Mudhouse Sabbath

Lauren Winner grew up in an interfaith family. As a Columbia University undergraduate she converted to Orthodox Judaism, and then, just a few years later, she dreamt about Jesus and converted to Christianity. But as Winner started embracing Jesus, she also began missing the many rituals of Jewish life.

In her 2003 book Mudhouse Sabbath Winner writes about some of the Jewish rituals she thinks Christians might consider borrowing in order to deepen their own spiritual practice. Prayer, lighting candles, fasting, weddings, and burial rites, are top on Winner’s list. In some sense, Mudhouse Sabbath—named for the Virginia coffeeshop where Winner spends some Sundays contemplating two very different Sabbaths—is a paean to some of Judaism’s most compelling practices, from the perspective of someone who still seems to love the religion despite no longer practicing it.

Though it may feel odd to consider applying the best parts of Judaism to another religion, Winner’s musings might be able to infuse your life with a shot of spiritual espresso in case your own Jewish practice feels stale. And they're all the more interesting when you know they're coming from a believing Christian.

What Would Superman Do?

This article is reprinted with permission from Interfaithfamily.com

 By Jason Bortnick

This question has been posed to me; "Has your interfaith heritage been more of a positive or a negative for you, and why?" I must say that I know it has had both a negative and positive effect so far in my life.

My father was a secular Jew, angry at the war (World War II); unforgiving of the Holocaust to the point of total, irreparable separation from God. He lost a faith which was tenuous at best. My mother was an Irish Catholic. As a little girl she asked the priest, "Do animals go to heaven?" The priest chose to tell her that they don't. And he lost her there and then. She would never return to organized religion.

Raised as I was in a very moral and compassionate family, there could be no mistaking the presence of something greater than us, than my parents, at work through them. They didn't see it at the time but they were showing me God constantly. God was of no faith or gender but I saw Him in the Charlie Chaplin films my father took me to when I was five. God was in the warm unconditional love of my mother. God was in and around everything I did until I was taken out of the warm cocoon of parental protection and thrown into the inevitable, public school. It was there that my own brand of faith would be tested and tested again. This testing has never ended.


When I was 4 years old my Auntie Margaret made for me a complete Superman suit. A poster-size photo of me standing with clenched fists at my hips hangs in my father's room. He, Superman, would be my idea of God--an idea that never left me and helped me course through the roughest waters of my life. By the time I was 6 years old and Superman: The Movie came out with Christopher Reeve, I knew that if I hadn't seen God, I had seen the best notion of him the Western world could manufacture.

Superman. He was unflinching in compassion, honor, strength and loyalty. To this day I still ask myself, "What would Superman do?" Not what would Jesus do. Not what would King David do. It gave me hope that people would believe in the purity of Superman. The simplicity. No one I knew was religious. Some friends did go to church occasionally. The few Jews I did meet were quite secular. God, as creator, wasn't an issue in the Bortnick house. So my faith that people believed in something as uncomplicated as Superman was my proof that God was here and watching and didn't mind that some people, some children like me, had to learn ethics, honor, decency, compassion and faith from a pop icon.

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From Terrible Conversation To Intermarriage Realization

This article is reprinted with permission from Interfaithfamily.com

By Emily JH Kruskol

At Shabbat dinner on Friday, September 21, 2012, I was part of the most terrifying conversation of my entire life.

Let me give you some background. I am a 23-year-old liberal Jewish female who spends her time in the car listening to NPR.

I am a deeply devoted Reform Jew. I grew up with a father who taught religious school and attending seders at my cousin's house, the renowned Rabbi Harvey J. Fields. I started attending Camp Hess Kramer in 1999 and also attended camp at JCA Shalom and Gindling Hilltop. I went on to be a staff member at Hilltop for five summers and was a unit head at URJ Camp Newman. So, you could call camp my life... with the rest just being details. Camp and Judaism are intertwined for me, and I decided to devote my life to camp and Jewish education. In college, I was actively involved in Hillel at the University of Oregon and participated in two trips to Israel: one through Birthright and the other, a study abroad semester in Jerusalem for five months.

