It has been far too long since I've posted, and to any "regular" readers who may have given up on me, I apologize. Fear not. The Wandering Jew is still wandering, if not physically, than certainly mentally (as evidenced by the fact that I'm writing this post instead of the paper I have due in less than 72 hours, but then again, perfecting the art of procrastination is a requirement for budding PhDs).
Much has occurred since my last post, all of it positive, or at least contributing to progressive motion. I've become a homeowner, have quit my full-time job in favor of the life of an honest-to-goodness graduate student (I'm still working part-time to help put Cinnamon Toast Crunch in my bowl), and in just over a month, I will be sharing my new digs--a sprawling, deluxe 500-some-odd square foot urban studio (with a window!)--with the person with whom I hope someday to be sharing meals, bank accounts, and children (She's quite stunning).
Tonight is the first night in the new condo, and I'm posting from the area of the floor where, if all goes according to schedule tomorrow, the bed will be placed. I'll spend tonight on a makeshift mattress of dirty blankets over clean carpet, and I'll spend tomorrow neglecting my school work yet again, choosing instead to haul away the few possessions that remain in my old apartment.
For now, however, I'm left to reflect on what ownership of property represents for me as a young person taking the alternate route in this strange generation of fast money and big ambition.
I fear--nay, know--that I am spiraling unavoidably into the phenomenon that some of my colleagues have cleverly and accurately termed the "quarter-life crisis." I may have mentioned this in different terms previously, but as it represents a large chunk of my thought process lately, I'm devoting yet another post to the insecurities and uncertainties that are common when one pursues knowledge instead of cash.
But in all seriousness, I look at my two best friends from college, and I look at myself, and while I have much of which to be proud, I wonder if I haven't tricked myself into believing that I am better off taking this intellectual "high road," pursuing the life of the mind and eschewing greed and materialism and blah blah blah, when in reality, I'm simply doing myself a disservice. The two friends from college with whom I am in the closest contact are a soon-to-be-lawyer, and a computer programmer. The soon-to-be-lawyer celebrated his 25th birthday two months ago, and in two months will be an associate with a New York law firm making $160,000 base salary with an additional $50,000-$80,000 annual bonus (depending on the firm's revenue). The computer programmer makes somewhere in the range of $100,000-120,000 per year, drives a Jaguar, is about to buy his second home (while keeping the first as an investment property), and will be engaged to his girlfriend in less than a month.
I, by contrast, have never broken the $50,000 income barrier, am on no particular career track, don't own a car, and own my home only by virtue of the fact that I have ample savings from a "previous life" that I am loathe to spend on anything but the occasional investment. It's for my future children, not for me.
Life would be perfect if I were happily pursuing this doctorate, taking perverse joy in grad student poverty and knowing that some sort of lucrative career (see: college friends #1 and 2) or trust fund (see: college friend #3, who gave up a career with a Big 8 consulting firm to enter the restaurant business) waiting for me on the other end. But this is not the case. The primary option for somebody with a PhD in my discipline is academia, and in the academic job market, nothing is guaranteed. If you're lucky, you have tenure (and a livable salary) by the time you're 36 or 37. Most people aren't that lucky. The unlucky ones languish in adjunct, lecturer, or visiting assistant professor positions for years until finally giving in and entering industry or retiring and living on social security (the reality is probably not quite this gloomy, but it's close).
Add this to the equation: as painful as this is to admit, and I have tried to deny myself this admission ever since I embarked on this educational path, I like nice things. I like traveling abroad. I would love to buy a nice car. I would love to take my girlfriend to London for the weekend, or to Tokyo, or at the very least, to a high-end restaurant from time to time. I would love to buy a bigger home. I would love to wear nicer clothes, drink more expensive liquor, fly first class once in awhile. It's horrible. I feel like a glutton admitting this, but it's true. I like to think that I'm unmotivated by money--that with occupational passion will come financial security--but the truth is that I want to be a provider to my family, and I want to be able to offer them and myself more than an ordinary middle-class lifestyle.
