Run, Run, Run, But Where, Where, Where

Where am I going? How am I making decisions? Seemingly adrift, set into a world where I do not belong, yet easily could. Endless cycles of thought twirl around in my mind. Confusion, fear, solitude and doubt reign. What exactly am I scared of? Why have I had no life progression, and I don't just mean career-wise? What exactly do I mean? Perhaps this is my biggest problem. I have so much fear that I cannot distinguish my thoughts. They all blend incoherently together, each screaming louder and louder and louder. I have written so much about this, about me. I am so inside myself that I can no longer see reality. Why do I resist myself so?

I am so drawn to, and equally repulsed by, Orthodoxy. The racism, the infighting, the pretense of having "the truth." It is interesting, the strong language people use: "disappearance," "dustbin of history," "assimilation," as if to shock and scare you into the majority, when in reality these people are on the fringe. And where are we all headed, really, in the end? Death.

A somber, rich voice fills the car with hymns, psalms probably, no, almost without doubt Jewish ideas in Christian words, sung majestically by this man as he leaves the car. Arriving perhaps at his long-predetermined destination. Or maybe just at one of many steps along his path. And what is my path? Where are my destinations? My energy is gone, my will broken. The pieces of my mind are scattered, drifting, drifting, trying to put themselves together. Aching, longing, searching, probing, testing, questioning all that I see. Deep perception, intense thoughts about the nature of faith. Why am I so exhausted? Maybe it's this overwhelming feeling of defeat, of powerlessness.

I just want to run, run, run. But where, where, where can I go? I am not able to disappear. I do not relish this truth of my overwhelming presence. I want to just be one of many, to be the mass. But my mind, not something Beyond, just me, will not allow it. Something wants me to be exactly who I am.

Is what I feel in those hours of kosher living real, or just an imagined reality planted by five years of living in Orthodox circles? In other words, the rabbis say, "Keep kosher, tefillin and Shabbat, and your soul will blaze with clarity. Your soul yearns for Torah." Part of me screams, "Who the hell are you to tell me what my soul is saying?" Another, equal voice screams, "Yes, to life." Is this the evil and the good inclination?

It is as if the path is always clear in religion. Preachers and pundits alike seem to think everything is so simple. For example, Orthodox rabbis seem to think the only reason a person could ever be "irreligious" or "non-religious" is a lack of education, from the rabbis of course! "If only they had a little taste of Torah," a rabbi laments. As if one person holds the path for another?

Take me, for example, please. Here I am on Shabbat, writing, cooking and eating pork, and yet I feel very alive in my Jewishness. How is this? Because I do not think another human can actually tell me what is best for me. "Misguided," "self-hating," "confused," "angry": these and other phrases pop into my mind as what a trained Orthodox rabbi might reply to my thoughts. And even stranger than all of that is my deep, unseated knowledge of what people call G-d.

Only by living a religious life, a rabbi may argue, can I truly connect with G-d. But the question I ask, and no one can actually answer, is: "How do you know what is right for me?" They cannot honestly answer that. For it is the path of the self that leads to true enlightenment and attainment with our Creator. Ancient texts, both used and discarded, are helpful as a base point, as an awareness of what has been before and what is coming. Attainment and enlightenment? Well, if I told you, I would be as bad as anyone else who seeks to impose their ideas on another.

How can I possibly live this way and be happy? Admittedly, I do appreciate and love many aspects of religious Jewish life. I feel I understand where Judaism has been historically. I even believe that all "the movements" that have come and gone add weight to my inner belief that individuals must find their own path in all matters spiritual. I think "movements" are born when people organize themselves into natural groupings, based on mutual agreement about how best to live.