| I'm sympathetic. So shoot me. |
When I was in fourth grade, we had a unit in school where we learned about "all the different religions." I put quotations around that because we learned about Judaism, Hinduism, and the Islamic faith. It was assumed that we were all fiiiiiine churchgoin' folk so we didn't need to cover OUR god, and nobody I knew at the time (besides my mom) could name any other religions, so my school only tackled The Big (Other) Three.
They had clergy or people of each faith come in and speak to us about what they believe, how they observe, and what it is like in their respective religious and spiritual communities. I remember finding it a very enjoyable unit, but I also remember thinking that I couldn't find the northeast five times a day to SAVE my LIFE, so I was lucky that I wasn't Muslim. I also recall admiring the absence of missionaries in Judaism because we had some missionaries who came to our house a lot (they were friends of my mom's) and DANG their kids were annoying.
But I digress.
So a quick word about religion and spirituality in the Hobocamp house. Ahem.
We are from Irish Catholic stock, but we are not Catholic. We were for a while, and then my mom wasn't comfortable in the church anymore, so she started shopping for a new one. We went to the local Episcopalian church for a bit, frequented the Baptists all of two times, attended the deaf church because my mom knew one of the ministers and really liked her, and also spent some time (much to my joy) at the local AME church. Eventually, my ma decided that while she was a very spiritual person (she LUVS her some God) she wasn't a very religious one, so we didn't have to consistently go to any church anymore. But she still had us study holy texts, because she thought they were important (we had a Torah, a Qur'an, a zillion different Bibles, a book of Tales from Ancient India, and the book of Mormon on our bookshelves) for us to read, learn from, and be able to discuss. This remains, by the way, one of the most useful things she's ever done for us.
My mom prays a lot. Like every day. Sometimes out loud, often to herself. We had to -- and still do when I'm home-- hold hands and say grace before meals. It's a very generic grace, always the same thing: For the food before us, the family beside us, and the love between us, we give thanks. There was a period in our youth when we got to pick the grace we'd say, but we quickly lost our privileges when I started reciting Judy Garland monologues as prayers, and my brother refused to thank the lord for anything other than farts. She tried reinstating the right when we were teenagers, but once I mastered the Passive Aggressive Prayer ( Dear Jesus. Please help my brother to not be such a dickhead and to stay out of my stuff and I KNOW IT WAS HIM WHO DREW WRESTLERS ON MY BIOLOGY BOOK. I KNOW IT! Please help him not be such an asshole, god. Also he is ugly amen ) then we went back to the tried and true.
My point is, we had some exposure to other faiths. So a lot of the unit in school wasn't really new to me, but it was interesting just the same. My mom would also drop religious trivia at random times. "How many commandments are there in Christianity? Can you name them?...Know how many there are in Judaism? 613! Try naming all of those! Let's make flashcards when we get home...I think you can learn at least half or something. They're common sense, mostly." They didn't quiz us on anything religious at school, so it was a welcome break.
Anyway, the day to learn about Judaism finally arrived. A Jewish woman and her daughter came to talk to us about what they believed. The daughter, I remember, seemed a little younger than us, and looked decidedly uncomfortable standing in front of the class. My peers and I all settled in for the talk, hoping that they'd brought food like the Hindu lady did. No such luck.
The woman smiled brightly at us, and at our closeted alcoholic teacher who was sleeping it off at her desk, blissfully relieved to have turned over her charges to this poor unsuspecting daughter of Abraham. "Okay!" she began. "First of all, let me ask you this. My daughter and I are Jewish. Who else in here is Jewish? Go ahead, raise your hands."
Not a hand went up.
Convinced that nobody had heard her, she repeated her question. "Let's see," she yelled. "Who else is Jewish? Anyone else in here Jewish? Anyone? At all?"
Crickets.
"Nobody else is Jewish? Really? Nobody?"
The little girl spoke up. "Nobody??" she squeaked.
The truth was, no, nobody else was Jewish. It wasn't a very diverse school in my little home town. I could even tell you, looking at my classmates, where most people went to church. My mom had some friends who were Jewish, I knew, but they didn't have children in my class. I didn't meet an actual Jewish kid until I switched schools the following year.
So at that moment, right there in that room? There were exactly two Jewish people. And they were up front figuring out their Lonesome Dove stature.
