Here’s something that’s been troubling me a little bit lately…

I am here to work on practice. On practical Judaism skills, as it were. I’m here to gain fluency where I am missing it. I’m here to get myself accustomed to practices and halachot that came as pre-rejected in my family when I came into this world. I do not fault anyone for the situation I find myself in with regards to my Jewish education and/or practice… I think that the way I grew up in Judaism was more or less the way it had to be and I am where I am and it will all be good.

Here’s the thing… I’ve recently had people start to try to challenge me and my practice on philosophical and theological grounds. Not in a hostile manner, mind you… innocently and in a well-meaning fashion, engaging in the sorts of conversation that I am usually eager to take part in. I find myself now, however, asking to be excused from such discussions. I don’t want to have my inconsistencies pointed out to me right now. Right now I’m trying things on, testing things out, learning and taking on practice as I find it. For once in my life, I’m trying to not think too hard.

This goes against everything that anyone including myself knows about me. I am always the first to challenge myself and to insist on knowing why I am doing something before I do it. Theology is my thing. I’ve been working the theology and philosophy angle of my religion my whole life. Why now am I making a conscious effort to turn down (not off) that part of my brain? Will my friends and teachers think less of me for this? The new people I’m meeting?

I get the sense that a lot of these folks are accustomed to people who never bother to think through their practice and just do either what they’ve been taught or what they feel like doing. I have stock answers ready for why I do certain unusual things (like wearing tzitziot) but I’m not ready to talk about why I’m making an effort to observe the three weeks and the nine days leading up to Tisha B’Av, a day commemorating the destruction of a Temple I was raised not to mourn for. I’ve been thinking hard about this stuff for as long as I’ve been able to think. Right now is the time to learn how to do Judaism rather than just thinking about Judaism.

I’ve moved in with a fellow who is formerly Chareidi, still largely Orthopractic, as we say, strongly egalitarian minded and who teaches here at The Yeshiva. He has Orthodox smicha (meaning he is an Orthodox ordained rabbi) and he is a wonderful resource and living with him makes it very easy for me to learn and take on observances that I would not be able to otherwise. I talked to him last night about this and he thinks that it is not a bad thing at all, that he thinks that it is important to have the traditional groundwork before you go smashing the system and breaking the rules. While he agrees with the documentary hypothesis and believes in biblical criticism, he would not want to teach it to his kids without first teaching them Tanakh in the traditional manner.

I talked this morning with my friend Josh who is a Conservative rabbi. He also thinks that I’m doing an ok thing in terms of my exploration of practice… though his initial response was “You realize that your “not thinking too hard” is probably more self-reflective than what most folks do when they’re trying to think about what they’re doing”

That made me smile.