So where does this leave me? The PhD has always been an ambition of mine. It's something that I've always wanted to do for self-fulfillment, and if I were to back out now (or sometime before actually earning the degree), I know that I would feel more than a twinge of regret. I'm not a quitter, and quitting this, of all endeavors, would fly in the face of the very core of my identity.
That being said, I am tired of counting my pennies. I'm tired of wondering if I'll be able to afford a family by age 30 (how horrible does that sound? "Afford" a family. Like it's the extra-large tub of Cheetos at Costco). I'm tired of having to choose between paying my mortgage or taking a vacation. I'm tired of the sympathetic looks and false encouragement of my peers when I tell them that, no, I'm not in finance, nor law, nor consulting. No, I'm a Grad Student! I might as well be saying, "I'm poor. I'll always be poor. I couldn't hack it in your world, so I'm being defiant and living, instead, in my own."
And yet, there is still that essential part of me that loves the pursuit of knowledge--loves the competition of it--loves wondering whether or not my paper will be accepted at the big conference. Loves knowing that failure is on the table, that it's an option. That's the part of me that thrives on uncertainty, on constant change, on doing things unconventionally.
But is that really fair to the people I love, who love me, and for whom I will someday be responsible as a provider? Is it fair to force this insecurity, this uncertainty, on myself, simply because I'm too stubborn to admit that maybe--just maybe--there's no room in this generation for empty-pocketed ponderers?
Stay tuned, quarter-lifers.
Friday, April 4, 2008
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Passages
This post is dedicated to two college acquaintances, neither of whom I counted among my closest friends, but both of whom nonetheless left an indelible impression on me. Over the course of the past few weeks, they faced triumph and tragedy, respectively. Here are their stories:
Barry Cofield was a defensive lineman on our university's football team and, my junior year (his sophomore), he was assigned as my partner in our mandatory "Analysis of Performance" (drama) course. Barry was kind but soft-spoken and of very few words, and as most Big Ten defensive linemen tend to be, he was of quite intimidating stature (I ran into him at a bar a year after I graduated, and while it seemed impossible, his bulk had increased significantly since those heady days in AnalPerf. Despite his size and status on the team, he still took a few moments to chat and make sure that I'd graduated on time and that all was well). Barry and I were required to rate each other's classroom performances of works such as Poe's "Cask of Amontillado" and Frost's "The Road Not Taken."
The lasting image that I took from that class was Barry's unexpectedly poignant rendition of Frost's classic. It was certainly out of character for him, and yet, he trod gently through the piece. He portrayed a homeless man, sleeping on newspapers, slowly rising, defiance welling, struggling mightily with the fact that there were yet still "miles to go before I sleep."
Two days ago--years after that performance viewed by only 15 college students, fewer of whom probably remember it--I watched on TV as my old Analysis of Performance partner turned in yet another unforgettable performance...collecting a Super Bowl championship as starting nose tackle for the New York Giants, whose defensive unit shocked the sporting world by utterly dominating Tom Brady and the previously undefeated, heavily favored New England Patriots.
__________________________________________________________________
Eric Gold was a fraternity brother of mine, and like me, he quickly tired of the dogma and pressure that are characteristic of fraternity life. He was a year older than I but, like me, spent little time at the house and was not particularly close with most of the brothers. In turn, some of the brothers viewed us with suspicion and perhaps some disdain. Eric was sickly, always coughing, and claimed that his chronic respiratory ailments prevented him from most fraternity activities. I, on the other hand, was beginning to find my own way, and after the first few confusing months of fraternity life, began to drift away. Like Eric, I only ventured to the house for our weekly chapter meetings, and because we were both on the fringes of the organization, we would sit next to each other, marveling at the absurdity of it all--the false pomp and circumstance and the hypocrisy of the false brotherhood exhibited by some (few seemed to believe that Eric was actually sick, instead buying into the rumor that he feigned illness to shirk his responsibilities to the fraternity).
