[2328] in Depressing_Thoughts
Re: The role of religion
ckclark@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (ckclark@ATHENA.MIT.EDU)
Fri Sep 13 20:22:18 1991
amgreene>This doesn't mean that everyone in the world shold become Jewish.
As a religious viewpoint, this attitude seems to be unique to Judaism.
But I have a digression before I say more about that:
Back when I lived on Burton Two, and had a number of friends in the
"Kosher Suite", I was often caught in the middle of some debate over
Judaism and what it means and stuff. I had never known any Jewish
people personally before I came to MIT. (You may speculate on my origin
based on that if you like.) I did not voice any opinions, and I tried
very hard hold back any criticisms that were just burning to come out,
since I knew that I could lose friends quickly by saying what I really
thought. So I just listened, and tried to figure it out, because I
wanted to understand my friends, not because I wanted to understand
Judaism, because I don't...I don't even think it's possible, any more
than it would be possible for me to understand what it's like to be a
woman.
There are a couple of interactions which for some reason stuck in my
mind, and have since made a great impact on the subjective feelings I
have toward Judaism. One of them is just funny (to me, at least), and
the other I find quite depressing, so it will fit in this meeting rather
well.
One friend of mine said he "kept Kosher", and pretty much he seemed to,
as far as I know about that sort of thing. One day we were sitting
around having breakfast, and there he was with a hefty pile of bacon on
his plate, milk, whatever---a colonial breakfast, more or less. So I
said, ``I thought you kept Kosher.'' His reply was, ``Yes, I do, except
for bacon.'' I decided it was best to leave it at that.
The other "interaction" takes longer to describe.
Another friend of mine was once religious, but had become an atheist
about a year or so after arriving at MIT. He still put on an act of
pretending to be religious whenever he went home or whenever his parents
came to visit. I played along with the act, and some others did, too,
and tried not to give him away or anything, because we're his friends
and we knew that his parents would do something horrible if they found
out.
Anyway, one day, he was getting ready to go to a "Purim Party" (sp?) at
Brandeis and he looked at me and said, ``Hey, why don't you come
along?'' I laughed and said, ``I think I'd be a little out of place,
there, don't you think?'' But he insisted that theoretically I belonged
there just as much as he did, since neither of us believed in a god, and
I did not argue with him on this point, because it made sense, and I was
in the mood for a new experience. Soon after we got there, I noticed
some bizarre behavior among some of the people present. There were a
number of people pointing at me and whispering to each other, and it
didn't take me long to figure out that it wasn't something usual. If my
fly was open or if I had a "kick me" sign pasted to me back, then I
suppose people would stare and point, but then they'd just be laughing.
They weren't laughing. They did not seem amused at all. I decided to
go find my friend who had brought me there. He was busy trying to lose
himself, and forget about some ugly relationship he was involved in that
just blew apart. I told him what was going on, and he said, ``Wait
here!'' and went to talk to some people I didn't know, not that I knew
many people there. When he came back, he said, ``I think we should go
now.'' As we walked back to the car, he explained to me that there were
a number of people there who were very uneasy because I wasn't Jewish,
and said that he himself was surprised at their reaction. ``I thought
people would a bit more open-minded than that.'' When got to he car, he
said, ``Calvin, you are a white heterosexual male. There are not many
times you are going to experience prejudice in your life, but this is
one of them.'' But there was something more I needed to know. ``This is
not a religious issue at all, is it?'' I asked. He said, ``No, it's
not.'' At his request, we drove around a bit trying doing some
espionage to see what his ex-girlfriend was up to, and picked up a
couple of hitchhikers from Virginia who seemed to think we were gods
because we went to MIT, so the night was not a total loss, as a bit of
ego-feeding every once in while is not such a bad thing.
Back to my reason for quoting Rhu: since then I've thought many times
that I'd make the first step to understanding Judaism if I could just
the meaning of the fact the Judaism is not a religion which tries to
convert others, as the reasons behind those reasons seem to be very
important to Jews.
I've stopped trying to understand.
