Once Upon a Time, I Wasn't Charlie

Yesterday morning, as I was getting ready for work, I was listening to the news like I do every morning, when I learned of the horrific massacre in Paris that left 12 people dead. These newest victims of Islamic Extremism were not the Yazidi minority of Iraq, or Nigerian villagers, or civilians living in countries that all too often see such violence with shocking regularity. No, these victims were cartoonists, a columnist, a copy-editor, a janitor, a couple of visitors, and two police officers, one of whom was a Muslim himself. Not to downplay what we tragically think of as the "typical" victims of Islamic Extremism, or how commonplace their misfortune has become that we almost don't think of it much longer after we hear of yet another attack against them, but yesterday's darkness took on a different character.

Throughout the day, as the details of the Charlie Hebdo massacre started to come to light, the truly disturbing reality of the attack really started to needle at me--these people were not killed because they lived in war-torn, unstable countries where extremism has taken such a firm hold, or because they were members of a persecuted minority; most of them weren't even killed because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. No, mostly they were killed because they drew cartoons that offended someone. They were killed because they worked for a satirical publication that didn't back off for anyone when it came to being provocative and at times, even offensive. They were killed because the world has become such a place, that Islamic Extremism is getting more and more extreme, and the agents of their toxic ideology are becoming more and more brazen in their  attacks on whomever, whenever, wherever and for whatever. I'd be terrified if I weren't so angry and heartbroken.

On my drive home from work, as I was listening to All Things Considered, they played the recording of the video caught at a nearby apartment complex on a witness' cell phone. The gun blasts somehow seemed louder, more terrifying, more filled with hate than I could remember hearing from any other violent news story that we've all become so accustomed to hearing. I jumped a bit in my seat and gripped the steering wheel a little tighter. In the fifteen minutes that it took me to drive home, they played it again. By this time, I was yelling, alone in my car, "This is such fucking bullshit!" and choking back angry tears. Somehow, this shooting wasn't just a tragic news event that should remind us all how important freedom of expression is to our social, cultural, and ultimately human well being, or that extremism in any shape and form is a vile and poisonous ideology that none of us can afford to be complacent about. Somehow, this attack felt personal.

Apparently I am not the only one who feels this way. As people around the world, from France to China, to the United States, to anywhere else you can think of took the streets to show solidarity in their belief in the right to express oneself freely without fear of being murdered, the slogan "Je Suis Charlie" popped up on signs across the globe. On my Facebook newsfeed, dozens of friends changed their avatars to "Je Suis Charlie" and article after article about the shooting was posted, and yes, even those terribly offensive cartoons that were supposedly worth killing over--it's comforting to know that those will never go away, just as free thought cannot ever be completely blotted out of the human psyche. But for me it wasn't the "I am Charlie" that made it so personal, but rather, the "Am I Charlie?"

When I was in high school, and into college in my early 20s, I was not a happy person. I was easily offended and couldn't take an off-color joke without stewing over it for days. I didn't like it when people said anything politically incorrect and saw racism, sexism and homophobia everywhere. My boyfriend at the time was like that as well. Feeling at odds with my family's political beliefs, I sought refuge in his "wisdom" and together, we fueled each other's fires of angry disdain for anyone or anything that seemed to suggest some truth about the world and the people in it that we didn't like. I would like to say that I feel that my heart was in the right place during those years, because after all, I really didn't want marginalized people to feel even more alienated in the big, bad scary world than I arrogantly assumed they must already feel. But at the root of those ultra-PC beliefs that I clung to so obsessively, beyond the B.S.of fighting "the good fight" against the tyrannical majority, down past the self-righteous indignation seething inside of me, was fear. I was the one afraid of the big, bad world, not the persecuted minorities who never asked me to be their spokesperson or agent in the first place. I was the one who couldn't completely face up to the disappointment that you come to realize when you learn that so much in the world is unjust, unfair, and simply not right. Yes, I could acknowledge that bad things happen to good people, and good things happen to bad people, but I couldn't quite face up to the fact that no matter how much I implored someone to not use that term, to not tell that joke, to not say that thing, I couldn't mold the world into my own version of what I wanted it to be. And if I could get you to not say something that offended me, then that meant I could keep on pretending that the world would one day be saved from racism, sexism, homophobia, and all other such vile things.

I was an idiot.