Ultimately, we both parted ways with the house, pursuing other goals, friendships, and endeavors. Over the course of the next few years, I would occasionally run into Eric, who went on for a master's degree at our school's speech pathology department. Our conversations, while few and far between, were always a pleasure, always genuine, and we were always sincerely interested in each other's progress toward our respective goals.
Not long before I graduated, I read an article in our university's daily newspaper about Eric, who, unbeknownst to myself or to our other mutual acquaintances, had received a double lung transplant after struggling with a rare form of fibrosis that, as many had observed, had left him unable to struggle through even the least strenuous of physical exertion.
The simple fact that he had undergone and survived such a procedure was impressive enough, but this paled in comparison to the punchline of the article. Eric, after life-threatening surgery and debilitating disease, had successfully run a half-marathon and had completed the "Hustle up the Hancock," a stairway race to the top of Chicago's third-tallest building.
Remarkable!
Soon after reading that article, Eric and I both walked across the stage at our university's graduation--Eric with his master's degree and me with my bachelor's. After the ceremony, outside in one of the school's many courtyards, the sun beamed down on a sea of new graduates, degrees in hand, the world waiting for them to conquer, and Eric and I chatted about the fraternity, about leaving our school, and about his perseverance. We left each other that day with warm wishes for the future and promises to keep in touch.
Eric and I never saw each other again.
Occasionally, I would read about him in local papers, and when I moved to New York, I would hear about his successes through mutual friends. The Hustle up the Hancock became an annual tradition, and through his heroism, bravery, and perseverance, he raised thousands of dollars for the American Lung Association.
Last November, I received a startling e-mail from a friend of ours. Eric had been diagnosed with terminal cancer and was given no more than six months to live.
Immediately, I e-mailed him to see if the rumors were true, and sure enough, the message he wrote back confirmed the terrifying news: "You heard correctly," he said. "I was diagnosed with lymphoma that has mestastasized to my lungs. They tell me that I have six months to live."
I didn't know exactly how to respond, but wrote something about somebody who was hustling up the Hancock after a double lung transplant could surely win this battle too.
In the end, those new lungs that had served as his wings were ultimately his Achilles heel. Eric lost his battle in January, just six days after his 26th birthday.
According to his obituary in the Orlando Sentinel (his hometown paper), he had pledged that he would crawl up the steps of the Hancock this year if he had to. Later this month, his father will climb in his stead, no doubt with a heavy heart--a tribute to a young man who, although he lost this battle, will always be a role model, an inspiration, and indeed a survivor.
Barry Cofield was a defensive lineman on our university's football team and, my junior year (his sophomore), he was assigned as my partner in our mandatory "Analysis of Performance" (drama) course. Barry was kind but soft-spoken and of very few words, and as most Big Ten defensive linemen tend to be, he was of quite intimidating stature (I ran into him at a bar a year after I graduated, and while it seemed impossible, his bulk had increased significantly since those heady days in AnalPerf. Despite his size and status on the team, he still took a few moments to chat and make sure that I'd graduated on time and that all was well). Barry and I were required to rate each other's classroom performances of works such as Poe's "Cask of Amontillado" and Frost's "The Road Not Taken."
The lasting image that I took from that class was Barry's unexpectedly poignant rendition of Frost's classic. It was certainly out of character for him, and yet, he trod gently through the piece. He portrayed a homeless man, sleeping on newspapers, slowly rising, defiance welling, struggling mightily with the fact that there were yet still "miles to go before I sleep."
Two days ago--years after that performance viewed by only 15 college students, fewer of whom probably remember it--I watched on TV as my old Analysis of Performance partner turned in yet another unforgettable performance...collecting a Super Bowl championship as starting nose tackle for the New York Giants, whose defensive unit shocked the sporting world by utterly dominating Tom Brady and the previously undefeated, heavily favored New England Patriots.
