I’m not really Jewish. But I’m really good at faking it.
My roommates, two of my closest friends, are Jewish. They keep a kosher kitchen down to the silverware, while I do nothing of the sort. We’ve got three sets of every dish and utensil: meat, dairy and Camille. During Shabbat, the day of rest, I’m the only one in the house who can use electricity or do chores.
I’m also in the Jewish a cappella group ShireiNU. I know as many Hebrew words as I can sing and I’m at Hillel way more often than the average goy. Twice a year, I do my fair share working Hillel’s Phone-a-thon to raise money for campus Jewish organizations. When I dial an unfriendly alum who grunts, “I’m not Jewish!” I’m tempted to retort, “Neither am I!”
When I say I’m not Jewish, I mean I could have been Jewish. My dad is Jewish and my mom is Catholic, making me biologically both and culturally neither. I grew up celebrating both sets of holidays and attending neither religious service. Plastic dreidels hang from my Christmas tree every year; the menorah sits on the windowsill next to a musical Charlie Brown Christmas toy skating rink.
I don’t know what it’s like to celebrate only one of these holidays, but having skipped out on religion my entire life, I also don’t know what it’s like to really celebrate either. I don’t believe in God — not really — but once in a while, I pray. I believe in karma with all my heart, but I don’t believe it’s the same thing as God. I — not a higher power — control my life and its outcomes, but sometimes things happen that I can’t change. Maybe I’m a hypocrite, maybe I’m realistic. I’m probably just indecisive.
My parents always told me religion was a nonissue in their relationship — their wedding was officiated by both a priest and a rabbi, like the punch line of a clichéd joke. In middle school, a friend showed me a page of her teen study Bible that said never to date non-Christians, because it just wasn’t going to work out. I decided God didn’t like me. In high school, a friend died of cancer. He was 14. I decided God was a lie.
For a while, I bemoaned organized religion, convinced that anyone who actually believed was a coward, unwilling to take responsibility for their own actions. I got over that phase quickly enough. Now here I am, a near-atheist at a school as culturally diverse as it is challenging, spending my weeknights cooking Shabbat dinner at Hillel and singing in Hebrew with assorted members of AEPi. I never saw this coming.
No, Northwestern hasn’t made me “more Jewish.” I know more of the words, more of the traditions, more of the history, but I’m no closer to believing than I was at my fake bat mitzvah. (When I turned 12, my grandmother said some phrases in Hebrew I didn’t understand and handed me a check. There was a cake. That’s pretty much it.)
What Northwestern has done is made me a better bystander. For those of us who aren’t into religion, it’s hard to understand such deep attachment to something so mysterious, but I’m starting to figure it out. It means something to my 86-year-old Bulgarian grandmother when I call her on a Jewish holiday and greet her in Hebrew. My roommates appreciate when I turn the heat on during cold Friday nights because they can’t use electricity, or when I go out of my way to buy kosher groceries. I could do that stuff anyway, but it means a little more when I understand why I’m doing it.
I not-so-secretly wish I were a little more Jewish, but that’s okay. I’m grateful that I can both mingle with cool people at Hillel and eat a cheeseburger without feeling guilty. Northwestern’s Jewish community might not be my home away from home, but it’s welcomed me with open arms, whether or not I go to services. I can’t ask for much more than that.
As for my own personal musings on fate, free will and the origin of the universe, I’m happy falling somewhere in the middle. Maybe one day I’ll find a word that describes exactly where I stand, but I think I’m doing just fine without. I guess sometimes religion is about more than believing.
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