What has made the Charlie Hebdo shooting so personal for me, is that today, I'm staunchly against ultra-PC nonsense that seeks to censor and inhibit dialogue, free thought and expression. I welcome situations that make me think, provoke me or even make me uncomfortable and angry, because how else am I going to keep myself and what I believe in check? And here's a thought--maybe sometimes I'm wrong! Now, I can take a joke, and don't take myself and the world so deathly seriously, that you would think that I am followed by a perpetual rainy cloud, like a human Eeyore.I still have my off days, but for the most part, I've grown and changed enough to not fear being offended, to understand that there is a difference between jokes told about uncomfortable subjects at the expense of real victims, and jokes told about uncomfortable subjects to mock the often sick, ridiculous world that we live in, and the horrible place that we human beings can make it just by being our shitty selves.

Perhaps I never got to a point a of such extreme thinking that I even entertained the notion of violence against another person, but that fear, that dark, selfish, reflexive fear that the world doesn't turn according to what we want or think we need in order to feel in control and in power, is frighteningly similar to the same fear that clutches the icy heart of every extremist who would kill anyone who dares to think, feel, believe, live differently than what they would like. I want to say "I am Charlie" today, and believe that I can, but I wasn't always Charlie. Who knows what I would say today if I had managed to tumble down a different rabbit hole than the one that led me to who I am today?

Thankfully, today I can laugh. I can brush off offenses and move forward, and I have the courage to tell the people who really are offensive that they are idiots, and give elaborate examples to illustrate just exactly why, and then move on with my life when the heated conversation ends. I can be friends with people that I disagree with vehemently about things near and dear to my heart. I am closer with my family than ever before, even when I think they are wrong about something (which I obnoxiously remind them of with tedious regularity). Today I can look back at my old, angry, fearful, ridiculous self, and let her stay back in the past where she belongs. Most importantly, I can laugh at her.

Today, I can say "I am Charlie," and tomorrow, I will still be able to say it. I will say it in as many ways as I can, consequences of freedom of expression be damned, because if we don't have that, then all we have left to cling onto, is fear.

Fear is a stupid, and silly thing anyway, and should mocked at every opportunity.

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Have a happy holiday, damn it!

Late November through almost the entirety of December is generally a hectic time for me. A week after trying to lord it over my mother and sister for control over half of the Thanksgiving menu and debating with myself if it's even worth trying to keep kosher for the day before inevitably stuffing myself to the gills either way, I get to experience the unrestrained joy of acknowledging that I am a year older, and still miles away from being where I want to be in my life, and yet one step closer to "being old." Sometimes it's also Chanukah, which, here in Southern Oregon, is a relatively quiet time for me, where I make latkes and homemade apple sauce for myself, light candles on my menorah (or "chanukiah" for those of us in the Hebrew know), and sigh with yet more soul-crushing longing for life in Jerusalem. Gazing at the little flames dancing on their candle wicks, I know that I'm supposed to be reflecting on the never-ending-miracle-oil™ and the bad-assness of the Maccabean Revolt, but really, I just find myself wishing to once again stroll the streets of Jerusalem's Nachlaot neighborhood on a chilly night, with sufganiyah in hand while I marvel at all the pretty chanukiot all lit-up and on display in the cozy windows of the picturesque Jewish homes (note: I'm pretty sure I've never actually been merrily eating sufganiyot while simultaneously frolicking through the streets and admiring the lit-up windows of one of my favorite Jerusalem neighborhoods during a brisk Chanukah evening, but I also swear that I somehow have a memory of ice-skating while drinking hot-chocolate, hand-in-hand with jolly old St. Nick from around some Christmas during my gentile youth; pretty sure that never happened. I mean, I've never ice-skated in my life). This year, Chanukah went right up to the eve of Christmas Eve, and then it was suddenly Christmas day. And Christmas is, quite honestly, such a confusing time to be a gentile turned Jew such as myself, especially while living with my family.