__________________________________________________________________
Eric Gold was a fraternity brother of mine, and like me, he quickly tired of the dogma and pressure that are characteristic of fraternity life. He was a year older than I but, like me, spent little time at the house and was not particularly close with most of the brothers. In turn, some of the brothers viewed us with suspicion and perhaps some disdain. Eric was sickly, always coughing, and claimed that his chronic respiratory ailments prevented him from most fraternity activities. I, on the other hand, was beginning to find my own way, and after the first few confusing months of fraternity life, began to drift away. Like Eric, I only ventured to the house for our weekly chapter meetings, and because we were both on the fringes of the organization, we would sit next to each other, marveling at the absurdity of it all--the false pomp and circumstance and the hypocrisy of the false brotherhood exhibited by some (few seemed to believe that Eric was actually sick, instead buying into the rumor that he feigned illness to shirk his responsibilities to the fraternity).
Ultimately, we both parted ways with the house, pursuing other goals, friendships, and endeavors. Over the course of the next few years, I would occasionally run into Eric, who went on for a master's degree at our school's speech pathology department. Our conversations, while few and far between, were always a pleasure, always genuine, and we were always sincerely interested in each other's progress toward our respective goals.
Not long before I graduated, I read an article in our university's daily newspaper about Eric, who, unbeknownst to myself or to our other mutual acquaintances, had received a double lung transplant after struggling with a rare form of fibrosis that, as many had observed, had left him unable to struggle through even the least strenuous of physical exertion.
The simple fact that he had undergone and survived such a procedure was impressive enough, but this paled in comparison to the punchline of the article. Eric, after life-threatening surgery and debilitating disease, had successfully run a half-marathon and had completed the "Hustle up the Hancock," a stairway race to the top of Chicago's third-tallest building.
Remarkable!
Soon after reading that article, Eric and I both walked across the stage at our university's graduation--Eric with his master's degree and me with my bachelor's. After the ceremony, outside in one of the school's many courtyards, the sun beamed down on a sea of new graduates, degrees in hand, the world waiting for them to conquer, and Eric and I chatted about the fraternity, about leaving our school, and about his perseverance. We left each other that day with warm wishes for the future and promises to keep in touch.
Eric and I never saw each other again.
Occasionally, I would read about him in local papers, and when I moved to New York, I would hear about his successes through mutual friends. The Hustle up the Hancock became an annual tradition, and through his heroism, bravery, and perseverance, he raised thousands of dollars for the American Lung Association.
Last November, I received a startling e-mail from a friend of ours. Eric had been diagnosed with terminal cancer and was given no more than six months to live.
Immediately, I e-mailed him to see if the rumors were true, and sure enough, the message he wrote back confirmed the terrifying news: "You heard correctly," he said. "I was diagnosed with lymphoma that has mestastasized to my lungs. They tell me that I have six months to live."
I didn't know exactly how to respond, but wrote something about somebody who was hustling up the Hancock after a double lung transplant could surely win this battle too.
In the end, those new lungs that had served as his wings were ultimately his Achilles heel. Eric lost his battle in January, just six days after his 26th birthday.
According to his obituary in the Orlando Sentinel (his hometown paper), he had pledged that he would crawl up the steps of the Hancock this year if he had to. Later this month, his father will climb in his stead, no doubt with a heavy heart--a tribute to a young man who, although he lost this battle, will always be a role model, an inspiration, and indeed a survivor.
Monday, January 21, 2008
Illuminations
I realize that it's been nearly a month since my last post, and to anybody out there who frequents this little corner of cyberspace, I apologize for my absence. Now that I'm back in the States, back at work, and back into the routine of school and teaching, I can begin to write regularly again here, as well.
