Going Home Again

Originally published on InterfaithFamily

By Heather Subba

Hanukkah this past year, I felt the need to raise our child within a synagogue. When my four-year-old son lit the candles every night and demonstrated a sincere interest in the story of Hanukkah, he convinced me that joining a synagogue might be the right decision for our family. While I can support my son's desire to know more about Hanukkah at home, I am limited in my ability to provide him with the presence of a Jewish community.

Like a persistent humming sound that gradually agitates your senses over time, I found that our lack of involvement in a Jewish community was gnawing at me more and more. During

During a brisk and overcast afternoon walk with my husband, I casually brought up visiting temples. Nervous to broach the topic, I was not entirely surprised when he was not immediately supportive of the idea. He questioned why we would want to raise our child in only one of our religions and not the other. He also feared that we would be classified as "different" or "other" in a synagogue setting. Truthfully, my husband was right. This was an explicit decision to raise our son in one religious setting and I had no way of knowing whether we would fit into a Jewish synagogue as an interfaith family. In addition to my husband's apprehension, I also had fears.

My own synagogue experience concluded when I turned 18 years old. I had not been in a synagogue for many years; I wondered if I would feel at home in one, considering that I had to reach out to a rabbi I had never even met to marry us. Previously, I pondered whether I let my community down when I married someone who wasn't Jewish, but now I wondered if I was disappointing my husband for trying to place us in a society that might not consider us one of their own. Yet the only way to confront our fears was to work through them and to try something new.

With my main reasons comprised of faith, morals, education, tradition, and community, my husband ultimately understood why I wanted our son to be part of a synagogue. Due to my husband's open-mindedness and willingness to visit a temple, I located one accepting of interfaith families. When we slowly drove up to the temple for the first time on an early Sunday morning, all three of us were nervous. While my husband and son had to journey into a completely foreign environment, I re-entered a familiar setting at a different point in my life. As an adult, I returned to synagogue bearing choices that fell outside of the socially acceptable norm. Would I continue to be judged for these decisions and, consequently, face segregation in some way? Would my family also face alienation for my choices? Would we feel ashamed if we did not fit in?

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