Christmas is the same holiday today as it was from my childhood; there are colorful lights adorning the neighborhood houses, inexplicable pine trees sitting in living rooms, all decorated and lit up as well. There's a charming, bearded fat man, looking like a Rebbe in red asking kids if they've been naughty or nice while they gaze up in awe of him, perched upon his lap. There are images of reindeer that purportedly fly, and mom's sugar cookies baked in the familiar shapes of snowflakes and sleighs, hot-chocolate with peppermint canes melting in red and green mugs, and every channel on television plays movies with Chevy Chase, Tim Allen and Ralphie hilariously shooting his eye out with the highly coveted gift of a Daisy Red Ryder BB gun. There's a cozy fire in the fireplace where my teddy bear stocking from childhood hangs, holding gifts for me from my enormously giving and loving family, despite the fact that this holiday is no longer mine. There's nostalgia in every scent from the baking Christmas goodies in the oven, and memories that arise like ghosts from the past and haunt every photo put out on display of me and my sister sitting on Santa's lap, looking like the WASPiest set of kid that ever came into existence. From my blazing white-blonde hair, red velvet Christmas dress and shockingly easy smile, the image of my past self bears no hint of the fact that I would grow up one day to realize that, well holy shit, it looks like I'm supposed to be a Jew! There are also little figures of Mary, Joseph, the three Wise Men and a baby Jesus hanging out in a manger and looking all doe-eyed and serene, but I've grown used to Christian symbols all around the house, juxtaposed strangely with the modest mezuzah hanging on my bedroom door, behind which, is where the seemingly random Jewish artifacts are kept with me in my lonely Jewish abode. Like I said, nothing has changed, except for me. Obviously, I've changed a lot since Christmas was one of my holidays.

It's hard to let go of Christmas, especially as I remain here with my family for the time being. Like last year, Chanukah comes and goes, while I try to explain to my gentile friends and family that Chanukah isn't the "Jewish Christmas-" that American Jews likely felt the need at some point to compete with the cultural dominance of Christmas, which it happens to share a season with, especially when raising Jewish kids; perhaps they wonder at some point why the Rebbe in Red doesn't come to visit their houses to leave presents like he does at the homes of their gentile classmates ("Are we naughty while the Christian kids are nice? Is Santa an antisemite? I mean, what gives?!") Giving gifts on Chanukah is a rather American thing, and not what the minor Jewish chag is all about anyway. It shouldn't have to compete with the grandiosity of an American Christmas, but by default, it understandably kind of does anyway.

I also find myself standing by the fact that latkes are not glorified hash-browns, and sufganiyot are not just Hebrew doughnuts--not after you've had them in Jerusalem, anyway. I give up on the idea that my family will ever dream of excluding me from the gift-giving tradition of Christmas, because to them, that just isn't right, and it has nothing to do with Jesus anyway. Granted, neither does Santa and his reindeer, the Christmas tree, or about a billion other Christmas traditions, but I still feel awkward as I do my own Christmas shopping for my family, because I can't possibly accept gifts and refuse to reciprocate because of religious differences, can I? What am I supposed to do on Christmas morning, anyway? Sit by myself in my bedroom, gloomily picking the wax off of my chanukiah, while my family gathers in the living room to exchange gifts and happily reminisce about holidays past? Those memories belong to me too after all, and there is a lot of happiness in them. They include my now deceased grandmother, and a simpler time when I was young, happy, debt-free, and not sitting around longing for things currently beyond my grasp, because chances were, those things that I was longing for were waiting for me under the Christmas tree, wrapped and decorated with love. I remember believing in Santa Clause when I left cookies and milk out for him, because believing was a nice thought, and that was good enough to satisfy me at the time.

I also find myself feeling a bit down when strangers ask me if I'm ready for Christmas, if I'm going out of town for Christmas, if I had a nice Christmas--and that’s not because you should buy into the tinfoil-hat wearing extreme Right's paranoia around the fictional "War on Christmas" in this country. Rather, I feel down because it is just assumed that I have easy, simple, fun, happy associations with the season, and that it is, of course, my holiday. Here, Chanukah is lonely, like every other Jewish holiday, and Christmas is some sort of guilty pleasure that I'm not supposed to indulge in anymore, and yet when I do, it grants me momentary relief from that holiday loneliness that I otherwise get to swallow for more than a month. It's not "Merry Christmas" that bothers me. It's not even the intent behind the questions about how "my Christmas" is going. It's that it isn't really my holiday anymore, and at the moment, I've got little else to fill the void here. It's like they're all saying, "Trade in your latkes for ham--who are you kidding? I’m sure it was fun being Jewish and all, but now it's time to take all those steps backwards and embrace reality. Now, tell me that you had a merry Christmas! It ruins it for everyone else if you don’t!"

