Juadiasm, and the path foward
In mid-March, as I was deep in grief over Kitty's passing, I did a DNA test from Ancestry.com. I had been meaning to do one but never got around to it. I was expecting 47 shades of white, you know? I'm a white boy from New England; it's like - which flavor of saltine cracker would you like?
The results came back and, along with being 30% Irish and 30% Scottish, it said I'm also 11% ethnic Jewish. This confused me - how can I be Jewish? I was raised Catholic in a family that was deeply religious. It turns out that my grandfather on my mother's side was ethnically and religiously Jewish but converted to catholicism to marry my grandmother. They raised my mom catholic, who in turn raised me catholic.
My grandparents, believing that you could only seek the love and grace of Jesus Christ by kneeling before him in pain so that he could heal you and protect you, abused my mother in the name of the catholic faith. My mother, in turn, abused me pretty violently growing up, believing I needed to kneel before Jesus in pain so he would heal and protect me.
This led to a profound discovery: given that I was abused in the name of the catholic faith, and given that my grandfather converted from Judaism to do so, I was well within my rights to cast aside my catholic upbringing as the illegitimate fruit of a poisoned tree. Furthermore, I felt an overwhelming sense of duty and moral obligation to restore my family's bloodline to the Judaic faith that it would have been had a violent form of catholicism not been introduced.
Casting aside my catholic upbringing and illegitimate does not mean casting aside the catholic faith, or any faith for that matter, as illegitimate. Indeed, I’m willing to bet there are a significant amount of Catholics out there who would not want their religion associated with the abuse of a child. If your religious beliefs call for the abuse of a child, you should look inwards and reflect on your relationship with your humanity.
Starting in the fall, I will begin the 12-18 month conversion process so that I can practice the Judiac faith. I will be doing this through the reform wing of Judaism, which is very relaxed about a lot of things. For instance, Mao-Lin is not obligated to convert and will not be converting. This would be a pretty insane thing to ask of my future husband after 3.5 years together.
Reform Judaism openly welcomes religiously mixed households; indeed my Rabbi (I have a rabbi now) talked to me about it's common to have one partner convert while another doesn't as there are all sorts of practical or moral considerations involved. Mao-Lin's father is catholic (the loving, caring kind that most are) and his mother was buddhist. Who am I to all of a sudden impose my newfound religious beliefs on him?
Religious tolerance means we tolerate the religious views of others and respect their right, within some basic guardrails, to practice their religion in their own way. The imposition of our own religious and moral views on the masses, through choice or force, has never led to a society that lasted particularly long. Single minded and narrow theocracy in all shapes and sizes and from all religions is not fit for a world where the masses cover the moral spectrum.