I felt uncomfortable, and weirdly sad. The little girl looked embarrassed. And that's not right. I mean, her mom had probably dragged her there to talk to kids her age and to have the opportunity to teach them a thing or two. She'd most likely not really been seeking that chance at all. And now everyone was staring at her. She began to blush as her mother started to excitedly overcompensate, gesticulating wildly and offering a comparison of how Judaism and Christianity were similar but also different and DIFFERENT IS STILL OKAY. I was annoyed and ashamed that nobody else was Jewish, even though that obviously doesn't make sense. But before I could stop myself, I raised my hand.
"Yes?" the mother said, probably thinking What the hell could she have a question about already?
"Um. Me. I-I'm Jewish."
20 little heads whirled to face me.
"You are? Oh! You are??" said the woman.
"Meg, you are?" asked Drunky McTeacherpants, who I should mention WENT TO THE SAME CHURCH AS WE DID AT THE TIME and so was undoubtedly confused by my seemingly sudden conversion and proclamation of faith.
"YES." I said, too loudly. "I AM JEWISH. Um. I am half Jewish. My- my father is Jewish."
This was good enough for most people, who knew (due to the size and stillness of my town) that my no-account father was not in the picture. Who knows? Perhaps he WAS Jewish. They'd never seen him. As far as they were concerned, my brother and I were hatched from large eggs freckled with shamrocks and Jameson bottles. My teacher put her head back on the desk and everyone else turned around again.
"Oh, that's nice! Isn't that nice, Shira?" the woman exclaimed. The woman said something else but I didn't quite catch it because I was busy being proud of aligning myself with the Jewish people and also being jealous that the little girl had the same name as She-Ra, Princess of Power, and my stupid name rhymed with Egg.
"MumblemumbleSomethingUp here, okay?" she said.
"What?"
"Why don't you come up here, and talk to your friends with us?"
"Uh. Oh, ah. Um. No, I- I don't-"
"Oh, it's okay. Don't be shy. Come on up here."
Not one to eschew the spotlight, I decided to go up in front of the class. You know, with My People. We could go be Jewish up there together. Yeah. That's the ticket.
I took my time strolling up there, thinking Jewish thoughts. I was still surprised at how easily my lie had spilled out, and how nobody really called me on it. Once I reached the front, I stood next to the little girl, and beamed sanctimoniously out at my classmates.
"So do you want to lead us in the alfjavyo?" she said.
"Wha-?"
"I was going to show your friends the afjdionwe. You know, the prayer!"
"Oh, oh YEAH. The mumblemumble. Um. They'd like that."
"Great! Why don't you start?"
Well, shit.
I obviously couldn't do that.
While I had a basic familiarity with the tenets of the Jewish faith, I had zero idea of their prayers. I was willing to bet it wasn't the kind of prayers that would semi-fly in my house (Dear Hashem. Thanks for tv and swimming pools and my dog is great but my brother is a brat. Love Meg) and I also figured they weren't going to be in English.
You guys, I had never been more SOL. It really was the writing on the wall for the rest of my life.
"Well, I...I don't...I am shy. Uh. We pray in private at my house. (Yeah, that sounds good!) But I will say them WITH you." I finally sputtered, proud of my solution. Good job, brain! I cheered silently. Way to bail yourself out!
"Great," said the lady. "Ready? Here we go. This is the prayer you say before you eat bread!" she crowed. She and her daughter started singing what I now know to be the hamotzi, but at the time sounded like this:
SomethingJEWishsomethingsomethingjewISHsomeTHINGJEWishsomethingsomethingjewishjewishSOMEthiiingg...
I clearly didn't know any of those words, but that has yet to stop me from singing at any point in my life, so I joined in, and I believe I just sang "HannukahhannukahhannukahIAmJewishHannukah" or some derivation on repeat. I didn't know the tune either, so I tried to match their notes but I was consistently a beat or two behind. I compensated with enthusiasm, oh sure, but I knew it wasn't going well because my classmates were looking at my strangely, and the woman and the little girl both adopted the exaggerated bobbing of the head and stabbing of the hand that one does when dealing with the Rhythmically Impaired (ONE-ee-and-ah-TWO-ee-and-ah-THREE-ee-and-ah). I hoped, without ceasing my sacrilegious bellowing, that they thought I was just stupid, and not making fun of them or something.
Finally, the damned seemingly eternal prayer ended and I claimed I had to go to the bathroom and ran away, slinking back in a few minutes later with the hopes that we'd moved on to the non-singing part of Judaism, and maybe we were at the part where everyone hugged, ate food, or got extra free time at recess.
Somehow I made it through the day, and when my mom asked me how school was that night, all I could do was cross my arms and snap "WHY aren't we JEWISH?"
She was quiet for a minute, and then said. "You and your brother like bacon too much."
"Oh. Okay then."
