I increased my Jewish observance and came to study in Israel because I recognized my ineluctablility of my Jewishness and decided that I needed to embrace it and endeavor to understand it if I wanted to understand myself. So for 3 months now I’ve been praying three times nearly everyday. I’ve been saying birkat hamazon after meals and saying blessings before eating whenever I could remember to. I’ve been saying a prayer of thanks for the proper functioning of my body after every visit to the toilet. I’ve been studying Torah intermittently, and midrash and hasidut. In two days, I’ll start my year program of study which will include Talmud, Chumash with Rashi, Halacha, Hasidut, .
What have I come to understand about my Jewishness during these three months? Judaism is still something that I largely do not understand. Malakhel says that the Torah is about separating Jews from idolatry. That’s a very Maimonidean perspective, isn’t it? Perhaps Judaism is more about preventing the worship of false gods, and less about the proper worship of the true God.
Today I missed maariv because I stayed up late watching a TV show about vampires and was too tired to daven before I went to sleep. This morning I slept until 10 and davened shacharit on my own. Tonight I’ll daven at Yakar.
Earlier this week, on Monday, I walked through Hezekiah’s Tunnel by means of which Jews in Jerusalem were able to access their major water supply without leaving the city walls during the Assyrian siege of 722 bce. The guide spoke about three seals found by archaeologists. These seals belonged to three men whose names are mentioned in the book of Jeremiah (I think it must be in Jeremiah, though I’m not completely certain). These three men knew the prophet. Two of them conspired to imprison and torture him for his prophecies and the third was his friend. I didn’t know anything about either Assyria’s role in Jewish history or Jeremiah’s situation with respect to the destruction of the First Temple.
I’ve hiked in the Negev with my father’s 82-year-old cousin and his 21-year-old grandson. I’ve stayed with other cousins and friends in Pardesiyya and Carmiel.
I’ve always thought that religion is a bit like Yoga. In Yoga, the point is not to master all the positions — almost no one can. The point, rather, is to work on taking the next step in expanding one’s capabilities. I like to say that the proper step to take is the one that’s right in front of you. It is this work of continuing g”rowth that is the practice of Yoga.
I’d venture that learning Judaism is similar. The thing to do is to learn what one needs next to learn. To add to practice throughout one’s life.
An interesting test of this idea might be to talk with some of the senior instructors at the Yeshiva. Ask if there came a point at which they “understood” Judaism. My hunch is that the reply will be that they are continuing to be students.