All of these difficult feelings are, of course, due to my own insecurity over my Jewish identity that has gone too long in its half-dormant expression while I trudge through months-turned-to-years of getting back to where I once was, because I wasn’t done being a Jew in Jerusalem, or living in Israel, or settling into the Jewish life that I had chosen for myself. Perhaps if Chanukah weren’t so lonely, perhaps if I hadn’t just turned one year older, I’d have no problems with connecting to Christmas in a real and happy way, because after all, Christmas is a part of my own history. It’s a part of my connection with my family. It has nothing to do with Jesus or Christianity for me, except when I feel like the Jewish alternative of the season means more loneliness, more isolation, more longing for doors currently shut and firmly locked around me. It's disconcerting to have a grand Christmas when your Jewish holidays have been so difficult. I don't mean to compare, but I can't seem to help it.

The solution to all of this, of course, is “Next year, in Jerusalem!” Or perhaps, “Next year, in Bethlehem, because it’s right next door to Jerusalem and doesn’t Christmas in Bethlehem sound interesting!?” To be an outsider looking in is fine, if you have other outsiders with you. Otherwise you end up looking at all the happiness around you, surrounded with Christmas cheer, and try to smile while you pretend that something significant isn’t wholly and definitely missing in your Jewish soul. You know that you walked away from this, and you walked away for a reason, and while it’s nice to visit, you know it just isn’t home anymore, and never again can it be. Home is where you aren’t, and nothing can change that in the moment.

Plenty of people feel depressed around this time of year. Perhaps you've lost someone that you no longer get to share the season with. Last year, a childhood friend of mine killed himself just days before Christmas, and I think about him, his family, and that bitter dose of reality invading the general cheer of the season. Maybe you don't have the money you wish you had to give your loved ones the holiday you would like to give them; after all, extravagance is pushed on us from all directions during this time of year, even if that shouldn't be the spirit of things. Maybe you have no one to be with, and nowhere to go. Things could be so much worse, and I acknowledge that.

Perhaps next year Christmas can be my holiday again, because I'll have had a better Chanukah with fellow Jews in my life, because turning a year older won't be such a big deal, because other things will have finally fallen into place, because I will have made this Jewish life of mine work the way I envision it being. There's always the hope of next year, which is a very Jewish thing, indeed.

On Self-Forgiveness

Yom Kippur is supposed to be the most somber and difficult day on the Jewish calendar. For me though, the days that weigh heaviest with significance are the ones leading up to that apex of repentance and atonement: the Days of Awe. Yom Kippur itself is but one day. Anyone can live in physical discomfort for a little over 24 hours, unless you are too delicate a flower to have ever endured hunger, thirst, a day without being at your most hygienic, and depriving yourself of carnal relations—not that being parched, starved, smelly and unbathed exactly puts one in an amorous mood. Of course, the day is also supposed to be marked as a time when the heavens are said to open up, and us puny, imperfect, sinful little humans must tremble before the King of Kings, as though on trial, though not to plead our case, but to beg forgiveness for our self-acknowledged sins. It can be an intimidating and daunting task for the faithful, but that is, I would argue, the point of Yom Kippur. We take a day to get that out of our systems and start over for the year, cleansed after repentance, and ready to be the good people that we know we can be, and that we have just spent an entire day in shul begging God to let us prove we can be. In Judaism, we believe in a merciful God that we can trust enough to grant us our forgiveness after sincere teshuvah, and the whole exhausting day should be spiritually rewarding in the end. Seeking forgiveness from God is one thing, but seeking forgiveness from others in the days leading up to our collective trial date is generally uncomfortably humbling, and can even feel undoable at times. Each year, there is always one person I can never seem to forgive and never know how to apologize to: my own damn self.

The theme of asking for forgiveness from those we've wronged as well as being open to accepting forgiveness from others is absolutely one that I can get behind. I am really good at being apologetic. As a matter of fact, I'm downright British about it. It doesn't have to be my fault, and I'll still be sorry. And it's not that I'm insincere--I really am sorry for any hand I may have played, even peripherally, in any unfortunate turn of events that I might happen to witness. If I'm the recipient of an apology and true forgiveness is sought from someone who has wronged me, I cannot wait, literally, cannot wait to accept said apology, breathe a sigh of relief, move on and let the anxiety of encountering conflict with another human being keep me from having another panic attack (a trait which I do possess in spades and am, incidentally, quite sorry for). But if I've done something that I really am sorry about on a deeply personal level, something that I have to take full responsibility for and ownership of, I generally have enough humility to recognize that, and to apologize.

