Asking Questions

When I was in the fifth grade, my teacher handed out awards at the end of the year, tailor made for every student. I won the ‘Most Inquiring Mind’ award. I hesitantly, and somewhat disappointingly approached my teacher to get my certificate.

“What’s inquiring mean?” I asked as if it were a reflex. The whole room erupted into laughter and I still didn’t get the joke.  I would eventually.

My whole life I’ve been asking questions. To the point that teachers didn’t like to call on me. Because I ask so many god. damned. questions. And usually won’t stop until I have a satisfactory answer. Not everyone likes this.

This kind of questioning can be a problem when you’re asking about large abstract concepts, like religion. Is God real? Does it matter if God is real? If God is real, are they good? If God is good, then why do so many terrible things happen in the world? Does faith matter more than actions? Does heaven exist? Is sin really a thing? What if all the religions that currently exist are wrong? Why bother with religion at all? What is the purpose of life? Why does religion create so much hate, if it’s meant to help people be good?

I don’t have the answer to any of these questions. I don’t think anyone does. (That’s not entirely true, I think there are a number of people in the world that genuinely believe they have the answers to all of these questions, and I think they’re fooling themselves). The one thing I do know, is that even without answers- it’s still worth asking these questions.

As I’ve said before, I grew up Christian. Specifically, I grew up Lutheran. I learned a lot of valuable things growing up in the churches I did, and was lucky enough to belong to congregations that were heavily involved in social justice issues and tried not to make me feel ostracized for being different. But, when I would ask these kinds of questions, things would start to unravel. At a certain point in most Christian teaching, it all boils down to faith. Faith ends up being the superseding factor regarding whether or not you get a satisfactory answer. If you believe, it will make sense.

That’s never been good enough for me.

I don’t take “Just because” well. When I was in high school geometry, I asked so many questions about trigonometry that my teacher asked me to see him after class. My classmates were baffled as to why I wouldn’t stop asking questions. Why I cared at all. Just put the numbers into sine, cosine, or tangent and your answer will ‘just be there’. I didn’t like that at all. What were these magic formulas that just knew the answer? And more importantly, how the fuck did someone figure out these formulas so that my dumb ass could just poke a button on a calculator? I wanted to know the how and why these formulas worked at all. My classmates just wanted me to shut up. My teacher, knowing that the rest of the class didn’t care, but that I would be a disruption until the end of the year if I didn’t get my answer, sat down with me after school for at least an hour to explain how tangent, sine, and cosine were derived and why they functioned the way they did. It was the most patient and wonderful any teacher has ever been with me.

If I’m that persistent with questions about small things like basic geometry, imagine how frustrating I can be to clergy, youth leaders and really anyone who will have a discussion with me about God. Some of the only people I’ve found that relish in rather than run away from my questions, are rabbis. When I’ve brought questions to rabbis I know, I’m met with thoughtful conversation and usually leave not with answers, but better questions.

So, here’s what I know- I can’t stop asking questions (Both in a metaphoric sense, but also probably physically) and I’ve used a lot of different methods in my life to try to find answers. If I need to know how to truss a chicken, Google’s there for me. If I’m asking how to rotate the tires on my car, my Dad’s got an answer. But, when I’m asking whether or not my faith matters, or how to parse the idea that God is not what I was raised to believe they are, who do I ask? In this moment, with these questions, Judaism. Not that I can ask one abstract concept about another, but I want to use Jewish teachings, traditions and scholarship to try to find the answers. It’s felt like opening a new toolbox, full of strange and foreign tools that I know are made for a specific task, but I don’t know how to use them yet. Imagine holding a screwdriver, but having only seen nails your whole life. You know it’s good for something, but you’re not sure what yet. Each tool is like a lockpick that I keep using to try to open different questions, hoping that one of them will open the lock to reveal the answer. I’m finding that sometimes it takes multiple attempts, or even multiple tools to get each lock open. And once it’s open there’s rarely an answer inside, usually it’s just another lock with another question.

I think hoping that one day I’ll be able to unlock all the questions is unrealistic. What I’m hoping for is that one day I have the appropriate toolbox to pick apart any question, and that the satisfaction in asking and seeking never goes away. I don’t think I’ll ever stop having questions, and hopefully Judaism will never stop having better ones.