Labels: childhood, family, help my brain is weird, i'm kind of a jerk, lying, memories |
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| 28 Comments: |
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Dammit it, Meg, first you get me with your pension for praying Judy Garland monologues, and then you make me choke on my sandwhich with your damn non-Jewish song. I swear to whoever (your pick!) that you're going to kill me. Really, truly kill me. That was amazing, one of the best blog tales ever.
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Oh man...
That was SO good.
"but we quickly lost our privileges when I started reciting Judy Garland monologues as prayers, and my brother refused to thank the lord for anything other than farts." <---- Cracked me the fuck up.
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You are all sorts of hi-larious. And I love it.
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de-lurking to say that was hilarious. My personal favorite is your Passive Agressive Prayer.
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You. Fucking. RULE! That was THE BEST. :) I've said it before, but I have GOT to stop reading your posts when I'm at work. I was laughing so hard I had tears spilling down my face and PR ain't that funny. ;)
Your entry reminded me of the time a friend was playing the piano for our first-grade class and, jealous, I told the teacher I could play the piano too. (LIIIIIIIE.) I got to the piano and banged the keys for a couple minutes until I was politely invited to stop lying to my Baptist (gasp!) classmates and take my seat. Ah, yoot. :)
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You delightfully deranged little goofball. This is better than the time you pretended to fail the hearing test.
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LosingIt- You are too kind. I am glad it is funny now, as it was really embarrassing at the time. Oh my goodness terrible.
Peter- you'd like my brother. he is really the funniest kid. he is still grateful for farts to this day, too.
TLM- thanks. I think YOU are fabulous.
Deutlich- look how cute your little blogger ID thing is! Mine is miss piggy. One of us is not doing ourselves any favors. And i'm all sorts of something, but hilarious isn't always it. You are very nice.
Doogs- Thanks for delurking, lovey! Why doogs? Like doogie howswer, MD?
MD-You should blog that tale, my friend.
TK- i told myself that this time it was a mitzvah.
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I think I actually heard your version of the hamotzi before dinner at my neighbor's house - clearly you are a trendsetter!
By the way, your mother sounds like quite the awesome lady!
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So something like this happened to me in 1st grade. Somehow it got back to my teacher that I was half Jewish, so when we started learning about other people's cultures and religions in class, she made stand up along with the rest of the Jewish kids and say something that was "fun" about our religion. Me, having always celebrated Christmas and Easter, and being the brightest kid in Sunday school (not), just stood there. My teacher repeated the question. I just kind of shrugged my shoulders and pointed to the dreidel that was on the table, 'cause, well.. it looked fun to play with.
Your story was way funnier though.
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The thing is, I can see you doing this now at age 26. And I would give money to do so.
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"hatched from large eggs freckled with shamrocks and Jameson bottles..." BAH! I thought all Irish babies were born that way. I know mine were.
We need to set up a mom date (lucky they're both in the midwest) - my mom will bring the Tibetan prayer bowl, Native American smudge sticks, her rainstick and dream catchers, her eagle and hawk feathers, her very own book of mormon and (just for good measure) her Precious Moments figurine. Also, she will perform any healing your family may need.
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Can I please be you for the day? Please?
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I love that. In my line of "work" I attend religious ceremonies outside my faith tradition with some regularity. And whenever I have to go to Jewish things, the fact that I look Jewish helps me blend, until it's time to sing which is always a beat late and a sheqel short... Or when I accidently genuflect.
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Hi.
I found you through Peter (he actually GUSHED about you) and I think I'm in love. Seriously. You have to be the funniest female blogger out there. I totally want to marry you.
You will definitely be seeing more of me (but not in a stalkerish kind of way).
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Lengli- Let's hamotzi together! And my mom is pretty great. Oh, were you the one who asked if my blog is named after strangers with candy? Because yes it is. So hard.
Curly- I needed you in grade school! And your teacher is a big weirdo.
Mindy- let's talk numbers
D- Damn your mama is handy.
Meggles- Yes.
Jewzer- You probably just look confused.
Airam- Hi lovely. Thank you for stopping by. And I am still available for marriage. Hubba hubba. I put out.
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See, if it had been me? There would have been a long silence, and then I would have suddenly popped up and said "Oh! Wait a minute! I am. Of course, Jewish. That's that thing we did in Sunday School. Duh."
We used to have Christians in on the high holy days sometimes so they could see a synagogue in action (I went to Sunday School at the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue, an extremely liberal Reform place - I only like temples where the religion part is optional).
I loved the Interfaith visits because the Christian kids always thought they were coming to a synagogue to see how the Jews practiced religion - shortly after they filed in that they realized that, mutatis mutandis, they were the ones on display.
