Anyone who knows me knows that I don't really have a spiritual side. I am one of those wretched â┚¬Ëœsouls' who believes that, upon death, our bodies are putting into pine boxes and buried 72 inches below ground and that's pretty much it. No, I don't believe in Heaven or Hell (how stupid would I be to believe in Hell but not Heaven? One of my favorite all time non-sequiturs is the time a woman who was a friend of my born-again Christian sister asked me if I was afraid that being an agnostic would result in me going to Hell. Uh, no, I don't believe humans have souls that are tangible, definable things.
Of course, I have no issue with anyone believing anything they like. If it gives you a moral center that prevents you from killing me or taking my stuff, I'm all for it. But for me, I could just never separate the veracity of contemporary Christian teachings from Greek Mythology, or the stories of the Quran or the Talmud. At the risk of offending the virtuous out there, I stopped believing in Jesus at roughly the same time I stopped believing in Santa Claus.
I'm prepared to be wrong. Actually I'd really like to be wrong. It's a lovely idea that we don't really die when we die. And I don't have another answer. Truthfully, I've never regarded myself as smart enough to figure out exactly how the world came to be or what, if anything, comes after. And I have yet to find anyone else I regarded as smart enough to explain it to me in a way that makes sense.
Phil doesn't agree. My partner of two years is a practicing Jew. In short, he believes. And I see the sense of peace, comfort and connection to his world, his family and his friends his belief in Judaism provides him. I'm a little envious, frankly. I would love to believe in something, anything. But my analytical mind just won't let me go there.
However, whatever you believe about spirituality, contemporary organized religions aren't just about standing behind a version of creationism. They're also about ritual, community, and practices. In the two years Phil and I have been together, I've had the opportunity to attend a number of Jewish ceremonies â┚¬â€œ Rosh Hashanah services with 1000s of gay and lesbian Jews at Town Hall in NYC, Phil's niece's Bat Mitzvah, Sader dinner for Passover. I've immensely enjoyed each of these events, even without being a true believer. And this is by no means my first exposure to Judaism.
Tulane University of Louisiana, entrenched in the firmament of New Orleans, had a large population of Jewish students from around the country. So many in fact, that it acquired the regrettable, and possibly mildly anti-Semitic, nickname of â┚¬ËœJewlane.'
At that time in my life, I was in the throes of the final struggle for my spirituality. I had been raised Russian Orthodox, and had even been an altar boy. But it never took hold in me. While living in New Orleans, I had the chance to attend Catholic mass with my friend, Evan. I went to Southern Baptist services with my friend, Gwen. And my friend Lesli took me to Temple more than once. I also took a class called â┚¬Å”Science and the Christian Experiment,â┚¬Â which approached creationism from a scientific perspective. In the process of coming out at the time, I was desperate to find some answer to the seemingly unanswerable questions swirling in my head at the time, and sought answers in all those places.
While none of them permeating my sub-conscious, I feel I got a very well-rounded religious education. (It's always fun for me when a Christian quotes the Bible to me like I've never read it. Their expression as I reference Bible verses is priceless to me.) And at the end of the day, if I had to pick a religion without having to buy into the ultimate â┚¬Ëœfaith' all religions require, I'd be a Jew. There is something very common-sensical, thoughtful and uplifting about Jewish traditions and services, that contemporary Christian teachings don't hold for me. In fact, my favorite wedding I've ever attended was my friend Lesli's to her husband Todd. Instead of mystical pronouncements and language about obeying, their service was a wonderful, warm celebration of love and family.
People have asked me if it's difficult to be in a relationship where one person believes, and the other doesn't. In my experience, being Jew-adjacent â┚¬â€œ as I like to say â┚¬â€œ doesn't make me a Jew. But it does make me see the world in a more holistic way.
Many equate agnosticism with being jaded. I don't think that is the case for me at all. I believe in the good in people and the poetry of life. I think that true believers contribute to every part of that. I can live alongside a believer, literally in the bed next to him every night, and not have it say anything about what either of us believes.