Self-forgiveness however, is, not too surprisingly, one of the most difficult things for many of us. Anyone with a conscience is well aware of that overly critical voice playing over and over in our heads each time we make a mistake, feel foolish, experience regret, or struggle with something that we feel we should have a better handle on. Anyone who stays up at night listening to the loud voices of anxiety and worry over what has already happened and passed, and what hasn't even happened yet, is really listening to the voices of self-criticism and the self-flagellation that follows. If we knew how to apologize to ourselves after we've beaten our psyches to a bloody pulp over what we have done, we would be able to put the forgiveness band-aid over our own wounds and allow true healing to take place. If we knew how to forgive our own transgressions, we wouldn't feel the need to beat ourselves up in the first place, and the never-ending cycle of self-inflicted abuse and neglect could actually end. We would even be more forgiving of others and sympathetic to the needs of those we have wronged. It’s kind of like not being able to love someone else until you learn to love yourself, as clichéd as that sounds.

Why do we have such a hard time forgiving ourselves? So many of us can forgive the worst actions of our loved ones, and even strangers who act out of line can get our sympathies. You can forgive the person you are in love with to an obscene degree, and you can forgive a neglectful family member, even after years of their transgressions. But when it comes to the self, we are often so much crueler than we would ever be to another person who makes the same mistake or commits the same crime. Perhaps because the only two beings who ever see every single thing that we do, who knows every single thought that makes a blip in our minds, and every fleeting feeling that passes through us, is God and the self. We know how we are at our worse, because we live with it. We can hide, mask, and disguise much of ourselves from everyone and everything else, but we can’t hide from ourselves any more than we can hide from God.

My first Yom Kippur was easy enough--I was in Jerusalem, a new Jew, dressed all in white and wearing some hideous plastic flip-flops that I had bought at the corner store for a few scant shekels because I wanted something to wear on my feet in my dorm shower stall that I shared with four other girls. They were too big for me and slid off my feet when I walked if I wasn't careful, and they had huge, gaudy wads of cloth hot-glued to them in order to resemble, I guess, flowers. I knew that I was only supposed to shun leather shoes for the day, since the point is to not be too comfortable, but I really went all out with those awful flip-flops. I didn't eat or drink anything, of course, and though my lips were chapped and killing me, I denied myself the use of Chap Stick, just in case the use of it was halakhically off the table for the day too. I didn't brush my teeth or use mouthwash (which my not quite as religiously observant friends found rather disgusting), and I let my hair do whatever it felt inclined to do without the aid of a brush. I looked a mess and felt a mess, and since it was my first Yom Kippur, I thought that I must be doing it right. I spent the day in shul and napped at a friend's place between the marathon services, and walked through the carless streets of Jerusalem, marveling at all of us Jews dressed in white, strolling casually down the middle of Emek Raphaim. When I broke the fast with a large group of friends at a party (where some of us thought it a good idea to drink vodka on our 25-hour empty stomachs, because that's what you do when you are in your early 20s), I really did feel a sense of renewal and joy. Maybe that was the bourekas and vodka kicking in, but I like to think that Hashem had a hand in it too. All in all, I felt really good after the long and tiring day of seeking atonement from God, like it really was an opportunity to start over, tabula rasa.

Fast forward a few Yom Kippurs later and I have not been able to find that same sense of serenity in the spirit of the season. It’s not that I have done anything that I find deeply unforgiving since my first Jerusalem High Holidays, but perhaps it’s the mistakes, regrets and missed opportunities that have stacked up since I've become a self-aware Jew, along with my own propensity to be too hard on myself that has made the season particularly burdensome. Other people come and go in our lives, and they may choose to apologize to us when they've hurt us, they may not. They may be receptive to our apologies when we cross the line, they may not. God is merciful enough to see every single blemish on our souls and still seal us for the year in the Sefer Chaim after we seek atonement. We have to live with ourselves though, and true teshuvah means really cleaning the slate each year, and leaving the mistakes and regrets in the past. That’s why this year, I am making the effort to look in the mirror and say “I’m sorry” to the one person who will always be with me, and to forgive the one person I cannot walk away from, cannot shut out, cannot lie to myself about. It’s about time, and there’s no time like the present, especially when the present is now, in this Jewish season. After all, if I can’t even do that, then what is the point of seeking atonement from anyone else? If I deserve forgiveness from others, than surely I just deserve forgiveness, plain and simple. I'd be willing to bet that that goes for all of us. In fact, I know it does. 

So gmar chatima tovah, and my apologies for this long and ponderous post. Please do forgive me.