4 | SEPTEMBER 5 • 2024 J
N
essay
Challenging the
Walls Around My
Jewish Identity
T
here is great power to holding
a pen in your hand, your
thoughts flowing from your
mind, your words filling the once-
empty space. The pen in your hand
feels like the scepter
of your identity, and
you point it between
your heritage and your
present to write your
future.
I want to explain
how I learned to
hold my own identity
scepter.
When I arrived at college, I was
stunned by the open welcome of
my college’s religious and spiritual
Jewish leaders. They allowed me
to ponder my religious cognitive
dissonance, giving me the freedom
to shape my own Jewish identity. I
was free to wear whatever clothes
I wanted, to explore my religious
surroundings and to interrogate my
relationship with Judaism. I was able
to openly explore the Judaism I was
raised in to find my Jewish identity
on my own terms.
This was a sharp contrast to my
experience growing up in Jewish
day schools. In middle school and
high school, I often felt afraid to
ask specific questions related to my
Jewish identity; I feared my teachers
would see me as a “jester.”
My classmates generally seemed
to accept the specific halakhic
teachings and interpretations of
passages from the Tanakh that we
were taught. It seemed fine with
them that we never questioned
the frameworks behind these
interpretations. We also never
addressed the fact that a portion of
the class did not uphold halakhah in
the way we were being taught.
I was also taught, however, that
to be Jewish is to question and to
engage with doubts. If there was
no questioning, there would be
no Talmud. If there was no doubt,
belief would never be strengthened
or certain. And yet, by teaching me
that for every aspect of Judaism
there was one correct way, one path
to be followed — one box in which
we should exist — the adults around
me made clear that there were
limits to what we could ask. We
were not to push too hard on the
walls surrounding our beliefs and
practices.
And so, because I was never
taught to question and never taught
to doubt, I never expressed my
doubts, but rather shoved them into
an uncomfortable corner of my box.
When I first arrived at college,
I told my new friends that I was
firm in my belief. I knew my values,
and I knew that I did not intend to
change. But hearing someone else
express doubts for the first time led
me to articulate my own.
This new acquaintance questioned
everything: love, food, our daily
existence. Most of all, he questioned
religion. As he sat at a meal in the
Chabad building, he asked: Why
do we have Judaism? Is there truly
a God? At first, I was shocked. He
was asking these questions while
eating food provided by Chabad and
sitting with the friends he had met
attending Chabad events. Wasn’t
religion the source of his happiness
and security? But ultimately, as he
continued to question God, religion
and Judaism, and still continued to
be a member of the community, I
started to ask myself whether it was
me who was failing to see clearly.
I admitted to myself that as I sat
for years in the box composed of
my high school’s Jewish values, I
had always been a little unhappy
there, a little frustrated with my
own religious stagnation. I stepped
outside of the box to a space where
there were no longer limits to my
questions or my doubts. I read
writers from other movements
of Judaism. I met with leaders
and students of different Jewish
organizations. These students and
leaders all represented different
models of Jewish thinking. I
questioned, judged and doubted.
I came to realize that, rather than
shattering me, leaving the box of my
high school Jewish thinking could
allow me to discover and express
who I am more fully.
So much of my education had
been shaped by fear of loss: the
fear that the mesorah, the tradition,
would be lost if the school allowed
students to question Jewish practice
at all. But I do not believe that
acknowledging differences in the
Jewish practices of students in the
classroom is dangerous. Voicing
doubts, questioning norms and
recognizing different religious
practices in our households will not
erase our past or destroy our future.
There is a reason why a number
of students each year graduate
Jewish day school and choose to
forgo any connection to Judaism.
Jewish day schools need to find
a balance between maintaining
standards and allowing questions
that prevent students from feeling
boxed in, from feeling alone, from
Chana Fisher
PURELY COMMENTARY