Watching Big Love makes me pull on the ties of religion that I was raised with, and you start to realize how much the institution of religion can succor and box you in. It’s amazing to me that more people in the world do not break free of these ties but then again, the succoring part is hard to ignore. When I was growing up my father was the equivalent of God – I really discerned little difference. And this coming Saturday on the 26th anniversary of his death, the day I am to light the Yahrzeit candle for his memory, I think about how long ago that was in my life and honestly, sometimes I feel as if I have lived many lives.
A young, religious Jewish girl walking down the streets of Canarsie on my way to the shule with my Tío Saul and Vitale and my father, all of them wearing tallit under their shirts and headed to put on tefillin – the leather straps and box that viewed out of context look, well, weird, to say the least.
I know that it is supposed to be the sons who have the hardest time separating from the father, but my dad was the embodiment of god, parent, and all things that matter for so long in my life that I remember when he died suddenly of a massive heart attack that I dreamt that night it was my mother (because I couldn’t imagine my father dead and who would now take care of us all – particularly my mother that I always felt as if I had to be the responsible one for).
But you don’t walk away from Judaism, it clings to you like skin, you just end up being a wandering Jew like me, I am Jewish, but I no longer adhere to the faith. Is that true? Actually it’s not, what is the faith? I still light the menorah on Hanukkah, fast on Yom Kippur, celebrate Rosh Hashanna, remember my parents, and think about all the things that biblical people thought about – their spiritual health, their physical health, their mental health.
I look around and see that under the guise of organized religion comes many things I cannot align myself with – a pope who does not understand the needs of a woman, a prayer book (Hebrew) that limits the options of a woman who might bear children, a television show that places men at the head of the table and the family (Big Love), countries (Muslim) that retard women’s growth, and on and on. I didn’t even step into war, crusades, saved vs nonsaved, us versus them.
One love is the only way – a world where everyone’s spiritual being is silo’d into different names for god and gods that cannot be named will never know peace.
Nothing wrong with the traditions that bring you good memories. Religion is a prison, but it’s us who hold the key to both get out or keep ourselves free. That’s what I find impossible to believe–that more of us don’t figure it out sooner or later.
I think it is more than likely that everyone is doing it – so it is conventional and most people are conventional Alice and so breaking out of a framework that has already been set for you involves imagination and risk.