I last left you just prior to my departure for Israel, my second trip to that country and a journey that I assumed would consist largely of treading on fairly familiar territory. While the purpose of the trip last time was largely for pleasure and perhaps also as a means to connect with the culture to which I belong, the goals of this adventure revolved more around determining the role that Judaism would play in my adult life than they did around sightseeing and shopping. I assumed that, in the span of my 10 days in Israel, I might feel some sort of reconnection with my heritage as well as an appreciation for the dense concentration of historical sites within Israel itself. What I did not expect, however, was the depth of the connection that I would feel and some of the feelings of both regret and determination that the journey aroused.
The film "Everything is Illuminated," which is adapted from the novel of the same name, ends with the quote, "Everything is illuminated by the light of the past...from the inside out." This film happens to be about a young Jewish man who travels to the village in Eastern Europe from which his grandfather fled Nazi oppression during World War II. There, he not only learns his identity as a descendant of the village's long-dead youth, but he also witnesses several other transformations that, it seems, are only possible once you are forced to view yourself not as someone living in the present, but as a link in an unfinished chain of humanity. As such, your job is primarily to ensure the strong construction of the next link--to ensure that it is sturdy and of the same material as the previous. It should be resistant to corrosion, durable, of the same makeup as the links that have allowed for its creation, and cognizant of its importance in ensuring that the next link can evolve and sustain itself.
Personal goals are important, to be sure, and anybody that knows me knows that I am somebody who is a goal setter and a person of significant ambition and competitive spirit. There is, however, a greater purpose, and it is one that this journey helped to illuminate for me--to make our chain stronger despite my residence in a society that, while great and proud, is also potentially corrosive to it.
This post will not be a blow-by-blow rehash of my trip to Israel. I've provided my favorite video from the adventure, and that will have to suffice for now as the extent of my description of the events on the ground. There is far too much ideology and self-discovery to sift through, and it will likely take more than one post to do so.
As a member of an ethnic group in America (and I use the term ethnic group--not religion--deliberately), I have always struggled with questions of identity. Who am I first and foremost? Am I an American? Am I a Jew? Am I a Jewish American? An American Jew? To most of my non-Jewish peers and countrypeople, I am an American who happens to be Jewish. To view myself otherwise would, to many of them, be an overstatement of the importance of my family's past. "Why do you refuse to assimilate?" is a question of Jewish people that I have heard uttered over and over again by the secular or Gentile majority. As an American citizen, educated in American schools, paying American taxes, I indeed identify on a daily and hourly basis as an American, and I believe that there is still no place of greater opportunity than the U.S.
America has been described as a land without a culture--a melting pot or a mixed salad and a nation-state that borrows its culture from the heritage of the people that comprise its population. Still, with Jews consisting of just over 2% of that population, my personal heritage is one that, if I am not proactive, I can conceivably eliminate completely from my identity, and the vast majority of people with whom I come into contact would have no clue, nor much of an opinion, on my choice.
Indeed, were it not for my parents and my very small handful of Jewish friends, I might never knowingly come in contact with people who share this culture, heritage, and any whisper of a sense of responsibility to shape the next link in the Jewish cultural chain.
Prior to my recent journey, I had come to a point where, except with a few people with whom I am especially close, I did not discuss my "Jewishness." If quizzed about my religious or cultural background, I would not hesitate to identify myself as a Jew, but I would also quickly qualify it with a terse, "but I'm not really observant," or a chorus of, "but I still love pork chops."
It seems to me that this rush to claim assimilation is something that is decidedly American, and after my experience, it is my discomfort with this attitude that has led me to discover that--for better or for worse, and regardless of how it might strike my fellow Americans--I am a Jew who happens also to be an American.
This is a difficult realization at which to arrive, given my love for this country and the fact that such anti-assimilationist attitudes are often ill-received by those who do not share them.
I like to keep on my door a small piece of artwork known as a Mezuzah. It is a small container that holds inside of it a scroll on which is inscribed some of the holiest blessings of the Jewish religion. One of those blessings dictates that we keep these words on the gates of our houses, and as a result, a Jewish household has always been identifiable by the presence of a Mezuzah on the right doorpost.