Attempting to Explore My Faith, Again

I grew up Christian, and I don’t say that with the usual giant caveat that most people associate with that statement. Have you ever noticed that when most people say “I grew up Christian” there is an implied ‘and I hated it’? I didn’t. Growing up, my faith was an integral part of who I was and informed a great number of decisions in my life. I went to church almost every week and actually liked it most of the time. I think this is primarily because the church my family was a part of was full of fantastic people that worked hard to create a community that was welcoming.

As I got older, the sense of home I had within church dwindled. I could never find a community that made me feel as comfortable as my previous church had. I even went to a few churches that flat out made me feel unwelcome. One church I went to all but excommunicated me over a miscommunication about a bicycle. (It’s a long story that’s not actually very good, so I’ll spare you the details. Just know that I had been attending this church off and on for over a year, and was treated like garbage over something I had no real control over). I couldn’t find meaningful connections to people, which had always been my most favorite part about being a part of a congregation.

So, I fell out of love with church. I still thought of myself as a Christian, but my theology at that point was pretty different compared to most main-stream protestant denominations. When I was in college, I did a lot of reading about Deism and I really connected to the idea of God as a creator. As an artist, I related to a deity that was invested in the best interests of their creations. I also took classes taught by one of the best professors I had in my entire undergraduate education about Islam, Buddhism, and Christianity. I did a lot of studying. I did a lot of learning. I continued to try local churches to see if I could find a new congregation to call home, but I could never find one. I could never fully reconcile the idea of Jesus being divine on my own, and I couldn’t find a church or pastor patient enough to deal with my barrage of questions on the subject. At a certain point it always came down to ‘you just have to believe’ and that was never good enough for me.

I eventually arrived at a place where I wasn’t interested in making my faith a priority. I had other things to worry about and my faith wasn’t bringing me down per se, but it wasn’t lifting me up the way it used to. I put it on the back burner. It was there, simmering, but I had other things to work out that felt much more pressing. (Like, I dunno… my gender?) In that time, I’ve watched my spouse undergo an intense conversion to Judaism. It’s been confusing and exciting to be a part of. Over the last few years, it’s been like watching him step into the proper version of himself. A second skin that was always there, but he never knew how to wear it properly. The most gratifying thing about it all has been watching him thrive and be happy.

Only in the last several months have I had the energy to even think about my own faith again. I’m trying to let myself open up old and vulnerable wounds to understand something new about myself. So, I’m doing what I always do when I’m not sure how to proceed- I’m reading, I’m learning, and I’m trying really hard to let myself ask questions without having answers. A few weeks ago, my spouse and I started an Introduction to Judaism course at our local synagogue. (Which has been me furiously taking notes, trying to learn anything and everything that I can, and my spouse trying really hard not to fall asleep. Thanks for bearing with me, dear!) It feels like a step in the right direction. Who knows where it’ll take me, but I’m not looking for answers yet, just continuing to ask questions.

Anti-Semitism in Chicago

Yesterday a whole lot of stupid and hate happened right outside my old neighborhood in Chicago. I lived in East Rogers Park for five of the six years I lived in Chicago, so I have a strong affinity for the diverse and developing neighborhood. And yesterday, some bigots decided to plaster their bullshit all over the homes of the local Jewish community.

I find that while I have a lot to say on the matter, I have great issues articulating most of it. I will never understand blind hatred. No one gets to choose who their parents are, and so it seems equally nonsensical to me to hate someone for the color of their skin as it does for being Jewish. Hating someone for any arbitrary reason is the most infuriating and ludicrous thing I have encountered in my life. I don’t understand it, and never will.

While no one gets to choose their family, I  happen to be in an unusual situation, having actively chosen to be a part of the Jewish community. My husband officially converted about six months ago, but has been very involved in our local synagogue for years. Only in the last year or so have I started to consider where I stand and whether I want to be Jewish. While I haven’t officially converted and still have a lot to learn about how to be Jewish, I have found a loving, thriving and supportive community that I couldn’t be more proud to be a part of. At the moment, this seems to be all I’m capable of saying about the subject.