We didn't go to churches to watch the Christians pray; after all, if you want to visit the Christian world in America, all you have to do is step outside.
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Because lying about what religion you are is totally the thing to do...
When I was going to Catholic school (so, 2nd grade), I for some reason was explaining that my dad was a Muslim and someone thought I said I was Muslim and because I wasn't Catholic and I wanted to be exotic and different (especially because I was a little envious of the Catholic girls since this was the year they got to have their fussy first communion and I, as a Protestant, got... nothin'), I said "Oh yes, I AM MUSLIM!!!!" and then they asked me to talk about my Muslim faith, and I started making stuff up, combined with some things I knew, and I couldn't remember if they were Muslim things or Arab things and then I looked out at the classroom and remembered... there was a Muslim boy in my class. So I said "At least that's how we do it at my house!" and sat down.
That was the same year when we had confession practice in class and the priest came in and I said I needed -- not wanted, NEEDED -- to confess, so I started in with a litany of things I had learned on TV, because I wanted it to be creative.
I was a dramatic child.
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Dear Lover and a Fighter,
I must say I laughed harder today than I have in the past three weeks. It was a delight. Thanks for that. You are really truly very funny.
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It was totally me - let's hamotzi in the name of Geraldine Blank!! I think it would go something like HanukahHanukahHanukahHanukahHanukahHanukahPeeOnMeShaaaaaaaaame.
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de-lurking again to say that yes indeed, doogs is from Doogie Howser, due to my resemblance to Neil Patrick Harris (when he and I were both younger).
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Funny, religion is a big topic around my friends lately...
I went to Catholic school (being of sort-of-Irish-Catholic-stock but also other-Catholic stock) and LOVED the little bit in 4th grade where we talked about the other religions. I actually decided I wanted to convert to Judaism, I forget why, but then a few years later, I also decided I wanted to be the religion described in the Chronicles of Narnia. WHICH I DIDN'T FIND OUT UNTIL OH, 10 YEARS LATER, WAS ACTUALLY CATHOLICISM. I called is Aslanism. Uh huh.
Also fun: though since the time I "converted" to Aslanism, I stopped practicing Catholicism at all, when I was in high school, I was searching for a new church and had the delight of attending my friend's Church of Christ with her, and attending Sunday school with her after service. To my absolute DELIGHT (I was a confrontational teenager), I happened to attend within the 4 week segment of discussing "other" religions. Guess which they did the week I was there! Guess! Ooh... if you said Catholicism, you were right. And when the instructor began telling everyone that Catholics worship Mary, and saints, and the Pope, well, I FLIPPED out. :) I still get annoyed thinking about it: at least if you're going to teach about open mindedness and other religions, have the decency to do your research or bring in people of that faith to talk about it. Gahhh. She basically tried to shush me but I wasn't having it. Ahhh, good times.
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That was probably the most uncomfortable thing I've read in my life ,,, I loved it!
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i love that this story has brought everyone together in the circle of sharing and caring.
meg, you are truly a humanitarian.
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This is my first time reading your blog and I must say, as a Jewish person I found this post hiiiilarious. I shall be back!
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Linus- You know I have jewish envy! Must you rub it in??? MUST YOU?
Jamelah- I think confessing to things that you didn't do or think or whatever manner of sin they might be is actually brilliant, as it creates a sin debit system. So you confessed to a sin that wasn't yours, thereby affording yourself a "sin credit" so to speak, and allowing yourself to sin it up as you wish and not have to confess jack shit to nobody. right?
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Rheana- well thank you! you made my day. Your name is pretty. I'm jealous.
lengli- you made me laugh out loud. i think we are soul sisters.
doogs- oh my gosh. you handsome devil!
yvo- i had a similar experience at a friend's church once. I got kicked out of class.
toadely- yeah, it was pretty uncomfortable. i wish i could say it was the most uncomfortable thing i've ever experienced, but that would be a lie, and hashem hates the liars.
kelsi- i know. let's nobel me.
arielle- thank you, dear! I am glad you are here.
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Stop! STOP! PLEEEASE. My sides are aching. No more...
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Name: A Lover and a Fighter
Home: New York, NY
About Me: "It is a very sad thing that nowadays there is so little useless information."
-Oscar Wilde
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Dammit it, Meg, first you get me with your pension for praying Judy Garland monologues, and then you make me choke on my sandwhich with your damn non-Jewish song. I swear to whoever (your pick!) that you're going to kill me. Really, truly kill me. That was amazing, one of the best blog tales ever.