas tree. A few of us, in an attempt to pluck the greenest of vines, ventured a little deeper into the woods by the school building only to find ourselves in the company of yellow jackets. I remember as Gabe Klehr ran screaming in circles, the yellow jackets in close pursuit behind him, Mrs. Bernstein kept saying over and over, “Don’t worry Gabriel. It’s okay. He won’t hurt you. That’s a Jewish bee!” I looked over at my father. That was the day I became a Hebrew School Dropout.
My great-grandmother always maintained that, God willing, she would live to see my Bar mitzvah before she died. “Being Jewish is not something you choose like which outfit to wear,” she would say. Dressed in my Jewish-Grandma-guilt-suit, I studied with a Rabbi for two years and had a Bar mitzvah. At the age of ninety-four, my great grandmother was there weeping in the first row as I shot Hebrew prayers into the crowd from the gap in my front teeth. A Jewish lisping rock star. A pimpled millionaire.
Last Tuesday I attended a Passover Seder held on Lawn Avenue by two friends of mine. The Seder is my favorite of all Jewish traditions because we are required to drink wine and slouch in our chairs. Worried that there might not be enough food, the hosts asked everyone to bring a dish, or at least a bottle of wine. We all brought wine. Gathered around the table, singing songs (my favorite is ‘Dayenu’ because the chorus consists of one word: Dayenu) and telling the story of the Jews’ exodus from the bonds of slavery in Pharaoh’s Egypt, I was reminded of the Seders of my childhood. Being the only child, I was by default the youngest child and so tradition called me to read the four questions. I remembered sounding out each word in Hebrew, not knowing exactly what I was saying, only that it mattered to the people looking down the long Seder table at me.
But this night on Lawn Avenue was different from all other nights. A college Seder. We drank not only Manischewitz, but Merlot and Chianti as well. There was so much wine that practically everyone was wasted before the bitter herbs were ever dipped in the tears of the Jews (or whatever). We wailed for the ten plagues God sent down (“Vermin! Boils! Nasty!”) We took cigarette breaks. A few people were on Xanex. Somewhere along the way, Brittany Spears’ “Toxic” became an integral part of the ceremony. We improvised on the melodies and sang plain gibberish with pride when we didn’t know the words. I had a wonderful time. I didn’t feel guilty for being not Jewish enough. I felt like I belonged. I was drunk. With joy.
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