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Day of judgement
Sep. 18th, 2010 10:37 pmToday was Yom Kippur, the day of judgement where God decides whether we will live or die during the coming year. I find it fitting and symbolic, even though I didn't intend it this way, that today will probably be the last day that I self-identify as Jewish.
It's taken me a long time to reach this point. Even though I haven't believed in the rituals of Judaism or in the existence of a Judeo-Christian God for years, I still fasted on Yom Kippur, avoided bread during Passover and kept an abbreviated form of kosher (no ham/pork/etc) out of some sense of tradition and obligation towards my family and my past. I think I'm over that now.
What happened? Well, I read an article last night about the difference between actually believing in something and only half-believing, in the way that most of us don't believe in ghosts but would still get freaked out if we spent some time in a haunted house. And that caused something of a personal epiphany, where I realised that I've been behaving as though I half-believe in Judaism, even though I'm sure that the monotheistic God doesn't exist.
Today I fasted, because it seemed like a bad idea to change my beliefs when I had such a huge incentive (being able to eat normally) for deciding to give up on religion on the spot.* Starting tomorrow, I will be making an effort to discard my last observances of Judaism. From now on, I will only identify myself as Jewish in the sense of having had a Jewish background, not in the sense of currently identifying myself as one. Let's see how it goes.
*Probably also because as soon as I realised that my personal epiphany happened to match up with the most serious day of the Jewish year, that determines your fate for the entirety of the coming year, I couldn't resist the temptation towards symbolism.
It's taken me a long time to reach this point. Even though I haven't believed in the rituals of Judaism or in the existence of a Judeo-Christian God for years, I still fasted on Yom Kippur, avoided bread during Passover and kept an abbreviated form of kosher (no ham/pork/etc) out of some sense of tradition and obligation towards my family and my past. I think I'm over that now.
What happened? Well, I read an article last night about the difference between actually believing in something and only half-believing, in the way that most of us don't believe in ghosts but would still get freaked out if we spent some time in a haunted house. And that caused something of a personal epiphany, where I realised that I've been behaving as though I half-believe in Judaism, even though I'm sure that the monotheistic God doesn't exist.
Today I fasted, because it seemed like a bad idea to change my beliefs when I had such a huge incentive (being able to eat normally) for deciding to give up on religion on the spot.* Starting tomorrow, I will be making an effort to discard my last observances of Judaism. From now on, I will only identify myself as Jewish in the sense of having had a Jewish background, not in the sense of currently identifying myself as one. Let's see how it goes.
*Probably also because as soon as I realised that my personal epiphany happened to match up with the most serious day of the Jewish year, that determines your fate for the entirety of the coming year, I couldn't resist the temptation towards symbolism.
