Happy New Year, Part Two

I am a Jew. And I am not a Jew.

On one hand, I was born of two Jewish parents, each from families of Reformed Jews (read: less religion, more culture). And even though my Mother and Father had Anglo-Saxon names (Robert and Jane) and rarely attended synagogue, for some reason they gave me a Biblical name and sent me to Jewish day school and day camp, where I learned Hebrew and played with other Jewish kids. Although I had to re-learn all that Hebrew years later for my Bar Mitzvah, I did at least have one. And throughout the years I was in California, I returned to New York without fail for my grandmother’s annual Passover Seder.

On the other hand, after my parents’ divorce... after I moved with my mother to Utah and then to Maryland... I lost my childhood connection with Judaism, which was inextricably linked with my father’s family, with New York. When I would return for the Seders, I felt like a bit of an exile among the extended family who, by their accents and attitudes, seemed to be more plugged in to Jewish life somehow. Although born of Manhattan, I had become more a creature of mid-Atlantic culture. Not quite North, but not quite South. Not quite Black, but not quite White. It was that cultural ambiva-land that made me who I am: Jewish, but not quite.

Jewish culture took a back seat to African-American and pop culture. Religion took a back seat to Politics. By the time I returned as a young man to make my life in New York, hip-hop was my religion and my spirituality.

California changed that for a number of reasons, foremost among them the 11-minute yoga exercise that saved my life. 3000 miles from home, in the City of Angels, I came to need spirit.

But the answers I got didn’t come from the Five Books of Moses, as they were supposed to, but from the teachings of Kundalini Yoga, itself an interesting hybrid of Hindu technology and Sikh spirituality. Being a yogi makes you a Universalist, seeing Truth in all the world’s traditions. So though I found particular strength in the tradition I was currently practicing, I tried to bring in as much Judaism as I could. I found a congregation in Los Angeles and, for the first time, took myself to sabbaths and High Holy Day services. But try as a might to find a connection, Judaism was still like church, while Kundalini was more like first aid.

The closet thing I’ve ever had to a rabbi in my life – someone who I’d call a spiritual teacher – was Yogi Bhajan, the master of Kundalini Yoga. So instead of some guy named Greenberg with a yarmakule giving me sage advice, it was Yogi Bhajan telling me things like “your arc line is broken” and “your testicles are no good.” I guess that was just the way things turned out. The only Jewish ritual that has made itself a part of my daily practice is the Shema, a short prayer.

So I did feel a little alienated during my first trip to Israel this year. Like I had missed experiencing that connection growing up. I was with people my age who had been to Israel several times, lived there, knew Hebrew, all of that.

And tonight, at Yom Kippur services, I expected to feel the same kind of distance I feel on the High Holy Days, especially at my family’s temple, Central Synagogue, the bastion of Upper East Side New York Judaism. Incredibly Christianized, it’s Judaism stripped of its ethnicity, Judaism in service of its congregants’ lifestyle, Judaism in service of Jewish politics.

Instead, I wept with gratitude. It didn’t matter to me that I had no connection to the people around me (save my grandparents and cousin). I was actually glad not to be one of them, glad not to be a typical New York Jew, and the stereotypes that I’ve come to see in the worst of them — incestuous, obnoxious, entitled. But I was happy to be in the place where, as an infant, I got my Hebrew name. Glad to be a New Yorker again. Glad to be with the Charnas family, better late than never. And grateful for a very, very rich year with more blessings than I’ll ever be able to count.

Thank you.