My two passions in life are politics and Judaism. Oh, and anything by Joss Whedon, but that's for a different article.

Back to the disastrous conversation. I went over to my friend's house for Shabbat dinner, on the holiest Shabbat of the year, during the Days of Awe in between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. My friend had grown up Orthodox, but her family had recently become slightly less observant. Exhibit A, her mother was wearing pants; Exhibit B, the TV was on despite the fact that it was past candle lighting, the start of Shabbat. To me this was normal, growing up in a Reform family with a self-proclaimed atheist mother.

We sat down to dinner enjoying our soup, various dips, and Shabbos meats. The conversation started innocently enough: talk about the importance of the holidays and repentance during these days before Yom Kippur. Then, my friend's mother started talking about interfaith relationships and marriage, which hits me personally in a number of ways.

My family has two weddings coming up in the next year. One is my brother, who after years of dating has finally found the most amazing woman who our entire family adores. The second is my first cousin, who has been dating her fiancé since they were freshmen in college. My brother's fiancée is a Persian woman who was born Muslim but does not practice. In deciding about their lives together, she and my brother have concluded that they will raise their children Jewish. She is not planning on converting but has expressed interest in taking introductory courses on Judaism so that she can be an active part of raising her children in a Jewish home. My cousin is also marrying someone who is not Jewish, and they have also decided to raise their kids Jewish. In fact, my cousin, who is Jewish, wants to take the Jewish introductory classes with my brother's fiancée and her fiancée because she feels that she is "a bad Jew" and doesn't know enough.

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A Jew, A Christian and A Muslim...

This posting comes from She Answers Abraham, a weekly blog with reflections by three women, a Jew, a Christian and a Muslim.

The Beginning

“And God said, ‘Let us make a human in our image, according to our likeness….’”  (Genesis 1:26)

 

Tziporah:

From an early age, children begin to ask “why” to try to make sense of the world around them.  Similarly, this verse inspires me to ask “why is God speaking in the first person plural?” According to rabbinic legend, God is addressing a heavenly court of angels, consulting with them about whether the time to create humanity has arrived.  I love the image of God—almighty and above all creatures—asking permission to complete the work of creation.  According to Rashi’s commentary,[1] “the text teaches courtesy and humility; the greater person should consult and ask permission from the lesser person.”  This lesson resonates for me: When we share in the process of decision-making and treat each other with courtesy and respect, we elevate our daily interactions to acts of holiness. 

Grace:

I take delight in the rabbinic legend that Tziporah recounts.  This verse also raises a question for me: Just how do human beings bear the image of God?  If we do not view as literal the anthropomorphic images of God popularized in Western art, how do we see our spirits as bearing the imprint of God’s DNA?  In what is often referred to as Jesus’ “high priestly prayer,” Jesus prayed, “…that they may be one as we are one—I in them and you in me.”[2]  Do we have the potential to be in God and to see God in every human being? Definitely.  Is this a Divine calling?  I think so.

Yasmina:

Indeed, humility and courtesy are virtues that elevate the human rapport, and the idea of consultation[3] is innate to Islamic decision making.  However, Islam teaches that God is All Wise and All Knowing and therefore does not seek council from anyone. One Quranic account of the creation of man reads: “Behold! Thy Lord said to the angels: I am about to create man, from sounding clay from mud molded into shape; when I have fashioned him in due proportion and breathed into him of My spirit, fall ye down in obeisance to him.” (15:29-30) God honors Adam by mentioning him to the angels before creating him and by commanding the angels to prostrate to him. Although different from the rabbinic legend, this narration leads to the same lesson of humility. If the heavenly court was commanded to honor Adam, are we not—as sons of Adam—commanded to honor each other and all God’s creatures?  Undoubtedly, acting with humility is one of the ways we honor God.

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[1] Rashi (Rabbi Shlomo Yitzhaki) lived in France (1040-1105).

[2] John 17: 22-23. This prayer offers Christians one way of understanding the plural use of “our” when referring to the one God.

[3] This concept is known as shura in Arabic.