An example of how I have adjusted my attitude: One morning a few months ago, I woke up and realized that, sometime during the night, someone had ripped the Mezuzah off of my door. Slightly perturbed that somebody had messed with my personal property, I thought little of it after the initial frustration and have yet to replace it. In reality, however, this was not a simple invasion of personal space. It was an attack--minor though it may be--on the right of Jewish people to practice our culture in a society that claims to pride itself on the freedom of its citizens to do just that. It was a denial of 3,000 years of heritage that have survived to this day and are carried on by only roughly 25 million people worldwide (compared to over a billion practitioners of each of Catholicism and Islam).
After spending 10 days in a place that represents the very struggle of those 25 million individuals to continue to exist as a people, I am at once ashamed of my nonchalant reaction to the theft of my Mezuzah and am also determined not only to replace it, but also to make sure than neither I nor my children ever again take lightly the responsibility to maintain this dying culture and chain of heritage and to build in that chain links that remain Jews first who are loyal to the nation-state in which they happen to reside, as long as that nation-state recognizes their right to exist within its borders.
And in the event that the home countries of "disapora"--or non-Israeli--Jews become hostile to their right to practice their culture, then Jews retain yet another right--the right to a homeland where they can go to be safe from persecution, welcomed as citizens, and free to flourish. While Jews have found extraordinary success in America and other parts of the West, there are still places where they struggle for the right to exist culturally as well as for their literal survival. These places include Poland and other countries of Eastern Europe, parts of Africa, and much of the Middle East.
I realize that this post seems fiercely ethnocentric, and while that is not the goal, I also believe that members of any culture group have the right to identify strongly with that culture, to practice it, and to defend its maintenance across generations. Perhaps if we all view ourselves not as creatures of the present, but instead as contemporary vessels illuminated always by the spirit of our ancestors, we will develop a greater sense of value for life and culture in the here and now.
I last left you just prior to my departure for Israel, my second trip to that country and a journey that I assumed would consist largely of treading on fairly familiar territory. While the purpose of the trip last time was largely for pleasure and perhaps also as a means to connect with the culture to which I belong, the goals of this adventure revolved more around determining the role that Judaism would play in my adult life than they did around sightseeing and shopping. I assumed that, in the span of my 10 days in Israel, I might feel some sort of reconnection with my heritage as well as an appreciation for the dense concentration of historical sites within Israel itself. What I did not expect, however, was the depth of the connection that I would feel and some of the feelings of both regret and determination that the journey aroused.
The film "Everything is Illuminated," which is adapted from the novel of the same name, ends with the quote, "Everything is illuminated by the light of the past...from the inside out." This film happens to be about a young Jewish man who travels to the village in Eastern Europe from which his grandfather fled Nazi oppression during World War II. There, he not only learns his identity as a descendant of the village's long-dead youth, but he also witnesses several other transformations that, it seems, are only possible once you are forced to view yourself not as someone living in the present, but as a link in an unfinished chain of humanity. As such, your job is primarily to ensure the strong construction of the next link--to ensure that it is sturdy and of the same material as the previous. It should be resistant to corrosion, durable, of the same makeup as the links that have allowed for its creation, and cognizant of its importance in ensuring that the next link can evolve and sustain itself.
Personal goals are important, to be sure, and anybody that knows me knows that I am somebody who is a goal setter and a person of significant ambition and competitive spirit. There is, however, a greater purpose, and it is one that this journey helped to illuminate for me--to make our chain stronger despite my residence in a society that, while great and proud, is also potentially corrosive to it.
This post will not be a blow-by-blow rehash of my trip to Israel. I've provided my favorite video from the adventure, and that will have to suffice for now as the extent of my description of the events on the ground. There is far too much ideology and self-discovery to sift through, and it will likely take more than one post to do so.
