Posted September 18 2007
Wait…what?
Growing up conservative yet attending a hard core Hebrew School three times a week, I learned a lot about Judaism, from Chaggim to Kashrut all the way to Tanach. I was fortunate to grow up in a predominately Jewish town where everyone was at least traditional and knew what they needed to do. From there I headed to Yeshiva University, where everyone knew what to do and why, so we never had to think hard about it. There was a big change once graduation hit. I now attend law school under the umbrella of a Jewish university, where I do not have to worry about missing classes for holidays or finding something kosher to eat (while the school is in the middle of nowhere, there is an all-kosher cafeteria). During orientation, I was fortunate enough to meet a lot of the students in the 1L class, a few of whom were Jewish but not religious. The main question that I received, over and over again was “Why?”
“Why can’t you have cheese on your burgers?”
“Why can’t you study on Saturday afternoons?”
“Why is there a sink in the middle of the cafeteria but no soap?”
“Why do you do it? It’s so much and sounds so hard!”
I have to admit, some of these questions caught me off guard. One woman looked at me and said, “I know you can’t eat pig because pigs don’t sweat and are therefore considered dirty,” a point that I have never heard in all my years of Hebrew School and undergrad learning, “but still, why can’t you have meat and dairy together? And if you have meat for lunch, why can’t you go out for ice cream after?” I had to seriously stop and think, and even consult the new campus rabbi for some of these questions.
We all know that there are things that we cannot do as observant Jews, but do we all know the reasons for them? An even bigger question is how do we explain it to people who do not understand? I’m now not only talking about non-Jews, but Jews too who have grown up completely ignorant of their religion. To an outsider, we may even seem like a cult. We even sometimes seem like a cult to me. Explaining the Kaparot (atonement) ceremony to a friend I went on Birthright with made me seem like a crazy person, but to even think of explaining it to my study buddies at school is complete insanity.
My point at the end of all of this is that we must not only do, we must know why we do all of these crazy things! When we were given the Torah at Mt. Sinai, we told HaShem that we will do and we will listen - we will take on whatever Mitzvah that HaShem wants us to, but we will also learn about it and learn why. Without knowing the why, what is stopping us from ceasing the practice? We all need to know why we observe what we observe so that when we pass our practices down to our children and our children’s children, we do not just receive blank looks from them, but a sense of comprehension.
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