As a member of an ethnic group in America (and I use the term ethnic group--not religion--deliberately), I have always struggled with questions of identity. Who am I first and foremost? Am I an American? Am I a Jew? Am I a Jewish American? An American Jew? To most of my non-Jewish peers and countrypeople, I am an American who happens to be Jewish. To view myself otherwise would, to many of them, be an overstatement of the importance of my family's past. "Why do you refuse to assimilate?" is a question of Jewish people that I have heard uttered over and over again by the secular or Gentile majority. As an American citizen, educated in American schools, paying American taxes, I indeed identify on a daily and hourly basis as an American, and I believe that there is still no place of greater opportunity than the U.S.
America has been described as a land without a culture--a melting pot or a mixed salad and a nation-state that borrows its culture from the heritage of the people that comprise its population. Still, with Jews consisting of just over 2% of that population, my personal heritage is one that, if I am not proactive, I can conceivably eliminate completely from my identity, and the vast majority of people with whom I come into contact would have no clue, nor much of an opinion, on my choice.
Indeed, were it not for my parents and my very small handful of Jewish friends, I might never knowingly come in contact with people who share this culture, heritage, and any whisper of a sense of responsibility to shape the next link in the Jewish cultural chain.
Prior to my recent journey, I had come to a point where, except with a few people with whom I am especially close, I did not discuss my "Jewishness." If quizzed about my religious or cultural background, I would not hesitate to identify myself as a Jew, but I would also quickly qualify it with a terse, "but I'm not really observant," or a chorus of, "but I still love pork chops."
It seems to me that this rush to claim assimilation is something that is decidedly American, and after my experience, it is my discomfort with this attitude that has led me to discover that--for better or for worse, and regardless of how it might strike my fellow Americans--I am a Jew who happens also to be an American.
This is a difficult realization at which to arrive, given my love for this country and the fact that such anti-assimilationist attitudes are often ill-received by those who do not share them.
I like to keep on my door a small piece of artwork known as a Mezuzah. It is a small container that holds inside of it a scroll on which is inscribed some of the holiest blessings of the Jewish religion. One of those blessings dictates that we keep these words on the gates of our houses, and as a result, a Jewish household has always been identifiable by the presence of a Mezuzah on the right doorpost.
An example of how I have adjusted my attitude: One morning a few months ago, I woke up and realized that, sometime during the night, someone had ripped the Mezuzah off of my door. Slightly perturbed that somebody had messed with my personal property, I thought little of it after the initial frustration and have yet to replace it. In reality, however, this was not a simple invasion of personal space. It was an attack--minor though it may be--on the right of Jewish people to practice our culture in a society that claims to pride itself on the freedom of its citizens to do just that. It was a denial of 3,000 years of heritage that have survived to this day and are carried on by only roughly 25 million people worldwide (compared to over a billion practitioners of each of Catholicism and Islam).
After spending 10 days in a place that represents the very struggle of those 25 million individuals to continue to exist as a people, I am at once ashamed of my nonchalant reaction to the theft of my Mezuzah and am also determined not only to replace it, but also to make sure than neither I nor my children ever again take lightly the responsibility to maintain this dying culture and chain of heritage and to build in that chain links that remain Jews first who are loyal to the nation-state in which they happen to reside, as long as that nation-state recognizes their right to exist within its borders.
And in the event that the home countries of "disapora"--or non-Israeli--Jews become hostile to their right to practice their culture, then Jews retain yet another right--the right to a homeland where they can go to be safe from persecution, welcomed as citizens, and free to flourish. While Jews have found extraordinary success in America and other parts of the West, there are still places where they struggle for the right to exist culturally as well as for their literal survival. These places include Poland and other countries of Eastern Europe, parts of Africa, and much of the Middle East.
I realize that this post seems fiercely ethnocentric, and while that is not the goal, I also believe that members of any culture group have the right to identify strongly with that culture, to practice it, and to defend its maintenance across generations. Perhaps if we all view ourselves not as creatures of the present, but instead as contemporary vessels illuminated always by the spirit of our ancestors, we will develop a greater sense of value for life and culture in the here and now.
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